Farm festivals :: :: University of Virginia Library

There was a lawsuit in our town:
Two honest farmers, White and Brown,
Who'd been near neighbors all their lives,
Had from the same home lured their wives,
Had interchanged celestial views,
On Sundays, from adjoining pews,
Subjecting thus, in the same church,
Their neighbors' sins to weekly search;
Had shared each golden Christmas chime,
And “changed works” every harvest time;
Had felt a partnership, half hid,
In everything they said and did;
Had always, on town-meeting day,
Talked, yelled, and voted both one way;
Who each, whate'er he wished to do,
Had all the influence of the two
(And two united, as men run,
Are more than twice as strong as one);
Whose children, through youth's sun and shade,
Had with each other fought and played—
These men fell out, one raw March day,
In something like the following way:

White had a sheep he boasted o'er:
Value two dollars—maybe more.
Brown did a brindle dog possess;
Value, two cents, or maybe less.

134

The sheep, one night, was killed by stealth;
The dog retained his usual health.
White felt the separation-shock
As if the sheep had been a flock;
And reaped a crop of mental blues
(We always value what we lose).
Brown's heart the theory could not hear,
Which White propounded to his ear,
That his dog's life should make amends
(No cur so mean but has his friends).
White vowed, in words profanely deep,
That Brown's canine had killed his sheep
(Which accusation was o'er-true;
The dog himself well knew it, too).
Brown, unconvinced and anger-eyed,
Insisted that his neighbor lied.
White skirmished round, by day and night.
In hopes to shoot the dog at sight;
Brown kenneled him beneath his bed,
And sent bad language out instead.
Suit for the sheep was brought by White;
Brown fought him back with all his might.
Thus are the reasons jotted down,
Why we'd a lawsuit in our town.

White's lawyer was, when fairly weighed,
The meanest of that tempted trade;
With all the vices of his clan,
And not a virtue known to man.
In almost every calling, he
Had shown how little, men can be;
Had demonstrated, teaching schools,
That small men can be monstrous fools,
And by strong pupils, once or more,
Was taught the object of the door;
Had preached awhile, at his own call,
With hearers few, or none at all
(For souls to cling are seldom prone
Round men who have none of their own);

137

At farming once had tried his hand,
But laziness grows poor on land.
He had, for half a month or more,
Been salesman in a country store,
Where, though his talents he ne'er hid,
Some of the cash somebody did;
And he, before his sphere enlarged,
By his employer was discharged.
Then his frouzed head and lantern-jaw
Had fin'lly drifted toward the law
(Not to it—candor must admit—
But only just in sight of it);
And so he took a dead-head trip,
On pettifoggery's pirate ship,
Coming at last, it may be said,
To be its brazen figure-head.
This wolf became, at one fell leap,
Attorney for White's missing sheep.
Brown's lawyer equal praise would bear;
Ah me! they were a pretty pair!

Such villains cast no shade of blame
On any honest lawyer's name;
There are those do not hew their life
Into the kindling-wood of strife,
To fire men's hearts and homes in turn,
That they may rob them as they burn;
Who only take such causes as
The eternal Right already has;
Who, when a client comes along
Upon the fragile stilts of wrong,
And strives to make law help him bear
His weight through Error's putrid air,
Show him the sin on which he's bent,
Induce him, maybe, to repent,
And send him home, with altered plan,
A wiser and not poorer man.
Such, with strong heart, and head, and hand,
Are benefactors to the land;

138

It is not to the craft's disgrace
That there were none such in this case.

Scarce did the rage-envenomed din
Have leisure fairly to begin,
Through the thick crowd an old man strode,
Making himself a ragged road;
With gestures lower than his looks,
Upset a pile of huge law-books,
Inked a half-quire of legal cap,
Also Brown's lawyer's left-hand lap;
Ignoring, with a scorn profound,
The judge and jury clustering round,
He climbed his greatest tiptoe-height,
And made this speech to Brown and White:

So you're at it, sure enough—
Side-hold, square-hold, kick and cuff—
Any way to down each other, if it's only brought about;
With two rogues in your employ,
For to hollo out “S't boy!”
An' to superintend your pockets, an' pick up what rattles out.

An' your folks, too, it appears,
Have been gettin' by the ears,
All prepared to hate each other, for forever an' a day;
The devil gives a shout
When a family falls out;
But what is that to you 'uns, if you only have your way?

An' your friends an' neighbors, too,
Have been wranglin' over you;
Your example has been followed, as to brother fightin' brother;
There is more bad blood round here
Than'll drain off in a year;
But what is that to you 'uns, if you only bleed each other?

Can our church such things endure?
You're agoin' to bu'st it, sure!

139

An' the hosts of sin are ready to begin their triumph-revel;
But what would you 'uns give
To save all the souls that live,
So you just can clinch together, an' go rolling toward the devil?

And the Lord that o'er us reigns:
He has taken extra pains
For to put you two in harness, so's to pull together square;
'Stead o' which you kick an' bite,
With a reg'lar ten-mule spite;
Do you think that, strictly speaking, you're a-treatin' on Him fair?

O you law-bamboozled fools!
You old self-ground devil's-tools!
Do you know you're sowin' ruin out o' hell's half-acre lot?
Do you know when smart men fight
They Calamity invite,
Who comes round an' stays forever, till he eats up all they've got?

O you poor cat's-paws of spite!
Ain't there 'nough things for to fight—
Ain't there rust an' blight an' tempest—ain't there misery sore an' deep—
Ain't there ignorance an' wrong,
An' what woes to them belong,
But that you must fight each other 'bout a brindle dog and sheep?

Why, man is just one race,
In a very ticklish place,
With a thousand forces fightin' for to lay him on the shelf;
Don't it strike you, foolish men,
As a losin' business, then,
When he tears down his defenses, an' goes fightin' of himself?

An' these lawyers round here gawkin'—
Who has tried to stop my talkin'—
If they come it once too often, I—I vow I'll smash 'em both;
What d'ye s'pose they care for you,
Or for what they say or do?
For they don't pay no expenses, an' they ain't put under oath.

140

Shake han's now, an' be friends,
An' say, Here the matter ends,
An' divide the costs between you—what has so far been incurred;
It'll make this world less sad—
It'll make all heaven glad!
“Peace on earth,” is just as good news as the angels ever heard.

Here the judge spoke, with angry air:
“We have no jurisdiction there;
It's more than all our work is worth,
To keep things steady here on earth;
We can't pretend, best we can do,
To litigate for angels too.
I hereby fine you, for this sport,
Ten dollars, for contempt of court,
And you will in the jail be laid,
Until the little sum is paid.
Remove this person from the place,
And let us go on with the case.”

With look most cheerful and polite,
The old man turned to Brown and White,
Saying, “For your good I made this speech:
Pray lend me now, five dollars each.
I've been a-throwin' you advice
You couldn't ha' bought at any price.
If you will give my words an ear,
They're worth ten thousan' dollars clear.”

His eloquence had no avail;
They took the old man off to jail.
The suit went on—please don't forget—
And, I believe, isn't finished yet.