Ida Frickey by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

Nothing in life is alien to you:

I was a penniless girl from Summum / Who stepped from the morning train in Spoon River.

All the houses stood before me with closed doors / And drawn shades -- l was barred out;

I had no place or part in any of them.

And I walked past the old McNeely mansion, / A castle of stone 'mid walks and gardens / With workmen about the place on guard / And the County and State upholding it / For its lordly owner, full of pride.

I was so hungry I had a vision:

I saw a giant pair of scissors / Dip from the sky, like the beam of a dredge, / And cut the house in two like a curtain.

But at the "Commercial" I saw a man, / Who winked at me as I asked for work --

It was Wash McNeely's son.

He proved the link in the chain of title / To half my ownership of the mansion, / Through a breach of promise suit -- the scissors.

So, you see, the house, from the day I was born, / Was only waiting for me.