Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/50

44 An', stranger—hold on till I tell you; there now!— It laid little Joe in the ground.

I know'd then I'd got to send Hetty off East If I cared about keepin' her here; She pined to a shadder, an' moped by his grave, Though her eyes brighter grew, and more clear.

If you'd seen her poor face when I told her I'd go And take her home visitin'! Well, I'll never forget how she put out her hands Into mine, an', fur joy, cried a spell.

She didn't feel strong, though, that week or the next, An' the cough an' the fever increased; While softly she whispered—she couldn't speak loud— "You'll take me by'm by, to the East?"

She never got East; any further than that (And a hand pointed off to the mound); But I'm goin' to take her and Joe, when I go, To her father's old buryin'-ground.

This, stranger, 's the reason I'm willin' to sell; You can buy at a bargain, you see; It's mighty good land fur a settler to own, But it looks like a graveyard to me.