A Dost O' Blues

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I' got no patience with blues at all!
  And I ust to kindo talk
  Aginst 'em, and claim, 'tel along last Fall,
  They was none in the fambly stock;
  But a nephew of mine, from Eelinoy,
  That visited us last year,
  He kindo convinct me differunt
  While he was a-stayin' here.

  Frum ever'-which way that blues is from,
  They'd tackle him ever' ways;
  They'd come to him in the night, and come
  On Sundays, and rainy days;
  They'd tackle him in corn-plantin' time,
  And in harvest, and airly Fall,
  But a dose 't of blues in the wintertime,
  He 'lowed, was the worst of all!

  Said all diseases that ever he had--
  The mumps, er the rheumatiz--
  Er ever'-other-day-aigger's bad
  Purt' nigh as anything is!--
  Er a cyarbuncle, say, on the back of his neck,
  Er a felon on his thumb,--
  But you keep the blues away from him,
  And all o' the rest could come!

  And he'd moan, "They's nary a leaf below!
  Ner a spear o' grass in sight!
  And the whole wood-pile's clean under snow!
  And the days is dark as night!
  You can't go out--ner you can't stay in--
  Lay down--stand up--ner set!"
  And a tetch o' regular tyfoid-blues
  Would double him jest clean shet!

  I writ his parents a postal-kyard,
  He could stay 'tel Spring-time come;
  And Aprile first, as I rickollect,
  Was the day we shipped him home!
  Most o' his relatives, sence then,
  Has either give up, er quit,
  Er jest died off; but I understand
  He's the same old color yit!

© James Whitcomb Riley