But Mr. Carleton does not need to apologize. He has the true poetic instinct. His descriptions are vivid, and as a narrative versifier he has been excelled by few, if indeed any depicter of Western farm life. Will Carleton has also written considerable prose, which has been collected and published in book form, but it is his poetical works which have entitled him to public esteem, and it is for these that he will be longest remembered in literature. * * * * * BETSY AND I ARE OUT.¹ DRAW up the papers, lawyer, and make ’em good and stout, For things at home are cross-ways, and Betsy and I are out,―― We who have worked together so long as man and wife Must pull in single harness the rest of our nat’ral life. “What is the matter,” says 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 ever we can. So I have talked with Betsy, and Betsy has talked with me; And we’ve agreed together that we can never agree; Not that we’ve catched each other in any terrible crime; We’ve been a gatherin’ this for years, a little at a time. There was a stock of temper we both had for a start; Although we ne’er suspected ’twould take us two apart; I had my various failings, bred in the flesh and bone, And Betsy, like all good women, had a temper of her own. The first thing, I remember, whereon we disagreed, Was somethin’ 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 couldn’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 opinion, and Betsy 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 for full a week it lasted and neither of us spoke. And the next was when I fretted because she broke a bowl; And she said I was mean and stingy, and hadn’t any soul. And so the thing kept workin’, and all the self-same way; Always somethin’ to ar’ge and something sharp to say,―― And down on us came the neighbors, a couple o’ dozen strong, And lent their kindest sarvice to help the thing along. And there have been days together――and many a weary week―― When both of us were cross and spunky, and both too proud to speak; And I have been thinkin’ and thinkin’, the whole of the summer and fall, If I can’t live kind with a woman, why, then I won’t at all.