Poems From The Breakfast Table | Page 7

his boys, perhaps you know,
Died, at one hundred, years ago.)

He took lodgings for rain or shine
Under green bed-clothes in '69.
Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.--
Born there? Don't say so! I
was, too.
(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,--
Standing still, if
you must have proof.--
"Gambrel?--Gambrel?"--Let me beg
You'll
look at a horse's hinder leg,--
First great angle above the hoof,--

That 's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.)
Nicest place that ever was
seen,--

Colleges red and Common green,
Sidewalks brownish with
trees between.
Sweetest spot beneath the skies
When the

canker-worms don't rise,--
When the dust, that sometimes flies
Into
your mouth and ears and eyes,
In a quiet slumber lies,
Not in the
shape of umbaked pies
Such as barefoot children prize.
A kind of harbor it seems to be,
Facing the flow of a boundless sea.

Rows of gray old Tutors stand
Ranged like rocks above the sand;

Rolling beneath them, soft and green,
Breaks the tide of bright
sixteen,--
One wave, two waves, three waves, four,--
Sliding up the
sparkling floor
Then it ebbs to flow no more,
Wandering off from shore to shore

With its freight of golden ore!
Pleasant place for boys to play;--

Better keep your girls away;
Hearts get rolled as pebbles do
Which
countless fingering waves pursue,
And every classic beach is strown

With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone.
But this is neither here nor there;
I'm talking about an old arm-chair.

You 've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL?
Over at Medford
he used to dwell;
Married one of the Mathers' folk;
Got with his
wife a chair of oak,--
Funny old chair with seat like wedge,
Sharp
behind and broad front edge,--
One of the oddest of human things,

Turned all over with knobs and rings,--
But heavy, and wide, and
deep, and grand,--
Fit for the worthies of the land,--
Chief Justice
Sewall a cause to try in,
Or Cotton Mather to sit--and lie--in.
Parson
Turell bequeathed the same
To a certain student,--SMITH by name;

These were the terms, as we are told:
"Saide Smith saide Chaire to
have and holde;
When he doth graduate, then to passe
To ye oldest
Youth in ye Senior Classe.
On payment of "--(naming a certain
sum)--
"By him to whom ye Chaire shall come;

He to ye oldest
Senior next,
And soe forever,"--(thus runs the text,)--
"But one
Crown lesse then he gave to claime,
That being his Debte for use of
same."
Smith transferred it to one of the BROWNS,
And took his
money,--five silver crowns.
Brown delivered it up to MOORE,

Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four.
Moore made over the chair to

LEE,
Who gave him crowns of silver three.
Lee conveyed it unto
DREW,
And now the payment, of course, was two.
Drew gave up
the chair to DUNN,--
All he got, as you see, was one.
Dunn
released the chair to HALL,
And got by the bargain no crown at all.

And now it passed to a second BROWN,
Who took it and likewise
claimed a crown.
When Brown conveyed it unto WARE,
Having
had one crown, to make it fair,
He paid him two crowns to take the
chair;
And Ware, being honest, (as all Wares be,)
He paid one
POTTER, who took it, three.
Four got ROBINSON; five got Dix;

JOHNSON primus demanded six;
And so the sum kept gathering still

Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill.
When paper money became so cheap,
Folks would n't count it, but
said "a heap,"
A certain RICHARDS,--the books declare,--
(A. M.
in '90? I've looked with care
Through the Triennial,--name not
there,)--
This person, Richards, was offered then
Eightscore pounds,
but would have ten;
Nine, I think, was the sum he took,--
Not quite
certain,--but see the book.
By and by the wars were still,
But
nothing had altered the Parson's will.
The old arm-chair was solid yet,

But saddled with such a monstrous debt!
Things grew quite too bad
to bear,
Paying such sums to get rid of the chair
But dead men's
fingers hold awful tight,
And there was the will in black and white,

Plain enough for a child to spell.
What should be done no man could
tell,
For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse,
And every season
but made it worse.
As a last resort, to clear the doubt,
They got old GOVERNOR
HANCOCK out.
The Governor came with his Lighthorse Troop


And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop;
Halberds glittered and
colors flew,
French horns whinnied and trumpets blew,
The yellow
fifes whistled between their teeth,
And the bumble-bee bass-drums
boomed beneath;
So he rode with all his band,
Till the President
met him, cap in hand.
The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said,--


"A will is a will, and the Parson's dead."
The Governor hefted the
crowns. Said he,--
"There is your p'int. And here 's my fee.
These are the terms you must fulfil,--
On such conditions I BREAK
THE WILL!"
The Governor mentioned what these should be.
(Just
wait a minute and then you 'll see.)
The President prayed. Then all
was still,
And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL!
"About
those conditions?" Well, now you go
And do as I tell you, and then
you'll know.
Once a year, on Commencement day,
If you 'll only
take the pains to stay,
You'll see the President in the CHAIR,

Likewise the Governor sitting there.
The President rises; both old and
young
May hear his speech in a