Well, anyway I know that Cato Braden Intended to pursue a legal course, And practice the profession in a city. I know his father bought for him this place With Jerry Ott as editor of the Eagle. I know he went to work. I know he changed The paper’s motto from “Hew to the line,” To _Principia non homines_. I know He used to sing “Over the Garden Wall,” While writing editorials and smoked A number of cheroots. I know he had A locked drawer where he kept a secret bottle From which he’d take a drink at noon or night. I know he was on terms of friendship with The milliner and dressmaker in a month After he came from Valparaiso. Yes, I know he advocated a gymnasium, And dancing hall for Winston Prairie, and He opened up a fight to get a park Where concerts might be given. Cato Braden Had these ideas at least. About this park A word remains to say. Fernando Winston, Who founded Winston Prairie and surveyed The original town, laid out a square along The river for a pleasure ground; in time, Some fifty years or more, it was forgotten. And when this Cato Braden came to town And started as a journalist ’twas used In part by Winston Prairie’s creamery; In part ’twas used for gardening by the pastor Of Winston Prairie’s strongest church. But Cato Had searched the records, found them straight, began To agitate the park. And it was this, Together with _Principia non homines_, Free trade, the dressmaker and milliner, Perhaps the bottle in the drawer, whose secret Leaked out at once, that clove the people of The town into two groups of friends and foes. He had but just begun his editorship When I left Winston Prairie; after that Knew little of it, saw him but at times, Long separated, saw him not at all For fifteen years before his death, and now Because I was his friend was on the train His funeral to attend. I drove to Oakland With Dr. Green and William Smoot the grocer. ’Twas hot without a breeze, the town was still. The church bell tolled until we reached the grave, It was the church whose pastor used the square For gardening. And on the way I asked Why Cato Braden died at fifty-one. “Why, whisky,” answered William Smoot, the grocer, “And women,” for he had bad luck they say. “How is that, Doc, you know?” And Dr. Green After a silence said: “It isn’t true. “He was as sound, so far as that’s concerned “As any of us.” Then I asked again Why Cato Braden died at fifty-one. And Dr. Green said laughing, “Well, you know “They die at thirty-one and forty-one, “And sixty-one of what killed Cato Braden, “That’s Bright’s Disease.” “And whisky brings that on--” I ventured to assert.