Hark, a heavy step advancing,--list, a father's angry cry,
"He hain't shucked a single nubbin; where's that good-fer-nothin' Hi?"
"Here, base catiff," comes the answer, "here am I who was your slave,
But no more I'll do your shuckin', though I fill a bloody grave!
Freedom's fire my breast has kindled; there'll be bloodshed, tyrant!
brute!"
Quoth brave Hiram Adoniram Andrew Jackson Shute.

"Breast's a-blazin', is it, Sonny?" asks his father with a smile,
"Kind er like a stove, I reckon, what they call 'gas-burner' style.
Good 'base-burner' 's what your needin'"--here he pins our hero fast,
"Come, young man, we'll try the woodshed, keep the bloodshed till the
last."
Then an atmosphere of horse-whip, interspersed with cow-hide boot,
Wraps young Hiram Adoniram Andrew Jackson Shute.

* * * * *

Weep ye now, oh, gentle reader, for the fallen, great of heart,
As ye wept o'er Saint Helena and the exiled Bonaparte;
For a picture, sad as that one, to your pity I would show
Of a spirit crushed and broken,--of a hero lying low;
For where husks are heaped the highest, working swiftly, hushed and mute,
Shucketh Hiram Adoniram Andrew Jackson Shute.

* * * * *

A THANKSGIVING DREAM