| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Howard Bently | | By Laura Sherry |
| | From “Ridge People”
JIM BURGANTINE said, | |
| “If any other man had tried | |
| To put over a plug hat | |
| In this Western burg | |
| He’d a been egged.” | 5 |
| |
| Howard Bently | |
| Didn’t follow fashion. | |
| He brought his hat from Massachusetts— | |
| It was a good hat | |
| And lasted forty years. | 10 |
| For the matter of that, | |
| Eight months of the calendar | |
| He didn’t wear a hat; | |
| He never did unnecessary things. | |
| He split a cracker | 15 |
| If the scales tipped over a pound. | |
| He split a cracker | |
| If the scales tipped under a pound. | |
| When a neighbor was sick | |
| He sat up nights, | 20 |
| And took the orphans home. | |
| |
| Twenty-five thousand dollars, | |
| Earned in his corner grocery, | |
| Was scattered about the country | |
| Among the struggling farmers. | 25 |
| Howard Bently died | |
| Without trying to collect. | |
| |
| He never said unnecessary words— | |
| He was a quiet man. | |
| No tombstone | 30 |
| Shouts his name above the sod. | | | | |
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