Mitch Miller

Mitch Miller, by Edgar Lee
Masters

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Title: Mitch Miller
Author: Edgar Lee Masters
Illustrator: John Sloan
Release Date: June 23, 2007 [EBook #21910]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MILLER ***

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MITCH MILLER

BY EDGAR LEE MASTERS
Author Of STARVED ROCK, SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY, ETC.,
ETC.
With Illustrations By JOHN SLOAN
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920
All rights reserved
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COPYRIGHT, 1920, By EDGAR LEE MASTERS.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1920.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
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To My Little Daughters MADELINE AND MARCIA
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MITCH MILLER
[Illustration: Mitch Miller]
Supposin' you was lyin' in a room and was asleep or pretty near asleep;
and bein' asleep you could hear people talkin' but it didn't mean nothin'
to you--just talk; and you kind of knew things was goin' on around you,
but still you was way off in your sleep and belonged to yourself as a
sleeper, and what was goin' on didn't make no difference to you; and

really, supposin' you was tryin' to get back into deeper sleep before you
heard these things. And then, supposin' now and then as your eyes
rolled back into your head while sleepin' you saw through the lids--not
tryin' to look, but your eyes just saw as they rolled past the open place
between the lids--and you saw squares of light and dark, or maybe
roundish blurs. And then supposin' sometimes you heard a noise, and as
it turned out it was somebody goin' in and out of the room, or
somebody closin' or openin' a door. And supposin' these here people
were not tip-toein' exactly, but were kind of watchin' and laughin' a
little maybe to see what you would do when you woke up. And finally
one of your eyes kind of opened and you saw your ma sittin' in the
corner, sewin', or peelin' apples maybe; and you saw your pa goin' out
of a door, and your sister came up to you and looked clost to see when
you was goin' to wake up. And supposin' after a bit you sat up and
rubbed your eyes, and looked around and you was in a room, and the
room was in your ma's house, and your ma sat there, sure enough, and
your pa was goin' out of the door, and your sister was lookin' at you.
And supposin' then you went out-doors and there was a yard and you
saw the house from the outside, and there was a house near and other
houses, and a fence in front, and wagons goin' by and people. And then
supposin' by and by you found out that a railroad ran right by the side
fence, and a great big black thing makin' a noise and blowin' out smoke
came close to the fence sometimes, and a man would be ridin' in a little
house on top of this big black thing, who talked to you, and laughed
when you showed him a pipe made out of a cork and a match, and a
cherry-seed put in a hollowed-out place of the cork for tobacco.
And then supposin' other children came around, and finally you went
out on to a sidewalk and saw lots of houses, and by and by ran away
and saw stores all around a lovely square and a great court house in the
center. And supposin' you found out that there was a river just under
the hills you could see beyond the railroad, and by and by you heard
your folks say Petersburg; and by and by you knew that was the name
of this town. And sometimes you could see more of the town, because
your grandpa and grandma came with a carriage and drove clear
through the town so as to get to the country and out to the farm where
they lived.

And then supposin' one day all the things in the house was loaded on a
wagon and you rode with your ma up the hill to a better house and a
bigger yard with oak trees, and the things were put in the house and
you began to live here, and saw different houses around, and different
children came to play; and supposin' there was a girl named Cooster
McCoy that used to come to