Abe Crockett, Politician

Abe Crocket set in Stokes’s store

     Six nights uv ev’ry week,

A corncob pipe stuck in his teeth,

     A wad inside his cheek.

He set there talkin’ pollertics

     Ez fast ez he could talk,

Till some got tired an’ took to sleep,

     While others took a walk.

Stokes warn’t a man to argue much,

     He let the rest do thet,

But sometimes he would jest explode

     When he got overhet.

He says to Abe the other night,

     When he could stan’ no more:

“You’ve set here preachin’ pollertics

     In this ol’ groc’ry store

“For more’n a dozen years, I guess,

     You’ve talked like all git out,

An’ ain’t give no one else, I say,

     An’ equal chance te spout.

An’ yit you’ve never voted once

     In all your life,” says he;

“You’d better do your votin’ fust,

     An’ then talk, seems to me.”

Abe wuz a little quot at fust,

     An’ didn’t make reply;

An' then he kinder straightened up        

     With ___* in his eye.

“Why don’t I vote? he says to Stokes,

     “What is the use? say I?

Elections allus go the way

     I think they will, thet’s why!”

Nov. 4, 1910

*Once in a while a word is left out in the original version but it can be found in the printed copy. This is more the case with items from the 1909-1910 ’Jocosities’ column. In this instance the Nov. 5, 1910 edition of that column is missing from the collection, so the best guess is that it was published in that.)