But jist ez I passed the house next morning at dawn, some one, Like a little waver o' mist got up on the hill with the sun; Miss Mabel it was, alone--all wrapped in a mantle o' lace-- And she stood there straight in the road, with a touch o' the sun in her face. And she looked me right in the eye--I'd seen suthin' like it before When I hunted a wounded doe to the edge o' the Clear Lake Shore, And I had my knee on its neck, and I jist was raisin' my knife, When it give me a look like that, and--well, it got off with its life. "We are going to-day," she said, "and I thought I would say good-by To you in your own house, Luke--these woods and the bright blue sky! You've always been kind to us, Luke, and papa has found you still As good as the air he breathes, and wholesome as Laurel Tree Hill. "And we'll always think of you, Luke, as the thing we could not take away,-- The balsam that dwells in the woods, the rainbow that lives in the spray. And you'll sometimes think of ME, Luke, as you know you once used to say, A rifle smoke blown through the woods, a moment, but never to stay." And then we shook hands. She turned, but a-suddent she tottered and fell, And I caught her sharp by the waist, and held her a minit. Well, It was only a minit, you know, thet ez cold and ez white she lay Ez a snowflake here on my breast, and then--well, she melted away-- And was gone.... And thar are her books; but I says not any for me; Good enough may be for some, but them and I mightn't agree. They spiled a decent gal ez might hev made some chap a wife, And look at me!--clar two hundred--and never read one in my life! "THE BABES IN THE WOODS" (BIG PINE FLAT, 1871) "Something characteristic," eh? Humph! I reckon you mean by that Something that happened in our way, Here at the crossin' of Big Pine Flat. Times aren't now as they used to be, When gold was flush and the boys were frisky, And a man would pull out his battery For anything--maybe the price of whiskey. Nothing of that sort, eh? That's strange! Why, I thought you might be diverted Hearing how Jones of Red Rock Range Drawed his "hint to the unconverted," And saying, "Whar will you have it?" shot Cherokee Bob at the last debating! What was the question I forgot, But Jones didn't like Bob's way of stating. Nothing of that kind, eh? You mean Something milder? Let's see!--O Joe! Tell to the stranger that little scene Out of the "Babes in the Woods." You know, "Babes" was the name that we gave 'em, sir, Two lean lads in their teens, and greener Than even the belt of spruce and fir Where they built their nest, and each day grew leaner.