Explore "Elsa Wertman" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I was a peasant girl from Germany, / Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong.
And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene's.
On a summer's day when she was away / He stole into the kitchen and took me / Right in his arms and kissed me on my throat, / I turning my head. Then neither of us / Seemed to know what happened.
And I cried for what would become of me.
And cried and cried as my secret began to show.
One day Mrs. Greene said she understood, / And would make no trouble for me, / And, being childless, would adopt it.
(He had given her a farm to be still.)
So she hid in the house and sent out rumors, / As if it were going to happen to her.
And all went well and the child was born -- They were so kind to me.
Later I married Gus Wertman, and years passed.
But -- at political rallies when sitters-by thought I was crying / At the eloquence of Hamilton Greene --
That was not it.
No! I wanted to say:
That's my son! That's my son!