{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/ida-chicken",
 "title": "Ida Chicken",
 "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": 105,
 "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": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 46,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "After I had attended lectures",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At our Chautauqua, and studied French",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For twenty years, committing the grammar",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Almost by heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I thought I’d take a trip to Paris",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To give my culture a final polish.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So I went to Peoria for a passport⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Thomas Rhodes was on the train that morning.)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there the clerk of the district Court",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made me swear to support and defend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The constitution⁠—yes, even me⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who couldn’t defend or support it at all!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what do you think? That very morning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Federal Judge, in the very next room",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the room where I took the oath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Decided the constitution",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Exempted Rhodes from paying taxes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the water works of Spoon River!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}