Part 8 (1/2)

CHAPTER XIV.

THE INHABITANT.

When Albert awoke next morning from a sound sleep on the buffalo-robe in the loft of the cabin of the Inhabitant, the strange being who had slept at his side had gone. He found him leaning against the foot of the ladder outside.

”Waitin', you know,” he said when he saw Albert, ”tell she gits up. I was tryin' to think what I _could_ do to make this house fit fer her to stay in; fer, you see, stranger, they's no movin' on tell to-morry, fer though the rain's stopped, I 'low you can't git that buggy over afore to-morry mornin'. But blam'd ef 'ta'n't too bad fer sech as her to stay in sech a cabin! I never wanted no better place tell las' night, but ever sence that creetur crossed the door-sill. I've wished it was a palace of di'monds. She hadn't orter live in nothin' poarer.”

”Where did you come from?” asked Charlton.

”From the Wawbosh. You see I couldn't stay. They treated me bad. I had a idee. I wanted to write somethin' or nother in country talk. I need to try to write potry in good big dictionary words, but I hadn't but 'mazin little schoolin', and lived along of a set of folks that talked jes' like I do. But a Scotchman what I worked along of one winter, he read me some potry, writ out by a Mr. Burns, in the sort of bad grammar that a Scotchman talks, you know. And I says, Ef a Scotchman could write poetry in his sort of bad grammar, why couldn't a Hoosier jest as well write poetry in the sort of lingo we talk down on the Wawbosh? I don't see why.

Do you, now?”

Albert was captivated to find a ”child of nature” with such an idea, and he gave it his entire approval.

”Wal, you see, when I got to makin' va.r.s.es I found the folks down in Posey Kyounty didn' take to va.r.s.es wrote out in their own talk. They liked the real dictionary po'try, like 'The boy stood on the burnin'

deck' and 'A life on the ocean wave,' but they made fun of me, and when the boys got a hold of my poortiest va.r.s.es, and said 'em over and over as they was comin' from school, and larfed at me, and the gals kinder fooled me, gittin' me to do some va.r.s.es fer ther birthdays, and then makin' fun of 'em, I couldn' bar it no ways, and so I jist cleaned out and left to git shed of their talk. But I stuck to my idee all the same. I made va.r.s.es in the country talk all the same, and sent 'em to editors, but they couldn' see nothin' in 'em. Writ back that I'd better larn to spell. When I could a-spelt down any one of 'em the best day they ever seed!”

”I'd like to see some of your verses,” said Albert.

”I thought maybe you mout,” and with that he took out a soiled blue paper on which was written in blue ink some verses.

”Now, you see, I could spell right ef I wanted to, but I noticed that Mr.

Burns had writ his Scotch like it was spoke, and so I thought I'd write my country talk by the same rule.”

And the picturesque Inhabitant, standing there in the morning light in his trapper's wolf-skin cap, from the apex of which the tail of the wolf hung down his back, read aloud the verses which he had written in the Hoosier dialect, or, as he called it, the country talk of the Wawbosh. In transcribing them, I have inserted one or two apostrophes, for the poet always complained that though he could spell like sixty, he never could mind his stops.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INHABITANT.]

WHAT DUMB CRITTERS SAYS

The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, Ef n.o.body's thar to see.

The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, But ef I say, ”Sing out, green coat,”

Why, ”I can't” and ”I shan't,” says he.

I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard Of a man made outen straw.

I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard, But laws! they warn't the least bit skeered, They larfed out, ”Haw! haw-haw!”

A long-tail squir'l up in th' top Of that air ellum tree, A long-tail squir'l up in th' top, A lis'nin' to the acorns drop, Says, ”s.h.!.+ sh-s.h.!.+” at me.

The big-eyed owl a-settin' on a limb With nary a wink nur nod, The big-eyed owl a-settin' on a limb, Is a-singin' a sort of a solemn hymn Of ”Hoo! hoo-ah!” at G.o.d.

Albert could not resist a temptation to smile at this last line.

”I know, stranger. You think a owl can't sing to G.o.d. But I'd like to know why! Ef a mockin'-bird kin sing G.o.d's praises a-singin' trible, and so on through all the parts--you see I larnt the squar notes oncet at a singin'--why, I don't see to save me why the ba.s.s of the owl a'n't jest as good praisin' ef 'ta'n't quite sech fine singin'. Do you, now? An' I kinder had a feller-feelin' fer the owl. I says to him,' Well, ole feller, you and me is jist alike in one thing. Our notes a'n't appreciated by the public.' But maybe G.o.d thinks about as much of the real ginowine hootin' of a owl as he does of the highfalugeon whistlin'

of a mockin'-bird all stole from somebody else. An' ef my va.r.s.es is kinder humbly to hear, anyway they a'n't made like other folkses; they're all of 'em outen my head--sech as it is.”

”You certainly have struck an original vein,” said Albert, who had a pa.s.sion for nature in the rough. ”I wish you would read some of your verses to my sister.”