’Tis said that youngsters have a knack To take you prisoner by the back; To catch you by the wings, in haste, A piece above the belted waist, And hold you thus, to struggle there, And use your sting on empty air. But once I tried, and once I missed, For you’re a great contortionist, And somehow turn, and manage still To plant your poison where you will. Ah, they are wise, who meddling cease, And let you go your way in peace! Though many things may slip my mind Before the narrow bed I find, In fancy’s field I’d often see The busy, burly bumble-bee. [Illustration] DUDLEY AND THE GREASED PIG. Boil-stricken Job had his comforters, who, despite his timely injunction, “Oh, lay your hands upon your mouths, and thereby show your wisdom,” would still drum in his ear, “Hear us, for we will speak.” Poor old Falstaff had his evil genius in Bardolph, his impecunious follower, with his “Lend me a shilling.” And I have my burdensome “Jim Dudley,” with his “Let me tell you a story.” I was kept awake last night listening to his crazy yarn about the “greased pig,” as if I cared anything about his villainous adventures. “Oh, yes, that scrape with the greased pig? I never told you about it, eh? It’s worth heerin’, for that was a tearin’ old race, and I came mi’ty nigh gettin’ shoved out of the village on account of it, too, now, I can tell ye. Down on me? Wall, I reckon you’d think so if you heered the hollerin’ that was gwine on for awhile arter that race, some cryin’ one thin’ and some another. ‘Tar and feather the cheat,’ one would holler. “‘Lynch the blamed humbug!’ another would shout. “‘Put him in a sack and h’ist him over the bridge!’ would come from another quarter. “A doctor was never so down on a patent medicine as they were on me arter that race, especially Parson Coolridge, who was one of the principal sufferers, yer see. “It was May Day amongst ’em, and the hull village seemed to be out thar enjoyin’ ’emselves. They had sack races and wheelbarrow races. That was the day blindfold Tom Moody ran the wheelbarrow through the grocer’s window, and Old Shulkin knocked him down with a ham, and a dog ran away with it. He charged Tom with the ham in the bill, along with the broken winder. “They had a greased pole standin’ thar with a ten-dollar greenback tacked on top of it, but no person could get within ten feet of the bill. The hungry crowds were standin’ around all day gazin’ longin’ly up at the flutterin’ greenback, like dogs at a coon in a tree-top. “I didn’t try the pole, but when they brought out the greased pig—a great, slab-sided critter, jest in good condition for racin’,—I got sort o’ interested in the performance. His tail was more’n a foot long, and it was greased until it would slip through a feller’s fingers like a newly caught eel.