The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-01-10
THE POET OF ARKANsAW.
A Tramp Printer who Taught Boy the
 Divine Art of the Bards.

0tViu8 AEt ct the 1AESSs
 Young Harvey Biddleworth, has, for years, nursed the idea that the robe or perhaps the shirt-collar of some poet, either ancient or modern, or drunk, had fallen upon him. There was not the slightest reason why he should have en- tertained such an idea, except on one occasion at school when girl who was attempting to write May poem asked some one what would best rhyme with please. Biddleworth who vas standing near saw his chance Of making . repu. tatiou and replied, "cheese." This mental exploit vas reported to old man Biddleworth, who with the great high tide of fathers hope, declared that his son should take poetical course. The neighborhood school had no such orna- mental trimming, but the old gentleman, declaring that the inefficiency oi the com mon school system should not hold back his son from an empyrean flight, decided to hire poet at his own expense. Shortly after an advertisement, headed "A Poet Wanted and Wanted Bad," had been in- serted in the village newspaper, a tramp printer presented himself a, the house of MT. Biddleworth and applied for the position.
 You don't look like a poet" said the old man.
 "No, neither did Milton, but he got of some putty good things"
 "But it peers to me that 2 poet ought to have on better clothes than you've got"
 "Ah, my dear sir, the soul that ia- spires poetry, ignores the Aimsy coverings snatched from the sheep and the cotton stalk"
 "I am sorry of that, for ifl employ you I'll want you to dress leetle better"
 "Well, to accommodate you, I'll put on any raiment that you may bring forth. Where Is the charge to keep you have the boy. An, is that he, the noble strip ling whom see agoniIing with the mule Y''
 "Yes."
 "Call him hither."
 "That ain't his name. call him Harvey, airter his uncle what killed the mad dog"
 The printer was employed. He showed letters of recommendation from Long, fellow, Whittier and Ella Wheeler. The old man spoke of the fact that they seemed to have been written by the same hand, but his suspicious were allayed when the tramp assured him that ali great poets wrote in the same way, and that the most thoroughly educated chi rogra phic detective could not point to any dissimilarity between the pen work of Shakespeare and the Rev. Dr. Bur chard. The lint room of the gin house was fitted up for the accommodation Of the poet and his student. The quarters were not strange to the poet. He had leaked inspiration in many a gin house. It was the influence of the gin house that had tipped his nose and reddened his immortal eye. AhoS: sS so:: :!a.e: .he institution was called to order, the student might have been seen crossing the lot with a jug, but he wasn't seen by the old man. Some time during the after. noon, Mir. BiddIeworth paid the poetry shop formal call. The poet was in ex- cellent humor and the student laughed with the inspiration of great glee.
 Have you writ anything yitS"
 @Oh, yes," replied the poet Listen to this :''
 He then read Cray's " Elegy," which he had copied.
 "Thatll do putty well far a starter," said the old man, but O co'se you can do better airter a while. Hos much did the boy write r
 "Wrote the last half," replied the poet.
 ~Uh, huh. Wall, hold him down to his work am think that he'li make the poet O Arkznsaw."
 "i think %, sir. Send us up lunch after a while"
 The poet was given the best room in the house, and, at his suggestion, young chickens and an occasional pig were slaughtered.
 .Thought I'd drap in to see you" said she old man one day, when the poetry works were about . week old.