35

As the artist in his painting
  Plans the background to enhance
All the beauty of his subject
  Both in pose and countenance,
So the poor and dark interior
  Lent its gloom to magnify
All the power and witching beauty
  Of her face and lustrous eye. 
Standing there, a pictured goddess
  Sketched against a lowering storm,
Bearing on her pallid features
  That supernal gift of calm.

36

“Nancy!  Woman!  God in heaven,
  Speak, girl!  Can this thing be true? 
Are you here with that—­that scoundrel,
  After all that I’ve gone through? 
Do you stand there, fiend or human,
  After lending him your hand,
First to break an honest spirit,
  Then to steal away my land? 
Must a man who loves a woman
  Like a devil’s imp be driven
Through the tortures of damnation
  For a single glimpse of heaven? 
Tell me where the cur is hiding—­
  I’ve no wish to hurt his bride,
But I’ll braid a twelve-foot bull whip
  From his dirty, yaller hide!

37

“Speak to me and tell me, woman,
  How the God in heaven above
Starts the fires of hell a-burning
  From a spark of human love;
Why He ever made a woman
  Who could play a fickle part;
Why He ever made a fellow
  With his soul tied to his heart;
Why He made life just a gamble—­
  I can’t talk the way I feel—­
In the game that I’ve been playing,
  You know this ain’t no square deal! 
I will go away and leave you,
  But ‘twould kind o’ ease the pain
If you’d only tell me, Nancy—­
  If you’d try—­to—­just explain.

[Illustration:  “Standing there, a pictured goddess Sketched against a lowering storm.”]

38

“If you wouldn’t stand there looking
  With a face of livid white
Like the specter of the prairie
  That I saw one horrid night,
Riding through the endless darkness
  Like a being doomed from birth
Just to roam outside of heaven
  And denied a place on earth. 
Say one word to me!  Speak, Nancy,
  If you have a voice and live! 
Tell the worst, e’en though you ask me
  To be patient and forgive. 
I will listen—­I will suffer—­
  I will do the best I can;
Nancy, sweetheart! hear the pleading
  Of a broken-hearted man,”

39

“See here, Billy!  You gone crazy? 
  Charging like you got a fit? 
Johnson ain’t in—­just at present—­
  Won’t you stop and rest a bit? 
Don’t act strange.  There’s no hard feelings,
  Though I’ve never seen before
Any man that knocked like you did
  On a peaceful neighbor’s door. 
Come right in; now, don’t be backward,
  Like old times to have you ’round! 
You look tired, like you’d traveled
  Over quite a stretch of ground. 
Sit right here in this old rocker;
  Johnson fixed it up one day,
Feeling certain you would never
  Come meandering ’round this way.