{"id":9179,"date":"2023-02-15T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspaperhistory.com\/?p=9179"},"modified":"2023-02-15T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T06:00:00","slug":"cellar-sobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/cellar-sobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Cellar Sobs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the Omaha Daily Bee, February 15, 1915<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Listen, friends, and you shall hearOf a story sad and drear,And you\u2019ll shed a briny tear,    That I know;For it maketh strong men weep,Gives them spooks and loss of sleep,Makes the nerves go creepy creep    With its woe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Once there lived a maiden fair,Blue of eye and brown of hair,Tall she was, a height most rare,    Monstrous big;For the state she went to work,Not to dawdle or to shirk,Nor to gossip or to smirk,    But to dig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Faithfully she worked and wellDid this long and lanky belle,That is why I hate to tell    How she fared.For they chucked her in the cellar,Where she daily grew more yeller.Did she weep and wail and beller?    No one cared!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

So she went from day to dayDown the smelly hall and grayAnd met spectres on her way    Black and grim;Odors, spider-webs and bats,Dust and damp, and weird black cats,Lizards, bugs and sewer rats,    Lean and slim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Germs she swallowed by the peck,Big, fat, juicy germs, by heck!And became a nervous wreck    Pale with fear.She who used to be a winnerThinner grew, ye gods, still thinner,Till you\u2019d swear she had no dinner    For a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Well, at last the family\u2019s prideLay her down upon her sideAnd one dreary night she died    All alone.Came the state house rats in flocksAnd they chewed her dark brown locks,Ate her clothes e\u2019en to her socks,    Gnawed her bones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

When the janitors appearedIn the morn, a thing more weirdThen they\u2019d ever seen or heered    Struck their sight;For the girl who once was BelleSure enough had gone to hell,Bones alone were left to tell,    Stark and white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

So they gathered up the messThat once sported a blue dressAnd with fitting solemness    Laid her low.They took out a few big stonesFrom the floor and put her bonesThere, and with some sighs and moans    Let her go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Now they say that it is trueThat at night time dressed in blueDoes she walk the long hall through    And she shrieks;And calls curses on the headOf the ones that made her dead,Gives them nightmares in their bed,    Weeks and weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

And so every wretched fellerWho helped send her to the cellarWhere that gruesome fate befell her    Pays his due.For she\u2019s taking out her spiteAnd they\u2019re seein\u2019 things at nightLong and hairy things that bite    And that chew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Omaha Daily Bee, February 15, 1915. Listen, friends, and you shall hearOf a story sad and drear,And you\u2019ll shed a briny tear,    That I know;For it maketh strong men weep,Gives them spooks and loss of sleep,Makes the nerves go creepy creep    With its woe. Once there lived a maiden fair,Blue of eye and brown of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-omaha-daily-bee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}