my father. Let us not pry into the result; it was of no consequence to
any one but me.
But the poem I have referred to as attracting my father’s attention and
achieving his favour was “Hiawatha.” Some man who courted a sudden and
awful death presented him an early copy, and I never lost faith in my own
senses until I saw him sit down and go to reading it in cold blood–saw
him open the book, and heard him read these following lines, with the
same inflectionless judicial frigidity with which he always read his
charge to the jury, or administered an oath to a witness:
Take your bow,
O Hiawatha,
Take your arrows, jasper-headed,
Take your war-club, Puggawaugun,
And your mittens, Minjekahwan,
And your birch canoe for sailing,
And the oil of Mishe-Nama.”
Presently my father took out of his breast pocket an imposing “Warranty
Deed,” and fixed his eyes upon it and dropped into meditation. I knew
what it was. A Texan lady and gentleman had given my half-brother, Orrin
Johnson, a handsome property in a town in the North, in gratitude to him
for having saved their lives by an act of brilliant heroism.
By and by my father looked towards me and sighed. Then he said:
“If I had such a son as this poet, here were a subject worthier than the
traditions of these Indians.”
“If you please, sir, where?”
“In this deed.”
“Yes–in this very deed,” said my father, throwing it on the table.
“There is more poetry, more romance, more sublimity, more splendid
imagery hidden away in that homely document than could be found in all
the traditions of all the savages that live.”
“Indeed, sir? Could I–could I get it out, sir? Could I compose the
poem, sir, do you think?”
“You?”
I wilted.
Presently my father’s face softened somewhat, and he said:
“Go and try. But mind, curb folly. No poetry at the expense of truth.
Keep strictly to the facts.”
I said I would, and bowed myself out, and went upstairs.
“Hiawatha” kept droning in my head–and so did my father’s remarks about
the sublimity and romance hidden in my subject, and also his injunction
to beware of wasteful and exuberant fancy. I noticed, just here, that I
had heedlessly brought the deed away with me; now at this moment came to
me one of those rare moods of daring recklessness, such as I referred to
a while ago. Without another thought, and in plain defiance of the fact
that I knew my father meant me to write the romantic story of my half-
brother’s adventure and subsequent good fortune, I ventured to heed
merely the letter of his remarks and ignore their spirit. I took the
stupid “Warranty Deed” itself and chopped it up into Hiawathian blank
verse without altering or leaving out three words, and without
transposing six. It required loads of courage to go downstairs and face
my father with my performance. I started three or four times before I
finally got my pluck to where it would stick. But at last I said I would
go down and read it to him if he threw me over the church for it.
I stood up to begin, and he told me to come closer. I edged up a little,
but still left as much neutral ground between us as I thought he would
stand. Then I began. It would be useless for me to try to tell what
conflicting emotions expressed themselves upon his face, nor how they
grew more and more intense, as I proceeded; nor how a fell darkness
descended upon his countenance, and he began to gag and swallow, and his
hands began to work and twitch, as I reeled off line after line, with the
strength ebbing out of me, and my legs trembling under me:
THE STORY OF A GALLANT DEED
THIS INDENTURE, made the tenth
Day of November, in the year
Of our Lord one thousand eight
Hundred six-and-fifty,
Between Joanna S. E. Gray
And Philip Gray, her husband,
Of Salem City in the State
Of Texas, of the first part,
And O. B. Johnson, of the town
Of Austin, ditto, WITNESSETH: