March Poetry Madness: Mud

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 In the days of unpaved roads, mud was more than an annoyance. Newspaper items were replete with references to mud, and the effect on commerce and daily life. Samples from the Midwest share a theme.


  • Weather cloudy and streets muddy. Roads muddy –lanes muddy – alleys muddy – everything muddy. Since our last report, considerable rain has fallen, rendering the town rather difficult to access. – Burlington, Iowa, 1858.

  • The two-day County Sunday School Association annual convention was not as well attended as expected owing to muddy roads. – Spring Hill, Kansas, 1877.

  • On account of the muddy roads, but few attended the Teachers’ Association last Saturday. – Minneapolis, Kansas, 1878.

  • Large quantities of wheat and corn are still in the hands of producers, unmarketed, because of the impossibility of getting about with teams during the fearfully muddy roads. – Oskaloosa, Kansas 1878.

  • The county roads are in a frightful condition. Indeed, it is a matter of navigation along many of the muddy roads and not one of locomotion.  -- Evansville, Indiana, 1880.

  • Muddy roads have curtailed business this week. Humboldt, Kansas, 1880.


     Or, there was a bit of sarcasm from the Boonville, Indiana editor in 1878. “Why is it that men will prefer the ease and comfort of travel by rail when at less expense they can have the slow mode of travel through mud and mire, with almost perpetual motion of being shaken up and down, from center to circumference…?”

     John Rice, publisher of the Miami Republican in Paola, Kansas expressed his desperation in March 1878. Under the headline, “Help Us,” he wrote, “The unprecedented bad weather and muddy roads that has stagnated all business, has worked particularly hard on newspapers, and we have been running for nearly two months at a dead loss. Three-fourths of our subscribers owe us from 50 cents to $2. If half of those would pay us $1 each…it would give us enough to pay our debts.”

     As the Atwood, Kansas newspaper said, “Muddy roads, dull trade.” Mud mattered. Everyone wanted the roads improved….no one wanted to pay for it. There were exceptions, of course, communities that made the investment, like Atchison, Kansas in 1877. The newspaper editor reported approvingly, “Every street shows the handiwork of the street commissioner’s gang or the committee on improvements. The bridge approach has been macadamized, and what was last winter an impassable and dreaded mudhole, will be a boulevard when the days of muddy roads come again. …the new system of draining will ensure good roads all winter.”

     Macadamized roads were invented by a Scottish engineer, John Loudon MacAdams in the early 1800s. He published two booklets about his methods in 1816 and 1819. His system was what we think of as a gravel road today. But it involved more than just pouring some gravel out on a trail. It necessitated a level road with drainage ditches on each side and a two-inch thick layer of crushed rock, no rock larger than about three inches and weighing less than six ounces. 



The top illustration depicts an almost impassable muddy road. The bottom picture shows a team making great improvements by macadamizing the road.


     It’s understandable that something so often discussed – and cussed – would find its way into verse. Mud poems most often appeared in February, but March mud wasn’t unusual either. Following is a collection. 


“Drowned In the Mud,” Chetopa Advance (Chetopa, Kansas), 29 Jan 1880, p. 3.


Drowned in the mud —

With eager feet,

She skipped across

The treacherous street,

And as she skipped,

She tripped

And slipped,

And fell with a pitiful, dismal moan

And a groan,

And a hollow, sickening ghastly thud,

Into the mud, the mud, the mud. 


“Drowned in the mud!”
The thrilling cry

Rang in the ears of the passersby;

They saw her stop

And drop

And flop

Into the reeling surging rush

Of slush —

They saw her mingle her crimson blood

With the baleful brown of the mud, the mud.


Drowned in the mud!

Oh maiden gay,

Tripping across the street today,

Beware your grip –

You’ll slip

And trip

And sink like a leaden plummet down

To drown

Deep in the depths of the murky flood,

The hapless prey of the mud, the mud. 


“A Parody (For the Champion),” Atkinson Daily Champion (Atkinson, Kansas), 27 Feb 1878, p. 4.


With boots run down at the heel,

With pants all muddy and rent,

A man with commendable zeal,

His steps to his farmhouse bent;

Splash! Splash! Splash!

In snow and water and mud,

Whistling a tune of dolorous pitch,

As he tramps along in the mud.


Mud! Mud! Mud!

Till the sun is sinking low,

And mud! Mud! Mud!

Till I cannot see to go!

It is oh! To be afoot

Along this horrid way

Thinking every step to lose a boot,

In this tenacious clay.


Mud! Mud! Mud!

Till the brain begins to swim,

Mud! Mud! Mud!

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!

Rain and snow and sleet,

And sleet and snow and rain,

Till in a ditch I fall asleep,

And travel on in a dream.


There were four more stanzas. 


“The City,” Kansas City Star, 11 March 1891, p. 4.


Hail! Mud thou omnipresent thing,

Hail! Mud thy virtues we do loudly sing;

You are here,

You are there,

In the earth,

In the air,

In the eyes,

Splashing up,

With swift surprise.

O mud, mud, mud, mud,

Mud, mud, mud, mud

Three feet deep

On the steep

Incline of the street,

Like the sleet;

See him fall,

Hear him bawl

For blood, blood, blood,

With his mouth all full of mud,

Mud, mud, mud, mud

Mud, mud, mud, mud


“The Mud,” The Muncie Morning News (Muncie, Indiana), 1 March 1894, p. 2. 


“After Edgar Allen Poe – Sometime after.”


See the streets so full of mud – sticky mud –

What a world of misery to step into with a thud!

Hear it splatter, splatter, splatter,

From bright morn till dewey night!

While o’er clothing it will scatter

Nasty specks in silent patter

Making you an awful sight!

Keeping time, time, time

With a sort of Runic rhyme

While it scientifically covers

Each and every dud,

With the mud, mud, mud,

Mud, mud, mud, mud –

With the splashing and the dashing of the mud. 


There is another long stanza to this poem, a parody of Edgar Allen Poe's verse "The Bells."


“Horrible Mud,” Olathe News (Olathe, Kansas), 21 Feb 1878, p. 6.


Oh! The mud, the horrible mud,

Filling the roads and the streets like a flood,

Over your boot-tops up to your knees,

Oh! Will this horrible mud never freeze?

                     Slushing,

                                 Slopping,

                                           Slippery stuff;

Horrible mud, we’ve had you enough!

Naughtily soiling a fair lady’s feet

Whenever she chances to walk in the street

Bespattering her garments, oh what a shame!

Horrible mud, you are greatly to blame. 


     There were ten more stanzas to this one. The next poem taps into a theme I began to see: politics entering the issue, with the poet demanding that the city council do something. A sticking point was funding – of course – but especially because homeowners were charged for paving. Here’s an excerpt:


 “The Song of the Dirt,” Chattanooga Daily Times, 14 Dec 1887, p. 6.


Mud! Mud! Mud!

On trousers, boots and dress.

Mud! Mud! Mud!

It keeps us in distress.

Blame and curses and groans,

Groans and curses and blame!

Oh, why are the city dads asleep,

Neglecting this crying shame?


Oh, men of the council chamber!

Oh, men who have laws to frame!

It is not us you are wearing out,

But the city’s precious name!

Mud! Mud! Mud!

How long must we bear this pang?

So long as the anti-paving men

Are allowed to control the gang. 


     The next poem also touched on the issue of money. No one wants muddy roads - and no one wants to pay to solve the problem. 

    

    Bachford, J.H. “Shakespeare Changed To Suit the Weather,” The Houston Post, 25 Feb 1894, p. 5.


To wade or not to wade;’that is the question

Whether ‘tis better in the mud to splatter,

And slip and slide in an outrageous fashion

Or to take arms against this sea of troubles

and by good drainage end them?

To drain – to pave –

No mud, and by this state to say

We end the “slip-ups” and the natural shocks

That mud gives rise to – ‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To drain, to pave,

To pave, but this takes cash, Ay, there’s the rub;

And the lot owner hates, it must be said

When we have shuffled off the sticky mud

His part to pay, there’s the respect

that makes our muddy streets of so long life…


This poem also continues for a considerable length. 

Finally, here is a poem that doesn’t go on for stanza after stanza. I give it a vote for “Best Poem About Mud.”


“Seasonable Poetry,” Our Mountain Home (Talladega, Alabama), 29 Jan 1891, p. 7.


Mud, mud, mud, mud;

Mud, mud, mud, mud!

Mud, mud, mud, mud.

Mud, mud, mud!

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