_"Draw up the Papers, Lawyer, and make 'em good and stout" "Give us your Hand, Mr. Lawyer: How do you do To-day?" "And just as I turned a Hill-top I see the Kitchen Light" "And intently readin' a Newspaper, a-holdin' it wrong side up" "And Kissed me for the first Time in over Twenty Years" "My Betsey rose politely, and showed her out-of-doors" "Curse her! curse her! say I; she'll some Time rue this Day" "Why, John, what a Litter here! you've thrown Things all around!" "'Tis a hairy sort of Night for a Man to face and fight" "When you walked with her on Sunday, looking sober, straight, and clean" "And you lie there, quite resigned, Whisky deaf and Whisky blind" "And bid the Old House good-bye" "Settlers come to see that Show a half a dozen Miles" "Right in there the Preacher, with Bible and Hymn-book, stood" "Over the Hill to the Poor-House, I'm trudgin' my weary Way" "Till at last he went a-courtin', and brought a Wife from Town" "Many a Night I've watched You when only God was nigh" "Who sat with him long at his Table, and explained to him where he stood"_ FARM BALLADS. BETSEY AND I ARE OUT. Draw up the papers, lawyer, and make 'em good and stout; For things at home are crossways, and Betsey and I are out. We, who have worked together so long as man and wife, Must pull in single harness for the rest of our nat'ral life. "What is the matter?" say you. I swan it's hard to tell! Most of the years behind us we've passed by very well; I have no other woman, she has no other man-- Only we've lived together as long as we ever can. So I have talked with Betsey, and Betsey has talked with me, And so we've agreed together that we can't never agree; Not that we've catched each other in any terrible crime; We've been a-gathering this for years, a little at a time. There was a stock of temper we both had for a start, Although we never suspected 'twould take us two apart; I had my various failings, bred in the flesh and bone; And Betsey, like all good women, had a temper of her own. The first thing I remember whereon we disagreed Was something concerning heaven--a difference in our creed; We arg'ed the thing at breakfast, we arg'ed the thing at tea, And the more we arg'ed the question the more we didn't agree. And the next that I remember was when we lost a cow; She had kicked the bucket for certain, the question was only--How? I held my own opinion, and Betsey another had; And when we were done a-talkin', we both of us was mad. And the next that I remember, it started in a joke; But full for a week it lasted, and neither of us spoke. And the next was when I scolded because she broke a bowl; And she said I was mean and stingy, and hadn't any soul. And so that bowl kept pourin' dissensions in our cup; And so that blamed cow-critter was always a-comin' up; And so that heaven we arg'ed no nearer to us got, But it gave us a taste of somethin' a thousand times as hot.