Saltbush Bill, J. P.

The Corner Man

  I dreamed a dream at the midnight deep,
   When fancies come and go
  To vex a man in his soothing sleep
   With thoughts of awful woe—
  I dreamed that I was a corner-man
   Of a nigger minstrel show.

  I cracked my jokes, and the building rang
   With laughter loud and long;
  I hushed the house as I softly sang
   An old plantation song—
  A tale of the wicked slavery days
   Of cruelty and wrong.

  A small boy sat on the foremost seat—
   A mirthful youngster he;
  He beat the time with his restless feet
   To each new melody,
  And he picked me out as the brightest star
   Of the black fraternity.

  “Oh father,” he said, “what would we do
   If the corner-man should die?
  I never saw such a man—did you?
   He makes the people cry,
  And then, when he likes, he makes them laugh.”
    The old man made reply—

  “We each of us fill a very small space
   In the great creation's plan,
  If a man don't keep his lead in the race
   There's plenty more that can;
  The world can very soon fill the place
   Of even a corner-man.”

       .    .    .    .    .

  I woke with a jump, rejoiced to find
   Myself at home in bed,
  And I framed a moral in my mind
   From the words the old man said.
  The world will jog along just the same
   When its corner-men are dead.