I ollus feels the sap start in my veins In Spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains, Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk Off by myself to hev a privit talk With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree Along o' me like most folks,--Mister Me. Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone An' sort o' suffocate to be alone,-- I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh, An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, My innard vane pints east for weeks together, My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins: Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, The crook'dest stick in all the heap,--Myself. 'Twuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'-time: F'indin' my feelin's wouldn't noways rhyme With nobody's, but off the hendle flew An' took things from an east-wind pint o' view, I started off to lose me in the hills Where the pines be, up back o' Siah's Mills: Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends I know, They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelin's so,-- They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan, You half-forgit you've gut a body on. "Ther' 's a small school'us' there where four road, meet, The door-steps hollered out by little feet, An side-posts carved with names whose owners grew To gret men, some on 'em an' deacons, tu; 'Tain't used no longer, coz the town hez gut A high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut: Three-story larnin' 's poplar now: I guess We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less, For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez sinnin' By overloadin' children's underpinnin: Wal, here it wuz I larned my A B C, An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me. We're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minute Thet ever fits us easy while we're in it; Long ez 'twuz futur', 'twould be perfect bliss,-- Soon ez it's past, thet time's wuth ten o' this An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told Thet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold. A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan An' think 'twuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man; Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoy Like dreamin' back along into a boy: So the ole school'us' is a place I choose Afore all others, ef I want to muse; I set down where I used to set, an' git