C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Dow’s Flat
By Bret Harte (1836–1902)
D
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger? The same?
Well, I thought it was true,—
For thar isn’t a man on the river as can’t spot the place at first view.
Which the same was an ass;
And as to the how
Thet the thing kem to pass,—
Jest tie up your hoss to that buckeye, and sit ye down here in the grass.
Hed the worst kind of luck;
He slipped up somehow
On each thing thet he struck.
Why, ef he’d a-straddled thet fence-rail, the derned thing ’ud get up and buck.
Till he couldn’t pay rates;
He was smashed by a car
When he tunneled with Bates;
And right on the top of his trouble kem his wife and five kids from the States.
But the boys they stood by,
And they brought him the stuff
For a house, on the sly;
And the old woman,—well, she did washing, and took on when no one was nigh.
Was so powerful mean
That the spring near his house
Dried right up on the green;
And he sunk forty feet down for water, but nary a drop to be seen.
And the boys wouldn’t stay;
And the chills got about,
And his wife fell away;
But Dow in his well kept a-peggin’ in his usual ridikilous way.
And a year ago, jest—
This Dow kem at noon
To his work like the rest,
With a shovel and pick on his shoulder, and a derringer hid in his breast.
And he stands on the brink,
And stops for a spell
Jest to listen and think:
For the sun in his eyes (jest like this, sir!), you see, kinder made the cuss blink.
In the gulch were at play,
And a gownd that was Sal’s
Kinder flapped on a bay:
Not much for a man to be leavin’, but his all,—as I’ve heer’d the folks say.
Thet you’ve got, ain’t it now?
What might be her cost?
Eh? Oh!— Well, then, Dow—
Let’s see,—well, that forty-foot grave wasn’t his, sir, that day, anyhow.
Sorter caved in the side,
And he looked and turned sick,
Then he trembled and cried.
For you see the dern cuss had struck—“Water?” Beg your parding, young man,—there you lied!
And it ran all alike;
And I reckon five oughts
Was the worth of that strike;
And that house with the coopilow’s his’n,—which the same isn’t bad for a Pike.
And the thing of it is
That he kinder got that
Through sheer contrairiness:
For ’twas water the derned cuss was seekin’, and his luck made him certain to miss.
To the left of yon tree,
But—a—look h’yur, say?
Won’t you come up to tea?
No? Well then, the next time you’re passin’; and ask after Dow—and thet’s me.