Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1904-01-09

Yca may capture the notes Of the gray
meadow lark
Arsl praise up the notes of the jay
You may tell of the rose as il blooms by
the door;
You may talk of the tulip and pink;
You may Gull me the choicest and rarest
| of blooms
But I shall continue to think
That nothing on earth can compare with
my Jane.
Oh, would that I now stood beside her
To show to the world the tumul-tu-ous
| love
I've got for the wilder named Snyder!
| Uncle Josh had sat beside me at the
| trying to read line without his
! glasses and again gazing into vacancy
and uttering long signs When l had
finished l read the poem to him and
asked how he liked it.
"Abe," he replied as he brought his
fist down on the table. 'the Wilder
| Snyder is mine from this hour. There
| hain't no wilder on earth who kin
stand up ag'in sich poetry as that. It'll
wobble her from head to heel, and all
| I've got to do is to foller it up by ask
| in her to have me. By thunder, Abe,
| but I'll put them verses agin any mans
million dollars and win out. If I'd sot
down and tried for million years l
couldn't have done half so WELL"
"Were your hair and whiskers dyed
when you called at the widows" 1
asked as he followed me out to the
gate.
NO. Abe, and Pm leetle bothered
about that She'll see in a mint that
there has been a change, and mebbe
to think I'm vain, you know, but what
can / tell herr"
"That you were struck by lightning.
| 1t always turns white hair black. Tell
her that a thunderbolt knocked you
down while you were splitting rails"
"I'll do it, Abe. It did thunder the
other day, and she must have heard it.
Yes, was knocked over by blamed
big thunderbolt, but all the harm it
did was to turn my hair and whiskers
black and set me back to thirty-fve
years old. There amt no flies on you,
young man."
Uncle Josh was to copy and send the
poem off that afternoon, and he thought
he should have an answer in a couple
of days. He did have one. Two days
later he stopped me at the barnyard
and beckoned me into the barn. l no.
ticed that he was pale and agitated,
and / feared that Sarah or Bill might
be seriously i'll.
"I've got an answer from the Wilder
Snyder" he said as his chin quivered.
ooh, see! Well, what is it?'
For answer he took from his pocket
folded sheet OF foolscap and handed
it to me. A woman's hand had used a
pencil to write:
| You may tell me of donkeys and asses and
SIGH.
OF men who have wheels in their head:
You may sing me the song Of the cid gan
I der goose
f. Or the calf who is i'll in his bed:
You may tell me Of Meadow and valleys
t. and rills;
You may talk of the surf on the shore;
You may send me car load of roses and
pinks
| And tempt me with pansies galore,
But I shall still think as the days fee
away
And the winds of old winter doth sigh
That the fool of a man who taketh the
cake
Is the fool who resorts to the dye.
"Abe, what does it mean?" trem-
blingly asked Uncle Josh as l handed
him back the paper.
'It means that the Widow Snyder
doesn't want to become the Mrs
White" / replied.
"She turns me down. does she?"
''She does
"And 1 go back to seventy-two years
again, don't ~
81 guess you do"
"And you won't mistake me for my
son again?"
mot hardly"
"Waal, I'll go and git soft soap and
hartshorn and wash off this dye and
let the Wilder Snyder go to Texas
And-and"-
"And what?' l asked. :.
"You kin go there too"
NJ QUAD.