Edgar Lee Masters - Clarence Fawcett lyrics

THE sudden d**h of Eugene Carman Put me in line to be promoted to fifty dollars a month, And I told my wife and children that night. But it didn't come, and so I thought Old Rhodes suspected me of stealing The blankets I took and sold on the side For money to pay a doctor's bill for my little girl. Then like a bolt old Rhodes accused me, And promised me mercy for my family's sake If I confessed, and so I confessed, And begged him to keep it out of the papers, And I asked the editors, too. That night at home the constable took me And every paper, except the Clarion, Wrote me up as a thief Because old Rhodes was an advertiser And wanted to make an example of me. Oh! well, you know how the children cried, And how my wife pitied and hated me, And how I came to lie here.