I had no objection at all
To selling my household effects at auction
On the village square.
It gave my beloved flock the chance
To get something which had belonged to me
For a memorial.
But that trunk which was struck off
To Burchard, the grog-keeper!
Did you know it contained the manuscripts
Of a lifetime of sermons?
And he burned them as waste paper.

1. Why didn't her Why didn't her object to having his household effects sold at auction?
2. What item was he so concerned about? Why?
3. How would he describe himself as a minister?
4. What is a grog keeper?

 

Rev. Abner Peet
Burgess says that Masters probably took this name from Rev. W.O. Peet, the minister of
the church that Squire Davis Masters and most of his children attended. However, it is said that the poem is actually about Benjamin George, the preeminent Lewistown miniser of the time. He was the father of Masters' sweetheart. He was a talented writer and an outspoken critic of saloons, thus the fate of the speaker's sermons is ironic.