St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1861-03-21
Poetry of an Old Thoroughfare.

Every old region has an old and dis.
used road, that like line of poetry
forgotten and dim, only old-tashioned
people pore over You have seen such
thoroughfarc. We have one in mind
at this moment. Straight over the
hill and straight through the big tim
Der, and plump into the swamp and
bounce over the corduroy went the
old road. Its long bridges are bro
ken and messy now, and the brown
birds in white waistcoats build nests
beneath them, undisturbcd by the
rumble Of wheels overhead. Nobody
goes that way, not even the boys en-
route for school for ever so many
years ago, in November day, they
have heard, stranger went down by
the old mill-you can see the rim of
its old dry wheel from herc-and was
never seen again. Years after, among
the hcmlocks human bones were found,
and to this day, on windy nights,
groans come out of the gulf, and the
troubled ghost is thought to be walk
ing still. Over yonaer, is a broad
dlsked suntiowcr, and heap of stone
The latter was once hearth, for a
house stood there, and after the stran-
ser disappeared, the tenant grew sud
denly rich, as the times went, and
showed gold with unknown words up
on it, that none Of the ncighbors could
make out, and pretty soon he took all
that he had and went west as some
said to the Gcncsscc Country" and
others, to =" the Ohio" which was yet
more like dream than the tennessee.
After that, nobody would live in the
house, and it grew ruinous, and was
haunted, and the people saw u light
there in dark nights, or thought they
did, and the children Stunned it, OK
ccpt in the brightest of mornings,
when the sun was shining and the
birds were singing, and the cows
went lowing, Indian file, to the pas
ture and after while, the old house
tumbled down and crumbled away.
Such stories thrive along old roads,
even as the May weed, and the thistles,
that nobody ever cuts down, and on
whose pink tops the yellow birds rock
up and down, like little boats at an
chor, till the fall winds whistle away
the golden birds and the white down
Even the brooks that used to trinklc
across the track and under the little
bridges, have somehow run dry, or
gone another way, and you will see
an old trough, dusty and bleached, by
the road side, the strips Of bark that
brought the water from the hills, bro
ken and scattered, and the earth worn
hard and smooth with the trampling
of many feet. Very long ago, tin
cup used to hang there, tethcred with
string, for the sake of thirsty travel
lcrs. We like to stand by the dcser-
ted watering place, where only a bro
ken thread of ice cold water tricklcs
its way down to the road side, and
fancy how eagerly, in the long summer
days, the horses, painting through the
heavy sands and up the rocky hills,
! thrust their noses deep into the over
flowing trough of crystal coolness,
while ever and anon, the cautious dri,
vers pulled up their heads with a jerk,
until the long drawn breath of mar
ticulate content.
We like to think how the dripping
cup was borne to bearded lips, that
were eloquent and true Of old, and
lips, perchance of beauty, that are
dusty how bees from shimmerins
fields came bugling thither, and crept
with dainty feet along the trough's
damp edge how birds sat there and
drank, and rendered their little thanks
and rode away upon the billowy air
how, now and then squirrel, red anC
sleek, with snowy throat, flashed chat
tering along the devious rails thereto
and flashed away again or gray
rabbit with its little noiscless leap,
and listening ears, took hurried
draughts and squatted among the al
ders till the painting dog had lappet
the nectar of the waysidc spring.
There, where the Maple wears its
crown, a lazy gate is swinging in the
: wind, sole relic of fence that strag
gled round home, Of which tho
weedy, tangled hollow alone gives
proof. 1t may have been some Ra
!, chel dwelt therein, who met SECOND
Jacob at the spring, and Fancy listens
for the words she said-the maid ;
matron, and the matrou dead