{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/fiddler-jones",
 "title": "Fiddler Jones",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edgar Lee Masters",
 "poet_slug": "edgar-lee-masters",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spoon River Anthology",
 "book_slug": "spoon-river-anthology",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 60,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1916,
  "venue": "Spoon River Anthology (1916)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edgar-lee-masters_spoon-river-anthology",
  "file": "spoon-river-anthology.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://web.archive.org/web/20080723131115/http://spoonriveranthology.net/spoon/river/originalOrder/",
   "https://archive.org/details/spoonriveranthol021mast"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 26,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The earth keeps some vibration going",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There in your heart, and that is you.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And if the people find you can fiddle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What do you see, a harvest of clover?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or a meadow to walk through to the river?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For beeves hereafter ready for market;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or else you hear the rustle of skirts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How could I till my forty acres",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not to speak of getting more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stirred in my brain by crows and robins",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the creak of a wind-mill⁠—only these?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I never started to plow in my life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That someone did not stop in the road",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And take me away to a dance or picnic.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I ended up with forty acres;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I ended up with a broken fiddle⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not a single regret.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}