It sits ilke many a little town

along the Fox and Rock,

the rivers run by it, or through it,

Cascading like a toy Niagra Falls.

Along side a slice of olde New England,

Dug up and transplanted to the prarie.

The stories it tells,

the same as all the prarie hamlets,

but every place has a different story.

Byron, Byron,

you have more yarns

to spin than others.

Mr. Spaulding bid you goodbye

before he went to the big leagues

and after that, he fitted them.

The lamp in the window,

the secret visitors

in the dead of night.

Men, not cattle,

yearning to be free,

the essence of man.

a stop in the darkness

like many depots

along the secret railway

leading to freedom.

And in so many places

in the Prarie State,

it shares two things.

The legacy of the rails

and the man called Lincoln.