Rapides gazette. (Alexandria, La.) 1869-187?, 1873-12-06
LUKE.
I'm the Colorado Park, ls7s.)
BY BRET HARTE.

~
BY BRET HARrE.
wot's that you're readin'?-a novel? A novel;
well darn my skin!
You man grown and bearded AID stin' such
stuff ez that in
STUFF about gals and their sweetheartsi No won-
der you re thin ez a knife.
Look at mei-clsr two hundred-and never read
one IN my life!
That's my opinion o. novels And ez to their
lynn round here,
They belonged to the Jedge's daughter-the Jedge
who came up last year
On account OF his lungs and the mountains and
balsam o. pine and nr;
And his daughter-wel, she read novels and
that's what's the matter with her.
Yet she was sweet on the Jedge, and stuck by him
day and night,
Alone in the cabin up yer-til; she grew like
ghost, ali white
She wus slip Of thing, ez light and ez up and
Esrine smoke blown through the woods, but she
wasn't my kind-no way!
speakin o. gals, dye mind that house ez you rise
mile lie aud aud half from Whites, and list above
Msitinglys mill?
You'd Well now fhGr's gall What, you saw
her? o, come now, thar, quitl
She was only bedeviin' you boys, for to me she
don't cotton one bit
Now she's what call gal--ez pretty and plump
eZ quail;
Teeth ez white ez a hound 8 and they 90 through
tenpsnny matt;
Eyes that kin snap like. cap. so she asked to
know ''whar was hid
She didl o, IT'S jist like her sass for she peart
eza Katy-did.
But what was talking of?-Oi the Jedge and his
daughter she read
Novels the whole day long, and reckon she read
And sometimes she read them out loud to the
Jedge on the porch where he sat,
And twas how Lord Augustus" said this, and
how Lady Blanche" she said that.
But the sickest of all that heerd, was yarn thet
they read bout a chap,
''Leaiher-stockiDg'' by name, and q hunter chock
full o. the greenest o. sapj
And they asked me to hear, but says, ''Mias
When p iises a0i aS ilf sling my own lies and tibet
chap and shouldn't agree"
Yet somehow-or-other she was always sayin'
brought her to mind
OF folks about whom she had read, or suthin be-
liKe of thet kind,
And thar warn't no end o. the names that she
give me thet summer up here,
@Bobin--Hoo Misunderstanding" Rob
Roy, 80, / tell you, the critter was queer.
And yet eff she hadn't been spilled, she was HARM
less enough in her way,
She could jabber in French to her dad, and they
said that she knew how TO play,
And she worked me that shot-pouch up thar
which the man doesn Z live ez kin use,
And slippers-you see 'em down yer-ez would
cradle an lnjin's pappoose.
Yet along o. them novels, you see, she was vast
- in and mopin' away,
And then she got shy with her tongue, and atlast
had nothin' to say;
And whenever happened around, her face it was
hid by book,
And it warm until she left that she give me CT
much ez look.
And this was the way it was. 1t was night when
1 KEN up here
To say TO 'em all goodbye" =" for reckoned to
go for deer
At ''sun up'' the day they left So shook 'em
all rolnd by the hand,
'Cept Mabel, and she was sick, ez they give me to
understand.
But jist ez passed the house next morning at
Like little waver o. mist got up on the hill with
the sun;
And she stood there straight in the road, with a
touch o. the sun in her face.
And she looked me right in the eye-Pd seen
suthn like il before
Whom hunted a wounded doe to the edge o. the
And had my knee on its neck, and jist was raj.
in my knife
When it give me a look like that, and-well it
got of with Its life.
eve are going to- day, - she said, "and thought
l would say goodbye
To You in your own house, Luke--these WOODS,
and the bright blue sky!
You've always been kind TO US, Luke, and papa
has found you still
As good the air he breathes, and wholesome as
Laurel Tree Hill.
"And we'll always think of you, Luke, rs the
thing we could not take away;
The balsaIn that dwells in the woods, the rain
bow that lives in the spray.
And you'll sometimes think OF me, Luke, as you
know you once used to say,
rifle smoke blown through the woods, mo-
ment, but never TO stay
And then we shook hands. She turned, but a.
student she totteTed and fell,
And1 caught her sharp by the waist, and held her
aminIt-wrll,
ltwas only mint, you know, that ez cold and
ez white she lay
Ez snowflake here on my breast, and then
well, she melted away
And was gone 80 And thar are her books; bui
says not any for me-.
GOOD enough may be for some, but them and
mightn't agree.
They, spilled decent gal ez might hev made some
chap wife,
And look at mel-clsr two hundred-and never
read one in my lifel
-Scrfbn<y's for December.