Oscar Hummel by Edgar Lee Masters
I staggered on through darkness, There was a hazy sky, a few stars Which I followed as best I could. It was nine o'clock, I was trying to get home. But somehow I was lost, Though really keeping the road. Then I reeled through a gate and into a yard, And called at the top of my voice: "Oh, Fiddler! Oh, Mr. Jones!" (I thought it was his house and he would show me the way home.) But who should step out but A. D. Blood, In his night shirt, waving a stick of wood, And roaring about the cursed saloons, And the criminals they made? "You drunken Oscar Hummel", he said, As I stood there weaving to and fro, Taking the blows from the stick in his hand Till I dropped down dead at his feet.
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