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Edgar Lee Masters - Aner Clute
Work rating: Low

Over and over they used to ask me,
While buying the wine or the beer,
In Peoria first, and later in Chicago,
Denver, Frisco, New York, wherever I lived,
How I happened to lead the life,
And what was the start of it.
Well, I told them a silk dress,
And a promise of marriage from a rich man —
(It was Lucius Atherton).
But that was not really it at all.
Suppose a boy steals an apple
From the tray at the grocery store,
And they all begin to call him a thief,
The editor, minister, judge, and all the people —
"A thief," "a thief," "a thief," wherever he goes.
And he can`t get work, and he can`t get bread
Without stealing it, why, the boy will steal.
It`s the way the people regard the theft of the apple
That makes the boy what he is.
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