hat's what I called him--'my boy') an' the joy
O' perviden fer suthin' besides my lone self
Made me happy. Y' see, th' experunce wuz new;
Fer I'd lived all alone ever since forty-two,
When, back in Ohio, I'd buried my wife
An' baby. Since then I'd looked on my life
As a weary, onfriendly, detestable load.
So that's why I lived all alone, don't you see?
I didn't love nothin' and nothin' loved me.

"But now of young Josh--his name wuz Josh Clark--
He'd come frum ol' York State--could sing like a lark--
Wuz finely brung up, an' that mother o' his,
A sister he tol' me, an' a girl he called Liz.
'D a give the hull earth if they only could know
If he wuz alive; but so hard-hearted, he
Would never be grateful to them nur to me.
Though I had no claim on him, yet it would seem
After all I hed done fer him, shorely some gleam
O' thankfulness somewhere might some time be seen.
'Sides spendin' my all I hed broken down too,
Wuz a shattered ol' man, though but then fifty-two;
Fer I'd give up my health an' my strength to pull through
My boy--fer I loved him, if ever men do.
But, no; it appeared that he hedn't no heart.
Not once did he thank me, and never asked why
I nussed him to life, 'stid o' lettin' him die.

"His wants wuz demands, his wishes commands,
An' once in the dusk, as we set on the sands
Of a stream that run by, he reached with his hands
So quick an' so blamed unexpected, you see,
Grabbed me by the hair an' out with a knife,
An' demanded my gold. I thought fer my life
He wuz jokin'; but no, when I seed that fierce look
Of murder an' pillage, I knowed what I'd done;
I'd thawed out a viper upon my hearth-stun
An' now wuz becomin' its prey.

"But, I'd none:
I'd spent all the surplus I hed to save him.
I'd missed all the summer an' fall to nuss him
Who now like a tiger wuz takin' my life.
'Hol' on, my dear Josh! Hol' on, my dear boy!'
No further I got, fer his hands clutched my throat--
I squirmed myself loose, but grapplin' my coat
He throwed me ag'in, now a madman, indeed.
His dirk-knife wuz raised. I said, 'Do yer best.
I've give you now all that I ever possessed
But life. Take it now if you like!' An' he struck.

"How long I laid there in the dark, I don't know;
But when I kem to I wuz layin' in bed,
An' the people wuz talkin' so easy an' low,
An' I knowed by the bandages too