The Aged Stranger

"I WAS with Grant--" the stranger said;

Said the farmer, "Say no more,

But rest thee here at mt cottage porch,

For thy feet are weary and sore."

"I was with Grant--" the stranger said;

Said the farmer, "Nay, no more,--

I pirthee sit at my frugal board,

And eat of my humble store.

"How fares my boy,--my soldier boy,

Of the old Ninth Army Corps?

I warrant he bore him gallantly

In the smoke and the battle's roar!"

"I knew him not," said the aged man,

"And, as I remarked before,

"I was with Grant--" "Nay, nay, I know,"

Said the farmer, "Say no more:

"He fell in battle,--I see, alas!

Thou'dst smooth these tidings o'er,--

Nay, speak the truth, whatever it be,

Though it rend my bosom's core.

"How fell he?--with his face to the foe,

Upholding the flag he bore?

Oh, say not that my boy disgraced

The uniform that he wore!"

"I cannot tell," said the aged man,

"And should have remarked before

That I was with Grant--in Illinois--

Some three years before the war."

Then the farmer spake him never a word,

But beat with his fist full sore

That aged man, who had worked for Grant

Some three years before the war!

Bret Harte

Dickens in Camp

ABOVE the pines the moon was slowly drifting,

  The river sang below;

The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting

  Their minarets of snow.

The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted

  The ruddy tints of health

On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted

  In the fierce race for wealth;

Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure

  A hoarded volume drew,

And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure

  To hear the tale anew.

And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,

  And as the firelight fell,

He read aloud the book wherein the Master

  Had writ of "Little Nell."

Perhaps 't was boyish fancy,--for the reader

  Was youngest of them all,--

But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar

  A silence seemed to fall;

The fir-tree, gathering closer in the shadows,

  Listened in every spray,

While the whole camp with "Nell" on English meadows

  Wandered and lost their way.

And so in mountain solitudes--o'ertaken

  As by some spell divine--

Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken

  From out the gusty pine.

Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire;

  And he who wrought that spell?

Ah! towering pine and stately Kentish spire,

  Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story

  Blend with the breath that thrills

With hop-vine's incense all the pensive glory

  That fills the Kentish hills.

And on that grave where English oak and holly

  And laurel wreaths entwine,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,

  This spray of Western pine!

Bret Harte

Coyote

BLOWN out of the prairie in twilight and dew,

Half bold and half timid, yet lazy all through;

Loath ever to leave, and yet fearful to stay,

He limps in the clearing, an outcast in gray.

A shade on the stubble, a ghost by the wall,

Now leaping, now limping, now risking a fall,

Lop-eared and large-jointed, but ever alway

A thoroughly vagabond outcast in gray.

Here, Carlo, old fellow,--he's one of your kind,--

Go, seek him, and bring him in out of the wind.

What! snarling, my Carlo! So even dogs may

Deny their own kin in the outcast in gray.

Well, take what you will--though it be on the sly,

Marauding or begging,--I shall not ask why,

But will call it a dole, just to help on his way

A four-footed friar in orders of gray!

Bret Harte

Mrs. Judge Jenkins

MAUD Muller all that summer day

Raked the meadows sweet with hay;

Yet, looking down the distant lane,

She hoped the Judge would come again.

But when he came, with smile and bow,

Maud only blushed, and stammered, "Ha-ow?"

And spoke of her "pa," and wondered whether

He'd give consent they should wed together.

Old Muller burst into tears, and then

Begged that the Judge would lend him "ten";

For trade was dull, and wages low,

And the "craps", this year, were somewhat slow.

And ere the languid summer died,

Sweet Maud became the Judge's bride.

But on the day that they were mated,

Maud's brother Bob was intoxicated;

And Maud's relations, twelve in all,

Were very drunk in the Judge's hall.

And when the summer came again,

The young bride bore him babies twain;

And the Judge was blest, but thought it strange

That bearing children made such a change;

For Maud grew broad and red and stout,

And the waist that his arm once clasped about

Was more than he now could span: and he

Sighed as he pondered, ruefully,

How that which in Maud was native grace

In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place;

And thought of the twins, and wished that they

Looked less like the men who raked the hay

On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain

Of the day he wandered down the lane.

And, looking down that dreary track,

He half regretted that he came back;

For, had he waited, he might have wed

Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;

For there be women fair as she,

Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.

Alas for maiden! alas for judge!

Add the sentimental, -- that's one-half "fudge";

For Maud soon thought the Judge a bore,

With all his learning and all his lore;

And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face

For more refinement and social grace.

If, of all words of tongue and pen,

The saddest are, "It might have been,"

More sad are these we daily see:

"It is, but hadn't ought to be."

Bret Harte