Reminiscences
THERE came a dash of snow last night,
An’ ’fore I went to bed,
I somehow got to thinkin’ ’bout
That old place, Kettletread.
I’m silly ’bout that spot of earth,
Though why, I can’t surmise,
For it has got me in more scrapes
And made me tell more lies,
When me, an’ you,
An’ Taylor’s boys,
Were always in the spill,
A stealin’ off
From work to go
A-coastin’ down that hill.
Do you rec’lect how we used to stand
An’ holler out like sin,
“Now one must pass that walnut stump
Afore the rest chips in?”
An’ if one tumbled in the snow, we only stopped to laugh,
An’ all the help we ever gave was aggravatin’ chaff.
Zip! Zip! the frost and snow
A pickin’ at our face,
The wind just howlin’ ’cause it knowed
’Twas beat fair in the race!
Good gracious! Jim, if I could stand, a-lookin’ down that hill,
A-watchin’ you boys tumblin’ off an’ laughin’ at the spill;
An’ then grab up my Noah’s Ark, so clumsy and so wide,
An’ pull the rope, an’ hold her back, there let her go kerslide—
An’ see that glazy piece of ice
A-spannin’ that old crick,
An’ know I couldn’t stop this side
If ’twas to save my neck—
Now don’t you get excited, Jim, ’cause I’m a-talkin’ so,
That would be awful foolish—Gosh! just hear that north wind blow.