Gungywamp And Stokes's Store

Folks askin’ me most ev’ry day,

In their suspicious, doubtin’ way

Ef they is such a place, I swore,

Ez I’ve described ez “Stokes’s Store”!

I tell ‘em right up to their face

There is exactly sech a place,

With all the fellers settin’ right

There tellin’ stories day an’ night.

They’s mos Green, an’ Uncle Ez,

Bige Miller’n all the rest, I says,

“An’ ef you don’t believe me, why

I’ll take you there fur proof,” says I.

“It ain’t no myth that Stokes’s Store,

Not when Cow Club” hez the floor.”

Then others say, “look here ol’ chap,

Is sech a place upon the map

Ez ‘Gungywamp’?” I heave a sigh;

“Well, I should say this,” says I.

“They’s Gungywamp, the on’y place

Devoid uv evils an’ disgrace;

The on’y spot I know where sin

Don’t hev a chance to wiggle in.

The on’y place where peace an’ rest

Is harbored in each mortal’s breast.

A place like ‘Gungywamp’? O, say

I jest kin prove it any day.

How could ol’ ‘Lizzard Crick’ be there

A-smilin’ in the sun so fair?

How could there be a Stokes’s store

The Cow Club numberin’ a score?

How could they be sech hearts I know,

Ef ‘Gungywamp’ warn’t really so?”

March 21, 1912