"Let me in," the Teacher said,
and knocked upon the door.
The Man jumped quickly out of bed
and stomped across the floor.
The Teacher held his ink and pen,
his paper and his sack.
"Let me in!" he called again.
Then, he heard the Man call back.
"Let you in?" the Man cried out,
his hand upon the lock.
"You'll teach me nothing but to doubt!
On someone else's door go knock!"
The Teacher, freezing in the cold,
begged the Man again,
"These stories must be told,"
he said, "Not ignored by men."
"Leave me be," the Man replied,
trudging back to bed.
The Teacher, left alone outside,
moved on with weary tread.
And so it went, from door to door,
with angry, lazy men,
who would refuse and then ignore
the Teacher and his pen.
The Teacher stopped, fell in the snow,
he couldn't move at all.
He died there, waiting, long ago,
for one to answer his call.
The story, and the moral, and the rhyming, all that niceness.
