William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.

The Widow-Man

I’VE brung you my three babes, that lost their Maw a year ago.

Folks claim you are right women, larnd, and fitten for to know

What’s best for babes, and how to raise ’em into Christian men..

I’ve growed afeared to leave ’em lest the house ketch fire again.

For though I counsel ’em a sight each time I ride to town,

Little chaps get so sleepy-headed when the dark comes down!

A body can make shift somehow to feed ’em up of days,

But nights they need a woman-person’s foolish little ways

(When all of t’other young things are tucked under mammy’s wing,

And the hoot-owls and the frogs and all the lonesome critters sing).

You’ll baby ’em a little when you get ’em in their gown?

Little chaps get so sleepy-headed when the dark comes down!

The Outlook