"How does she read?" said the old man eagerly,
and searching in the meantime for his spectacles.
"How does she read?--Then I can tell you!"

"It reads," said I, studiously conning the old
man's bold but bad chirography, and tilting my chair
back indolently,--"it reads like this--the first verse
does,"--and I very gravely read:--

"Oh! the old swimmin'-hole!"--


"Stop! Stop!" said the old man excitedly--"Stop
right there! That's my poetry, but that's not the
way to read it by a long shot! Give it to me!" and
he almost snatched it from my hand. "Poetry like
this ain't no poetry at all, 'less you read it NATCHURL
and IN JEST THE SAME SPERIT 'AT IT'S WRIT IN, don't you
understand. It's a' old man a-talkin', rickollect, and
a-feelin' kindo' sad, and yit kindo' sorto' good, too,
and I opine he wouldn't got that off with a face on
him like a' undertaker, and a voice as solemn as a cow-bell after
dark! He'd say it more like this."--
And the old man adjusted his spectacles and read:--


"THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE"

"Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! whare the crick so still and deep
Looked like a baby-river that was laying half asleep,