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MUDVILLE'S FATE.

(Being No. 3 of the Casey series, depicting the sad finish of Mudville after the celebrated Son of Swat put the township on the blink by whiffing in the championship game, thus wiping out all interest in a hitherto thriving baseball center. The pathetic fate of Mudville afterwards is only equaled by that of the "Deserted Village," so aptly doped out by the late O. Goldsmith, "real" poet.)

I wandered back to Mudville, Tom, where you and I were boys,
And where we drew in days gone by our fill of childish joys;
Alas! the town's deserted now, and only rank weeds grow
Where mighty Casey fanned the air just twenty years ago.

Remember Billy Woodson's place, where, in the evening's shade,
The bunch would gather and discuss the home runs Casey made?
Dog fennel now grows thick around that "joint" we used to know,
Before old Casey whiffed the breeze some twenty years ago.

The grandstand, too, has been torn down; no bleachers met my gaze
Where you and I were wont to sit in happy bygone days;

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