Cornhuskers | Page 6

a place called White Pigeon?Nestling with a blacksmith shop, a post-office,?And a berry-crate factory, where four roads cross.
On the Pecatonica River near Freeport?I have seen boys run barefoot in the leaves?Throwing clubs at the walnut trees?In the yellow-and-gold of autumn,?And there was a brown mash dry on the inside of their hands.
On the Cedar Fork Creek of Knox County?I know how the fingers of late October?Loosen the hazel nuts.?I know the brown eyes of half-open hulls.?I know boys named Lindquist, Swanson, Hildebrand.?I remember their cries when the nuts were ripe.?And some are in machine shops; some are in the navy;?And some are not on payrolls anywhere.?Their mothers are through waiting for them to come home.
CABOOSE THOUGHTS
IT'S going to come out all right--do you know??The sun, the birds, the grass--they know.?They get along--and we'll get along.
Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting?And the letter you wait for won't come,?And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray?And the letter I wait for won't come.
There will be accidents.?I know ac-ci-dents are coming.?Smash-ups, signals wrong, washouts, trestles rotten,?Red and yellow ac-ci-dents.?But somehow and somewhere the end of the run?The train gets put together again?And the caboose and the green tail lights?Fade down the right of way like a new white hope:
I never heard a mockingbird in Kentucky?Spilling its heart in the morning.
I never saw the snow on Chimborazo.?It's a high white Mexican hat, I hear.
I never had supper with Abe Lincoln.?Nor a dish of soup with Jim Hill.
But I've been around.?I know some of the boys here who can go a little.?I know girls good for a burst of speed any time.
I heard Williams and Walker?Before Walker died in the bughouse.
I knew a mandolin player?Working in a barber shop in an Indiana town,?And he thought he had a million dollars.
I knew a hotel girl in Des Moines.?She had eyes; I saw her and said to myself?The sun rises and the sun sets in her eyes.?I was her steady and her heart went pit-a-pat.?We took away the money for a prize waltz at a Brotherhood dance. She had eyes; she was safe as the bridge over the Mississippi at Burlington; I married her.
Last summer we took the cushions going west.?Pike's Peak is a big old stone, believe me.?It's fastened down; something you can count on.
It's going to come out all right--do you know?
The sun, the birds, the grass--they know.
They get along--and we'll get along.
ALIX
THE mare Alix breaks the world's trotting record one day. I see her heels flash down the dust of an Illinois race track on a summer afternoon. I see the timekeepers put their heads together over stopwatches, and call to the grand stand a split second is clipped off the old world's record and a new world's record fixed.
I see the mare Alix led away by men in undershirts and streaked faces. Dripping Alix in foam of white on the harness and shafts. And the men in undershirts kiss her ears and rub her nose, and tie blankets on her, and take her away to have the sweat sponged.
I see the grand stand jammed with prairie people yelling themselves hoarse. Almost the grand stand and the crowd of thousands are one pair of legs and one voice standing up and yelling hurrah.
I see the driver of Alix and the owner smothered in a fury of handshakes, a mob of caresses. I see the wives of the driver and owner smothered in a crush of white summer dresses and parasols.
Hours later, at sundown, gray dew creeping on the sod and sheds, I see Alix again:
Dark, shining-velvet Alix,
Night-sky Alix in a gray blanket,

Led back and forth by a nigger.
Velvet and night-eyed Alix
With slim legs of steel.
And I want to rub my nose against the nose of the mare Alix.
POTATO BLOSSOM SONGS AND JIGS
Rum tiddy um,
tiddy um,
tiddy um tum tum.
My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves. I feel like tickling you under the chin--honey--and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road? When the hens are a-laying eggs, and the roosters pluck-pluck-put-akut and you--honey--put