Bill, Professor

Couldn’ make it seem at all

Like ol’ times nur natteral.

‘Ere wuz Bill, ‘at yuster be,

Now perfessor, and M.D.

Jest the best dressed man in town,

‘Ith his whiskers p’intin’ down

Liker Frenchman. “Gee,” sez I,

“Bill hez left us,, high an’ dry.”

Bill, – I mean Perfessor Gale,

Waitin’ fur the evenin’ mail;

He a talkin’ jest ez slick

Ez grease, an’ middlin’ quick,

‘Ith the Jedge, an’ Squire Snow,

‘Bout ‘em things way up, yew know;

Things I’d never heerd erbout, –

Dorter heerd Bill roll ‘em out!

Couldn’ make it seem at all

Like ol’ times nur natteral.

Bill, er course, knowed me an’ spoke;

Shuk my han’ an’ parssed a joke

On the weather; but good lawd!

I felt skeered an’ over awed

I spose, an’ acted sort

Uv foolish like, least so I thought.

Couldn’ make it seem at all

Like ol’ times nur natteral.

Bill wuz good, perlite an’ kind,

But tew ducedly refined;

An’ he looked so slick an’ trim,

‘At is simply wuzn’t him!

Couldn’ make it seem at all

Like ol’ times, nur natteral.

Aug. 22, 1895

Pub. in B. Courier,

Nov. 17, ‘95