JOE Beall ’ud set upon a keg
Down to the groc’ry store, an’ throw
One leg right over t’other leg
An’ swear he ’d never had no show.
“O, no,” said Joe,
“Hain’t hed no show,”
Then shift his quid to t’other jaw,
An’ chaw, an’ chaw, an’ chaw, an’ chaw.
He said he got no start in life,
Didn’t get no money...
Respected Wife: By these few lines my whereabouts thee ’ll learn:
Moreover, I impart to thee my serious concern.
The language of this people is a riddle unto me;
For words with them are figments of a reckless mockery.
For instance, as I left the cars, a youth with smutty face
Said, “Shine?” “Nay I ’ll not shine,” I said, “except with inward grace.”...
O Sextant of the meetin house, wich sweeps
And dusts, or is supposed to! and makes fires,
And lites the gass, and sumtimes leaves a screw loose,
in wich case it smells orful, worse than lamp ile;
And wrings the Bel and toles it when men dyes,
to the grief of survivin pardners, and sweeps paths
And for the servusses gets $100 per annum,
...
Pike County Ballads
WALL, no! I can’t tell whar he lives,
Because he don’t live, you see;
Leastways, he ’s got out of the habit
Of livin’ like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three year
That you haven’t heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Belle?
He weren’t no...
A Geological Address
“A human skull has been found in California, in the pliocene formation. This skull is the remnant, not only of the earliest pioneer of this State, but the oldest known human being…. The skull was found in a shaft one hundred and fifty feet deep, two miles from Angel’s, in Calaveras County, by a miner named James Matson, who gave it to Mr. Scribner, a merchant,...
A Pike County View of Special Providence
I DON’T go much on religion,
I never ain’t had no show;
But I ’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir,
On the handful o’ things I know.
I don’t pan out on the prophets
And free-will, and that sort o’ thing,—
But believe in God and the angels,
Ever sence one night last spring.
I...
Say there! P’r’aps
Some on you chaps
Might know Jim Wild?
Well,—no offence:
Thar ain’t no sense
In gettin’ riled!
Jim was my chum
Up on the Bar:
That ’s why I come
Down from up thar,
Lookin’ for Jim.
Thank ye, sir! you
Ain’t of that crew,—
Blest if you are!
Money?—Not...
[Remarks of Sergeant Tilmon Joy to the White Man’s Committee of Spunky Point, Illinois]
I RECKON I git your drift, gents—
You ’low the boy sha’n’t stay;
This is a white man’s country:
You ’re Dimocrats, you say:
And whereas, and seein’, and wherefore,
The times bein’ all out o’ jint,
The nigger has got to mosey
From the...
1856
DOW’S Flat. That ’s its name.
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger? The same?
Well, I thought it was true,
For thar isn’t a man on the river as can’t spot the place at first view.
It was called after Dow,—
Which the same was an ass;
And as to the how...
I Reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James:
I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;
And I ’ll tell in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.
But first I would remark, that ’t is not a proper plan
For any scientific gent to whale his fellow-man;
And, if a member don’t...
