Trainor, the Druggist

ONLY the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist, What will result from compounding Fluids or solids. And who can tell How men and women will interact On each other, or what children will result? There were Benjamin Pantier and his wife, Good in themselves, but evil toward each other: He oxygen, she hydrogen, Their son, a devastating fire. I Trainor, the druggist, a mixer of chemicals, Killed while making an experiment, Lived unwedded.

​Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916