That a fellow there lived whom you may know,
By the name of Samuel Brown;
And this fellow he lived with no other thought
Than to our house to come down.

I was a child, and he was a child,
In that dwelling down in town,
But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Samuel Brown,--
With a love that the ladies coveted,
Me and Samuel Brown.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
To that dwelling down in town,
A girl came out of her carriage, courting
My beautiful Samuel Brown;
So that her high-bred kinsmen came,
And bore away Samuel Brown,
And shut him up in a dwelling house,
In a street quite up in town.

The ladies, not half so happy up there,
Went envying me and Brown;
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this dwelling down in town),
That the girl came out of the carriage by night,
Coquetting and getting my Samuel Brown.

But our love is more artful by far than the love
If those who are older than we,--
Of many far wiser than we,--
And neither the girls that are living above,
Nor the girls that are down in town,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Samuel Brown.

For the morn never shines, without bringing me lines,
From my beautiful Samuel Brown;
And the night's never dark, but I sit in the park
With my beautiful Samuel Brown.
And often by day, I walk down in Broadway,
With my darling, my darling, my life and my stay,
To our dwelling down in town,
To our house in the street down town.

THE WAY IT WUZ

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

Las' July--an', I presume
'Bout as hot
As the ole Gran'-Jury room
Where they sot!--
Fight 'twixt Mike an' Dock McGriff--
'Pears to me jes' like as if
I'd a dremp' the whole blame thing--
Allus ha'nts me roun' the gizzard
When they're nightmares on the wing,
An' a feller's blood 's jes' friz!
Seed the row from a to izzard--
'Cause I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!

Tell you the way it wuz--
An' I don't want to see,
Like _some_ fellers does,
When they're goern to be
Any kind o' fuss--
On'y makes a rumpus wuss
Fer to interfere
When their dander's riz--
But I wuz a-standin' as clost to