The Dowry of the Dulcimer

am. So I'll jist let ye figger out whose day it is. An, laww! You'd art to seen the pickles that was swallered that afternoon and hyeared the jokes that got lodged in th'eats agin sperits .... So now they's a new old sayin out Simmon Road. Have you hyeard how any little American boy kin be presydent? Well, they's some still a poutin around out there; blusterin and tryin to git back thur thunder; hurtin a little youngun onct in a whall and cryin to thur old maws how bad the world does em. But mostly they git th'owed in jail fer it, and thur maws is as feared of Bill Morgan as they air. And they ain't a pickle on earth that kin unexplain it. So when somebody does ketch it from them, they's always somebody around to say, "Don't worry. Bill Morgan'11 be hyere, wi' depaties. Jist study ye lessons and pay em no mind, and even if he don't make it in time, it might be that ye'll come back as presydent." Ain't nobody out there been fooled by that pickle stuff. Ain't too many of em been fooled by that any-little-American -boy-kin-be-presydent stuff, neither, as fer as that goes. And even the ones that swallers hard knows Bill Morgan when they see him a comin. Why, the shuriff is well knowed, all over Pickle County. *1. "... knowed how to keep his left hand in the dark . . ." From the Bible, upon giving alms. THE DOWRY OF THE DULCIMER She plays the songs her father gave to her As dowry when she left the silent hill To find a song beyond the world she knew; She frets her days upon a dulcimer That throbs beneath the repetitious quill But never can the ceaseless notes lenew The source of simpler joys, nor long subdue the pain of knowing love can kill As well as raise the pleasures of the soul. She searches for the song that will instill In her again the peace no pains deter, The song that will with magic make her whole, But as the music brings her toward her goal She only hears the melodies that were. -Parks Lanier 7 ...