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Robert W Service - The Gramaphone At Fond-Du-Lac
Work rating: Medium

Now Eddie Malone got a swell grammyfone to draw all the trade to his store;
An` sez he: "Come along for a season of song, which the like ye had niver before."
Then Dogrib, an` Slave, an` Yellow-knife brave, an` Cree in his dinky canoe,
Confluated near, to see an` to hear Ed`s grammyfone make its dayboo.

Then Ed turned the crank, an` there on the bank they squatted like bumps on a log.
For acres around there wasn`t a sound, not even the howl of a dog.
When out of the horn there sudden was born such a marvellous elegant tone;
An` then like a spell on that auddyence fell the voice of its first grammyfone.

"Bad medicine!" cried Old Tom, the One-eyed, an` made for to jump in the lake;
But no one gave heed to his little stampede, so he guessed he had made a mistake.
Then Roll-in-the-Mud, a chief of the blood, observed in choice Chippewayan:
"You`ve brought us canned beef, an` it`s now my belief that this here`s a case of canned man."

Well, though I`m not strong on the Dago in song, that sure got me goin` for fair.
There was Crusoe an` Scotty, an` Ma`am Shoeman Hank, an` Melber an` Bonchy was there.
`Twas silver an` gold, an` sweetness untold to hear all them big guinneys sing;
An` thick all around an` inhalin` the sound, them Indians formed in a ring.

So solemn they sat, an` they smoked an` they spat, but their eyes sort o` glistened an` shone;
Yet niver a word of approvin` occurred till that guy Harry Lauder came on.
Then hunter of moose, an` squaw an` papoose jest laughed till their stummicks was sore;
Six times Eddie set back that record an` yet they hollered an` hollered for more.

I`ll never forget that frame-up, you bet; them caverns of sunset agleam;
Them still peaks aglow, them shadders below, an` the lake like a petrified dream;
The teepees that stood by the edge of the wood; the evenin` star blinkin` alone;
The peace an` the rest, an` final an` best, the music of Ed`s grammyfone.

Then sudden an` clear there rang on my ear a song mighty simple an` old;
Heart-hungry an` high it thrilled to the sky, all about "silver threads in the gold".
`Twas tender to tears, an` it brung back the years, the mem`ries that hallow an` yearn;
`Twas home-love an` joy, `twas the thought of my boy . . . an` right there I vowed I`d return.

Big Four-finger Jack was right at my back, an` I saw with a kind o` surprise,
He gazed at the lake with a heartful of ache, an` the tears irrigated his eyes.
An` sez he: "Cuss me, pard! but that there hits me hard; I`ve a mother does nuthin` but wait.
She`s turned eighty-three, an` she`s only got me, an` I`m scared it`ll soon be too late."

    *

On Fond-du-lac`s shore I`m hearin` once more that blessed old grammyfone play.
The summer`s all gone, an` I`m still livin` on in the same old haphazardous way.
Oh, I cut out the booze, an` with muscles an` thews I corralled all the coin to go back;
But it wasn`t to be: he`d a mother, you see, so I — sliped it to Four-finger Jack.
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