{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/nancy-knapp",
 "title": "Nancy Knapp",
 "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": 76,
 "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": {
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  "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Well, don’t you see this was the way of it:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We bought the farm with what he inherited,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His father’s mind against the rest of them.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we never had any peace with our treasure.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lightning struck the granary.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So we mortgaged the farm to keep going.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he grew silent and was worried all the time.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then some of the neighbors refused to speak to us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And took sides with his brothers and sisters.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I had no place to turn, as one may say to himself,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At an earlier time in life; “No matter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So and so is my friend, or I can shake this off",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a little trip to Decatur.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then the dreadfullest smells infested the rooms.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So I set fire to the beds and the old witch-house",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Went up in a roar of flame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As I danced in the yard with waving arms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While he wept like a freezing steer.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}