Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1888 — ABSENCE OF LITTLE WESLEY. [ARTICLE]

ABSENCE OF LITTLE WESLEY.

Since little Wesley went, the place aecma all bo strange and still— W'y. I mtoe Ms yell o’ "Gnm'pop!” ul’d miM the whipperwilll AM to think I ust to scold him !er his everlastin' noise,' . i _ When I on’y rlckollect him as the beet o' little “, boys! . I wUbti hundred times a day 'at he’d come trampin' in. And all th<> noise he ever made was twic't as loudag'in'— It 'u’d seem like some soft music played on some line Instrument, 'J.ongside o’ this loues<snene«s, sence little Wesley went! Of course theclock don't tick no louder than it ust to do— Yit now they's time it 'pears like it .'u’d bu'st i tael I in-two! And, let a roosnff, suddent like, crow som'ers clos't around, And seems'» es. mighty nigh it, lit 'u’d lift me off the ground! And same with all the cattle when they bawl around the bars. In the red o’airly mornln', cr the dusk and dew and stars, . " When the neighbors’ boys 'at passes never stop, but jest go on. , A-whistlln’ kind o' to thelrse’v's—sence Wesley's gone! • : And then, o’ nights when Mother’s settin’ un oncommon late, A-bllin'pears ez Mimepin, and I set and smoke soil wait . Tel the moon out through the winder don't look bigger 'n a dime, And things keep gettin’ stiller—stiller— stiller all the time,— ’ - I've ketched myse'f a-wishln' like —as I dumb on the cheer To wind the dock, as I hev done fer more 'n fifty year'— A-wishin' 'at the time bed come fer us to go bed, With our last prayers, and our last tears, sence little Westley's dead! —James Whitcomb Riiey in The May Century. ■;*