Palace
in the Popple
Written
by George Augustus "Gus" Bixby, ca. 1905
Donated
by Billie
Pett
Gus and
Rob Bixby, lived
in Trego, Gus having been born in St Croix County in August 1880, and
died
in Trego in 1969. Rob, born
1884, died in Trego in 1968. They were a couple of old bachelors that
loved
the great outdoors. Apparently
Gus also
loved
reading poetry...and he dabbled at writing it, too. Here is a
poem
he wrote about their hunting
shack
north of Trego.
Palace
in the Popple
It's a smokey raunchy
boar's nest,
with
an unswept drafty floor,
And pillow ticking
curtains,
with
knife scars on the floor.
The smell of a pine
knot fire,
from
a stovepipe that's come loose,
Mingles sweetly
with the bootgrease,
and
the copenhagen snoose.
There are workworn
.30-.30's
with
battered steel stocks,
And drying lines
of longjohns,
and
of steaming pungent socks.
There's a table for
the bloody four,
and
their game of two card draw,
And there's deep
and dreamless sleeping,
on bunkticks
filled with straw.
Ed and Lawrence, by
the stove,
their
gun talk loud and hot,
And Rob, has drawn
a pain of kings,
and
raking in the pot.
Harvey's drafted
again as cook,
he's
peeling spuds for stew,
While Gus, wanders
in baggy pants,
receiting
Dan McGrew.
Nowhere on earth
is fire so warm,
nor
coffee so infernal,
Or whiskers stiff
or jokes so rich
nor
hope blooms so eternal.
A man can live for
a solid week,
in the
same old underbritches,
He can walk like
a man, spit where he wants,
and
scratch himself where he itches
I tell you boys there's
no place else,
where
I'd rather be come Fall,
Where I eat like
a bear and sing like a wolf,
And
feel like I'm Bull Pine tall.
In that raunchy cabin
out in the bush,
in the
land of the Raven n Loon,
With a tracking
snow lying new to the ground,
at the
end of the rutting moon.
George Augustus
(Gus) Bixby
Circa 1905