Cooney Potter by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

I inherited forty acres from my Father / And, by working my wife, my two sons and two daughters / From dawn to dusk, I acquired / A thousand acres. But not content, / Wishing to own two thousand acres, / I bustled through the years with axe and plow, / Toiling, denying myself, my wife, my sons, my daughters.

Squire Higbee wrongs me to say / That I died from smoking Red Eagle cigars.

Eating hot pie and gulping coffee / During the scorching hours of harvest time / Brought me here ere I had reached my sixtieth year.