The Wichita daily eagle., 1894-02-25
POETRY SAVED HER
NANCY YANKS TELLS OF A WOMAN
WITH A BLIGHTED LIFE
For Years She Wept SO Copiously
That the Farmers Had No Trouble
With Their Crops, but at Last
She Found Solace in the
Dictionary-Social Life.
Her life was blighted.

You could tell it was blIghted by he
looks. Have you ever seen field OF corr
that was blighted by hot winds, the leave!
all scar and yellow, and the tassels hanging
disconsolately in the breeze! Well, tha
is the way she looked.
Her draperies always hang in blighted
sort of way: her hair is arranged IN :
blighted fashion, and, OH that blghteC
look in her eyes! II would make the cold
shivers run down your spine on the Fourth
OF July.
How her life came to be bllghted in one
of the mysteries. IL will probably be
solved when Gabriel blows his trumpet;
but not before However, it is undoubt-
ediy blighted and will remain so until she
turns her toes up to the daisies. and her
swset soul ascends to the Heaven whence
it came, and where their are no bights.
| have heard old settlers say that when
the blight first came. she sat like Mariana
in the moated grange, all bundled up III I,
heap before her easement window.
Her tears fell with the dews of eve,
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried
Ia fact her tears got to be regular chest
nuts.
HE came. but be was the wrong man.
She said. j am weary, weary,
1 would that / were dead.
Perhaps she didn't know that this often
happens, and she wasn't the only one who
married somebody's else mate while the
mate intended for her married another
girl; but to hear her go on about it you
would think she WAS. That is the way
with some women, always making a great
fuss over every little thing that happens.
For one long summer she wept coutlnu-
'iy, until the air in her neighborhood was
ga "a MOIST that all the neIghbors raised mag
n;f, MT crops. Seeing this, they came and
nanJo ed with her, and If the fountain Of
- -, RS seemed about to dry up they
$50 faRlinUiV nf the nnbnnniDaSS
ber havin ,ai iiieu 'ho "Aohs Hn"n 'h"'
,he wept at. 'esh.
OId settle, say that they have never
s;nce r,ised N 'ch crops as they raised that
summer.
However she g. ew tired after so long
time of doing th, moated grange" act
and she said to herse, u IN a Wiz, hyS1erlcai
way, grasping her ha.: Inc N"oIIu owes
me haupiness. Ii has alven me unhappl-
ness. / will have revenge on the world.
II will write poetry aud send IL to the
daily papers
feyered brow. she cal led for the dictionary.
"Do not be Yash, hegged her friends
who were afraid shat the cessation OF her
tears would proGaee IL drouth ;,
Leave me-" she cried amaticaliy:
drawing her long, THU, transpare Mt hand
towards the door: Il will write poetry or
die" 80,
Let me say right here that she stlil
lives; but many of those who read IL DIED
Day after day she sat with the dlctlon-
Rry oD her knees-also plec, oil paper
and a pencil-she was looking 10 rhymes;
When she came to a word THAI fhyhleu
with dreaming, n smile flashed over her
sad, sweet face. She found many o. them;
seeming, teeming, cleaning, beamiL'e ahq
deeming 'Ahl" she sighed. why old
not begin to write poetry long ago. SO
easy; with all these beautiful words ria'ht
here in the dictionary"
And>so she had her revenge. sohe sen|
her poems to paper. and news being
scarce, they were suddenly sprung upon
an innocent, unsuspecting public.
People huddled together on street
corners and talked in low whispers.
What is the meaning OF those verses
20 full of dreaming aud scanning and
beaming?" they asked.
"Why cant you see that woman wrote
them whose life was blightedT' answered
an individal who was onto it.
I'VE knew there was blight on some
thing; but we thought IL was on the
verses" they said. Poor little woman,
and you say her life Is really blighted.
How die it happen?'
OF course nobody knew and nobody
knows to this day; but she eventually
came to be known the "dreamv-eyed
poetess with the blighted life"
NANCY YANKS.