Edwin Ford Piper was born at Auburn, Nebraska, February 8, 1871, and literally grew up in the saddle. In 1893 he entered the University of Nebraska, from which he received an A.B. in 1897 and A.M. in 1900. He studied at Harvard (1903–4), was one of the editors of _The Kiote_ (a magazine published from 1898 to 1902 in Lincoln, Nebraska), and, since 1905, has been an instructor of English at the State University of Iowa. _Piper’s Barbed Wire and Other Poems_ (1918) is saturated with the color of his environment. His later poems are still more vivid and racy. “Sweetgrass Range” (with its self-acknowledged debt to Burns’s “Rattlin’ Roarin’ Willie”) and “Bindlestiff” are fresh evidences of this author’s creative interest in ballads and folk-lore. BINDLESTIFF _Oh, the lives of men, lives of men, In pattern-molds be run; But there’s you, and me, and Bindlestiff— And remember Mary’s Son._ At dawn the hedges and the wheel-ruts ran Into a brightening sky. The grass bent low With shimmering dew, and many a late wild rose Unrolled the petals from its odorous heart While birds held tuneful gossip. Suddenly, Each bubbling trill and whistle hid away As from a hawk; the fragrant silence heard Only the loving stir of little leaves; Then a man’s baritone broke roughly in: _I’ve gnawed my crust of mouldy bread, Skimmed my mulligan stew; Laid beneath the barren hedge— Sleety night-winds blew._ _Slanting rain chills my bones, Sun bakes my skin; Rocky road for my limping feet, Door where I can’t go in._ Above the hedgerow floated filmy smoke From the hidden singer’s fire. Once more the voice: _I used to burn the mules with the whip When I worked on the grading gang; But the boss was a crook, and he docked my pay— Some day that boss will hang._ _I used to live in a six by nine, Try to save my dough— It’s a bellyful of the chaff of life, Feet that up and go._ The mesh of leafy branches rustled loud, Into the road slid Bindlestiff. You’ve seen The like of the traveller: gaunt humanity In stained and broken coat, with untrimmed hedge Of rusty beard and curling sunburnt hair; His hat, once white, a dull uncertain cone; His leathery hands and cheeks, his bright blue eyes That always see new faces and strange dogs; His mouth that laughs at life and at himself. _Sometimes they shut you up in jail— Dark, and a filthy cell; I hope the fellows built them jails Find ’em down in hell._