The Dead Mens Song

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Title: The Dead Men's Song
Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its Author Young Ewing Allison
Author: Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
Release Date: September 17, 2006 [EBook #19273]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAD MEN'S SONG ***
Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, David Newman and?the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at?http://www.pgdp.net
OF THIS LITTLE VOLUME TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES HAVE BEEN MADE
YOUNG EWING ALLISON
--_A REMINISCENCE_
[Illustration: _Photograph By Cusick._
Young Ewing Allison]
"The man who wrote such a poem should not be unknelled, unhonored and unsung."
--_Walt Mason._
THE DEAD MEN'S SONG:
BEING THE?STORY OF A POEM AND A REMINISCENT SKETCH?OF ITS AUTHOR
YOUNG EWING ALLISON
TOGETHER WITH A BROWSE THROUGH OTHER?GEMS OF HIS AND RECOLLECTIONS?OF OLDER DAYS
BY
HIS FRIEND AND ASSOCIATE
CHAMPION INGRAHAM HITCHCOCK
_Incorporated with which are Facsimiles?of Certain Interesting Manuscripts_
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
1914
COPYRIGHT BY CHAMPION INGRAHAM HITCHCOCK
1914
IN THESE PAGES
A WORD SAID BEFOREHAND
Explaining How a Certain "Chap" Lost His Temper and Found It Again Very Quickly.
DERELICT, By Young Ewing Allison
A Reminiscence of Stevenson's "Treasure Island" Based On the Quatrain of Captain Billy Bones.
PICTURING THE INDIVIDUAL
With Some Observations About A Man Whom I Have the Honor to Call Friend.
MAN AND NEWSPAPER MAN
A Peep Into Personal Records of the Past With Some Comments of a Current Nature.
JUST BROWSING AROUND
Excursions Into the "Higher Altitudes" With Something About the Books Up There.
IN THE OPERATIC FIELD
Being a Look Behind the Scenes With Some Glimpses of a Pursuing Jinx.
BALLAD OF DEAD MEN
The Same Being Mostly About Able Pirates And the Very Able Descendant of a Pirate.
IF THERE IS CONTROVERSY!
Just a Few Bits From the Olden Days With Some Comment On a Certain Critic.
SOME CLIPPINGS--AND A LETTER
Which Tells How One Who Did Not Know Set Himself Up As a "Chanty" Authority.
YO-HO-HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM
Discussed As a Chanty Entertainingly By a Mariner and With a Deep-Sea Flavor.
SUPPLEMENTING _the_ TEXT
YOUNG EWING ALLISON (By Cusick) _Frontispiece._
A "Sitting" for Which Photograph Forms A Story Known Only to This Writer.
DERELICT _Illuminating the Poem_
Facsimiles of the Original Illustrations in _Rubric_ (Vol. 1, No. 1, 1901) to Which Certain Piratical Tints Have Been Added.
"A TEMPTING BAUBLE"
Said "Bauble" Being a Check (to Cover the Cost of a Certain Book) Which Allison Returned in a Frame With a Few Comments of His Own.
YOUNG E. ALLISON (By Wyncie King)
_Louisville Herald_ Demon Caricaturist's Conception of a Pirate's Poet, With a Cigarette Replacing the Customary "Stogie."
THE INFALLIBLE (By Charles Dana Gibson)
A "Type" in Every Old Daily Newspaper Office, Reproduced from _Century_ (October, 1889), Illustrating "The Longworth Mystery."
BOOK OF "THE OGALLALLAS"
Being a Facsimile (Slightly Reduced) of the Cover of Allison's First Opera Pursued and Captured By a Jinx.
FROM THE OLD "PROMPT" BOOK
Page (slightly reduced) From "The Mouse and the Garter," Showing Allison's Characteristic Penciled Notations.
"A PIRATICAL BALLAD" (Words and Music)
Facsimile in Miniature of the First Printed Verses of "Derelict" Published and Copyrighted by William A. Pond & Co., 1891.

Together With Certain Letters and Memoranda, Proofs, Mss., etc., About "Fifteen Dead Men," in Facsimile of Young E. Allison's Characteristic Handwriting, which are to be Found in a "Pocket" in the Inside Back Cover of This Volume.
A WORD SAID BEFOREHAND
If a careless and uninformed writer in _The New York Times Book Review_ had not hazarded the speculation in his columns that it was very doubtful if Young Ewing Allison wrote the famous poem "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest," the creation and perfection of which took him through a period of about six years, the idea of undertaking a sketch of him and the stuff he has done might never have occurred to me. While not exactly thankful to the New York editor, I have abandoned a blood-thirsty raid on his sanctum and a righteous indignation has been dissipated in the serene pleasure I have found in expressing an appreciation of Allison's genius in this private volume for our friends. God bless the Old Scout! In all of our intimate years there has been such a complete understanding between us that spoken words have been largely unnecessary, and so the opportunity of saying publicly what has ever been in my heart, is a rare one, eagerly seized.
C. I. H.
Louisville, November, 1914.
_THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED TO HER WHOSE FAITH IN ME AND LOVE FOR ME NEVER WANED_
[Illustration]
DERELICT
A Reminiscence of "Treasure Island"
YOUNG E. ALLISON
_Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!_
(_Cap'n Billy Bones his song._)
Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!?Drink and the devil had done