Pike County Ballads | Page 2

Hay." This was, with fresh material inserted, a collection of chapters that had been published in The Century Magazine from November 1886 to the beginning of 1890. The friends, who worked equally together upon this large record, said, "We knew Mr. Lincoln intimately before his election to the Presidency. We came from Illinois to Washington with him, and remained at his side and in his service--separately or together- -until the day of his death."
Abroad, as at home, Colonel Hay has been active in the service of his country. In 1865 he went to Paris as Secretary of Legation, and after remaining two years in that office he went as Charge-d'Affaires for the United States to Vienna. After a year at Vienna, Colonel Hay went to Madrid as Secretary of Legation under General Daniel Sickles. In 1870 he returned to the United States, and was for the next five years an editorial writer for the New York Tribune. During seven months, when Whitelaw Reid was in Europe, Colonel Hay was editor in chief.
It was for The Tribune that Hay wrote "The Pike County Ballads," which were first reprinted separately in 1871, and are placed first in the collection of his poems. In the same year he published his "Castilian Days," inspired by residence in Spain.
In 1876 Colonel Hay removed from New York to Cleveland, Ohio. He then ceased to take part in the editing of The Tribune, but continued friendly service as a writer. From 1879 to 1881 Colonel Hay served under President Hayes as Assistant-Secretary of State in the Government of the United States. In 1881 he was President of the International Sanitary Congress at Washington. Since that time he has been active, with John G. Nicolay, in the preparation and production of the full Memoir of Abraham Lincoln, now completed, that will take high rank among the records of a war which, in its issues, touched the future of the world, perhaps, more nearly than any war since Waterloo, not even excepting the great struggle which ended at Sedan.
That is the life of a man, here is its music.?H. M.
THE PIKE COUNTY BALLADS.
JIM BLUDSO, OF THE "PRAIRIE BELLE."
Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives,?Becase he don't live, you see;?Leastways, he's got out of the habit?Of livin' like you and me.?Whar have you been for the last three year?That you haven't heard folks tell?How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks?The night of the Prairie Belle?
He weren't no saint,--them engineers?Is all pretty much alike, -?One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill,?And another one here, in Pike;?A keerless man in his talk was Jim,?And an awkward hand in a row,?But he never flunked, and he never lied, -?I reckon he never knowed how.
And this was all the religion he had, -?To treat his engine well;?Never be passed on the river;?To mind the pilot's bell;?And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire, -?A thousand times he swore,?He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank?Till the last soul got ashore.
All boats has their day on the Mississip,?And her day come at last, -?The Movastar was a better boat,?But the Belle she WOULDN'T be passed.?And so she come tearin' along that night -?The oldest craft on the line -?With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,?And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.
The fire bust out as she clared the bar,?And burnt a hole in the night,?And quick as a flash she turned, and made?For that willer-bank on the right.?There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out,?Over all the infernal roar,?"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank?Till the last galoot's ashore."
Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat?Jim Bludso's voice was heard,?And they all had trust in his cussedness,?And knowed he would keep his word.?And, sure's you're born, they all got off?Afore the smokestacks fell, -?And Bludso's ghost went up alone?In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.
He weren't no saint,--but at jedgment?I'd run my chance with Jim,?'Longside of some pious gentlemen?That wouldn't shook hands with him.?He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, -?And went for it thar and then;?And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard?On a man that died for men.
LITTLE BREECHES.
I don't go much on religion,?I never ain't had no show;?But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir,?On the handful o' things I know.?I don't pan out on the prophets?And free-will, and that sort of thing, -?But I b'lieve in God and the angels,?Ever sence one night last spring.
I come into town with some turnips,?And my little Gabe come along, -?No four-year-old in the county?Could beat him for pretty and strong,?Peart and chipper and sassy,?Always ready to swear and fight, -?And I'd larnt him to chaw terbacker?Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.
The snow come down like a blanket?As I passed by Taggart's store;?I went in for a jug of molasses?And left the team at the door.?They