The Son

I heard an old farm-wife,
Selling some barley,
Mingle her life with life
And the name “Charley.”

Saying: “The crop’s all in,
We’re about through now;
Long nights will soon begin,
We’re just us two now.

“Twelve bushels at sixty cents,
It’s all I carried—
He sickened making fence;
He was to be married—

“It feels like frost was near—
His hair was curly.
The spring was late that year,
But the harvest early.”