| 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—I was barred out; | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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. | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| Through a breach of promise suit—the scissors. | |
| So, you see, the house, from the day I was born, | |
| Was only waiting for me. | |
