Had I been constrained to choose between
That deed at the well and that after-scene
When David and Goliath met,
My heart on the fight would have certainly set.
And yet there was much for a bashful boy
To gather up and remember with joy.
God bless my grandsire's simple heart,
Which made up in faith what it lacked in art,
And led me on to the best of the knowledge
Which years thereafter I carried to college.
Tending the cattle stalled in the "linter,"
Going to school eight weeks in the Winter;
Planting and hoeing potatoes and corn,
Milking the cows at night and morn;
Spreading and raking the new-mown hay,
Stowing it in the mow away;
Gathering apples, and thinking of all
The joys of Thanksgiving late in the Fall--
So passed I the years in such like scenes
Until I had grown well into my teens.
And then, with many a dream in my heart,
I struck for myself and a nobler part;
I hardly knew what, yet some higher good,
Earning and spending as fast as I could;
Earning and spending in teaching and going
To school, what time I to manhood was growing.
My maiden aunt--and Providence
Is approved in its blessed consequence--
That baby of twenty, to thirty had grown,
And from the nest had not yet flown.
And a childless aunt, my uncle's wife,
Had come to gladden that quiet life.
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