The Brattleboro reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1907-1912, 1909-07-23
The MeddLer
"U the coat tifs yOa. put it on.

Will Carleton, the poet, has doubtless
touched more hearts in New England BY
his quaint and frank stories in verse OF
the sunshine and shadows of Yankee land
than has any other of the poets of the
present generation. In his book OF Farm
Festivals the following from the Festival
of Injustice, in which he describes law.
suit between two neighbors, Brown and
White, tends to show how Mr. Carleton
is inclined to get down to the raw when
he makes an attempt to do so:
Whites lawyer was, when fairly
weighed,
The meanest of that tempted trade;
With all the vices of his clan,
And not virtue known to man.
In almost every calling, he
Had shown how little man can be.
with his frouzed head and lantern jaw
He'd finally drifted toward the law
(Not to it-candor must admit
But only just in sight of it,;
And so he took a deadhead trip,
On pettifoggery's pirate ship"
If Mr.. Carleton had found sufficient
time to put his thoughts into rhyme he
might possibly have INDUCED in poeticai
license in explaining why he was sojourn-
ing at Newfane last week but as he was
too busy listening to and answering ques-
lions, even to throw a pose for the bene-
fit of the maid in the gallery who car
TONED the court and principals apologies
are due Mr.. Carleton for the following:
Niles had farm he boosted o'er
Value 5000-maybe more.
Carleton an equity possessed
Value 500-maybe less.
Niles vowed in words intensely deep
That Carleton owed him quite a heap.
Carleton, unconvnced and anger-eyed
Insisted that someone had lied
Niles's lawyer skirmished day and night
Vowing he'd trim Carleton on sight.
Chase brought the suit for DR.. Niles,
Barber fought Chase with all his wiles.
Thus are the reasons jotted down
For the famous suit in Newfane town.
It's barely possible that the suit has
got on the poets nerves to the extent
that the mortgage did on those of the
man in one of his poems For instance:
I've worked in New York and Newfane-
through summer and through fall
But that blamed lawsuit labor's the hard
est after all;
1t works on nights and Sundays-even
on holidays
1t has settled down beside me and it new
er goes away.
Whatever I'll save from the wreck will
seem almost as bad as theft;
1t watches me every minute and it rules
me right and left.
The rust and the blight are with me
sometimes, and sometimes not;
But the dark -browed, scowling lawsuit is
Johnny on the-spot.
The weevil and the cut-worm, they go as
well as come;
The lawsuit isn't quitter-eats hearty,
rain or sun.
It's nailed up every window, stands guard
at every door
And happiness and sunshine have cut me
out for sure.
can see the day coming when I'll get
stalled pom the grade.
I'll hand 'em hard-luck story when the
costs have not been paid;
There's got to come showdown when
I've dead sure lost my hold,
Some day I'll grow weary and quit-the
farm will be cheaply sold.
A bucket-shop or yeggman may trim
you to a fall
But for frst-class ruination trust lawyers
'gainst them all
Mr. Carleton shook hands with. the
court when the case was finished at New
fame early this week and patting his OPP
ponent's LAWYER on the head whispered
some waspish and waggish bit of advice.
Then he strolled out of the court room
unruff1ed by the CROSSE examination he had
undergone and apparently unaffected by
the heat As he sauntered to the hotel
someone intimated that the poet was not
half bad in taking punishment at the
hands of a cross-examiner. With q
shrug of his shoulders and Just slight
suspicion of ennui Mr. Carleton wan
dered away humming the words of his
poem:
Let him set his mouth arunnin' just in
side my outside gate;
And I'll bet two hundred dollars that he
don't have long to wait"
Tho Maddler