Spoon River · Part VIII

Oaks Tutt

My mother was for woman’s rights And my father was the rich miller at London Mills. I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them. When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries In order to learn how to reform the world. I traveled through many lands. I saw the ruins of Rome And the ruins of Athens, And the ruins of Thebes. And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis. There I was caught up by wings of flame, And a voice from heaven said to me: “Injustice, Untruth destroyed them. Go forth Preach Justice! Preach Truth!” And I hastened back to Spoon River To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work. They all saw a strange light in my eye. And by and by, when I talked, they discovered What had come in my mind. Then Jonathan Swift Somers challenged me to debate The subject, (I taking the negative): “Pontius Pilate, the Greatest Philosopher of the World.” And he won the debate by saying at last, “Before you reform the world, Mr. Tutt Please answer the question of Pontius Pilate: “What is Truth?”

Elliott Hawkins

I looked like Abraham Lincoln. I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship, But standing for the rights of property and for order. A regular church attendant, Sometimes appearing in your town meetings to warn you Against the evils of discontent and envy And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union, And to point to the peril of the Knights of Labor. My success and my example are inevitable influences In your young men and in generations to come, In spite of attacks of newspapers like the Clarion; A regular visitor at Springfield When the Legislature was in session To prevent raids upon the railroads And the men building up the state. Trusted by them and by you, Spoon River, equally In spite of the whispers that I was a lobbyist. Moving quietly through the world, rich and courted. Dying at last, of course, but lying here Under a stone with an open book carved upon it And the words “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” And now, you world-savers, who reaped nothing in life And in death have neither stones nor epitaphs, How do you like your silence from mouths stopped With the dust of my triumphant career?

Voltaire Johnson

Why did you bruise me with your rough places If you did not want me to tell you about them? And stifle me with your stupidities, If you did not want me to expose them? And nail me with the nails of cruelty, If you did not want me to pluck the nails forth And fling them in your faces? And starve me because I refused to obey you, If you did not want me to undermine your tyranny? I might have been as soul serene As William Wordsworth except for you! But what a coward you are, Spoon River, When you drove me to stand in a magic circle By the sword of Truth described! And then to whine and curse your burns, And curse my power who stood and laughed Amid ironical lightning!

English Thornton

Here! You sons of the men Who fought with Washington at Valley Forge, And whipped Black Hawk at Starved Rock, Arise! Do battle with the descendants of those Who bought land in the loop when it was waste sand, And sold blankets and guns to the army of Grant, And sat in legislatures in the early days, Taking bribes from the railroads! Arise! Do battle with the fops and bluffs, The pretenders and figurantes of the society column And the yokel souls whose daughters marry counts; And the parasites on great ideas, And the noisy riders of great causes, And the heirs of ancient thefts. Arise! And make the city yours, And the State yours— You who are sons of the hardy yeomanry of the forties! By God! If you do not destroy these vermin My avenging ghost will wipe out Your city and your state.

Enoch Dunlap

How many times, during the twenty years I was your leader, friends of Spoon River, Did you neglect the convention and caucus, And leave the burden on my hands Of guarding and saving the people’s cause?— Sometimes because you were ill; Or your grandmother was ill; Or you drank too much and fell asleep; Or else you said: “He is our leader, All will be well; he fights for us; We have nothing to do but follow.” But oh, how you cursed me when I fell, And cursed me, saying I had betrayed you, In leaving the caucus room for a moment, When the people’s enemies, there assembled, Waited and watched for a chance to destroy The Sacred Rights of the People. You common rabble! I left the caucus To go to the urinal.

Ida Frickey

Nothing in life is alien to you: I was a penniless girl from Summum Who stepped from the morning train in Spoon River. All the houses stood before me with closed doors And drawn shades—I was barred out; I had no place or part in any of them. And I walked past the old McNeely mansion, A castle of stone ’mid walks and gardens With workmen about the place on guard And the County and State upholding it For its lordly owner, full of pride. I was so hungry I had a vision: I saw a giant pair of scissors Dip from the sky, like the beam of a dredge, And cut the house in two like a curtain. But at the “Commercial” I saw a man Who winked at me as I asked for work— It was Wash McNeely’s son. He proved the link in the chain of title To half my ownership of the mansion, Through a breach of promise suit—the scissors. So, you see, the house, from the day I was born, Was only waiting for me.

Seth Compton

When I died, the circulating library Which I built up for Spoon River, And managed for the good of inquiring minds, Was sold at auction on the public square, As if to destroy the last vestige Of my memory and influence. For those of you who could not see the virtue Of knowing Volney’s “Ruins” as well as Butler’s “Analogy” And “Faust” as well as “Evangeline,” Were really the power in the village, And often you asked me “What is the use of knowing the evil in the world?” I am out of your way now, Spoon River, Choose your own good and call it good. For I could never make you see That no one knows what is good Who knows not what is evil; And no one knows what is true Who knows not what is false.

Felix Schmidt

It was only a little house of two rooms— Almost like a child’s play-house— With scarce five acres of ground around it; And I had so many children to feed And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick From bearing children. One day lawyer Whitney came along And proved to me that Christian Dallman, Who owned three thousand acres of land, Had bought the eighty that adjoined me In eighteen hundred and seventy-one For eleven dollars, at a sale for taxes, While my father lay in his mortal illness. So the quarrel arose and I went to law. But when we came to the proof, A survey of the land showed clear as day That Dallman’s tax deed covered my ground And my little house of two rooms. It served me right for stirring him up. I lost my case and lost my place. I left the court room and went to work As Christian Dallman’s tenant.

Schrœder The Fisherman

I sat on the bank above Bernadotte And dropped crumbs in the water, Just to see the minnows bump each other, Until the strongest got the prize. Or I went to my little pasture, Where the peaceful swine were asleep in the wallow, Or nosing each other lovingly, And emptied a basket of yellow corn, And watched them push and squeal and bite, And trample each other to get the corn. And I saw how Christian Dallman’s farm, Of more than three thousand acres, Swallowed the patch of Felix Schmidt, As a bass will swallow a minnow And I say if there’s anything in man— Spirit, or conscience, or breath of God That makes him different from fishes or hogs, I’d like to see it work!

Richard Bone

When I first came to Spoon River I did not know whether what they told me Was true or false. They would bring me the epitaph And stand around the shop while I worked And say “He was so kind,” “He was so wonderful,” “She was the sweetest woman,” “He was a consistent Christian.” And I chiseled for them whatever they wished, All in ignorance of the truth. But later, as I lived among the people here, I knew how near to the life Were the epitaphs that were ordered for them as they died. But still I chiseled whatever they paid me to chisel And made myself party to the false chronicles Of the stones, Even as the historian does who writes Without knowing the truth, Or because he is influenced to hide it.

Silas Dement

It was moon-light, and the earth sparkled With new-fallen frost. It was midnight and not a soul abroad. Out of the chimney of the court-house A gray-hound of smoke leapt and chased The northwest wind. I carried a ladder to the landing of the stairs And leaned it against the frame of the trap-door In the ceiling of the portico, And I crawled under the roof and amid the rafters And flung among the seasoned timbers A lighted handful of oil-soaked waste. Then I came down and slunk away. In a little while the fire-bell rang— Clang! Clang! Clang! And the Spoon River ladder company Came with a dozen buckets and began to pour water On the glorious bon-fire, growing hotter Higher and brighter, till the walls fell in And the limestone columns where Lincoln stood Crashed like trees when the woodman fells them. When I came back from Joliet There was a new court house with a dome. For I was punished like all who destroy The past for the sake of the future.

Dillard Sissman

The buzzards wheel slowly In wide circles, in a sky Faintly hazed as from dust from the road. And a wind sweeps through the pasture where I lie Beating the grass into long waves. My kite is above the wind, Though now and then it wobbles, Like a man shaking his shoulders; And the tail streams out momentarily, Then sinks to rest. And the buzzards wheel and wheel, Sweeping the zenith with wide circles Above my kite. And the hills sleep. And a farm house, white as snow, Peeps from green trees—far away. And I watch my kite, For the thin moon will kindle herself ere long, Then she will swing like a pendulum dial To the tail of my kite. A spurt of flame like a water-dragon Dazzles my eyes— I am shaken as a banner!

Jonathan Houghton

There is the caw of a crow, And the hesitant song of a thrush. There is the tinkle of a cowbell far away, And the voice of a plowman on Shipley’s hill. The forest beyond the orchard is still With midsummer stillness; And along the road a wagon chuckles, Loaded with corn, going to Atterbury. And an old man sits under a tree asleep, And an old woman crosses the road, Coming from the orchard with a bucket of blackberries. And a boy lies in the grass Near the feet of the old man, And looks up at the sailing clouds, And longs, and longs, and longs For what, he knows not: For manhood, for life, for the unknown world! Then thirty years passed, And the boy returned worn out by life And found the orchard vanished, And the forest gone, And the house made over, And the roadway filled with dust from automobiles— And himself desiring The Hill!

E. C. Culbertson

Is it true, Spoon River, That in the hall—way of the New Court House There is a tablet of bronze Containing the embossed faces Of Editor Whedon and Thomas Rhodes? And is it true that my successful labors In the County Board, without which Not one stone would have been placed on another, And the contributions out of my own pocket To build the temple, are but memories among the people, Gradually fading away, and soon to descend With them to this oblivion where I lie? In truth, I can so believe. For it is a law of the Kingdom of Heaven That whoso enters the vineyard at the eleventh hour Shall receive a full day’s pay. And it is a law of the Kingdom of this World That those who first oppose a good work Seize it and make it their own, When the corner—stone is laid, And memorial tablets are erected.

Shack Dye

The white men played all sorts of jokes on me. They took big fish off my hook And put little ones on, while I was away Getting a stringer, and made me believe I hadn’t seen aright the fish I had caught. When Burr Robbins circus came to town They got the ring master to let a tame leopard Into the ring, and made me believe I was whipping a wild beast like Samson When I, for an offer of fifty dollars, Dragged him out to his cage. One time I entered my blacksmith shop And shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawling Across the floor, as if alive— Walter Simmons had put a magnet Under the barrel of water. Yet everyone of you, you white men, Was fooled about fish and about leopards too, And you didn’t know any more than the horse-shoes did What moved you about Spoon River.

Hildrup Tubbs

I made two fights for the people. First I left my party, bearing the gonfalon Of independence, for reform, and was defeated. Next I used my rebel strength To capture the standard of my old party— And I captured it, but I was defeated. Discredited and discarded, misanthropical, I turned to the solace of gold And I used my remnant of power To fasten myself like a saprophyte Upon the putrescent carcass Of Thomas Rhodes, bankrupt bank, As assignee of the fund. Everyone now turned from me. My hair grew white, My purple lusts grew gray, Tobacco and whisky lost their savor And for years Death ignored me As he does a hog.

Henry Tripp

The bank broke and I lost my savings. I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River And I made up my mind to run away And leave my place in life and my family; But just as the midnight train pulled in, Quick off the steps jumped Cully Green And Martin Vise, and began to fight To settle their ancient rivalry, Striking each other with fists that sounded Like the blows of knotted clubs. Now it seemed to me that Cully was winning, When his bloody face broke into a grin Of sickly cowardice, leaning on Martin And whining out “We’re good friends, Mart, You know that I’m your friend.” But a terrible punch from Martin knocked him Around and around and into a heap. And then they arrested me as a witness, And I lost my train and staid in Spoon River To wage my battle of life to the end. Oh, Cully Green, you were my savior— You, so ashamed and drooped for years, Loitering listless about the streets, And tying rags round your festering soul, Who failed to fight it out.

Granville Calhoun

I wanted to be County Judge One more term, so as to round out a service Of thirty years. But my friends left me and joined my enemies, And they elected a new man. Then a spirit of revenge seized me, And I infected my four sons with it, And I brooded upon retaliation, Until the great physician, Nature, Smote me through with paralysis To give my soul and body a rest. Did my sons get power and money? Did they serve the people or yoke them, To till and harvest fields of self? For how could they ever forget My face at my bed-room window, Sitting helpless amid my golden cages Of singing canaries, Looking at the old court-house?