[Spoon River Anthology]
[Edgar Lee Masters]

[E. C. Culbertson] << --- >> [Hildrup Tubbs]

Shack Dye

THE [white] men played all sorts of jokes on me.
They took big [fish] off my [hook]
And put little ones on, while I was away
Getting a stringer, and made me believe
I hadn't seen aright the fish I had caught.
When Burr Robbins [circus] came to town
They got the ring master to let a tame [leopard]
Into the ring, and made me believe
I was whipping a wild beast like [Samson]
When I, for an offer of fifty dollars,
Dragged him out to his cage.
One time I entered my [blacksmith] shop
And shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawling
Across the floor, as if alive --
[Walter Simmons] had put a [magnet]
Under the [barrel] of water.
Yet everyone of you, you white men,
Was fooled about fish and about leopards too,
And you didn't know any more than the horse-shoes did
What moved you about [Spoon River].

Source: [Project Gutenberg]

Shack Dye (person)