"I'm told in riding somewhere West A stranger found a _Hoosier's Nest_-- In other words a Buckeye cabin, Just big enough to hold Queen _Mab_ in; Its situation, low but airy, Was on the borders of a prairie; And fearing he might be benighted, He hailed the house, and then alighted. The Hoosier met him at the door-- Their salutations soon were o'er. He took the stranger's horse aside, And to a sturdy sapling tied; Then having stripped the saddle off, He fed him in a sugar trough. The stranger stooped to enter in-- The entrance closing with a pin And manifested strong desire To seat him by the log-heap fire, Where half a dozen _Hoosieroons_, With mush and milk, tin cups and spoons, White heads, bare feet, and dirty faces, Seemed much inclined to keep their places, But Madame, anxious to display Her rough but undisputed sway, Her offsprings to the ladder led, And cuffed the youngsters up to bed. Invited shortly to partake Of venison, milk, and _johnny cake_, The stranger made a hearty meal, And glances round the room would steal. One side was lined with divers' garments, The other spread with skins of _varmints_; Dried pumpkins overhead were strung, Where venison hams in plenty hung; Two rifles placed above the door; Three dogs lay stretched upon the floor-- In short, the domicile was rife With specimens of Hoosier life." The word _Hoosieroon_ was coined for the poem, and "_Hoosier_" no longer designated a rough, uncouth backwoodsman but a self-reliant man who was able to subdue the wilderness, defend his home, and command the respect of his neighbors: "He is, (and not the little-great) The bone and sinew of the State." "Bachelor's Hall" was published anonymously, and was immediately credited to the Irish poet, Thomas Moore; it was reproduced in England and Ireland many times before the authorship was established. It was set to music for "Miss Leslie's Magazine," and was sung at a banquet given for the members of the Indiana Legislature: "Bachelor's Hall! What a quare-looking place it is! Kape me from sich all the days of my life! Sure, but I think what a burnin' disgrace it is, Niver at all to be gettin' a wife. See the ould bachelor, gloomy and sad enough, Placing his tay-kittle over the fire; Soon it tips over--St. Patrick! he's mad enough (If he were present) to fight with the Squire. Pots, dishes, pans, and sich grasy commodities, Ashes and praty-skins kiver the floor; His cupboard's a storehouse of comical oddities, Things that had niver been neighbors before. Late in the night then he goes to bed shiverin'; Niver the bit is the bed made at all; He crapes like a terrapin under the kiverin': Bad luck to the picture of Bachelor's Hall!"