To Hebron Dudley Bailey came
To teach in ’32,
A man of God, or so he’d claim,
His peers, though, misconstrued.
He preached the cryptic wealth of Christ
Which none could understand
Such that no thinking would suffice
Though he knew truth firsthand.
Though he believed that he’d found God,
Would see him up above,
Preceptors said, “this man’s a fraud
Who blasphemes, void of love.”
And old Red Purington, the head
Of school, with piercing stare
Sent Dudley off to live instead
Someplace that wasn’t there.
So Dudley packed his bags and left,
Wife Hannah by his side,
They traveled through the state bereft,
Devoid of any pride.
They came to Greene and there he preached,
For seven years or less,
When soon in Greene did rumors reach
That Dud was blasphemous.
And as before, to Cornville, Wayne,
St. Albans, Hartland too,
Until near all the state of Maine,
Of Dudley’s repute knew.
By then his daughter Harriet,
Born 18 years before,
Abandoned this Iscariot,
a new life she left for.
So agéd Dudley and his wife,
Tried Monson for a while,
But word got through again—so rife
—One more supposéd crime.
But when the mayor looked for Dud,
To send him on the path,
He found inside Dud’s home a flood,
And Dud drowned in the bath.
His wife returned to Hebron then,
And dug him in the ground,
The place where she had grown up when
Her father owned the town.
Old Red’s son, George, head now was he
His own son soon he bred
Named Otis, born 12/23
A year since Dud was dead.
Now Hannah midwifed Mrs. George,
the babe loved as her spawn,
A friendship she hoped would be forged,
Alas, they’d soon be gone.
On Christmas day, Red went to scrub
All clean for his own health,
But Babe and midwife, drowned in tub,
At last found Christ’s great wealth.