“Roasta Chestnutta!”

You may talk about your nutting in the golden autumn woods

Where the chatter of the squirrel breaks the dreary solitudes,

Where the drumming of the partridge and the whistle of the quail

With its melancholy cadence echoes through the lonely vale.

You may mention, if you’re fussy, nutting in such spots as this;

And perhaps for souls romantic it would be a country bliss,

But I know a way of nutting that discounts it ev’ry time,

It’s to buy a pint of “roasta” from a Dago for a dime.

You don’t have to beat the bushes with their tangled briars and sticks

Tearing clothes and scratching fingers with the burr that surely pricks;

You don’t have to tramp the pastures, clamber ledges, jump the walls

Climb the trees and shake the branches just to make the chestnut fall.

You can just go to the corner where the aproned Dago stands

And select a quart of “roastas” satisfying all demands.

You can sit and munch your chestnuts, happy to the very core,

Knowing when they are exhausted you can go and buy some more.

Oct. 5, ‘09

NOTE – I’ve left what are often inappropriate or even racial terms and or descriptions as written. They are rare, and probably weren’t seen as objectionable within even New England society at the time. More importantly, they exist, and editing them out would be dishonest. Things were what they were. Still, including them, as I have done, remains awkward for obvious reasons, including personal taste and the harmfulness of their use. Hopefully, doing so will at least present an accurate picture of how ingrained some prejudices, or at least callousness to them, still were at the time, even among some of the more progressive people of the era.