{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/mrs-kessler",
 "title": "Mrs. Kessler",
 "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": 138,
 "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": 21,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Mr. Kessler, you know, was in the army,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he drew six dollars a month as a pension,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stood on the corner talking politics,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or sat at home reading Grant’s Memoirs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I supported the family by washing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Learning the secrets of all the people",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From their curtains, counterpanes, shirts and skirts.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For things that are new grow old at length,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’re replaced with better or none at all:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "People are prospering or falling back.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And rents and patches widen with time;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No thread or needle can pace decay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there are stains that baffle soap,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there are colors that run in spite of you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Blamed though you are for spoiling a dress.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Handkerchiefs, napery, have their secrets⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The laundress, Life, knows all about it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I, who went to all the funerals",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Held in Spoon River, swear I never",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saw a dead face without thinking it looked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like something washed and ironed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}