Felix Schmidt by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

It was only a little house of two rooms --

Almost like a child's play-house --

With scarce five acres of ground around it;

And I had so many children to feed / And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick / From bearing children.

One day lawyer Whitney came along / And proved to me that Christian Dallman, / Who owned three thousand acres of land, / Had bought the eighty that adjoined me / In eighteen hundred and seventy-one / For eleven dollars, at a sale for taxes, / While my father lay in his mortal illness.

So the quarrel arose and I went to law.

But when we came to the proof, / A survey of the land showed clear as day / That Dallman's tax deed covered my ground / And my little house of two rooms.

It served me right for stirring him up.

I lost my case and lost my place.

I left the court room and went to work / As Christian Dallman's tenant.