The Cremation Of Sam McGee by Robert Service
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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men whom oil for gold. The arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the clearest they ever did see was the night on the March of Lake LaBarge. I cremated! Sam McGee. Now, Sam McGee was from Tennessee where the cotton blooms and blows. Why? He left his home in the South to roam around the poles. God only knows he was always cold. But the Land of Gold seemed to hold him like a spell. Though he'd often say in his home leeway that he'd sooner live in ****. On a christmas day we were mushing are way over the Dawson Trail. Talk of your cold through the parkers fold. It stabbed like a driven nail If our eyes we'd close. Then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see. It wasn't much fun, but the only 1 to Whimper was Sam McGee. And that very night as we laid packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, and the dogs were fed and the stars or head were dancing heel and toe. He turned to me and Cap, he says, I'll cash in this trip, I guess. And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request. Well, he seems so low that I couldn't say no. Then he says with a sort of moan. It's this curse of Gold and it's got right, hold still. I'm chilled clean through the bone. Yet taint being dead. It's my awful dread of the icy grave. That pains so I want you to swear that foul or fair! You'll cremate my last remains! A pals! Last need is a thing to heed. So my swore I would not fail, and we started on at the streak of dawn. But God! He looked ghastly pale. He crouched on the slain. He raved all day about his home in Tennessee, and before nightfall her corpse was always left of Sam McGee. There wasn't a breath in the Land of Death, and I hurried horror, driven with a corpse, half hit that I couldn't get rid because of a promise given it was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say, You may tax your brawn and brains, but you promised. True! And it's up to you to cremate those last remains! Now a promise made is a debt unpaid. And the trail is its own stern code. In the days to come! Though my lips were dumb in my heart. How I cursed that load! In the long, long night by the loan firelight, while the huskies round in a ring howled out their woes to the homeless snows! Oh, God! How! I loathe that thing! And every day the quiet clay seemed too heavy and heavier grow. And on I went though the dogs were spent, and the grub was getting low. The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in, and I'd often sing to that hateful thing! And it harkened with a grin until I came to the March of Lake LaBarge, and a derelict there lay. It was jammed in the ice, but I saw it was called The Alice May, and I looked at it and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum. Then here I said, with a sudden cry, is my crematorium! Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire, some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped that fuel higher. The flame sword in the furnace roared since a blaze, you seldom see! And I brought a hole in the glowing call, and I stuffed in sam McGee that I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so, and the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow. It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why, but that greasy smoking an inky cloak went streaming down the sky. I don't know how long in the snow. I wrestled with grizzly fear, but the stars came out and they danced about air again. I ventured near. I was sick with dread, but I bravely said, I'll just take a peep inside. I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked, and then the door I opened wide, and there was sam looking cool and calm in the heart of the furnace roar! And he wore a smile. You could see a mile! And he said, please close that door, It's fine in here. But I greatly fear you're letting the cold and storm since I left Plumtree down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men whom oil for gold. The arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the clearest they ever did see was the night on the March of Lake LaBarge. I cremated Sam McGee.