You Would Not Believe, Would You That I Came From Good Welsh Stock? That I Was Purer Blooded Than The White Trash Here? And Of More Direct Lineage Than The New Englanders And Virginians Of Spoon River? You Would Not Believe That I Had Been To School And Read Some Books. You Saw Me Only As A Run-Down Man With Matted Hair And Beard And Ragged Clothes. Sometimes A Man'S Life Turns Into A Cancer From Being Bruised And Continually Bruised, And Swells Into A Purplish Mass Like Growths On Stalks Of Corn. Here Was I, A Carpenter, Mired In A Bog Of Life Into Which I Walked, Thinking It Was A Meadow, With A Slattern For A Wife, And Poor Minerva, My Daughter, Whom You Tormented And Drove To Death. So I Crept, Crept, Like A Snail Through The Days Of My Life. No More You Hear My Footsteps In The Morning, Resounding On The Hollow Sidewalk Going To The Grocery Store For A Little Corn Meal And A Nickel'S Worth Of Bacon.