NINE FROM EIGHT. I WAS drivin' my two-mule waggin, Towards Macon, to git some baggin' (Which my cotton was ready to bale), And I come to a place on the side o' the pike Whar a peert little winter branch jest had throw'd The sand in a kind of a sand-bar like, And I seed, a leetle ways up the road, A man squattin' down, like a big bull-toad, And as I driv up, I heerd him bleat To hisself, like a lamb: “Hauh? nine from eight Leaves nuthin'-and none to carry?" And Ellick's bull-cart was standin' A cross-wise of the way, And the little bull was a-expandin', Hisself on a wisp of hay. But Ellick he sat with his head bent down, A-studyin' and musin' powerfully, And his forrud was creased with a turrible frown, And he was a-wurken' appearently A 'rethmetic sum that wouldn't gee, Fur he kep' on figgerin' away in the sand With his finger, and motionin' with his hand, And agin I heard him softly bleat To hisself, like a lamb: "Hauh? nine from eight Leaves nuthin'—and none to carry!" I woa'd my mules mighty easy And I crep' up close to Ellick's back, Thar's eight, ought, four, jest like on a slate : "Them crap-leens, oh, them crap-leens! Hit gobbled me up like snap-beans But I thought I could fool the crap-leen nice, And levelled upon me fur all ther loans To the 'mount of sum nine hundred dollars or more, And sold me out clean for eight hundred and four, As sure as I'm Ellick Garry! And thar it is down all squar and straight, Then I 66 says Hello, here, Garry! However you star' and frown Thare's somethin' fur you to carry, Fur you've worked it upside down!" You may git up soon and lie down late, But you'll always find that nine from eight Leaves nuthin'-and none to carry." MACON, GEORGIA, 1870. THAR'S MORE IN THE MAN THAN THAR IS IN THE LAND. I KNOWED a man, which he lived in Jones, This man-which his name it was also Jones He swore that he 'd leave them old red hills and stones, And little o' that, and his fences was rotten, And what little corn he had, hit was boughten And the longer he swore the madder he got, So him and Tom they hitched up the mules, And he driv by a house whar a man named Brown They closed at a dollar and fifty cents, His entire pile, with the best of luck, To git thar and git him a little land. But Brown moved out on the old Jones' farm, Five years glid by, and Brown, one day (Which he'd got so fat that he wouldn't weigh), Was a settin' down, sorter lazily, To the bulliest dinner you ever see, When one o' the children jumped on his knee And says, "Yan's Jones, which you bought his land." And thar was Jones, standin' out at the fence, To Georgy to see if he couldn't git sum Ble as ef he had never owned any land. |