Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems by James Whitcomb Riley
page 52 of 174 (29%)

The sweetest little thing she was, with rosy cheeks, and fat--
We was little chunks o' shavers then about as high as that!
But someway we sort o' _suited_-like! and Mother she'd declare
She never laid her eyes on a more lovin' pair

Than _we_ was! So we growed up side by side fer thirteen year',
And every hour of it she growed to me more dear!--
W'y, even Father's dyin', as he did, I do believe
Warn't more affectin' to me than it was to see her grieve!

I was then a lad o' twenty; and I felt a flash o' pride
In thinkin' all depended on _me_ now to pervide
Fer Mother and fer Mary; and I went about the place
With sleeves rolled up--and workin', with a mighty smilin' face.--

Fer _sompin' else_ was workin'! but not a word I said
Of a certain sort o' notion that was runnin' through my head,--
"Someday I'd mayby marry, and _a brother's_ love was one
Thing--a _lover's_ was another!" was the way the notion run!

I remember onc't in harvest, when the "cradle-in'" was done--
When the harvest of my summers mounted up to twenty-one--
I was ridin' home with Mary at the closin' o' the day--
A-chawin' straws and thinkin', in a lover's lazy way!

And Mary's cheeks was burnin' like the sunset down the lane:
I noticed she was thinkin', too, and ast her to explain
Well--when she turned and _kissed_ me, _with her arm around me--law_!
I'd a bigger load o' heaven than I had a load o' straw!
DigitalOcean Referral Badge