The King, the Wife, the Dream

King Tuck’s Proclamation.

Thanksgiving! and with spirits blue,
Headless I’ve come to call on you;
Attend to what I have to say,
‘N let your appetite delay,
Knowing you’ve murder done most fowl,
Should my uneasy spirit prowl,
Greet not my shade with cruel sneers
If hollow the poor shell appears,
Void of all dressing, empty, thin,
It may in dreams come stalking in.
Now thankful for a speedy roast,
Good-by, I’m yours, sincerely most.

THANKSGIVING TURKEY, 1895.

Bessemer Herald (Bessemer, Michigan) Nov 23, 1895

A Thanksgiving Trill.

For all the joys of living
A long and sweet Thanksgiving!
For this old world, with roses rife,
For mother, friend, and sweetheart — wife!
For every soft wind blowing;
For fields where Love is sowing
The seed to blossom in the years –
For woman’s love and woman’s tears
That sweeten earthly living –
The heart’s divine Thanksgiving!

Bessemer Herald (Bessemer, Michigan) Nov 23, 1895

A THANKSGIVING SOLILOQUA.

M’ wife, she wants a winter coat,
And so do I.
An’ that’ll spoil a good-sized note,
(Though clothes ain’t high).
Then both the boys are wantin’ pants,
An’ I am, too.
An ordinary circumstance
The hull year through.

Kitty an’ Emmy want new shoes,
M’ wife the same.
Lord! it does give me the blues,
To set and name
The things ‘t I hev to go an’ buy
Day after day;
Don’t make no diff’rence how I try,
There ain’t no way

To keep from spendin’ all I git,
Or pretty nigh.
– I hev saved up a little bit
An’ laid it by –
An’ come to think, now, I dunno
‘S I oughter be
A setirh’ here a talkin’ so,
Especially.

Considerin’ the dreams I hed
The other night;
My young ones an’ my wife had fled
Out o’ my sight,
An’ Satan says: “Old man,” says he,
“you want ‘em back?
Jump in that stream along with me,
It’s deep an’ black.”

“An’ you’ll hev to swim a hundred years.”
An’ with a yell
He dove into the stream o’ tears
An’ swam for — well,
I jumped in, too, or thought I hed,
But struck the floor
An’ found I’d jest jumpted out o’ bed
An’ nothin’ more.

I s’pose ‘t was eatin’ hot mince pie
That made me dream.
But still, there ain’t no doubt that I
Felt how ‘t would seem
To have no folks; and here I’ve sot –
Well, I’m no saint.
But I’ll offer thanks for what I’ve got;
That beats complaint.

– Smith, Gray & Co.’s Monthly.

Bessemer Herald (Bessemer, Michigan) Nov 23, 1895

Catchin’ Time

Thanksgiving in Old Virginia.

Old black mammy has a ‘possum on to bake
With sweet potatoes, sweeter than a maple-sugar cake.
And her pickaninny’s gone, by the light of the moon,
With his yellow-haired puppy to free a fat coon.

The coon lies a-grinning in the hollow of a gum
That the yellow-hammer uses for his morning drum;
While the gray squirrel chuckles, in high old glee,
At the hickorynuts a-raining from the hickorynut tree.
The gray owl shivers on a dead oak limb
And blinks in the sunshine, mellow and dim;
While molly-cotton rabbit gives a half a dozen hops,
And hears her heart beating, of a sudden, and stops.

The air is so fine and soft and clear,
That the fence seems far and mountains seem near;
Till the partridges fly to the fences and ‘light,
And call out a song about “Old Bob White!”

“Old Bob White, are your crops all right?
Is there wheat beneath the barn for the first cold night?
The guinea-hens and turkeys find its shelter mighty warm;
We’ll gather in among ‘em when there comes a storm.”

The wild turkey’s calling from the far hillside;
The foxhounds are baying on the long divide;
There’s a fat pig squealing, for his life is sweet –
But not much sweeter than his sausage meat!

– John Paul Bocock.

Bessemer Herald (Bessemer, Michigan) Nov 23, 1895

RABBIT TIME.

Rabbit time, trappin’ time
Dat’s de time fo’ me.
Set mah trap
So hit snap,
Hide bein’ a tree.

Froo de snow, dar he go.
Rabbit jumpin’ past,
Gits de trail,
Wags his tail,
Crawls in — dat’s de last.

Wif a clap down hit dtap,
Rabbit caught fo’ sho’ –
In de jail,
Wif’ out bail,
Can’t git out no mo’.

Den a pie, rabbit pie,
Decked in gran’ array;
Jus’ fo’ two,
Me an’ you,
On Thanksgibbin’ Day.

Bessemer Herald (Bessemer, Michigan) Nov 23, 1895