A Dose’t of Blues
I’ got no patience with blues at all!
And I ust to kindo’ talk
Aginst ’em, and claim, ‘tel along last fall,
They was none in the fambly stock;
But a nephew of mine, from Eelinoy,
That visited us last year,
He kindo’ convinct me different
While he was a-stayin’ here.
Frum ever’-which-way that blues is frum,
They’d tackle him ever’ ways;
They’d come to him in the night, and come
On Sundys, and rainy days;
They’d tackle him in corn-plantin’ time,
And in harvest, an airly fall,
But a dose’t of blues in the wintertime
He ’lowed was the worst of all!
Said all diseases that ever he had—
The mumps, er the rheumatiz—
Er ever-other-day aigger’s bad
Purt’ nigh as anything is!—
Er a cyarbuncle, say, on the back of his neck,
Er a fellon on his thumb,—
But you keep the blues away frum him,
And all o’ the rest could come!
And he’d moan, “they’s narry a leaf below!
Ner a spear o’ grass in sight!
And the whole wood-pile’s clean under snow!
And the days is dark as night!
And you can’t go out—ner you can’t stay in—
Lay down—stand up—ner set!”
And a case o’ reguller tyfoid blues
Would double him jest clean shet!
I writ his parents a postal-kyard
He could stay ‘tel spring-time come;
And Aprile first, as I rickollect,
Was the day we shipped him home.
Most o’ his relatives, sence then,
Has either give up, er quit,
Er jest died off, but I understand
He’s the same old color yit!