ROSCOE PURKAPILE
She loved me. Oh! how she loved me!
I never had a chance to escape
From the day she first saw me.
But then after we were married I thought
She might prove her morality and let me out,
Or she might divorce me.
But few die, none resign.
Then I ran away and was gone a year on a lark.
But she never complained. She said all would be
well,
That I would return. And I did return.
I told her that while taking a row in a boat
I had been captured near Van Buren Street
By pirates on Lake Michigan,
And kept in chains, so I could not write her.
She cried and kissed me, and said it was cruel,
Outrageous, inhuman!
I then concluded our marriage
Was a divine dispensation
And could not be dissolved,
Except by death.
I was right.

Roscoe Purkapile Questions:
1. Give his account.
2. Exactly what does Roscoe mean when he says his marriage was "a divine dispensation"
3. What was the real reason Mrs. Purkapile kept the marriage together?

Roscoe Purkapile

According to Charles E. Burgess, the Purkapile epitaphs were based on a family episode.