Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: GOLYER Ef the way a man lights out of this world Helps fix his heft for the other sp'ere, I reckon my old friend Golyer's Ben Will lay over lots of likelier men For one thing he done down here. You did n't know Ben ? He driv a stage On the line they called the Old Sou'-west; He wa'n't the best man that ever you seen, And he wa'n't so ungodly pizen mean, — No better nor worse than the rest. He was hard on women and rough on his friends; And he did n't have many, I'll let you know; He hated a dog and disgusted a cat, But he'd run off his legs for a motherless brat, And I guess there's many jess so. I 've seed my sheer of the run of things, I 've hoofed it a many and many a miled, But I never seed nothing that could or can Jest git all the good from the heart of a man Like the hands of a little child. Well! this young one I started to tell you about, — His folks was all dead, I was fetchin' him through, — He was just at the age that's loudest for boys, And he blowed such a horn with his sarchin' small voice, We called him "the Little Boy Blue." He ketched a sight of Ben on the box, And you bet he bawled and kicked and howled, For to git 'long of Ben, and ride thar too; I tried to tell him it would n't do, When suddingly Golyer growled, "What's the use of making the young one cry ? Say, what's the use of being a fool ? Sling the little one up here whar he can see, He won't git the snuffles a-ridin' with me, — The night ain't any too cool." GOLYER The child hushed cryin' the minute he spoke; "Come up here, Major! don't let him slip." And jest as nice as a woman could do, He wropped his blanket around them two, And was off in the crack of a whip. We rattled along an hour or so, Till we heerd a yell on the still nigh...