a
Scotchman talks, you know. And I says, Ef a Scotchman could write poetry
in his sort of bad grammar, why couldn't a Hoosier jest as well write
poetry in the sort of lingo we talk down on the Wawbosh? I don't see why.
Do you, now?"

Albert was captivated to find a "child of nature" with such an idea, and
he gave it his entire approval.

"Wal, you see, when I got to makin' varses I found the folks down in
Posey Kyounty didn' take to varses wrote out in their own talk. They
liked the real dictionary po'try, like 'The boy stood on the burnin'
deck' and 'A life on the ocean wave,' but they made fun of me, and when
the boys got a hold of my poortiest varses, and said 'em over and over
as they was comin' from school, and larfed at me, and the gals kinder
fooled me, gittin' me to do some varses fer ther birthdays, and then
makin' fun of 'em, I couldn' bar it no ways, and so I jist cleaned out
and left to git shed of their talk. But I stuck to my idee all the
same. I made varses in the country talk all the same, and sent 'em to
editors, but they couldn' see nothin' in 'em. Writ back that I'd
better larn to spell. When I could a-spelt down any one of 'em the best
day they ever seed!"

"I'd like to see some of your verses," said Albert.

"I thought maybe you mout," and with that he took out a soiled blue paper
on which was written in blue ink some verses.

"Now, you see, I could spell right ef I wanted to, but I noticed that Mr.
Burns had writ his Scotch like it was spoke, and so I thought I'd write
my country talk by the same rule."

And the picturesque Inhabitant, standing there in the morning light in
his trapper's wolf-skin cap, from the apex of which the tail of the wolf
hung down his back, read aloud the verses which he had written in the
Hoosier dialect, or, as he called it, the country talk of the Wawbosh. In
transcribing them, I have inserted one or two apostrophes, for the poet
always complained that though he could spell like sixty, he never could
mind his stops.

[Illustration: THE INHABITANT.]

WHAT DUMB CRITTERS SAYS

The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat,
Ef nobody's thar to see.
The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat,
But ef I say, "Sing out, green coat,"
Why, "I can't" and "I shan't," says he.

I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard
Of a man made outen straw.
I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard,
But laws! they warn't the least bit skeered,
They larfed out, "Haw! haw-haw!"

A long-ta