Hardly could call it a live in house,
Started as just a lean to, held farm stuff.
There rose a need for another hand
So a few improvements were made.
 
It was the thirties and no one got carried
Away and spent much. Some screen nailed
Outside the five windows, old timey brick
Look siding,yellow, short porch, a tin roof.  

Gray privy, well pump out back. Good
Enough for one young boy without kin.
Kin, there was. Showed up soon enough,
Name of Taliferro. Peculiar as sassafras.   

They were a  pure sight to behold.
Nothing much those kids did not put
Their hand to. If they held off anything
It was just because they didn’t think of it .

Stole a pig when hungry, eggs walked
Out of every nest, Fried chicken, mostly
Roosters, every Sunday even if it rained.
Never once closed a gate, a real pain.  

Need an engine? Those boys would be
Gone a day or two and sure enough
One would soon sit by your crippled truck.
Whatever you paid you knew was all profit.  

When tobacco worms needed picking off,
None of them could be found ‘cept Charles
And he was slow as a terrapin race.
It was useless to have this new place  

For a hand, the farmer figured, if all he got
Was grouchy neighbors and empty nests.
Taliferros didn’t aim to stay till harvest,
Didn’t linger even long enough to get fired.  

They weren’t the first in that place, but
For sure the most trifling. Stewart and Libby
Fancied  up that shed a bit, but she soon
Found better. Her ringing  laugh left us wishing.  

The Blades had children, we wondered where
They put them in that tiny place. Such good
Kids welcome on a road too empty of little ones.
A fire started in the night, took the place.   

Nothing could have stopped it ramshackle
As it was, no fire station in fifteen miles.
Kids were saved, lost the dog, never saw
The cat again. A wonder they all said.  

Miracle’s more like it. “Good it was gone,”
The Farmer said. “Cursed from the first.
Last tenant house on this farm. ’ll hire day
Labor or do it myself. Gettin’ older anyway.”  

End of an era and we didn’t see it coming.