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Eugene Field - Marthy`s Younkit
Work rating: Low

The mountain brook sung lonesomelike, and loitered on its way
Ez if it waited for a child to jine it in its play;
The wild-flowers uv the hillside bent down their heads to hear
The music uv the little feet that had somehow grown so dear;
The magpies, like winged shadders, wuz a-flutterin` to an` fro
Among the rocks an` holler stumps in the ragged gulch below;
The pines an` hemlocks tosst their boughs (like they wuz arms) and made
Soft, sollum music on the slope where he had often played;
But for these lonesome, sollum voices on the mountain-side,
There wuz no sound the summer day that Marthy`s younkit died.

We called him Marthy`s younkit, for Marthy wuz the name
Uv her ez wuz his mar, the wife uv Sorry Tom,—the same
Ez taught the school-house on the hill, way back in `69,
When she marr`d Sorry Tom, wich owned the Gosh-all-Hemlock mine!
And Marthy`s younkit wuz their first, wich, bein` how it meant
The first on Red Hoss Mountain, wuz truly a` event!
The miners sawed off short on work ez soon ez they got word
That Dock Devine allowed to Casey what had just occurred;
We loaded up an` whooped around until we all wuz hoarse
Salutin` the arrival, wich weighed ten pounds, uv course!

Three years, and sech a pretty child!—his mother`s counterpart!
Three years, an` sech a holt ez he had got on every heart!
A peert an` likely little tyke with hair ez red ez gold,
A-laughin`, toddlin` everywhere,—`nd only three years old!
Up yonder, sometimes, to the store, an` sometimes down the hill
He kited (boys is boys, you know,—you couldn`t keep him still!)
An` there he`d play beside the brook where purpul wild-flowers grew,
An` the mountain pines an` hemlocks a kindly shadder threw,
An` sung soft, sollum toons to him, while in the gulch below
The magpies, like strange sperrits, went flutterin` to an` fro.

Three years, an` then the fever come,—it wuzn`t right, you know,
With all us old ones in the camp, for that little child to go;
It`s right the old should die, but that a harmless little child
Should miss the joy uv life an` love,—that can`t be reconciled!
That`s what we thought that summer day, an` that is what we said
Ez we looked upon the piteous face uv Marthy`s younkit dead.
But for his mother`s sobbin`, the house wuz very still,
An` Sorry Tom wuz lookin`, through the winder, down the hill,
To the patch beneath the hemlocks where his darlin` used to play,
An` the mountain brook sung lonesomelike an` loitered on its way.

A preacher come from Roarin` Crick to comfort `em an` pray,
`Nd all the camp wuz present at the obsequies next day;
A female teacher staged it twenty miles to sing a hymn,
An` we jined her in the chorus,—big, husky men an` grim
Sung "Jesus, Lover uv my Soul," an` then the preacher prayed,
An` preacht a sermon on the death uv that fair blossom laid
Among them other flowers he loved,—wich sermon set sech weight
On sinners bein` always heeled against the future state,
That, though it had been fashionable to swear a perfec` streak,
There warn`t no swearin` in the camp for pretty nigh a week!

Last thing uv all, four strappin` men took up the little load
An` bore it tenderly along the windin`, rocky road,
To where the coroner had dug a grave beside the brook,
In sight uv Marthy`s winder, where the same could set an` look
An` wonder if his cradle in that green patch, long an` wide,
Wuz ez soothin` ez the cradle that wuz empty at her side;
An` wonder if the mournful songs the pines wuz singin` then
Wuz ez tender ez the lullabies she`d never sing again,
`Nd if the bosom of the earth in wich he lay at rest
Wuz half ez lovin` `nd ez warm ez wuz his mother`s breast.

The camp is gone; but Red Hoss Mountain rears its kindly head,
An` looks down, sort uv tenderly, upon its cherished dead;
`Nd I reckon that, through all the years, that little boy wich died
Sleeps sweetly an` contentedly upon the mountain-side;
That the wild-flowers uv the summer-time bend down their heads to hear
The footfall uv a little friend they know not slumbers near;
That the magpies on the sollum rocks strange flutterin` shadders make,
An` the pines an` hemlocks wonder that the sleeper doesn`t wake;
That the mountain brook sings lonesomelike an` loiters on its way
Ez if it waited for a child to jine it in its play.
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