“Thou liest, Nick, my little boy;
      For Hager’s bells I hear
    Like the bells of olden travel,
      Forgot upon mine ear. 
    In a wonderful thing once asked him
      Thy dear old daddy is sunk—­
    I have sot here a year and wondered
      Who the devil was Mr. Funk!”

II.

    “A year ago I was smoking,
      When a strange young fellow came by. 
    He was taking notes on paper,
      And the rum in his’n was rye. 
    Says he:  ‘I’m a writin’ a hist’ry’—­
      ’Twas then I thought he was drunk—­
    ’And I want to see your graveyard,
      And the tomb of your founder, Funk!’

    “I think if he’d sot there, sonny,
      I’d looked at him a week;
    But he wanished tow’rd the graveyard,
      Before your daddy could speak. 
    Directly back he tumbled,
      Before I had quit my stare,
    And he says:  ’I’m disappinted! 
      No Funk is buried in there.’

    “’The Funks is all up-country’—­
      That’s all I could think to say,
    ’There never was Funks in Funkstown,
      And there ain’t any Funks to-day.’ 
    ‘Why man,’ he says, ’the city
      That stands on Potomac’s shores
    Was settled by Funk, the elder,
      Who afterward settled yours!

    “’The Carrols, they bust him yonder;
      Old Hager, he bust him here;
    But my heart will bust till I find him,
      And make a sketch of his bier. 
    Oh shame on the Funkstown spirit
      That in Maryland does dwell!
    He wouldn’t consent to be buried
      Where you can keep a hotel.’”

III.

    “There’s John Stocklager, daddy,”
      Said young Nick, thinking much;
    “A hundred years he’s settled
      Amongst the mountain Dutch. 
    Ask him!” “Nay, young Nick Hammer,
      You young fellows run too fast: 
    I shall set out here a thinking,
      And maybe Funk’ll go past!”

IV.

    He drank and smoked and pondered,
      And deep in the mystery sunk;
    And the more Nick Hammer wondered
      The duller he grew about Funk. 
    The wagoners talked it over,
      And a new idea to trace
    Enlivened the dead old village
      Like a new house built in the place.

V.

    One day in June two wagons
      Came over Antietam bridge
    And a tall old man behind them
      Strode up the turnpike ridge. 
    His beard was long and grizzled,
      His face was gnarled and long,
    His voice was keen and nasal,
      And his mouth and eye were strong.