Chapter V

Nights by the kitchen-stove,
Shellin' white and red
Corn in the skillet, and
Sleepin' four abed!
Ah! the jolly winters
Of the long-ago!
We were not as old as now--
O! No! No!

JUNE

O queenly month of indolent repose!
I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume,
As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom
I nestle like a drowsy child and doze
The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws
The shifting shuttle of the Summer's loom
And weaves a damask-work of gleam and gloom
Before thy listless feet. The lily blows
A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade;
And, wheeling into ranks, with plume and spear,
Thy harvest-armies gather on parade;
While, faint and far away, yet pure and clear,
A voice calls out of alien lands of shade:--
All hail the Peerless Goddess of the Year!

THE TREE-TOAD

"'S cur'ous-like," said the tree-toad,
"I've twittered fer rain all day;
And I got up soon,
And hollered tel noon--
But the sun, hit blazed away,
Tell I jest clumb down in a crawfish-hole,
Weary at hart, and sick at soul!

"Dozed away fer an hour,
And I tackled the thing agin:
And I sung, and sung,
Tel I knowed my lung
Was jest about give in;
And THEN, thinks I, ef hit don't rain NOW,
They's nothin' in singin', anyhow!

"Onc't in a while some farmer
Would come a-drivin' past;
And he'd hear my cry,
And stop and sigh--
Tel I jest laid back, at last,
And I hollered rain tel I thought my th'oat
Would bust wide open at ever' note!

"But I FETCHED her!--O _I_ FETCHED her!--
'Cause a little while ago,
As I kindo' set,
With one eye shet,
And a-singin' soft and low,
A voice drapped down on my fevered brain,
A-sayin',--'EF YOU'LL JEST HUSH I'LL RAIN!'"

A SONG OF LONG AGO

A song of Long Ago:
Sing it lightly--sing it low--
Sing it softly--like the lisping of the lips we
used to know
When our baby-laughter spilled
From the glad hearts ever filled
With music blithe as robin ever trilled!

Let the fragrant summer breeze,
And the leaves of locust-trees,
And the apple-buds and blossoms, and the
wings of honey-bees,
All palpitate with glee,
Till the happy harmony
Brings back each childish joy to you and me.

Let the eyes of fancy turn
Where the tumbled pippins burn
Like embers in the orchard's lap of tangled
grass and fern,--
There let the old path wind
In and out and on behind
The cider-press that chuckles as we grind.

Blend in the song the moan
Of the dove that grieves alone,
And the wild whir of the locust, and the
bumble's drowsy drone;
And the low of cows that call
Through the pasture-bars when all
The landscape fades away at evenfall.

Then, far away and clear,
Through the dusky atmosphere,
Let the wailing of the killdee be the only
sound we hear:
O sad and sweet and low
As the memory may know
Is the glad-pathetic song of Long Ago!

OLD WINTERS ON THE FARM

I have jest about decided
It 'ud keep a town-boy hoppin'
Fer to work all winter, choppin'
Fer a' old fireplace, like I did!
Lawz! them old times wuz contrairy!--
Blame' backbone o' winter, 'peared-like
WOULDN'T break!--and I wuz skeered-like
Clean on into FEB'UARY!
Nothin' ever made me madder
Than fer Pap to stomp in, layin'
In a' extra forestick, say'in',
"Groun'-hog's out and seed his shadder!"

ROMANCIN'

I' b'en a-kindo' "musin'," as the feller says, and I'm
About o' the conclusion that they hain't no better
time,
When you come to cipher on it, than the times we ust to
know
When we swore our first "dog-gone-it" sorto' solum-like
and low!

You git my idy, do you?--LITTLE tads, you understand--
Jest a-wishin' thue and thue you that you on'y wuz a
MAN.--
Yit here I am, this minit, even sixty, to a day,
And fergittin' all that's in it, wishm' jest the other way!

I hain't no hand to lectur' on the times, er dimonstrate
Whare the trouble is, er hector and domineer with Fate,--
But when I git so flurried, and so pestered-like and blue,
And so rail owdacious worried, let me tell you what I
do!--

I jest gee-haw the hosses, and onhook the swingle-tree,
Whare the hazel-bushes tosses down theyr shadders over
me;
And I draw my plug o' navy, and I climb the fence, and
set
Jest a-thinkin' here, i gravy' tel my eyes is wringin'-wet!

Tho' I still kin see the trouble o' the PRESUNT, I kin see--
Kindo' like my sight wuz double-all the things that
UST to be;
And the flutter o' the robin and the teeter o' the wren
Sets the willer-branches bobbin' "howdy-do" thum Now
to Then!

The deadnin' and the thicket's jest a-bilin' full of June,
From the rattle o' the cricket, to the yallar-hammer's
tune;
And the catbird in the bottom, and the sapsuck on the
snag,
Seems ef they can't-od-rot 'em!-jest do nothin' else
but brag!

They's music in the twitter of the bluebird and the jay,
And that sassy little critter jest a-peckin' all the day;
They's music in the "flicker," and they's music in the
thrush,
And they's music in the snicker o' the chipmunk in the
brush!

They's music all around me!--And I go back, in a dream
Sweeter yit than ever found me fast asleep,--and in the
stream
That list to split the medder whare the dandylions
growed,
I stand knee-deep, and redder than the sunset down the
road.

Then's when I' b'en a-fishin'!--And they's other fellers,
too,
With theyr hick'ry-poles a-swishin' out behind 'em; and
a few
Little "shiners" on our stringers, with theyr tails tip--
toein' bloom,
As we dance 'em in our fingers all the happy jurney
home.

I kin see us, true to Natur', thum the time we started out,
With a biscuit and a 'tater in our little "roundabout"!--
I kin see our lines a-tanglin', and our elbows in a jam,
And our naked legs a-danglin' thum the apern o' the dam.

I kin see the honeysuckle climbin' up around the mill,
And kin hear the worter chuckle, and the wheel a-growl-
in' still;
And thum the bank below it I kin steal the old canoe,
And jest git in and row it like the miller ust to do.

W'y, I git my fancy focussed on the past so mortul plane
I kin even smell the locus'-blossoms bloomin' in the lane;
And I hear the cow-bells clinkin' sweeter tunes 'n
"Money-musk"'
Fer the lightnin' bugs a-blinkin' and a-dancin' in the dusk.

And when I've kep' on "musin'," as the feller says, tel I'm
Firm-fixed in the conclusion that they haint no better
time,
When you come to cipher on it, than the old times,--I
de-clare
I kin wake and say "dog-gone-it'" jest as soft as any
prayer!

End of Project Gutenberg's Riley Farm-Rhymes, by James Whitcomb Riley