Calamitous Days by Payson Sibley Wild
Bill, a farmer, suffers a run of bad luck during his busy season while laid up with a "risin'." With him sidelined, the hired help loafs and shirks. Corn on "Thirty-one," the Lower bottom, is ruined by drowning and scorching; alfalfy and wheat heave and die with wheat at a dollar ninety; the forty west in alsike clover floods; and Lon reports the rape dead or stunted. Willie's pony eats the garden truck, Jess gets drunk on apple-jack, the poults sicken, Barney's glanders return, and Willie's kittens in the cistern sicken the family. The telephone fails, flies swarm, the kitchen door won't fix, and something steals Laury's eggs. Pink-eye blinds some heifers and calves, then lightning burns the barn, destroying hay, straw, and the pedigreed bull Herford Ben. On Sunday, while the family is at church hearing about Moses, the narrator compares Bill to Job for enduring without cursing fate. Bill replies, in his own words, that nothing worthwhile comes without risk, and that raising beef, growing fodder, and alfalfy with its dodder are a real man's gamble.
By Payson Sibley Wild · First published 1918 · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Pastoral Poetry, American Vernacular Poetry · 1,023 words
First lines
It seems ter be the human lot o' man / Onct in a while ter hev a day / When ev'rything goes wrong, an' nary plan / Works out at all in enny way.
It's sure the stranges' thing how succumstances / At times combines ter git yer goat; / When grinnin' Fate jes' mocks at ye, an' dances / 'Ter jangled fiddlin' on one note.
Similar titles
Genres
- Narrative Poetry — The work tells a complete story with named characters (Bill, Lon, Willie), a clear sequence of events, and narrative arc following a series of agricultural disasters
- Pastoral Poetry — Centered on rural agricultural life with detailed depictions of farming operations, crops (corn, wheat, alfalfa, rape), livestock, and land as central to the narrative
- American Vernacular Poetry — Distinguished by consistent use of rural American dialect and colloquial speech patterns characteristic of early 20th-century farming communities in the United States
- Humorous Poetry — Despite cataloging serious agricultural disasters, maintains a light-hearted comedic tone with ironic distance from the calamities, treating misfortune with levity
Tags
farm life · farmers · agriculture · rural America · Midwestern · misfortune · bad luck · adversity · resilience · stoicism · fate and fortune · risk and gamble
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Calamitous Days is listed on Textopian as a poem by Payson Sibley Wild, dated 1918 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Payson Sibley Wild
- Date: 1918 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Narrative Poetry, Pastoral Poetry, American Vernacular Poetry, Humorous Poetry, Folk Ballad
- Length: 1,023 words
- Structure: 1 section, 20 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for Calamitous Days by Payson Sibley Wild
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- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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