the poet

'Bilin',' said Uncle Eb.

'I'm bilin' over 'n the next bush,' said the poet, sitting down.

'How's everything in Jingleville?' Uncle Eb enquired.

Then the newcomer answered:

'Well, neighbour dear, in Jingleville
We live by faith but we eat our fill;
An' what w'u'd we do if it wa'n't fer prayer?
Fer we can't raise a thing but whiskers an' hair.'

'Cur'us how you can talk po'try,' said Uncle Eb. 'The only thing I've
got agin you is them whiskers an' thet hair. 'Tain't Christian.'

''Tain't what's on the head, but what's in it--thet's the important
thing,' said the poet. 'Did I ever tell ye what I wrote about the
birds?'

'Don' know's ye ever did,' said Uncle Eb, stirring his fire.

'The boy'll like it, mebbe,' said he, taking a dirty piece of paper out
of his pocket and holding it to the light.

The poem interested me, young as I was, not less than the strange figure
of the old poet who lived unknown in the backwoods, and who died, I dare
say, with many a finer song in his heart. I remember how he stood in
the firelight and chanted the words in a sing-song tone. He gave us that
rude copy of the poem, and here it is:

THE ROBIN'S WEDDING

Young robin red breast hed a beautiful nest an' he says to his love says he:
It's ready now on a rocking bough
In the top of a maple tree.
I've lined it with down an' the velvet brown on the waist of a bumble-bee.

They were married next day, in the land o' the hay, the lady bird an' he.
The bobolink came an' the wife o' the same
An' the lark an' the fiddle de dee.
An' the crow came down in a minister gown--there was nothing
that he didn't see.

He fluttered his wing as they ast him to sing an' he tried fer t' clear
out his throat;
He hemmed an' he hawed an' be hawked an' he cawed
But he couldn't deliver a note.
The swallow was there an' he ushered each pair with his linsey an'
claw hammer coat.

The bobolink tried fer t' flirt with the bride in a way thet was sassy
an' bold.
An' the notes that he took as he shivered an' shook
Hed a sound like the jingle of gold.
He sat on a briar an' laughed at the choir an' said thet the music was old.

The sexton he came--Mr Spider by name--a citizen hairy and grey.
His rope in a steeple, he called the good people
That live in the land o' the hay.
The ants an' the squgs an' the crickets an' bugs--came out in a