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SI HASKELL
Si Haskell never told a lie,
He was as good an’ true as pie;
If he went fishin’ spring or fall,
An’ ketched a lot, or none at all,
He wouldn’t lie, as some folks do,
No matter if you liked him to.
If Si done wrong, the which I doubt,
An’ folks was apt to find it out,
He’d never try to dodge a bit,
E’en though he got the wust of it.
Si Haskell never told a lie,
No use for folks to make him try.
All Gungywamp looked up to him,
An’ praised his virtue to the brim.
Si never took no credit, law!
He didn’t see what others saw.
He went about his task each day,
An’ never had a word to say.
Men jest like Si warn’t very thick
Round Gungywamp an’ Lizzard Crick.
It seemed too bad that men like Si
Should ever have to up an’ die.
Si couldn’t tell a lie, I vum,
Si Haskell he was deef an’ dumb!
JOE CONE.
(Written April 18,
1913 and sent Wed. Apr. 23, 1913)
TILTUP
TIME
It’s tiltup time on Lizzard Crick,
The ice is good
and strong;
The blacksmith’s shop, and Stokes’ store
Have lost their
daily throng.
Hen Billings, Abe and Uncle Ez’,
And all that
squatter corps,
Are down in Pick’rel Bend today,
Where tiltups
hold the floor.
Jed Martin said along last fall:
“The signs are
comin’ good;
There’ll be enough o’ fish this year
For Gungy’s
multihood.”
So when the ice was strong enough
The fisher folk
men were there;
And Pick’rel Bend was covered o’er
With tiltups
and to spare.
Under the lee of Ackley hill
A roaring fire
leaps high;
With toes and fingers thawing out,
And mittens
hung to dry.
And, seated on the friendly logs,
The yarns of by-gone
years
Are poured with solemn Gungy skill
Into our
youthful ears!
Tiltups are bobbing up and down,
Red flags flap
in the breeze;
Stout hearts don’t mind the wintry winds
On busy days
like these.
Ah, tiltup time on Lizzard Crick,
With story,
song and joke,
May nothing ever come between
You and good
Gungy folk!
JOE CONE.
(Written Dec. 31, 1916.)
OLD HEN JONES
Ever hear of ol’ Hen Jones,
Grizzled skin an’ rack-a-bones,
Lives up under Miler’s Hill,
‘Crost there from the cider mill?
Never heard of Henry, what?
Then you’ve missed an awful lot,
‘Cuz ol’ Hen he can’t be beat
In the hull blamed county seat!
Henry Jones lives all alone,
Cold, unfeelin’ as a stone;
Shrewd an’ stingy as kin be,
With a shady pedergree.
No one ever seen him smile –
Allus seemed too full o’ bile.
Never heard him laugh a mite -
Allus keeps his mouth shet tight.
“Ol Hen Jones is ‘bout as bad
As they make ‘em,” so says dad.
Dad had orter know right well,
‘Cuz he’s knowed him quite a spell.
Hed some dealin’s with ol’ Hen
When the two wuz younger men.
“Ol’ Hen stung me,” dad says he,
“Wuss’n any bumble bee!”
Ol’ Hen Jones is awful mean,
Meanest skunk wuz ever seen;
Never done a might o’ good
In this needy neighborhood.
Never has a word to say,
Minds his bizniz ev’ry day;
Jest keeps to himself – I ween
That’s why they call him mean!
JOE
CONE
(Written June 15, 1914)
WHEN MYRA
SMILES
When Myra used to smile at me
She thrilled me
through and through;
Two dainty dimples lurked beneath
Two eyes of
dancing blue.
But Myra’s smile has lost its charm,
It cannot hope
to win;
For Myra’s lost a big front tooth,
And hasn’t one
put in.
Joe
Cone.
(Written July 12, 1915)
The
robin is a pirate bird,
The title fits him well;
While
he gets all my garden fruit
I do not get a smell.
Down
in my swamp skunk cabbage grows,
More rank than I can tell;
The
robin does not care for that
So I get all the smell.
Joe Cone.
(Undated)
The great
highways of life are fair,
And many go to
see;
But greater charm
has solitude –
A sheltered path
down through the wood
Give me.
The oceans and
the dotted seas,
Where ships sail to and fro
Are great and
fair, but let me dream
Beside the cool,
sequestered stream
I know.
Joe Cone.
(Written
Nov. 13, ‘08)
THE
LONESOMEST SPOT
The lonesomest place in the world fur me
Ain’t out in the country, no sir-ee!
Out under the trees were the grass is green,
Where no voice is heard or no face is seen,
Where there ain’t no rumble of cars or carts,
No babble uv voices, or throb of hearts;
That ain’t the lonesomest place for me –
The lonesomest place I ever see
Was in a town where folks was so thick
They fairly covered each stone an’ brick;
Where the human stream was on the go
All day, all night, with its ebb an’ flow;
Not a soul I knew; an’ that to me,
Was the lonesomest place I ever see!
JOE CONE.
(Written
June 1, 1913)
COME OUT
You city folks who toil all day
Where walls are dark and skies are gray,
Don’t spend your whole lives in the gloom
Of some dark, crowded city room.
Come out where fields are wide and fair,
And breathe the soul-inspiring air;
Come out, I say, and here abide
In God’s own fruitful countryside.
Come out and buy a farm, and be
Forever from the city free.
Don’t be a bee within the hive
That buries human souls alive,
But imitate the birds that swing
Upon the apple trees and sing;
Sing with the gusts of a soul
That knows no burden or control.
The farm, the countryside awaits
Your coming to her vast estates;
There’s room enough, and land to spare,
Why will you dally longer there?
Come out and stretch your cramped-up bones
Amongst the tangled stumps and stones;
Come out and join the sturdy van,
Come out and be a red-blood man!
JOE CONE.
(Written Sept. 9, 1914)
NATURE SONNETS
(By the Village Poet)
Pa bought a cow of neighbor Deacon Brown,
And brought
her home and put her in the lot,
And
she went grazing, and was soon forgot,
While pa hitched up the horse and drove to town
To take some eggs and other produce down.
The deacon said she was a gentle cow,
And wouldn’t
jump the lowest fence in town;
When she had had enough of feed, I vow,
She took that
fence just like a circus clown
And headed back for home like all persest,
And jumped back in the lot with all the rest!
My
sakes! But pa was mad. “O, no,” says he,
“She
won’t jump o’er the lowest fence, not she,
But she will take the high ones, I’ll be
blessed!”
JOE CONE.
(Written July 5, 1914)
NATURE SONNETS
(By the Village Poet)
Pa sent me out to milk the cow last night,
And so I took
the pail and went along,
And hummed upon
my way a little song,
And said, “So, Boss,” and I was real polite,
Then took a-hold the way I thought was right.
She switched
her tail around my neck “kerswatt,”
And kicked the
pail off to a distant spot,
And I ran back to father in a fright.
I told him how she’d kicked the milking pail,
And smashed it
up against the stable gate;
He gave me such a look it made me quail,
And then he blew
me up a fearful rate.
“When you set down to milk a cow,” he said,
“Set on the right hand side, you pudd’n’head!”
JOE CONE.
(Written Dec. 3, 1912)
(By the Village Poet)
There’s lots of things
I do not understand,
Which is because I haven’t been around
‘Mongst city folks whose knowledge is
profound,
Where art and
science is on ev’ry hand –
To know a lot of
things it must be grand!
When pa put apples an’ potatoes in
The cellar help from neighbors it was thin,
In fact there
warn’t a single soul on hand.
And then he put
in cider, ten or more
Barrels as big and heavy as could be,
And there were
helpers here full half a score,
Who worked like very Trojans, yes sir-ee!
There’s lots of
things I do not understand –
To have a lot of
knowledge must be grand.
JOE CONE.
(Written Dec. 5, 1912)
A MAN OF STRAW
I placed a scarecrow in my field
To
warn the birds away;
Because they pecked my choicest fruits
Most hungrily
each day.
I felt quite satisfied; methought
So hideous a
sight
As that outlandish dummy there
Would fill the
birds with fright.
Again I wandered to the field,
Alas, my keen
dismay!
A bird perched on my scarecrow’s hat
And trilled a merry lay!
JOE CONE.
(Written June 30, 1914)
NATURE SONNET
I sent a poem to a magazine,
And after
waiting thirty days or so
(Why it was kept
so long I do not know)
I got it back with just a slip between,
And on the slip was wrote, by some one green,
“This is too
good to keep.” Gee, I was sore,
And said I’d
never send them any more,
Because I thought they’d meant to use me mean.
But after thinking over it a bit
I saw it in a
vastly different light;
And so I wrote this note to go with it,
And mailed it
at the village store that night:
“This poem is too good to keep,” you say?
That’s why I send it back to you today!
JOE CONE.
(Written c. Jan. 25, 1917)
THE MARTINS
Full throated songsters from the south,
Again your
rippling note we hear;
You bring the charm of tropic lands,
And we forget
the winter drear.
Sleek coated martins, wondrous hues,
Glinting
beneath the springtime sun;
Accept our hospitality,
Rest here, and cease
your northward run.
Your quaint abodes are waiting you,
At best the
summer is not long;
Stand guard before your sacred doors
And fill the bursting
dawn with song.
JOE CONE.
(Written
Jan 31, 1917)
“ANY PLACE THAT’S WILD.”
- - John Muir.
Any place that’s wild, John Muir,
Oh, any place
that’s wild;
I like you better, indeed I do,
Because you have said that which is true,
Because your being has burst its bars,
And gone out under the trees and stars,
To a region
undefiled.
Any place that’s wild, John Muir,
That is the
place to be;
Give me your hand in a grip of steel,
Silent, because I know how you feel,
And talk me the language of wood and stream,
Let me experience God’s own scheme
Out there in
his pastures free.
Any place that’s wild, John Muir,
Oh, any place
that’s wild.
Not the wild of the human hive
That buries a yearning soul alive,
Not the wild of the stock exchange,
But over the toilsome mountain range,
Created for Nature’s
child.
JOE CONE.
(Written Jan. 27, 1917)
He comes to the
door three times a week,
The clam peddler, clad in
overalls,
Jumper and long
hip rubber boots,
Which, in fair
weather, are rolled at the knees.
His form is bent
from stooping in the mud,
His hands and
face are weather cracked
From long exposure
to wind and sun and rain,
And yet he has a
kindly face
Beneath the
grayish stubble and the spots
Of clam mud
sometimes clinging there.
He cries out, “Clams!
Steamers, opened, long or round!”
At the back
door, and his voice is clear
And pleasing, and
suggests humor and good cheer,
But that is only
Yankee bluff – he’s after trade.
His eyes – they
tell the story all too well.
He’s hopeless,
hard, passé, a work machine,
A fool of fate
who goes at every tide
And paws over
the reeking mud for clams.
His back aches,
he swears and thinks hard thoughts,
But whacks and
holds on until his basket’s full,
Then pulls his
wracked body together and goes
And peddles them
from door to door.
He has no
vision. The only things he sees
Are mudflats,
clams, nickels and dimes,
And then the
village inn and – void.
He idles,
carouses when the tide is high,
And when it’s
low he slouches to the flats again.
But what of the
clam peddler, after all?
He’s a human
being; he works and eats and drinks
Like thousands
of men in every walk of life,
And he’s as
happy and as successful as they,
And brings as
much good to humankind.
So why turn him
from the door with a snarl?
If you don’t
want to buy “Clams! Steamers, opened, long or round,”
The least you
can do is wish him well.
JOE CONE.
(Written Oct. 31, 1916)
BOILER POTT, THE POET.
(His Monthly Grind.)
January.
In January doth he write
About the
summer maiden’s form;
Midst winter’s howling snap and bite
It helps to
keep him snug and war.
February.
When February comes in view
A quatrain doth
he get in line;
He’s sure to make a plunk or two
By drooling o’er
the valentine.
March.
March winds blow him not ill, betimes
He sallies
forth into the street
Where Tessie trips, whereon he rhymes
On what he sees
above two feet.
April.
Soft April showers inspire him, too,
Refresh him in
his hour of need;
Who would not now spring verses new
Would be an “April
Fool” indeed.
May.
May flowers and Maybaskets lend
Their aid to
gentle Boiler Pott;
A bunch of May verse doth he send
Which he May
sell and May-be not.
June.
Then comes the month of roses, June!
Its brides and
sweet girl graduates;
He twangs his lyrics in perfect tune,
And hits some
of the “higher rates.”
July.
July of course gives him a cue,
The “Fourth” is
always good for that;
He writes a comic verse or two
On “Where are
Johnny’s fingers at?”
August.
August brings out the bathing rig,
And likewise
rouses Potts’s pen;
Although the subject is not “big”
It holds the
gaze of countless men.
September.
September a hard month would be
Were it not for
the proud return
Of Gladys Flirter from the sea –
Shore with a
string of hearts to burn.
October.
He likes the glad October days,
Though “melancholy”
may they be;
He sells a few autumnal lays,
Besides some “Bob
White” poetry.
November.
November – turkeys roosting high,
Cranberry sauce
and wish-bone fun;
At goodly checks he winks his eye
For turkey
verses he has done.
December.
December comes; these are the times
When Boiler
Pott his stocking fills;
He rakes enough from Christmas rhymes
To meet his
many yearly bills.
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JOE CONE.
(Undated)
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