Descripción
Typed poem regarding selling Bibles in rural North Carolina, on two sheets of 8 1/2 in. x 11 in. thin paper. Shows creasing, dusting some paper repairs. Signed in ink at the end: Ruthalia Keim. Partial text: "All by myself I go my way/Through North Carolina the livelong day./ The towns round Asheville are my field./ I go astride my mare Mathilde./ At night I lie beneath the stars/ Away from cities' jolts and jars,/ Or spend the night in some old shack./I take my Bibles and my pack./"Why Bibles of all things"? you cry,/"Can mountain whites afford to buy"?/Yes, every mountaineer, he stores/The cents he gets between his chores/And following the sun about his house/To buy a Bible for his spouse. They reckon it weak to want to hear/The word of Christ our Lord, for fear--/Well, just for fear. They're sensitive/As folks who have hill lives to live./They claim it's wife who wants the Book/And quash her protests with a look. They've always cherished a desire/To know right out about Hell fire,/The Virgin birth, and all such things/As Baby Jean at Christmas sings--/The youngest kid alone was caught,/And now at school she's tamed and taught. They hate all things that smack of town,/But like to sell their quilts of down,/And baskets made of bark and reed/To get the things from town they need [-] Their homes are roughly made of logs--/But ah! Their country's made like God's/With Bibles and my campfire hearth/To me it's paradise on earth./Then I feel that God is near/And all my songs of praise can hear./I thank Him for the "mountings" tall,/The "branches," rocks, and "gaps," and all/The forms of nature He has given--/As varied as to the ark were driven. When by my fire I lie at night/I hear the love songs of "bob white";/I think a wolf near by me slinks,/Then laugh at finding it a lynx,/And if it's morning, have no fear/When a rattlesnake I hear./And on hot days I often halt/Wild horses ranging far for salt./The ponies and cows are loosed to graze/Through all the hottest August days. [-] To see these things of nature's best/ I thank the Lord with eyes I'm blessed./With nature I live here content--/For cities' strife I was not meant./I need no hope as onward goads/ [-] In my Carolina the woods are good;/Like homes for Touchstone, Robin Hood./But nearer the towns it is not so;/The farms are hilly, hard to sow,/And harder still to plow or drain/The crops of cabbages and cane. But my Carolina's not all poor;/There's Asheville, Tryon, and Biltmore./I reach these places every fall,/But they don't buy any Bibles at all.". N° de ref. del artículo ABE-3112351168
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