Explore "The Oleomargarine Man" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Once -- in the county of Marin, / Where milk is sold to purchase gin -- / Renowned for butter and renowned / For fourteen ounces to the pound -- / A bull stood watching every turn / Of Mr. Wilson with a churn, / As that deigning worthy stalked / About him, eying as he walked, / El Toro's sleek and silken hide, / His neck, his flank and all beside; / Thinking with secret joy: "I'll spread / That mammal on a slice of bread!"
Soon Mr. Wilson's keen concern / To get the creature in his churn / Unhorsed his caution -- made him blind / To the fell vigor of bullkind, / Till, filled with valor to the teeth, / He drew his dasher from its sheath / And bravely brandished it; the while / He smiled a dark, portentous smile; / A deep, sepulchral smile; a wide / And open smile, which, at his side, / The churn to copy vainly tried; / A smile so like the dawn of doom / That all the field was palled in gloom, / And all the trees within a mile, / As tribute to that awful smile, / Made haste, with loyalty discreet, / To fling their shadows at his feet.