Ez fur ez human foresight goes, we made an even trade: 
  She gut an overseer, an’ I a fem’ly ready-made,
  (The youngest on ’em’s ‘most growed up,) rugged an’ spry ez weazles,
  So’s ‘t ther’ ‘s no resk o’ doctors’ bills fer hoopin’-cough an’
          measles. 
  Our farm’s at Turkey-Buzzard Roost, Little Big Boosy River,
  Wal located in all respex,—­fer ’t ain’t the chills ‘n’ fever
  Thet makes my writin’ seem to squirm; a Southuner’d allow I’d
  Some call to shake, for I’ve jest hed to meller a new cowhide.

  Miss S. is all ‘f a lady; th’ ain’t no better on Big Boosy,
  Ner one with more accomplishmunts ‘twixt here an’ Tuscaloosy;
  She’s an F.F., the tallest kind, an’ prouder ‘n the Gran’ Turk,
  An’ never hed a relative thet done a stroke o’ work;
  Hern ain’t a scrimpin’ fem’ly sech ez you git up Down East,
  Th’ ain’t a growed member on ’t but owes his thousuns et the least: 
  She is some old; but then agin ther’ ’s drawbacks in my sheer;
  Wut’s left o’ me ain’t more ’n enough to make a Brigadier: 
  The wust is, she hez tantrums; she is like Seth Moody’s gun
  (Him thet wuz nicknamed frum his limp Ole Dot an’ Kerry One);
  He’d left her loaded up a spell, an’ hed to git her clear,
  So he onhitched,—­Jeerusalem! the middle o’ last year
  Wuz right nex’ door compared to where she kicked the critter tu
  (Though jest where he brought up wuz wut no human never knew);
  His brother Asaph picked her up an’ tied her to a tree,
  An’ then she kicked an hour ‘n’ a half afore she’d let it be: 
  Wal, Miss S. doos hev cuttins-up an’ pourins-out o’ vials,
  But then she hez her widder’s thirds, an’ all on us hez trials. 
  My objec’, though, in writin’ now warn’t to allude to sech,
  But to another suckemstance more dellykit to tech,—­
  I want thet you should grad’lly break my merriage to Jerushy,
  An’ ther’ ’s a heap of argymunts thet’s emple to indooce ye: 
  Fust place, State’s Prison,—­wal, it’s true it warn’t fer crime, o’
          course,
  But then it’s jest the same fer her in gittin’ a disvorce;
  Nex’ place, my State’s secedin’ out hez leg’lly lef’ me free
  To merry any one I please, pervidin’ it’s a she;
  Fin’lly, I never wun’t come back, she needn’t hev no fear on ’t,
  But then it ’s wal to fix things right fer fear Miss S. should hear
          on ’t;
  Lastly, I’ve gut religion South, an’ Rushy she’s a pagan
  Thet sets by th’ graven imiges o’ the gret Nothun Dagon;
  (Now I hain’t seen one in six munts, for, sence our Treasury Loan,
  Though yaller boys is thick anough, eagles hez kind o’ flown;)
  An’ ef J. wants a stronger pint than them thet I hev stated,
  Wy, she’s an aliun in’my now, an’ I’ve ben cornfiscated,—­
  For sence we’ve entered on th’ estate o’ the late nayshnul eagle,
  She hain’t no kin’ o’ right but jest wut I allow ez legle: 
  Wut doos Secedin’ mean, ef’t ain’t thet nat’rul rights hez riz, ‘n’
  Thet wut is mine’s my own, but wut’s another man’s ain’t his’n?