The Scissors-Man

As I was busy with my tools
That make my garden neat,
I heard a little crooked tune
Come drifting up the street.

It didn’t seem to have an end
Like others that are plain;
You always felt it going on
Till it began again.

It came quite near: I heard it call,
And dropped my tools and ran
To peer out through the gate;
I thought it might be Pan.

But it was just the scissors-man
Who walked along and played
Upon a little instrument
He told me he had made.

Now, if you hope to see a god
As hard to find as Pan,
It’s sad when it turns out to be
A plain old scissors-man.

But when my mother came to hear
The crooked tune he made,
She said his instrument was like
Some pipes that Pan had played.

And I must ask the scissors-man
If he had ever known
Or met a queer old god who played
On pipes much like his own.

He would not tell: and when I asked
Who taught him how to play,
He made that crooked tune again,
And laughed and went away.

Grace Hazard Conkling