THE COURTIN’

    God makes sech nights, all white an’ still
      Fur ’z you can look or listen,
    Moonshine an’ snow on field an’ hill,
      All silence an’ all glisten.

    Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknown 5
      An’ peeked in thru’ the winder,
    An’ there sot Huldy all alone,
      With no one nigh to hender.

    A fireplace filled the room’s one side
      With half a cord o’ wood in,—­ 10
    There warn’t no stoves till comfort died,
      To bake ye to a puddin’.

    The wa’nut logs shot sparkles out
      Toward the pootiest, bless her! 
    An’ leetle flames danced all about 15
      The chiny on the dresser.

    Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
      An’ in amongst ’em rusted
    The ole queen’s-arm thet gran’ther Young
      Fetched back from Concord busted. 20

    The very room, coz she was in,
      Seemed warm from floor to ceilin’,
    An’ she looked full ez rosy agin
      Ez the apples she was peelin’.

    ‘Twas kin’ o’ kingdom-come to look 25
      On sech a blessed cretur,
    A dogrose blushin’ to a brook
      Ain’t modester nor sweeter.

    He was six foot o’ man, A 1,
      Clearn grit an’ human natur’; 30
    None couldn’t quicker pitch a ton
      Nor dror a furrer straighter.

    He’d sparked it with full twenty gals,
      Hed squired ’em, danced ’em, druv ’em,
    Fust this one, an’ then thet, by spells,—­ 35
      All is, he couldn’t love ’em.

    But long o’ her his veins ’ould run
      All crinkly like curled maple,
    The side she breshed felt full o’ sun
      Ez a south slope in Ap’il. 40

    She thought no v’ice hed sech a swing
      Ez hisn in the choir;
    My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
      She knowed the Lord was nigher.

    An’ she’d blush scarlit, right in prayer, 45
      When her new meetin’-bunnet
    Felt somehow thru’ its crown a pair
      O’ blue eyes sot upon it.

    Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! 
      She seemed to ’ve gut a new soul, 50
    For she felt sartin-sure he’d come. 
      Down to her very shoe-sole.

    She heered a foot, an’ knowed it tu,
      A-raspin’ on the scraper,—­
    All ways to once her feelins flew 55
      Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

    He kin’o’ l’itered on the mat,
      Some doubtfle o’ the sekle,
    His heart kep’ goin’ pity-pat,
      But hern went pity Zekle. 60

    An’ yit she gin her cheer a jerk
      Ez though she wished him furder,
    An’ on her apples kep’ to work,
      Parin’ away like murder.