The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-06-11
CHAPTER XVII.
Daddy Withers, Post.

f-a~AE ELL we had pork and greens HAIL fur dinner that day, with the lH best, corn bread I ever eat any where's, and buttermilk and sweet potato pie. We got lem at the house of feller named Withers-old Daddy Withers. Which if they was ever nicer old man than him or a nicer old woman than his wife never run acrost 'em yet.
 They lived all alone, them W1therses, with only a couple of niggers to help them run their farm. After we eats our dinner and Sam gets hfs'n out to the. kitchen we sets out in front of the house and gets to talking with them and gets real we'll acquainted Which we soon found out the secret of old Daddy Withers' lffe-that there 1nno- cent looking old 1igger wes poet. He was Kind of proud of it and kind of shamed of it both to oncet. The way it come out was when the doctor says one of them quotations he is always getting off. and the oIda man he looks pleased and says the rest of the piece it dropped out of straight through.
 Then they had q great time quoting 1t at each other, them two, and I seen the doctor is good to loaf around there the rest of the day like as not Purty soon the old lady begins to get mighty proud looking over something or other, and she leans over and whispers to the old man:
 ''ShaH bring it out. Lemuel ?"
 The old man he shakes his head no. But she slips into the house anyhow and fetches out a little book with a pale green cover to it and hands 1t to the doctor.
 
 looking at the old man, you don't mean to say you write verse yourself 2''
 The old man he gets red all over his face.
 Mother" he says. ''yo' shouldn't have done thati'' They had had boy years before, and he had died, but he always called her mother the same as if the boy was living. But he looks at Dr. Kirby out of the corner of his eyes and can't keep from getting sort of eager and trembIy with his pipe and I could see he was really anxious over what the doctor was thinking of them poems he wrote. The doctor reads some of lem out loud.
 Well, it was kind of homemade poetry, old Daddy Withers' was. It wasn't like no other poetry I ever struck. And could tell the doctor WAS JaA4k1I2 Jl0 Sdn0N dDOUG It sounded somehow like it hadn't been jointed together right. But Dr. Kirby he let on like he thought it was fine poetry and he read them pieces over and over agin out loud, and the old man and the old woman was both mighty tickled with the way he done 1t. He wouldn't of had lem know fur anything he didn't believe 1t was the finest poetry ever wrote, Dr. Kirby wouldn't.
 They was four little books of it alto gether. slim books that looked as if they hadn't had enough to eat. like a stray cat whose ribs is rubbing to- gether. It had cost Daddy Withers $500 apiece to get lem published. A feIler in Boston charged him that much, he said. It seems he would go along fur years raking and scraping of his money together so as to get enough ahead to get out another book Each time he had his hopes the big newspapers would mebby pay some attention to it and he would get recog- nized
 But they never did, said the old man, kind of sad s.it always fell fat.''
 Why, fatherr'-the old lady begins and finishes by running back into the house agin. She is out in a minute with clipping from a newspaper and hands it over to Dr. Kirby, as proud as a kid with copper toed boots. The doctor reads it ali the way through, and then he hands it sback without saying a word. The old lady goes away to fiddle around about the house work purty soon. and the old man looks at the doctor and says:
 Well, you see, don't you?''
 "Y@,'' says the doctor, very gentle.
 'T wouldn't have her know for the world" says Daddy Withers- "I know and you know that newspaper piece is just simply poking fun at my poetry and making a fool of me the whole