Isaac Henzell, English
Meg Was Halfway To the Courthouse To Post Her Husband’s Bail When She Realized She May Have Misunderstood the Judge, 1870
Oil on canvas
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/// Any viewer with eyes that are keen
will see something amiss in this scene.
Horse and child seem too small,
or else, Ella’s too tall.
(The girl’s full name is Ella-Fantine.)
/// Ella’s pony hauls A Load of Hay
plus her son on top. (What does he weigh?)
Ella, young, big and strong,
slowly trudges along.
She could ride, but the pony said, “Neigh.”
/// Why’d she force this short horse here to haul
weight that slows his brisk trot to a crawl?
The hay-filled wooden wagon,
(and the child that he’s draggin’),
are too much for a gelding so small.
/// Twice before a dray horse came to harm,
but this hay’s needed back on the farm.
It has come out of storage
to be brought back for forage.
Ella hopes that this third time’s the charm.
/// Ella’s boy should have walked by her side,
but his mother’s request he denied.
The kid knew how to wheedle:
“Let me look for the needle.
Here’s a haystack; one must be inside.”
/// A dray horse could have pulled a big hack,
but it seems this runt’s straining his back.
Hay’s not heavy, although,
what the horse doesn’t know:
the hay hides a huge gold-coin-filled sack.
/// But the sack of gold coins wasn’t hers.
It belonged to some “entrepreneurs”
who had paid her to smuggle
(at a fee worth the struggle).
To their criminal “code” she defers.
/// She’ll deliver, and won’t come up short.
Such disputes do not end up in court.
If she stole from the mob
she’d lose more than her job;
those who value their lives don’t extort.
/// Inge took time to eat and to play.
She’d learned how to do both every day.
Anyone who had seen her
gobble down a big wiener
heard, “Hot dog! And a roll in the hay!”