The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1878-06-28
THE STORY OF INNACH; GARDEN.
From the Burlington Hawkeye.

"Arma virumque cano,"
The man with Two arms and hoe,
| sing,
Saw him with spade and hoe and rake,
With back and arms that burn and ache,
Dig and swear
AT the hard earth where
Over the adamantine sod
All winter long the family trod.
All day long like a slave he wrought,
The spade was dull and the day was hot;
When a cooler or softer place he sought,
SunstrOkes and brick bats filled the spot.
From rosy dawn,
Till the day was gone,
With teiYi and sw-rs he Iabored or,
BY Luna's light the lettuce bed
" ith seeds of IdctunI saliUd were fed;
Where the onion wept at Its breathfuI taste
The bulbs OF the album cepd he placed
And you never have seen
More charming verbena
Than those he put in the oblong mound
With UiOLd tJicOlOr bordered round.
And on each side OF the walk from the gate a
Row OF the reSedd OdOTdtd
Back in the kitchen garden bed,
RdphdHUs Sdttrus, white and red;
Where the tall poles burden the haunted
air, is
The place where he plants pItdseoitGs uulgdyis,
All of the seeds that the grocer had,
Lots of things good, and some Ghings bad;
Things that he didn't know how to spell,
Roots that bite and bulbs that smell;
Unknown vines OF suspicious breeds:
Sprouts that come up and turn 10 weeds,
Things 1t would poison the children to pull,
Every inch OF his garden he filled it full.
Daybreak came, and its earliest raw
Smiled on the garden just as it lay:
Eight O'Clock, and the man went down
10 his office desk in the busy town.
Nine, and his family fitted away,
With rich relation to spend the day.
Then,
Just as the whistles were tolling ten
hen,
Pride of me flock that lived next door
Numbering hundred and seventy-four)
Peeped through crack in the neighbOr's s
1ence,-
And said to her comrades, Lettuce, hens
they came by ones. by scores, by tens;
Gallus old birds, clarion crew,
Came with the crowd, as they always do,
Bantams, hardly as big as match,
But worse than a snow plough on the
scratch;
Dorking fowls that make things whirr
When they dig up the ground with the ex-
Malays and Hamburgs, spang,ed and plain,
With checked chickens that hail from
Fighting game chickens, PoIands black,
Guinea hens, with eternal "squack;"
Hens with chicks that weetled and cried,
Hens bereaved, whose weetles had died;
Giddy young hens, that never had set,
Grave old hens that were at IL yet;
Portly old roOsters solemn and stout;
Old time bruiserS with one eye out;
Hens, with brOOds of awkward ducks,
That paid no heed to their anxious cluCkS,
And never regarding their worried looks,
Plunged into gutter and ponds and brooks;
Mortified TOoSters, with tail feathers lost;
Fowls whose claws were nipped by the frost;
BuSiueSs-like birds, with no ear for fun.
Pullets whose troubles were just begun;
Tough old fowl, for the boaTders' collation.,
Gellow-lPgged hens, of the Wesleyan per-
suasOu,
Baptist-like ducks, with their awkward tot
ter,
Hunting around for some waist-deep water;
Blue looking turkeys, scratching a Iiving,
Fore-ordained TO die next Thanksgiving.
And here In the mob was solemn paSSel
OF geese, with tremendous feet for wrestle.
Not much on the scratch, but twas easiy
seen
They were worse on grass than a moving
machine.
Where they all came from nobo 1y knew,
But over the fence in clouds they flew;
And into the garden for life or death.
They scratched till they painted, out of
breath;
No pause, no stop, no stay for rest,
Till the sun went down in the crimson west;
Till the man came home from his work and
found
The yawning clefts in tile riven ground.
And he gazed for space, with a fearful
start,
While the deep sobs broke from his grateful
heart;
He clasped in his arms his babes and spouse,
"Thank heaven, the earthquake spaI ed my
hOuSe!"