Edwin Ford Piper

Edwin Ford Piper was born at Auburn, Nebraska, February 8, 1871, and literally grew up in the saddle. In 1893 he entered the University of Nebraska, from which he received an A.B. in 1897 and A.M. in 1900. He studied at Harvard (1903–4), was one of the editors of The Kiote (a magazine published from 1898 to 1902 in Lincoln, Nebraska), and, since 1905, has been an instructor of English at the State University of Iowa.

130Piper’s Barbed Wire and Other Poems (1918) is saturated with the color of his environment. His later poems are still more vivid and racy. “Sweetgrass Range” (with its self-acknowledged debt to Burns’s “Rattlin’ Roarin’ Willie”) and “Bindlestiff” are fresh evidences of this author’s creative interest in ballads and folk-lore.

BINDLESTIFF

Oh, the lives of men, lives of men,

In pattern-molds be run;

But there’s you, and me, and Bindlestiff—

And remember Mary’s Son.

At dawn the hedges and the wheel-ruts ran

Into a brightening sky. The grass bent low

With shimmering dew, and many a late wild rose

Unrolled the petals from its odorous heart

While birds held tuneful gossip. Suddenly,

Each bubbling trill and whistle hid away

As from a hawk; the fragrant silence heard

Only the loving stir of little leaves;

Then a man’s baritone broke roughly in:

I’ve gnawed my crust of mouldy bread,

Skimmed my mulligan stew;

Laid beneath the barren hedge—

Sleety night-winds blew.

Slanting rain chills my bones,

Sun bakes my skin;

Rocky road for my limping feet,

Door where I can’t go in.

131Above the hedgerow floated filmy smoke

From the hidden singer’s fire. Once more the voice:

I used to burn the mules with the whip

When I worked on the grading gang;

But the boss was a crook, and he docked my pay—

Some day that boss will hang.

I used to live in a six by nine,

Try to save my dough—

It’s a bellyful of the chaff of life,

Feet that up and go.

The mesh of leafy branches rustled loud,

Into the road slid Bindlestiff. You’ve seen

The like of the traveller: gaunt humanity

In stained and broken coat, with untrimmed hedge

Of rusty beard and curling sunburnt hair;

His hat, once white, a dull uncertain cone;

His leathery hands and cheeks, his bright blue eyes

That always see new faces and strange dogs;

His mouth that laughs at life and at himself.

Sometimes they shut you up in jail—

Dark, and a filthy cell;

I hope the fellows built them jails

Find ’em down in hell.

But up above, you can sleep outdoors—

Feed you like a king;

You never have to saw no wood,

Only job is sing.

132The tones came mellower, as unevenly

The tramp limped off trailing the hobo song:

Good-bye, farewell to Omaha,

K. C., and Denver, too;

Put my foot on the flying freight,

Going to ride her through.

Bindlestiff topped a hillock, against the sky

Showed stick and bundle with his extra shoes

Jauntily dangling. Bird to bird once more

Made low sweet answer; in the wild rose cups

The bee found yellow meal; all softly moved

The white and purple morning-glory bells

As on the gently rustling hedgetop leaves

The sun’s face rested. Bindlestiff was gone.

Oh, the lives of men, lives of men,

In pattern-molds be run;

But there’s you, and me, and Bindlestiff—

And remember Mary’s Son.

SWEETGRASS RANGE

Come sell your pony, cowboy—

Sell your pony to me;

Braided bridle and your puncher saddle,

And spend your money free.

133“If I should sell my pony,

And ride the range no more,

Nail up my hat and my silver spurs

Above my shanty door;

“And let my door stand open wide

To the snow and the rain and sun;

And bury me under the green sweetgrass

Where you hear the river run.”

As I came down the sweetgrass range

And by the cabin door,

I heard a singing in the early dusk

Along the river shore;

I heard a singing to the early stars,

And the tune of a pony’s feet.

The joy of the riding singer

I never shall forget.