Middletown transcript., 1883-03-09
LUKE-CoLoRADo PARK, 1873.
BY BRET HART.

Wot's that you're readin' IA novel? A novel
You man grown and bearded, and histin'
such stuff eZ that in
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! NO
wonder you're thin ez knife,
Look at me i-clar two hundred-and never
read one in my life
lyln found mere, -,
They belonged to the Jedge's daughter-the
Jedge who came up last year
On account of his lungs and the mountains,
and the balsam o. pine and fir;
And his daughter-welI. 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-till she grew like
she was 8 only a slip of a thing, ez light and
Ez rifie-smoke blown through the woods, but
she wasn't my kipd-no way
speakin' O gals-d'ye mind that house ez you
rise the hill,
mile and half from Whites and jist above
You do? Well, now, thar's gal What, you
saw her? o, come now, thar quit
She was only bedev'lin you boys, for to me
she don't cotton one bit.
But what was talkin' off, O! the Jedge and
his daughter-she read
ENON6lS llIC uflS anu ASNAACAA 9A4S
read them abed,
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
that they read bout a chap,
" Misunderstanding" by name, and az hunter
chock full o. the greenest @ sanil
And they asked me to hear; but gays -
Miss Mabel, not any for me;
When likes kin sling own lies ana
thet chap and shouldn't agree"
TT somehow she 81 zzays sayin,
OF folks about whom she had read, or suthin'
belize of thet kind,
And thar warn't no end o. the names that she
gave me that summer up here,
robin Hood,' " Misunderstanding, Rob
Royn-O, l tell you, the critter was queer.
And vet eff she hadn't been spilled she war
harmless enough in her way;
She could jaDber in French TO her dad, and
they said thet she knew how to play,
And she worked me that shot-pouch up thar
which the man doesn't live ez kin use,
And slippers-you see 'em down yer-ez
would cradle an Injin's pappoose.
Yet along o them novels, you see, she was
wastin and mopin' away,
And then she got shy with her tongue, and
at last had nothing to say;
And whenever happened around, her face
it was hid by book,
And it warn't until she left that she gave me
ez much ez look.
An this was the way it was. 1t was night
when 1 KEN up here
To say to en all good by, for / reckoned to
go for deer
At sun-up the day they left so shook 'em
all by the hand,
'Cept Mabel, and she was sick, eZ they gave
me to understand.
But just ez passed the house next morning
at dawn, some one,
Like little waver o. mist got up on the hill
with the sun /:
Miss Mabel it was, alone-all wrapped in q
mantle o. lace
And she stood there straight in the road, with
touch O. the sun in her face.
And she looked at me right in the eye-I'd
seen suthin like it before
When hunted wounded doe to the edge o.
the Clear Lake shore,
And had my knee on its neck, and jist was
raisin' my knife
When it gave me a look like that-welI, it got
off with its life.
:" We are going to-day" she SAID, "and
thought would say good-by
To you in your own house, Luke-thGse woods
and the bright blue sky!
You've always been kind to us, Luke, and
papa has found you still
As good as the air he breathes, and whole
some as Laurel Tree hill.
And wen always think of you, Luke, as the
thing we could not take away
The balsam that dwells in the woods, the
rainbow that lives in the spray.
And you'll sometimes think of me, Luke, as
you know you once used to say,
AS rifle smoke blown through the woods, a
moment, but never to stay
And then we shook hands. She turned, but
a suddent she tottercd and fell,
And l caught her by the waist, and held her
q mint we'll
1t was only mint, you know, that ez cold
and eZ white she lay
Ez a snowflake here on my breast, and then
well, size melted away
And was gone And thar are her
books; but says not any for me,
Good enough may be for some, but them and
Imightn't agree.
They spilled a decent gal ez might have made
some chap a wife;
And look at mel-clar two hundred-and
never read one in my life!