Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/253

 RUTH AND LOT. 247

So when I stop at the blue lake s bound, The wave comes up like a stranger hound, And touches me with its tawny foot, Where still I stand on the pebbles mute,

Looking across at the line of blue That lies, dear home, nearer me than you, Then runs aside, while the ripples say, &quot; She waits her shadowy ship to-day.&quot;

��RUTH AND LOT.

&quot; f\R, that s the old maid. Are they talkin of

U me?

I s pose I am one, fur I m nigh forty-three, And I seem like a hundred, I s pose, to the girls, With my sober brown suit and these little gray curls. But I kinder forgit till I hear it. It s true, And I am an old maid. I git kinder blue ; Only sent fur to fun rals, an quiltin s, and teas; Settin up with sick creeturs to watch if they sneeze, An nobody thinkin how lonesome I am. There s the motherless children, be sure, and there s

Sam,

The prince of good brothers ; but sometimes I guess They could live on without me. Old cat, I confess I ve a poor foolish streak in my heart don t you

tell An I wish I d made up, after pouting a spell,

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