Jed Kane

THE Gauley mail was overdue
When Jed who was to drive it through
Cheat Mountain Pass to Staunton Run
Got special word from Washington —
In which a postal clerk inquired
Why Mr. Kane who had been hired
To drive the course at posthaste rate
Was not in yet, though three months late.

And now on a high-glazed marble wall
In the postal building Jed Kane’s scrawl
Hangs framed in silver; ‘Respected Sir,
You ask the reason and this be her —
If the gable end blowed out of hell
Straight into the drifts of a snow that fell
Last fall on the ram’s-horn point of Cheat
It would take till Easter for brimstone heat
To melt a horse path. So I remain,
Your obdt. svt., Jedson Kane.’