Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-09-26
MORNING. SEPTEMBER &C. 1871
HANNAH JANE.
BY PETROLEUM V. Massey.

BY PETROLEUM V. Massey.
from the Thirty third District of Indiana-Law-
yer, Writer, Orator-solves one Social Problem.
She isn't halt so handsome as when, twenty years
agone,
At her old home in Piketon Parson Avery made us
The great house crowded full of guests of every
The girls all envying Hannah Jane, the boys all
envying me.
Her hies fingers they they were taper and her skin was
Her brown hair-what mess it was and soft and
fine as silk;
No wind-moved willow by brook had ever such
grace,
The form of Aphrodite, with pure Madonna face.
She had but meagre schooling: her little notes to
Were full of crooked pot hooks, and the worst or
Her ''dear' she spelled with double e, and "kissn
with but one s;
But when ones crazed with passion, what's let
ter more or less?
when she spoke,
And every, rule of syntax that old Murray made
she broke,
But she was beautiful and fresh and I-weli, I was
young;
Her form and face oerbalanced all the blunders of
her tongue.
l was but little better. True, I'd longer been at
My tongue and pen were run, perhaps, trine
more by rule;
But that was all. The neighbors round, who both
Said-which l beieyed-she was the better of the
two.
ALPS changed: the light of seyenteen's no longer
in her eyes;
Her wayy hair is gone-that loss the coifeur's art
supplies;
Her form is thin and angular; she slightly forward
Her fingers, once shapely ,,snow are stumpy at
the ends.
She knows but very little and in little we are one;
Inc beauty rare that more than hid that great de-
feet is gone.
Ny pareena relations now deride my homely wife,
ana pity me that am tied to such clOd for life,
know there is difference; at reception and evee
Ahe Drlghtest wittiest and most famed of women
smile on me;
And everywhere hold my place among the great
est men,
And sometimes sigh, with Whittier's Judge. "Alas
1t might have been.o
When they all crowd around me, stately danes and
And yield to me the homage that all great success
compels,
Discussing art and state-c-aft and literature os
WELL
From Homer down to Thackeray, and swedenborg
can't forget that from these streams my wife has
Has never with Ophelia wept, nor with Jack Fal.
staff laughed;
Of authors, actors, artists-why, she hardly knows
the names;
She slept while was speaking on the Alabama
claims.
can't forget-Just at this point another form ap-
pears
The wife welded as she was before my prosper
GUS years;
travel DER the dreary road we travelled side by
side,
And wonder what my share would be if .Justice
She had four hundred dollars left her from the old
On that We married, and thus poorly armored faced
our fate.
l wrestled with my books; her task was harder far
Twas how to make two hundred dollars do the
work of nine.
At last was admitted; then had my legal lore,-
An Office with a stove and desk, of books perhaps
score;
She had her beauty and her youth, and some house
wifely skill,
And love for and faith in me- and back of that a
will.
had no friends behind me--no influence to aid;
worked and fought tor every liIe inch of ground
L made.
And how she fought beside me never woman lived
less;
In two long years she never spent single cent for
dress
All how she cried for joy when my first legal fight
When our eclipse passed partly by, and we stood
The fee was ilfty dollars-'twas the work of half
First captive lean and scraggy, of my legal bow
and spear.
well remember when my coat (the only one had)
was seedy grown and and shreadoare, and, in fact
The tailors stern remark when modest order
made;
Cash is the basis, sir, on which we tailors do our
trade"
Her winter cloak was in his shop by that very
She wrought on hickory shirts at night that talors
skill to pay.
l got coat and wore it; but alas poor Hannah
Meier went to church or lecture till warm weather
came again.
Our second season she refused CLOAK of any sort,
That might have a decent suit in which appear
She made her last years bonnet do that might
have IA hat
Talk OF the oldtime, hame-enveloped martyrs after
that.
No negro ever worked so hard; a Servants pay to
She made herselfmost willingly household drudge
and slave
What wonder that she never read magazine or
book,
Combining as she did in one, nurse, house-maid,
sealnsress, cook
What wonder that the beauty fed that l once SO
adored
Her beautiful complexion my fierce kitchen fire de-
uoured;
Her plump, soft rounded arms were once too fair to
be concealed:
Hard work for me that softness into sinewy strength
congeaed.
was her altar, and her love the sacrfcial flame
All with what pure devotion she to that altar came
And fearful, flung thereon-alasl did not know
1t then
All that she was, and more than that, all that she
might have been
At last won success. All then our lives were
wider parted:
| was far up the rising road She poor girl where
started.
l had tried my speed and mettle, and gained
strength in every race;
was far up the heights of life-she drudgng at the
base.