"The Negro on the Fence"
Author Unknown

Poetry

[From the Evening Post]

The Negro on the Fence

  Harken to what I now relate
  And on its moral meditate.

A wagoner, with grist for mill,
Was stalled at bottom of a hill.
A brawny negro passed that way,
So stout he might a lion slay.
“I’ll put my shoulder to the wheels
If you’ll bestir your horse’s heels!”
So said the African, and made
As if to render timely aid.
“No,” cried the wagoner, “Stand back!”
I’ll take no help from one that’s black;”
And, to the negro’s great surprise,
Flourished his whip before his eyes.
Our “darkey” quick “skedaddled” thence,
And sat upon the wayside fence.
Then went the wagoner to work,
And lashed his horses to a jerk;
But all his efforts were in vain
With shout, and oath, and whip and rein.
The wheels budged not a single inch,
And tighter grew the wagoner’s pinch.
Directly there came by a child
With toiling step and vision wild.
“Father,” said she, with hunger dread,
“We famish for the want of bread.”
Thus spake the negro: “If you will,
“I’ll help your horses to the mill.”
The wagoner, in grievous plight,
Now swore and raved with all his might,
Because the negro wasn’t white;
And plainly ordered him to go
To a certain place that’s down below.
Then rushing came the wagoner’s wife,
To save her own and infant’s life.
By robbers was their homestead sacked,
And smoke and blood their pillage tracked.
   Here stops our tale. When last observed,
The wagoner was still “conserved”
In mud at bottom of the hill,
But bent on getting to the mill.
And hard by, not a rod from thence,
The negro sat upon the fence.