A TALE OF IDAHO
When they had the ethnology,
And up the and the crops,
And the different of bugs,
And told in turn their about the snakes,
And fish and deer and things, of Idaho,
A in inquired,
“All this is well enough; now how about
Your facilities?
And let me see in the time they go.”
“And that’s the only thing we lack,”
Replied the Ancient, with a sigh;
“We do in that ostensibly.
We have the schools, but then we cannot git
The to ’em, or who will remain
Adjacent to ’em, for they will not keep.”
“How!—do they die?” “Wall, some on ’em expired,
Though Idaho ain’t an expirin’ State;
But I will tell you just the time they go.
“We had a from the East;
He the boys, and also the gals,
And was all popular,
Bein’ an fightin’ man,
And there he did over. For one day
He met a upon the prowl,
And to it, and the come;
But when he he by express
All of that man of him;
And that is just about the time they go.
“We had another from Connecticut:
A him down, and married him
Inside the very school-house where he taught,
Just as an Injun cooks a terrapin
In its own shell, or as a deer
Is sometimes biled
Inside of its own skin, for that man
Has been in bilin’ water sense:
They say she makes it for him.
And that is just about the time they go.
“The third was well enough, but he was lame;
I needn’t tell you how that one got spiled;
For he couldn’t run, one day, of course,
The Injuns him, and the way
They him was as bad
As if they had been widders, and that man
Their spouse. They also it hot,
Because they took and him at the stake.
And that is just about the time they go.
“Then we women-folks to keep the school.
We for one. She came; and as she lit
Down from the stage, a man to her
And was accepted, and she married him
That very night; in fact, an hour
He a party, and we had a dance;
But Education all the same,
As she to teach, bein’ inclined
To conjugate—excuse my little joke;
But that is just about the time they go.
“The second—wall, I took the second one
About the middle of the week she come;
But the Institute,
‘Send on some more; keep sending of ’em on.’
And so they a-comin’, but they kep’
A-going than they arrove,
For the third lady was by
A she got to us—
She took it kindly, I believe.
And that is just about the time they go.”
“But why,” the traveller,
“Don’t you obtain a scareful, one—
Some old faggot, just like that
Tremendous terror with the lantern-jaws
By ticket-window? She would keep.”
“Alas! how strange,” the Ancient Man;
“How is it that you people from the East
Will us pioneers?
That woman is my wife—the very one
I cut away from school; and she’s by far
The there was in all the drove.
For that is just about the time they go.”
