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<h2><SPAN name="IN_SUNFLOWER_TIME" id="IN_SUNFLOWER_TIME"></SPAN>In Sunflower Time</h2> <div class="poetry"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0"><span class="letra">I</span>N the farmhouse kitchen were Nan and John,<br/></span> <span class="i0">With only the sunflowers looking on.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Now, a farm-house kitchen is scarce the place<br/></span> <span class="i0">For a knight or lady of courtly grace.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">But this was a common, everyday pair<br/></span> <span class="i0">That held the old kitchen, this morning fair.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">A persistent and saucy thorn-tree limb<br/></span> <span class="i0">Had sacrified a part of the brim<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Of the youth’s straw hat, so his face was brown,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Save his well-shaped forehead, which wore a frown,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And his boots were splashed with the mud and clay<br/></span> <span class="i0">Of the marsh land pastures, over the way,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Where the alders tall, and the spicewood grew,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And the frogs croaked noisily all night through.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">’Neath the muslin curtains, snowy and thin,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The big homely sunflowers nodded in.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Nan was worth the watching, her gingham gown<br/></span> <span class="i0">Had, it may be, old-fashioned grown,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">But it fitted the slender shape so well,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Was low at the neck where the soft lace fell;<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_056" id="page_056"></SPAN>{56}</span><br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Of sleeves, it had none, from the elbow down,<br/></span> <span class="i0">While in length—well, you see, the maid had grown.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">A labor of love was her homely task<br/></span> <span class="i0">To share it, no mortal need hope or ask,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">For Nan she was washing each trace of dirt<br/></span> <span class="i0">From fluted bodice, and ruffled skirt.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">There are few that will, and fewer that can,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Bend over a tub like our pretty Nan,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">As she took each piece from its frothy lair,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The soap bubbles flying high in the air,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And rubbed in a cruel, yet tender way,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Till her curls were wet with the steam and spray,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Then wrung with her two hands, slender and strong,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Examined with care, and shook slowly and long,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Then flung in clear water to lie in state—<br/></span> <span class="i0">Each dainty piece met with the same hard fate.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="ig">“There!” and she gave a look of conscious pride<br/></span> <span class="i0">At the rinsing-bucket, so deep and wide,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Then wiping the suds from each rounded arm,<br/></span> <span class="i0">She turned to the youth with a smile so warm;<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_057" id="page_057"></SPAN>{57}</span><br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="ig">“I have kept you waiting, excuse me please—<br/></span> <span class="i0">The soap suds just ruin such goods as these.”<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="ig">“And you are so fond of finery, Nan,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Nice dresses, and furbelows,” he began.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="ig">“Ah, maybe I am, of a truth,” she said,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And each sunflower nodded its golden head.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="ig">“Well, Ned Brown’s getting rich,” John’s words came slow,<br/></span> <span class="ig">“And, he’s loved you a long while as you know;<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">My house and my acres, I held them fast,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Was so stubborn over them to the last,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">For when my father was carried forth,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And the men were asking, ‘what was he worth?’<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">I knew that they said, with a nod and a smile,<br/></span> <span class="i0">As they whispered together all the while,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">‘<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tis a fine old homestead, but mortgaged so,<br/></span> <span class="i0">What a foolish thing for a man to do!’<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And I said, my father is dead and gone,<br/></span> <span class="i0">But he’s left behind him a strong-armed son,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And my heart was hot with a purpose set,<br/></span> <span class="i0">To pay off that mortgage, to clear off that debt.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_058" id="page_058"></SPAN>{58}</span><br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">I’ve worked, heaven knows it, like any slave,<br/></span> <span class="i0">I’ve learned well the lesson of pinch and save,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">I’ve kept a good horse, but dressed like a clown—<br/></span> <span class="i0">I haven’t a dollar to call my own.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">O, I’m beaten—well beaten! yesterday<br/></span> <span class="i0">Everything went to Ned Brown from me;<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">My meadows, my acres of tassled corn,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The big orchard planted when I was born.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">What I would have saved had I had the choice,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Was my chestnut mare, for she knows your voice.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">So I’m only a beggar, Nan, you see—<br/></span> <span class="i0">Don’t fancy I’m begging for sympathy,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">You see for yourself that I don’t care much—<br/></span> <span class="i0">Thank God, health’s a thing the law can’t touch!<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Why! the happiest man I ever knew<br/></span> <span class="i0">Was born a beggar—and died one too.”<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And so wisely nodding each yellow head<br/></span> <span class="i0">The sunflowers they listened to what was said,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">As Nan in her careful and easy way,<br/></span> <span class="i0">In the old farmhouse kitchen that summer day,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_059" id="page_059"></SPAN>{59}</span><br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Set a great and a mighty problem forth—<br/></span> <span class="ig">“Tell me the truth, John, how much am I worth?”<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The question has stood since the world began<br/></span> <span class="i0">With Adam, a lone and a lonesome man.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Now the sunbeams kissing her golden hair,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Her cheeks, and her round arms dimpled and bare,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Seemed stamping a value of mighty wealth<br/></span> <span class="i0">On youth and love, and the bloom of health.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">John looked, and looked, till his eyes grew dim,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Then tilted the hat with the worthless brim,<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">To hide what he would not have her see,<br/></span> <span class="ig">“You’re—you’re just worth the whole world, Nan,” said he.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="ig">“Then you are no beggar”—O sweet, bold Nan!<br/></span> <span class="ig">“You’re <i>the whole world richer than any man</i>.”<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Now, a girl queen wearing a crown of gold<br/></span> <span class="i0">Did something like this, so the tale is told;<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">But no royal prince that the world has seen<br/></span> <span class="i0">Ever felt quite so proud as John, I ween,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_060" id="page_060"></SPAN>{60}</span><br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">As he clasped both her hands with new-born hope—<br/></span> <span class="i0">Hands all crinkley with water and soap.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Only the sunflowers, now looking on,<br/></span> <span class="i0">So—he kissed the maiden, O foolish John!<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">As he hastened out through the garden gate,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Ned Brown was just coming to learn his fate.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">He was riding a handsome chestnut mare<br/></span> <span class="i0">But, somehow, our John didn’t seem to care.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Ned thought of the acres he’d won from John,<br/></span> <span class="ig">“Poor beggar,” he said, and rode slowly on;<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">John thought of all he had won from Ned,<br/></span> <span class="ig">“O you poor, poor beggar,” was what he said.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Why? Under the heavens smiling and blue,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Only John and the yellow sunflowers knew.<br/></span></div> </div></div> <p class="c"><ANTIMG src="images/deco.png" width-obs="25" alt="[Decorative image unavailable.]" /></p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_061" id="page_061"></SPAN>{61}</span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

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