Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/49

Rh Till her forehead was burned, and her poor little hand, Through its hardships, got rugged and rough!

But many a time, when I come in the door Quite sudden, I've found her just there, With eyelids all red an' her face to the East— You see, all her own folks was there.

I cheered her, an' told her we'd go by and by, When the clearin' and ploughin was through; And then came the baby—he wa'n't very strong— So that Hetty had plenty to do.

But after a while she got gloomy again; She would hide in the cornfield to cry; We hadn't no meetin' to speak of, you see, No woman to talk to was nigh.

An' she wanted to show little Joe to the folks; She was hungry, I s'pose, for the sight Of faces she'd seen all the days of her life: That was nat'ral, stranger, an' right.

But just when she thought to go over the Plains The devils of Sioux was about; So poor Hetty waited a harvest or two, Through the summer of locusts and drought.

That left us poor people. The next coming spring Such a wearisome fever come round;