PHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D

And did young Stephen sicken,
And did young Stephen die?
And did the sad hearts thicken,
And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of
Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
Though sad hearts round him thickened,
'Twas not from sickness' shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
Nor measles drear with spots;
Not these impaired the sacred name
Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe
That head of curly knots,
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye,
Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from this cold world fly
By falling down a well.

They got him out and emptied him;
Alas it was too late;
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
In the realms of the good and great.

If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was
fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could 'a' done by and by.
Buck said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever
have to stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she
couldn't find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and
slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could
write about anything you choose to give her to write about just so it
was sadful. Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died,
she would be on hand with her "tribute" before he was cold. She called
them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then
Emmeline, then the undertaker--the undertaker never got in ahead of
Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead
person's name, which was Whistler. She warn't ever the same after
that; she never complained, but she kinder pined away and did not live
long. Poor thing, many's the time I made myself go up to the little
room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrap-book and read
in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and I had soured on
her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones and all, and warn't
going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline made poetry about
all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn't seem right that
there warn't nobody to make some about her now she was gone; so I
tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I couldn't seem to make
it go somehow. They kept Emmeline's room trim and nice, an