The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-01-22
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BIT JAY E. HOUSE.
tFrom Philadelphia Public Ledgsr.J
Anthology Of Yankee Ridge.
Ada Aldich.

Ada Aldrich.
There is no tragedy approaching
hat
OF woman's beauty turned to clay.
One thing / de not care
To look upon
Is ruins OF a face and form divine
And while I often wonder
What became of her-what sort OF
land
Fate dealt her
I do not think I'd care
To see her.
AS 1 recall her. the lily
Is feeble synonym.
Born of a genius and q gentle
mother,
She had beauty, charm and grace.
Reposeful and we'll poised.
She had an air and was apart
So far apart-that more than likely
No presumptious yokel, urged on
BY ego and desire, had ever tried
To kiss her.
It's many years since last saw her,
And tho keep her memory
In friendliness and fondnees,
do not think I'd care
To meet her now.
hope she's happy and content,
It may well be
That she's retained
The FURNISHED glory of the dover
Which nature gave her-but
OF ,woman's beauty turned to clay.
do not care to stake the memory
OF her starlit hair,
Curling in tendrils on
The napery of her neck
Upon the outside chance
That I might look upon the ruins
OF a face and form divine.
BpI Dye.
I went to see Bill Dye,
Walking east by northeast
To the city limit
Where Bili sold groceries and such
To those who dealt in promises
And paid in pennies.
Upon a time
Bill was my closest friend.
My boon companion.
We shared each others
Utmost thoughts; to each
The other had revealed
The bastard sin which marked his
life.
Our paths diverged. but after twen-
ty years
I went to see Bill DYE.
I hoped to talk to Bill
OF other days.
Mine was the thought to scout along
Inc reminiscent vein, revealing
Nuggets here and there
That glistened In the telling.
Bill scarcely knew me;
At least he wasn't sure,
And SO I sat upon a cracker box
me while he served his customers,
That being the way he made his
living
3 In time there came to BsII
A moment of repose
He took me out into the shed
Behind the store.
To show the scar the surgeons
made
And when Old Bill
Had talked about his operation
He was all thru and knew no more
Walking back to town,
West by southwest, I wondered why
I'd gone at all, and then 1 knew
I'd learned thing. 1t was
friend
For twenty years
Don't go at all.
Charlie Harbaugh.
They say he died too young,
But / am not so sure about IL.
Already he'd achieved a competence.
Within the metes and bounds
Which circumscribe a state
He'd won both prominence
And fame.
He'd loved woman who returned
IN kind
His passion for her
The community In which he lived
Esteemed and honored him.
They say he died too young,
But am not so sure about it.
What had been his
Was all the world can give.
Had he lived on
He might have lost II.
Mack Trent.
The first six of his children
Were girls. 1t made Mack
A sort of joke.
A good many men consider II funny
If a man has all girls
And no boys,
And they are prone to make
Rude and ribald Jests about it,
And also played the fiddle little
When he had the leisure to do SO,
Which was not often.
Six girls can keep one blacksmith
Tolerably busy pounding iron.
He had odd notions about music
One was that all music
Had the same time.
Another was that the more notes
A performer put into his piece
The better it was.
So Mack's fiddling had a good many
Notes in it. which is about all
One can say for II.
After many years Mack emerged
from
The obloquy in which his neighbors
Had shrouded him.
His seventh born was a son
And Mack threw off
Twenty years of life. He ceased
% be
The subject of ribaldry
And stepped around like a young
colt.
The boy grew UP fine and manly.
When the war broke out
He enlisted
And was sent to Funston.
Three weeks later
He died of "fIue."