Jason drives a sorrel mare,
Bones an’ skin at all her j’ints,
“Blooded stock,” says Jase; “I swear,
Jest see how she shows her p’ints!
Walkin’ ’s her best lay,” says he,
Eyes a-twinklin’ full of fun,
“Named her Keely Motor. See?
Sich hard work ter make her run.”
Jason’s jest the slickest scamp,
Full of jokes as he can hold;
Says he beats Aladdin’s lamp,
Givin’ out new stuff fer old;
“Buy your rags fer more ’n they’re
worth,
Give yer bran’-new, shiny tin,
I’m the softest snap on earth,”
Says old Jason, with a grin.
Jason gits the women’s ear
Tellin’ news and talkin’ dress;
Can ‘t be peddlin’ forty year
An’ not know ’em more or less;
Children like him; sakes alive!
Why, my Jim, the other night,
Says, “When I git big I’ll drive
Peddler’s cart, like Jason White!”
* * * * *
“SARY EMMA’S PHOTYGRAPHS”
Our Sary Emma is possessed ter be at somethin’
queer;
She’s allers doin’ loony things, unheard
of fur and near.
One time there wa’n’t no limit ter the
distance she would tramp
Ter get a good-fer-nothin’, wuthless, cancelled
postage-stamp;
Another spell folks couldn’t rest ontil, by
hook or crook,
She got ’em all ter write their names inside
a leetle book;
But though them fits was bad enough, the wust is nowadays,
Fer now she’s got that pesky freak, the photygraphin’
craze.
She had ter have a camera—and them things
cost a sight—
So she took up subscriptions fer the “Woman’s
Home Delight”
And got one fer a premium—a blamed new-fangled
thing,
That takes a tin-type sudden, when she presses on
a spring;
And sence she got it, sakes alive! there’s nothin’
on the place
That hain’t been pictured lookin’ like
a horrible disgrace:
The pigs, the cows, the horse, the colt, the chickens
large and small;
She goes a-gunnin’ fer ’em, and she bags
’em, one and all.
She tuk me once a-settin’ up on top a load er
hay:
My feet shets out the wagon, and my head’s a
mile away;
She took her Ma in our back yard, a-hanging out the
clothes,
With hands as big as buckets, and a face that’s
mostly nose.
A yard of tongue and monstrous teeth is what she calls
a dog;
The cat’s a kind er fuzzy-lookin’ shadder
in a fog;
And I’ve got a suspicion that what killed the
brindle calf
Was that he seen his likeness in our Sary’s
photygraph.
She’s “tonin’,” er “develerpin’,”
er “printin’,” ha’f the time;
She’s allers buyin’ pasteboard ter mount
up her latest crime:
Our front room and the settin’-room is like
some awful show,
With freaks and framed outrages stuck all ’round
’em in a row:
But soon I’ll take them picters, and I’ll
fetch some of ’em out
And hang ’em ’round the garden when the
corn begins ter sprout;
We’ll have no crows and blackbirds ner that
kind er feathered trash,
’Cause them photygraphs of Sary’s, they
beat scarecrows all ter smash.