The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1873-12-12

LUKE
IN COLORADO PARK, 1873.
By BRET HARTF

By BRET HARTE.
Wots that your readin'7-a novel? novel-weI
You man grown and bearded, and histing such
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder
you're thin ez a knife
Look at me! clar two hundred and never read
one in my life.
That's my opinion o. novels And ez to their Iyin
They belonged to the jedges daughter-the jedge
On account Of his lungs and the mountains and the
balsam O. pine and fir;
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 mp yep-tu she grew like ghost,
She was only slip of thing, ez light and ez up
and away
wasn't my kind-no way!
speakin' o gals, dye mind that house ez you rise
A mile and a half from whites, and jizt above
You do7 wei now, thar's gall What, you saw
her? o, come now, thar, quit!
She was only bedevlin' you boys for to me she
didn't cotton one bit.
Now she's what call gal-ez pretty and plump ez
Teeth ez white ez hounds, and they'd go through
Eyes that kin snap like cap. So she asked to know
"wbar 1 was hid? ?"
ez a Katy-did.
But what was I talking of?-O! the ledge and his
daughter-she read
Novels the whole day long, and I reckon she read
them abed,
And sometimes She read them out loud to the jedge
on the porch where he sat,
And twas how g Lord Augustus" said this and how
Lady Blanche" she said that.
But the sickest of all that beerd, was yarn that
they read bout chap,
Misunderstanding by mama, and hunter ehock
FTTl1 O1t t1n af O11
And they asked me to hear, but says, " Miss
Mabel, not any for me;
When likes can sling my own lies, and thet chap
and shouldn't agree"
Yet somehow OF other she was always sayin'
brought her to mind
OF folks about whom she had read, or suth1n belize
of thet kind,
And thar warn't no end o. the names that she give
me thet summer up here,
90 Robin Hood" " Misunderstanding" g Rob Roy
o, tell you, the critter was queer.
And yet eff she hadn't been spilled, she was harmless
enough ia her way,
She could jabber in French to her dad, and they
say she knew how to play,
And she worked me that shOt-pouch up thar-which
the man doesn't live ez kin use,
And sippers-yOu see 'em down yer-ez would
cradle an Injins pappOOse.
Yet along O. them novels, you see, she was wastin'
md then she got shy With her tongue, and at last
And whenever happened around, her face it was
hid by book,
much ez a look.
And this was the way it was. It was night when
To say to ,sm all "good-by," for reckoned TO go
At sun p the day they left. So I shook 'em all
round by the hand,
understand.
But jist as I passed the house next morning at
dawn, some one,
Like little waver O. mist, got up on the hill with
the
Miss Mabel it was, alone-an wrapped in a mantle
of lace
And stood there straight in the road, with touch
o. the sun in her face,
And she looked me right in the eye-rd seen suthin
When I hunted wounded doe to the edge of Clear
And had my knee on its neck, and jst was raisin'
my knife
When 1t gave me look like that, and-wel, it got
of with its life.
We are going to-day" she said, "and I thought
would say gOOd-by
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 stiu
AS good as the air he breathes, and wholesome as
Laurel Tree hill.
"And wen always think of you, Luke, as the thing
we could not take away;
The balsam that dweils in the woods, the rainbow
And youT sometimes think of me, Luke, as you
know you once used to say,
a rifle smoke blown through the woods, moment,
but never to stay"
And then we shook hands. She turned, but a-sud-
dent she tottered and fell,
And I caught her sharp by the waist, and held her
a minit-WeQ,
It was only a mint, you know that ez cold aud ez
white she lay
Ez a snowflake here on my breast, and then-wen,
she melted away
And was gone. . And thar are her books but I
says not any for me,
Good enough maybe for some, but them and I
mightn't agree,
They spilled a decent gal ez might have made some
chap wife,
And look at me!-clar two hundred-and never
read one in my life!