Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Hiram Hicks’s Eel



“The biggest eel I ever ketched,”
     Said Hiram Hicks one day,
To us who set in Stokes’s store,
     In his pecooliar way,
“Wuz spearin’ on ol’ Lizzard Crick,
     Along in sixty three;
Thet eel would weigh eleven pounds,
     Or mebbie twelve,” says he.

“Wall, no, I didn’t weigh him, boys,
     Becuz, you see, jest when
I got him most out uv the hole
     He dropped back in again,”
Hen Stokes he laid a cod-fish down,
     Non-plussed frum deck to keel;
“By ginger, Hi,” says he, “thet wuz
     A good deal uv an eel!”

Abe Crockett says: “On thinkin’, Hi,
     It warn’t so great a day
Fur spearin’, either, wuz it now?”
     An’ Hiram answered, “nay”.
Bige Miller ‘lowed he’d never seen
     An eel more’n ha’f the size.
But thought thet ef what he said wuz true
     He took the eelin’ prize.

The story seemed to go all right
     An’ Hiram’s sperits soared;
He couldn’t stan’ prosperity
     An’ so fell overboard.
“Ten years,” says he, “I went ag’in,
     An’, sure’s ez I’m alive,
I speared the same ol’ one an’ he’d
     Increased to twenty-five,



Jan. 21, 1912



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