Uncle Jotham’s Boarder 
“ He had an old bait-net of thin, rotten stuff 
That a minner could bite his way through; 
But he never went fishin’— at least, in the way 
That fishermen gen’ally do; 
But he carried that bait-net wherever he went; 
The handle was j’inted in two. 
41 And the bottles and boxes that chap fetched along! 
Why, a doctor would never want more; 
If they held pills and physic, he’d got full enough 
To fit out a medicine-store. 
And he ’d got heaps of pins, dreffle lengthy and slirp 
Allers droppin’ about on the floor. 
*‘Well, true as I live, that old feller just spent 
His hull days in loafin’ about 
And pickin’ up hoppers and roaches and flies — 
Not to use for his bait to ketch trout, 
But to kill and stick pins in and squint at and all. 
He was crazy’s a coot, th’ ain’t no doubt. 
s< He’d see a poor miller a-flyin’ along,— 
The commonest, every-day kind,— 
And he’d waddle on alter it, fat as he was, 
And foller up softly behind, 
Till he’d flop that-air bait-net right over its head, 
And I’d laugh till nigh out of my mind. 
4 < Why, he’d lay on the ground for an hour at a stietcf 
And scratch in the dirt like a hen; 
He’d scrape all the bark off the bushes and trees, 
And turn the stones over; and then 
He’d peek under logs, or he’d pry into holes. 
I’m glad there ain’t no more sech men. 
44 My wife see a box in his bedroom, one day, 
Jest swarmin’ with live caterpillars; 
He fed ’em on leaves off of all kinds of trees — 
The ellums and birches and willers; 
And he’d got piles of boxes, chock-full to the top 
With crickets and bees and moth-millers. 
** I asked him, one time, what his business might be 
Of course, 1 fust made some apology. 
He tried to explain, but such awful big words! 
Sorto’ forren, outlandish, and collegey. 
’S near’s I can tell, ’stead of enterin’ a trade, 
He was tryin’ to jest enter mology. 
* 3 4 
