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Rh Until I'd had him worn to skin and bones. And if I'd left him hitched unblanketed In front of one Town Hall, I'd left him hitched In front of every one in Grafton County. Some cried shame on me not to blanket him, The poor old man. It would have been all right If some one hadn't said to gnaw the posts He stood beside and leave his trade mark on them, So they could recognize them. Not a post That they could hear tell of was scarified. They made him keep on gnawing till he whined. Then that same smarty someone said to look— He'd bet Huse was a cribber and had gnawed The crib he slept in—and as sure's you're born They found he'd gnawed the four posts of his bed, All four of them to splinters. What did that prove? Not that he hadn't gnawed the hitching posts He said he had besides. Because a horse Gnaws in the stable ain't no proof to me He don't gnaw trees and posts and fences too. But everybody took it for a proof. I was a strapping girl of twenty then. The smarty someone who spoiled everything Was Arthur Amy. You know who he was. That was the way he started courting me. He never said much after we were married, But I mistrusted he was none too proud Of having interfered in the Huse business. I guess he found he got more out of me By having me a witch. Or something happened To turn him round. He got to saying things To undo what he'd done and make it right, Like, "No, she ain't come back from kiting yet.