{
 "id": "edgar-lee-masters/roy-butler",
 "title": "Roy Butler",
 "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": 148,
 "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": 22,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If the learned Supreme Court of Illinois",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Got at the secret of every case",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As well as it does a case of rape",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It would be the greatest court in the world.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A jury, of neighbors mostly, with “Butch” Weldy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As foreman, found me guilty in ten minutes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And two ballots on a case like this:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Richard Bandle and I had trouble over a fence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my wife and Mrs. Bandle quarreled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As to whether Ipava was a finer town than Table Grove.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I awoke one morning with the love of God",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brimming over my heart, so I went to see Richard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To settle the fence in the spirit of Jesus Christ.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knocked on the door, and his wife opened;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She smiled and asked me in. I entered⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She slammed the door and began to scream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Take your hands off, you low down varlet!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just then her husband entered.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I waved my hands, choked up with words.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He went for his gun, and I ran out.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But neither the Supreme Court nor my wife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Believed a word she said.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}