Fainted and come to, I s'pose, 'Bout a dozen times whilse they Chopped him out!--And wife she froze To him!--bresh his hair away And smile cheerful'--only when He'd faint.--Cry and kiss him _then_. Had _his_ nerve!--And nussed him through,-- Neghbors he'pped her--all she'd stand.-- Had a loom, and she could do Carpet-weavin' railly grand!-- "'Sides," she ust to laugh and say, "She'd have Wess, now, _night_ and day!" As fer _him_, he'd say, says-ee, "I'm resigned to bein' lame:-- They was four coons up that tree, And hounds got 'em, jest the same!" 'Peared like, one er two legs less Never worried "Coon-dog Wess"! LINES TO PERFESSER JOHN CLARK RIDPATH A. M., LL. D. T-Y-TY! [Cumposed by A Old Friend of the Fambily sence 'way back in the Forties, when they Settled nigh Fillmore, Putnam County, this State, whare John was borned and growed up, you might say, like the wayside flower.] Your neghbors in the country, whare you come from, hain't fergot!-- We knowed you even better than your own-self, like as not. We profissied your runnin'-geers 'ud stand a soggy load And pull her, purty stiddy, up a mighty rocky road: We been a-watchin' your career sence you could write your name-- But way you writ it _first_, I'll say, was jest a burnin' shame!-- Your "J. C." in the copybook, and "Ridpath"--mercy-sakes!-- Quiled up and tide in dubble bows, lookt like a nest o' snakes!-- But _you_ could read it, I _suppose_, and kindo' gloted on A-bein' "_J. C. Ridpath_" when _we_ only called you "_John_." But you'd work 's well as fool, and what you had to do was _done_: We've watched you at the woodpile--not the _woodshed_--wasent none,-- And snow and sleet, and haulin', too, and lookin' after stock, And milkin', nights, and feedin' pigs,--then turnin' back the clock, So's you could set up studyin' your 'Rethmatic, and fool Your Parents, whilse a-piratin' your way through winter school! And I've heerd tell--from your own folks--you've set and baked your face A-readin' Plutark Slives all night by that old fi-er-place.-- Yit, 'bout them times, the blackboard, onc't, had on it, I _de_-clare, "Yours truly, _J. Clark_ Ridpath."--And the teacher--left it thare!