Butch Weldy tells his own story from the grave, remembering how he tried to go straight: he found religion, took a job at the canning works, and every morning hauled buckets of gasoline up a rickety ladder to fill a tank. One day the tank exploded. He survived with both legs broken and his eyes burned out. The explosion happened because another worker left a blow-fire burning, and the flame got sucked into the tank. But the judge ruled that the careless man was a “fellow-servant,” so the owner, Old Rhodes’ son, owed him nothing. What lingers is not rage but a flat, stunned bitterness. Butch repeats, “I didn’t know him at all,” as if the law blamed him for a stranger’s mistake. The poem feels quiet, grim, and resigned, showing how easily a working man can be erased.
“Butch” Weldy — Summary
After I got religion and steadied down They gave me a job in the canning works, And every morning I had to fill The tank in the yard with gasoline, That fed the blow-fires in the sheds To heat the soldering irons. And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it, Carrying buckets full of the stuff. One morning, as I stood there pouring, The air grew still and seemed to heave, And I shot up as the tank exploded, And down I came with both legs broken, And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs. For someone left a blow—fire going, And something sucked the flame in the tank. The Circuit Judge said whoever did it Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so Old Rhodes’ son didn’t have to pay me. And I sat on the witness stand as blind As Jack the Fiddler, saying over and over, “I didn’t know him at all.”