| |
| PAP’S got his patent right, and rich as all creation; | |
| But where ’s the peace and comfort that we all had before? | |
| Le’s go a-visitin’ back to Griggsby’s Station— | |
| Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore! | |
| |
| The likes of us a-livin’ here! It ’s just a mortal pity | 5 |
| To see us in this great big house, with cyarpets on the stairs, | |
| And the pump right in the kitchen! And the city! city! city!— | |
| And nothin’ but the city all around us ever’wheres! | |
| |
| Climb clean above the roof and look from the steeple, | |
| And never see a robin, nor a beech or ellum tree! | 10 |
| And right here in ear-shot of at least a thousan’ people, | |
| And none that neighbors with us, or we want to go and see! | |
| |
| Le’s go a-visitin’ back to Griggsby’s Station— | |
| Back where the latch-string ’s a-hangin’ from the door, | |
| And ever’ neighbor ’round the place is dear as a relation— | 15 |
| Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore! | |
| |
| I want to see the Wiggenses, the whole kit and bilin’ | |
| A-drivin’ up from Shallor Ford to stay the Sunday through; | |
| And I want to see ’em hitchin’ at their son-in-law’s and pilin’ | |
| Out there at ’Lizy Ellen’s like they ust to do! | 20 |
| |
| I want to see the piece-quilts the Jones girls is makin’; | |
| And I want to pester Laury ’bout their freckled hired hand, | |
| And joke her ’bout the widower she come purt’ nigh a-takin’, | |
| Till her pap got his pension ’lowed in time to save his land. | |
| |
| Le’s go a-visitin’ back to Griggsby’s station— | 25 |
| Back where they ’s nothin’ aggervatin’ anymore; | |
| Shet away safe in the woods around the old location— | |
| Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore! | |
| |
| I want to see Marindy and he’p her with her sewin’, | |
| And hear her talk so lovin’ of her man that ’s dead and gone, | 30 |
| And stand up with Emanuel to show me how he ’s growin’, | |
| And smile as I have saw her ’fore she put her mournin’ on. | |
| |
| And I want to see the Samples, on the old lower eighty— | |
| Where John our oldest boy, he was tuk and buried—for | |
| His own sake and Katy’s—and I want to cry with Katy | 35 |
| As she reads all his letters over, writ from The War. | |
| |
| What ’s all this grand life and high situation, | |
| And nary pink nor hollyhawk bloomin’ at the door?— | |
| Le’s go a-visitin’ back to Griggsby’s Station— | |
| Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore! | 40 |
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