Reuben Bright
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ecause he was a butcher and therebyDid earn an honest living (and did right),I would not have you think that Reuben BrightWas any more a brute than you or I;For when they told him that his wife must die,He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright,And cried like a great baby half that night,And made the women cry to see him cry. And after she was dead, and he had paidThe singers and the sexton and the rest,He packed a lot of things that she had madeMost mournfully away in an old chestOf hers, and put some chopped-up cedar boughsIn with them, and tore down the slaughter-house.
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