Bisbee daily review., 1907-11-05
Will CARLETON'S
HOMECOMING
PATHETIC
Old Neighbors In Michigan
Hold Festival to Greet the
Beloved Poet, Who Makes a
Feeling Address.

. HILLSDALE. Mich. Nov "A tall.
saiiow man Win twlnknDg eyes ana
a sensitive. homely mouth, stood on
the front porch of an old farmhouse
and talked to the neighbors ne had
known for three-score years. The
keen autumn wind blew his white
hair back from his forehead. The
Lenawee Hills. their slopes swathed
in blue haze, their heights radient with
the leaf crown of scarlet and gold,
smiled wanly upon the gentle scene.
The country people from a dozen
towns in the southern tier of Aiichi-
gan counties gazed with fond upturn-
ed faces into the eyes of the poet
whom they think of as peculiarly
their own-Win Carleton, who had
sung to them and their fathers of
over the Hill to the Poor House of
.Betsey and ! Are Out" out of the
Old House, Nancy" Gone With a
Handsomer Man" and Uncle Sam
my From the steps of the house
where he was born sixty-two years
ago he talked tenderly to them in his
own way and their own way He had
come back to them from his eastern
home for a day and they had come by
train and farm wagon 20 greet him
and tell him how proud of him they
were.
Il stand here frieds," he said, the
last of my race. Around us stretch
ed unbrokeE forest when first the
Carleton axes were heard here. l re-
member many a night when i've sat
out here and wondered il ] could ever
go TO Hillsdale college. It didn t
cost much in those days, but IL il
had cost a million dollars it would
have meant as much to me, for it WAS
money that had to be made | can re
member when the railroad that beara
the New York Central cars by this
door now was laid with rails Of haro
maple wood Later these ais we're
covered with strap iron that had a
way of curling up ahd s-pping its way
through the floor of the cac that made
the aisle of the car a T.cre desirable
place TO stanQ in al YOUR jou,He :
that the seats 70 sir l.!
"AlI morning the tIains that pass 4
hundred feet IRON the door OF the
Carleton homestead had made spe-
cial stop in the si! tx fields to an
load the pilgrims that had come to
participate in the homecoming festi.
val.
Father he continued, would new
er have believed that this farm would
ever become a railroad, no highways,
but, boys, Indians, plenty of them.
Always the Indians got friendly well
come at fathers door. An Indian, II
you treat him well, win remember
il just the same as he will remember
it if you treat him badly. / remem-
Der that progress finally forced the
tribe-and it was a gentle tribe-still
further West, old Chief Bawbeese
came to say good-by. He kissed the
children and he went through the
house and blessed everything. He
blessed the windows, blessed the
floor, blessed the roof, blessed the
table where he had often eaten and
then said solemnly; No bad blood
here He turned his face westward
and we saw him no more, for he weul
with his people into the path of the
setting sun"
The poet pointed with his long
arms across the yellow highway that
leads to the East between the drowsy
autumn fields. over there" he
Sammy Close. Some of you may VT
fIfFzf ss.s....eee .IIz1AA
Sammy IL certain poem of What
title that seems to have been success
fui in making our country smile. Well,
the real Sammy lived over there
you can almost see the top of his
house, and, like the Sammy in the
poem. was a great arguer. We used
!. III g.rN,
happiness he had enjoyed with the
two ladies' with whom he attempted
matrimonial experience was due to
the fact that he was too smart, as
we put it, too much of a debater.
Well. he's dead now, or l wouldn't tell
about him. There are a good many
people in Hudson that / have writ
ten about, but / took care never to
tell them about it until they were
dead.
over there TO the west, in Hills
dale, there stood in the old days a
county poor house, Sometimes | used
to visit the inmates there and hear
their troubles. And sometimes
used to see old people-old women,
yes, old women-who had put their
property into the hands of their chill
dren, passing up the road on their
way to the poorhouse on the other
side of the hill to the south of Hills
dale, about three miles. 1t was a
pretty considerable. large hill. had
thought much about the cruelty Of
children to parents, and when it came
time to write the poem called over
the Hill to the Poorhouse I may say
that 1t seemed fairly to write itself.
Ny mind, think / may say, has al
ways wandered that way--a single
idea has served as a sort of magnet
that gathers to itself all have ever
heard or seen or learned about the
subject ! have in hand Such was
the origin Of that poem"
NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR
U. s. PATENT.