The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-10-03
HONEST ABE, U. S. M.
The Fall Market for Poetry Has
Opened.

When I rode forth on my route the
other morning the first frost OF ran was
on the grass-the meadow larh Wao
tuning up-the lambkins were klcklm iIS
up their heels, ana L answered. the N'i-7
of the crows with:
ooh the farmers digging 'taters ana
a-husking of his corn,
And the apples hanging red upon the
trees;
The cabbage heads are sold, the car
rots good and ripe,
And I can smell the pumpkins Oh the
breeze.
It was good to be alive.
1t was good to be a rural mail car
rier
1t was good to be poet.
He Meets Up With Matrimony.
Ar was passing Farmer Jolly's barn
ard he came out of the barn and called
TO me, and when l had halted anu ne
had reached the gate, he said:
well, Abe, it's took place
Hogs down with the cholera? L
asked.
married to Jim Travers last night
Nor
..Sure's you live! Yes. sir, married by
tho Raptist preacher at 9 o'clock in the
evening. and he said 1t was just as first
class as anything that had happened
for five years"
I'm glad of that. And they have
gone on a wedding trip"
We'll, they are going to town and
ride on the trolley cars and see a game
of baseball"
Il heard a week or two age that Jim
was talking of going to Kansas and
postponing the wedding for a year"
Yes, so did IT, grimly replied the
father of Mary. Yes. I heard so, and
h nd sal
Jim, Kansas is great state
Yes
It's a big state
Yes
1t has corn fields five miles long
so I've heard
"'And Teller who amt married is
mighty apt to get lost in one of them
and never be heard of again.
oh. 1 dunno.
But l do. You and Mary will be
married next Wednesday night, and
then if you want to go to Kansas we
shan't worry so much about you I
kinder think he's give up the idea.
Mary left word that you was to write
a poem for her. She always liked you.
you know
And so I rolled up my sleeves and
produced the following:
Mary Jolly and Jim Travers they met
at spelling school
They were struck upon each other right
away;
And soon he came accounting, and
twas a case of love,
That resulted in a marriage 'tother
day.
THE fertile fields of Kansas her Jim
will never see.
Beside his little wife he ever must
abide:
He will plant her fathers 'taters and
cut his festive hay.
And he happy and content with such a
bonnie, bonnie bride.
''There'll be kids to bless the union and
make a happy home.
And the cradle will be rocking night
and day;
And the cat will sit a-purring, and the
cricket on the hearth
Will keep the luck a-going when it
starts to come their way
\ Paregoric Episode.
Two houses below found the doc
tor in attendance upon Farmer White
and Mrs. White just coming out of a
fit. She had given her husband a dose
of the wrong medicine, and the doctor
had been called to save his life. The
patient had been assured that he
day, and he felt so good over it that
he said to me:
ABE, we are about the only family
on this road that you haven't wrote a
poem on"
But nothing has ever happened to
you to write about
Don't you call bein' pizened some
thing"
why, it might make a poem"
"Of course it will and you are goin'
to invent one or lose your job! You
must ring in about the wife havin' a
fit. We shall want to send copy of
it to relatives in Vermont
Mr.. White has slipped me many a
roll OF butter to keep my poetic ma
chinery creased up, and I wanted to
return his kindness. I therefore sat
down and wrote:
Farmer White he was a-plowing all
of the sandy sile.
And gettln' things Already to SOW
some winter wheat;
The hogs they was a-grunting. and the
calves were on the friSk,
And the scenery was Somethin' that
couldn't well be beat.
The farmer was a-whistlin' as he tore
up the sile-
His wife she was a-singin' as she
watched the dinner pot;
The roosters was a-crowin and the
hens were on the cluck
And it looked as if the farmer was
having luck red hot
AS sudden as the hornet lifts a mar
some three feet high