"The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn; The stubble in the furries--kindo' lonesome-like, but still A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; The hosses in theyr stalls below--the clover overhead!-- O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock! "Then your apples all is getherd, and the ones a feller keeps Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps; And your cider-makin' 's over, and your wimmern-folks is through With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too!... I don't know how to tell it--but ef sich a thing could be As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on _me_-- I'd want to 'commodate 'em--all the whole-indurin' flock-- When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!" That was enough! "Surely," thought I, "here is a diamond in the rough, and a 'gem,' too, 'of purest ray serene'!" I caught the old man's hand and wrung it with positive rapture; and it is needless to go further in explanation of how the readers of our daily came to an acquaintance through its columns with the crude, unpolished, yet most gentle genius of Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone. LORD BACON WRITTEN AS A JOKE AND ASCRIBED TO A VERY PRACTICAL BUSINESS MAN, AMOS J. WALKER Master of masters in the days of yore, When art met insult, with no law's redress; When Law itself insulted Righteousness, And Ignorance thine own scholastic lore, And thou thine own judicial office more,-- What master living now canst love thee less, Seeing thou didst thy greatest art repress And leave the years its riches to restore To us, thy long neglectors. Yield us grace To make becoming recompense, and dawn On us thy poet-smile; nor let us trace, In fancy, where the old-world myths have gone, The shade of Shakespeare, with averted face, Withdrawn to uttermost oblivion. MY FIRST WOMERN I buried my first womern In the spring; and in the fall I was married to my second, And hain't settled yit at all!-- Fer I'm allus thinkin'--thinkin' Of the first one's peaceful ways, A-bilin' soap and singin' Of the Lord's amazin' grace. And I'm thinkin' of her, constant, Dyin' carpet chain and stuff, And a-makin' up rag carpets, When the _floor_ was good enough! And I mind her he'p a-feedin', And I riccollect her now A-drappin' corn, and keepin' Clos't behind me and the plow!