— ^:' i %' %:y- tm.^ ^ icoe^n.. Class. ZA Copyriglit]^^ HZ. COPffilGUT DEPOSm TERSE VERSE WALT AWAY FROM HOME Walt Mason is a remarkably deft and ingenious rhymeSler. His outlook is genial and wholesome, and he preaches the old-fashioned v«'ues. —London Spectator. Mason is on the side of the angels and domeAicity, and all that makes tor goodness. —Belfast Whig. Walt Mason's poems are remarkable for their simple, dired, and unspoiled air of sincerity. —Dublin Independent Shows all the characfleristic courage of his countrymen when he writes on the humbug of public life. — Civil and Military Gazette, Bombay, India. His humor is genuine ^uff, full of shrewd wisdom and knowledge of human nature. —London Morning Post. Walt Mason holds by his sheer earneSness, simplicity, humor, and unconventionality. —Dublin Freeman's Journal. One wonders how he does it so easily and so well. — London Tatler. Read Walt for breakfast and he bucks you up for the day; at lunch, and you face the afternoon; in the evening, and you feel too good to seek dissipation. He contributes to the cheerfulness of a continent and helps it in its great task of smiling through the labors of the day. — London Evening Standard. The verses themselves are well wrought, flowing numbers that get along smoothly and spontaneously, singing, often in a spirit of pure fun, but not seldom with a shrewd and tender seriousness underneath iheir racy American facetiousness, about the virtues and occasional contrarieties of domestic life. — Edinburgh Scotsman. Terse Verse BY Valt Mason is a Letter tonic tKan anything that ever was bottled. ~~ Elbert Hubbard CHICAGO A.C.McCLURGeCQ 1917 ^'^''%,^% Copyright A. C. McClurg & Co. 1917 Published November, 1917 Copyrighted in Great Britain Thanks are extended to George Matthew Adams for permission to use copyright poems in this book W. F. M»LU PRINTING COMPANY, OMIOAOO / |..^> NOV i? iS 17 S)G1.A479101 To ANNIE AND CHARLIE OVERTURE DEAR long since to the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers of the daily papers are the rhymes, printed in form of prose, of Walt Mason. They are writ in the vividly living speech of people of today, disdaining nothing bf clean slang or ephemeral neologisms of col- loquialism. Their meter is perfect always and the turns of phrase burgeon with blooms of fe- licitous surprise. They are in themselves a def- inition of humor — they express a thorough un- derstanding of life in its daily round and they formulate a criticism of it in a spirit of broad tolerance. They put the pleasant view of the small trials of existence. If they condemn any- thing, it is with a certain undercurrent of sym- pathy for human foible and frailty. Optimistic they are pronouncedly, but not fatuously so. They are almost always character portraits of individuals or types. They have a philosophy of common sense in which idealism and prac- ticality are curiously blent. Above all, each verse is a character-photograph of Walt Mason himself — a smiling philosopher with a gift of song. The flow of his rhythm and the measure of his rhyme are well-nigh faultless, so that the verses seem to be ordinary speech become po- Il t ■ etry, as it were, by accident. Their cadence and harmony are not the result of any strain of arrangement in words. They are innocent of labored involutions and inversions of words and they never clog the thought. Each poem goes singing straight to its mark and the end is always a sort of glory of culmination and demonstration. It ends w^ith the effect of a flash of light. There is no repetition of thought or language. Each poem deals with a partic- ular character or condition in a way to present its universal aspect, colored by the writer's love for folks like the rest of us. So his work is not trivial, properly estimated. It is important and it is none the less so for being irrefragably American in its strongly love-diluted cynicism. I quite agree with Mr. William Dean Howells in the high estimate he puts upon Walt Mason's rhymes. They make you feel at once just a little better than and think a little, not so much of yourself, as they make you see yourself in other fellows and in the situations which Walt describes and interprets in terms of a rippling rhyme that never quite descends to mere jingle. —William Marion Reedy. "Here's to the man who labors and does it with a song. He stimulates his neighbors and helps the world along." "I want to chortle the best I can, and try to cheer up my fellow-man; to make a fellow forget his care and make him laugh when he wants to swear." Adam's Off Ox, 33. Affectation, 105. After Death, 150. Anomaly, The, 64. Asking Favors, 156. Autumn Leaves, 17 4. B Back to the Farm, 13. Bad Cooking, 104. Bank Account, The, 8 2. Banker, The, 138. Beauty, 154, Bedtime Stories, 171. Beggar, The, 74. Belated Winter, 148. Birthdays, 38. Blowing It In, 8. Book Borrowers, 130. Bully, The, 140. Burros, 67. Campaign Thunder, 60. Carelessness, 91. Change of Heart, 144. Childish Joys, 112. Christmas Bells, 43. Confidence, 17 5. Contentment, 7 3. Convalescence, 90. Criticism, 114. D Dandelions, 12. Danger Car, The, 22. Dead Leaves, 170. Dead Ones, The. 26. Dizzy Daughter, The, 159. Domestics, 137. Dreams, 76. Dreams Realized, 169. -"^^i^lS^ Evicted, 34. Evil Renown, 168. Exercise, 165. Fall Days, 61. Farm Life, 135. Farming, 19. Fleeing Time, 128. Fresh Air Fan, The, 115. Friends, 141. Future Deeds, 83. Gems, 2. Ghosts, 65. Going Back Home, 155. Good Scouts, 99. Graybeards, The, 29. Grief Universal, 4. Grunter, The, 69. H Happiness, 85. Hard Work, 118. Has-Beens, The, 102. Hello Girl, The, 160. Hermit, The, 95. High Prices, 58. House and Home, 94. Hymn of Hate, 129. In the Fall, 52. Insomnia, 120. Into All Lives, 121. Just As Good, 103. W' K Keep Off the Grass, 15 2. Keeping Things Neat, 132. Kind Word, The, 167. Knowing the Worst, 68. L Land O' Dreams, 161. Lasting Fame, The, 162. Learning the Auto, 92. Life Is Thus, 44. Life We Live, The, 23. Literature, 5. Look- ing On, 21. Loss of Appetite, 111. Luckless Man, The, 97. M Making Good, 70. Maneater, The, 136. Man's Plans, 62. Married People, 126. Martyr, The, 27. Menagerie, The, 37. Methuselah, 101. Missus, The, 153. Model Kid, The, 80. Modern Jail, The, 134. Money Back, 78. Money Goes, The, 39. Money to Loan, 107. Monumental, 176. Morning On the Farm, 28. New Idea, The, 6. Spare, 40. N No Chance, 18. Nothing to o Obedience, 35. Obvious Truth, 149. Old and Out, 77. Old English, 54. Old Songs, 96. Old Timers, 66. Old Virtues, The, 124. Other Fellow, The, 30. Our Destination, 84. Jt Pauper, The, 123. Perversity, 55. Pessimism, 48. Pilgrimage, The, 142. Piute's Library, The, 113. Poor Listener, The, 89. Poor, The, 42. Population, 9 3. Post Mortem, 166. Profitless Talk, 143. Progressive Piety, 75. Promoted, 47. Prompt Pay, 59. Prosperity, 15. Pump- kin, The, 127. R Relief Coming, 49. Rich Man, The, 139. Root of Evil, 71. Rosebush, The, 16. Rubber Tires, 53. Safe Driver, The, 81. Salesmen, 25. Salted Down, 63. Sam and Jim, 20. Satisfaction, 151. Selfishness, 110. Sickness, 122. Singer, The, 9. Slow But Sure, 86. Sluggard, The, 133. Solace, 163. Solemn Sanctity, 32. Speed Fiend, The, 72. Speeding Years, 116. Spring Song, 131. Spring Thoughts, 87. Standing the Gaff, 117. Stolen or Strayed, 100. Storm, The, 108, Sunday, 157. Sweetest Words, 57. They Say, 45. Think Twice, 98. Thriftless, 125. Timely Topic, The, 7. Times Change, 51. Tired, 145. Tobacco, 14. Tomorrow's Tangle, 10. Town and Country, 36. Towser, 147. 'Twas Ever Thus, 3. Two Kinds, 31. Unappreciative Man, 88. Unhappy Father, 146. Unreliable, 50. Unruly Kids, 56. Unwise Praise, 41. V Vain Fears, 158. Veiled Future, The, 109. tion of Spirit, 46. Vital Truths. 1. Vexa- W Watch, The, 79. Week's End, 164. Whiskers, 17. Wider Fields, 24. Wintry Winds, 119. Wishes, 173. Woman at Home, The, 11. Work and Rest, 172. Workers, 106. " 'Make somebody happy today!' Each morning that motto repeat, and life that was gloomy and gray at once becomes pleasant and sweet." "To do your best, within your breast a cheerful heart undaunted — that is the plan that brings a man, all things he ever wanted." ill v_ VITAL TRUTHS THE vital truths are old and gray; they're old because they're true; the vital truth we spring today, old Father Noah knew. If any man comes up, forsooth, and says that he can show a truly modern vital truth, oh, lay the faker low. A man might rustle up a lie that bears the signs of youth, but never, friend, will you descry a strictly recent truth. The vital truth is that which leads the sons of men aright, to useful lives and goodly deeds, and records clean and white. We know that industry will pay, that honesty is great; and truths like these however gray, are never out of date. Old Adam knew them as he wrought among the first green trees, and he rehearsed them as he sought his missing swarm of bees. Oh, every blessed rule of life, that's likely to exalt, was old when Lot's devoted wife became a chunk of salt. The vital truths are but a few, and easy to adopt; the truths which seem grotesquely new don't count, and may be dropped. [1] GEMS {DECKED with gems my person fat, they glit- tered with exceeding splendor; I had some rubies on my hat, an emerald on each sus- pender. Oh, men could see me from afar, and straightway they grew sore and jealous; I twin- kled like the little star of which the ancient hymn-books tell us. I wore a sapphire on my shirt, my cummerbund was diamond-fretted; the weight of all my jewels hurt, and long be- neath the load I sweated. And ever as I toiled along, for dining halls or ball rooms heading, I saw the tired and sad-faced throng that finds this life such dreary sledding. I saw men push their jaded feet in search of work that always dodged them, and women turned into the street from squalid rooms that lately lodged them. I saw them by the souphouse ranked, poor, hope- less skates, all trodden under; and as I looked my diamonds clanked, and made a noise like distant thunder. I saw a stiff fished from a brook, some worn-out wife or wayward sister; and as I took a startled look, my diamonds seemed to scorch and blister. I've cut out all the precious stones; one can't enjoy that form of granite, while hearing all the wails and groans that rise from this old hard luck planet. [2] 'TWAS EVER THUS WHEN I am well I josh the doc, and say his pills are made of chalk, which never cured a human ache; that all his science is a fake. I roast him bitterly because he is too handy with his saws, and seems so anxious to remove one's backbone from its old-time groove. But when my organs all go wrong, and I'm no longer hale and strong, but doubled up with grievous pains, clear from my fetlocks to my brains, the doctor is my only hope; I clamor for his pills and dope. And if he brings his saw and spade, and says he thinks he'll have to wade all through my system with the same, I say, "Go on, and hew my frame!" And when I'm lying on my bed, with poultices upon my head, I murmur softly to the nurse, "The good old doc no more I'll curse! His science kept me from the grave, and after this I will behave." But when I'm on my feet once more, I hang around the corner store, and say the doctor is a fake who couldn't shoo away an ache. Thus, when our cares have taken wings, we hoot and jeer at solemn things. [S] GRIEF UNIVERSAL IT seems the cost of living is not a local ill ; all round the world it's giving poor purchasers a chill. Beside the broad Nyanzas the people kick and roar, as buyers do in Kansas, when at the corner store. Where knobby alligators in- fest the stagnant Nile, it takes, to buy some taters, the poor consumer's pile. By many an ancient river, by many a storied lake, men pay as much for liver as they should pay for steak. Where sweet and spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle, the purchaser of cheeses forgets to sing and smile. Among the hills of Sweden, mid Greenland's snow and ice, the people's hearts are bleedin' when they behold the price. Along the dark McKenzie, and by the languid Po, consumers, in a frenzy, are lifting wails of woe. The Eskimo, when buying his tenderloin of whale, the Hottentot, who's trying to eat a hemlock rail, all swell the angry chorus, all weep and tear the robe ; the grief we see before us extends around the globe. [4] I LITERATURE MOST people who have things to sell now profit from H. C. of L. The farmer's butter, eggs and oats bring in the plain and fancy groats. The nian who sells us shoes and boots, the one who deals in all wool suits, the butcher, with his wholesome meat — all charge the limit, and repeat. But writers, in their squalid lairs, can't raise the prices of their wares. The poet has to purchase meat, and leather caskets for his feet, and every hour the prices rise on things that threadbare singer buys. The prunes that cost ten cents a ton before this era was begun, now cost him twice as much a pound, and so it goes, the whole list round. But when he sweats in his abode, and grinds a grand and deathless ode, he cannot go around and say, "The price of rhyme's gone up today; so many poets have been slain, where armies rage on Europe's plain, that there's a dearth of noble rh3nne, and so I've raised the price a dime." He cannot put this scheme across, for art is now a total loss. The men with henfruit, hay or cheese, may charge such prices as they please, but they who make the muses sweat, must take whatever they can get. [6] THE NEW IDEA LAST fall I heard a candidate stand on a rostrum and orate. To those assembled in the hall, he talked good roads, and that was all. He'd primed himself with useful facts, and dished them up in cataracts. He told how I taxes go to waste when we make roads in sloppy haste. I went to hear his rival speak; he talked and talked, almost a week. An old time politician he, who boomed the Boon of Liberty. Our Freedom was his foremost brag; he wept when speaking of the Flag. He painted, with impassioned skill, our victory at Bunker Hill, and talked a while of Valley Forge, and threw a harpoon at King George. And when election day arrived, the good roads r candidate survived, while he who talked of j Precious Boons was handed forty kinds of } prunes. I'm glad we are outliving mush, and J tommyrot and bunk and slush. I'm glad old | tricks are in disgrace, that patriots who want a ' place, must talk horse sense and eke brass tacks, or leave the course with broken backs. | [61 •!"• , -ill y^^ / THE TIMELY TOPIC WHEN modern people get together, they do not talk about the weather, as fellows used to do; but each one, in his conversation, de- scribes some painful operation that lately he's gone through. The innocent bystander catches, while listening, disjointed snatches of talk that runs this way: "Oh, yes, I went to Dr. Sidney, and he removed my starboard kidney — his bill I've yet to pay." "The surgeon, in a boastful humor, still quotes my large, ingrowing tumor, as w^orst he ever saw." "When from the chloro- form emergin', I clinched my fist and soaked the surgeon a dinger on the jaw." "That old Doc Faker is a wizard ; the way that he cut out my gizzard was something simply fine." "Doc Chestnut says my system's rusty, and he will take his bucksaw trusty, and amputate my spine.** "The doc assures me my salvation depends alone on amputation, if I would shake the gout." "I hear that Jeremiah Proctor has hired a famous eastern doctor to dig some organs out," 'Twixt them and me the gulf grows wider; alas, I am a rank outsider — I never have been hewn! When my insides are in commotion I simply mix a drastic potion, and take it with a spoon I ^M [7] r BLOWING IT IN OF all the divers brands of joy that make our journey sunny, of all the bliss without alloy, there's none like spending money. It's well to put away a wad, against the rainy weather; it's well, when hard times are abroad, to have some coins together. But when you've salted down a roll of sesterces and talents, then, to invigorate your soul, go out and blow the balance. Don't let the saving habit grow, until you are a miser; salt down a part, a portion blow — that policy's the wiser. I like to toddle to the bank and put some bones in pickle; I like to save, but I'm no crank on saving every nickel. I like to take the extra plunk, and to the mart go flying, and buy a lot of useless junk, just for the sake of buying. I like to whisper to the clerks, "Get busy, boys, get busy! I've come to buy the whole blamed works, and make you fellows dizzy!" Of all the standard brands of bliss, that fill our lives with honey, there's surely nothing equals this— the blowing in of money! i^ [8] w THE SINGER I 1 SING my song the whole day long, and keep my harp a-going, to try to cheer the people near, while dodging bricks they're throwing. I sing of hope and all such dope, of gay and bright tomorrows, of canning care and black despair, and putting lids on sorrows. Year after year this sort of cheer, I'm tirelessly pro- viding, and my winged steed keeps up his speed, though galled by too much riding. I Throughout this land the folks will stand a lot 1 of misfit singing, if but the bard, when whoop- I ing hard, a gladsome note is springing. Though cracked his voice, if he'll rejoice, and laugh at woe and wailing, men will remark, "Long may his bark on smiling seas be sailing!" Yet poets write of starless night, and ghouls and women weeping, of lovers dead and vampires dread that batten on the sleeping. The dismal pote oft finds his goat has from his keeping wan- dered; his odes won't bring enough, by jing, to have his nightie laundered. For in this vale the rhythmic wail will never tempt sane buyers, who'll blow their piles for cheerful smiles and lays by lilting liars. C9] TOMORROW'S tangle to the winds resign," old Omar said, and thus in one brief line, set forth more wisdom than most poets spring, in all the years through which they live and sing. With present griefs man fearlessly com- bats; he pulls their ears and kicks them in the slats; and, like a knight in armor gone afield, he quite enjoys the tilting that they yield. But, having whipped the dragons of today, with manner bold and debonair and gay, he feels the ardor in his breast expire; "Tomorrow's dragons and chimeras dire," he mutters low, "will seize me by the throat, remove my scalp and bear away my goat." Tomorrow's dragons may be one inch tall; tomorrow's troubles may not come at all. If you today have fought a goodly fight, forget your fears, and sleep in peace tonight, and when you wake the good old sun will shine; tomorrow's tangle to the winds resign. [10] THE WOMAN AT HOME PLEASE note this little fact, I beg: It is the hen that lays the egg; the rooster does the yelling; he flaps his silly wings and crows, and points with pride a while, and throws some fits around your dwelling. And every time I hear him whoop, and prance around the chicken- | coop, a-feeling hunkydory, I think of husbands | I have known, who think that they, and they | alone, ' deserve the praise and glory. They I would ignore the patient wives who organized ; their misfit lives, when they were badly sag- ging, who bore the burden of the day, and helped to cut the swath of hay of which the hubs are bragging. There's many a fellow known to fame who would have failed to win the game, but for some little woman, who, staying humbly in the dark, still made her old man toe the mark, w^ith patience superhuman. And, having climbed from out the ruts, how haughtily that old man struts, how proudly tells his story! The wife beholds that crowing gent, and softly smiles, for she's content with a re- flected glory. [11] DANDELIONS UPON my lawn, I know not why, the dande- lions thrive; the grass may all curl up and die, but they'll remain alive. I've tried about a million plans, to have the vile things slain; and all the schemes were also-rans, and all my efforts vain. The fair petunias that I bought, at fabulous expense, the sweet begonias that I brought and planted by the fence, the tulips from the Netherlands, they all have died the death, but still the dandelion stands, disfiguring the heath. My vine and figtree withered are, the rosebush passed away, the fern that grew in yonder jar shows symptoms of decay; the lilac, when the nights w^ere cold, turned up its tender toes, and still the dandelion bold, its streak of yellow shows. If dandelions were desired, if they would bring in mon, if every gardener aspired to raise them by the ton, they'd make a specialty of death, they'd languish from their birth, and shrivel at the slightest breath, and perish from the earth. [12] ^ BACK TO THE FARM I'LL buy a little farm somewhere," the old man says, "and tinker there, until it's time to go to sleep, down where the bending willows weep. I know a farm I'd like to buy; it's where I lived when three feet high. It's where my father used to strive to keep the family alive. 'Twas there, in bygone, golden days, I hoed the beans and husked the maize, and dreamed of triumphs I'd achieve, when I that dreary farm could leave. To dwell in cities was my aim, to cut a swath and conquer fame, and that old sandy, rocky farm for me was quite devoid of charm. The dreams I dreamed have all come true, I've done the things I meant to do, but I am old and worn and tired, and for a long time I've desired, above all other things, to go back to the scenes I used to know." Thousands of old men talk that way; when they are bent by the years, and gray, feeble of step and weak of arm, they turn their eyes to the old home farm. I [13] "^"^si^eaBB^^^, TOBACCO TOBACCO is a harmful weed, the learned physicians are agreed. It stains the teeth and bites the tongue, and injures larynx, heart and lung, it spoils the whiskers, taints the breath, and sends man to an early death, and when he's laid beneath the sod the legal lights divide his wad. And yet if this punk weed were barred, we'd find the sledding pretty hard, for in one thing tobacco's blest, in that it soothes the savage breast. And many hus- bands are serene, who would be quarrelsome and mean, indulging oft in mental gripes, if you should take away their pipes. When I am smoking I'm as mild as any gent that ever smiled, and folks who hear me chirp and bleat, remark, "His temper is so sweet!" But when, impelled by aims sublime, I cut out smoking for a time, I'm sore as any growling bear that mum- bles soupbones in its lair, and all the women in the shack are hoping I will soon get back to blowing smoke around my room, e'en though it means an early tomb. [14] PROSPERITY WHEN man is poor, and wealth or fame seems far beyond his hope and aim, he is so unobtrusive then, he makes a hit with fellow- nien. He saws his wood and mows his hay, and has a modest, winning way, and all his course of conduct shows he doesn't, fatuous, suppose that if from mundane scenes he'd drop, the whole blamed universe would stop. He strives to earn his w^eekly checks, and is a credit to his sex. But when his eager, straining feet have landed him in Easy street, his head swells up, he chesty grows, and of his stake he brags and blows, he sneers at men who have not grown as big a bundle as his own. He flaunts the package he has made, and keeps himself on dress parade, and loads his wife and silly girls with silks and clanking gold and pearls, till people wish he'd lose his roll, and be the old- time simple soul. Prosperity, when it arrives, oft ruins good and useful lives. When Fortune hammers at our doors, it turns good fellows into bores. THE ROSEBUSH THE bush whereon the blushing rose, when things are favorable, grows, is looking sick and blue; to keep the bush from going dead, I give it arsenate of lead, and London purple, too. I wash the stem with kerosene, and dope the leaves with Paris green, and other com- pounds weird ; and as 1 use the poisoned dope, I feel the shriveling of hope, and tears stream down my beard. And as I toil I wonder why the lovely things must always die, without a good excuse; the jimpson and the mullein thrive, the cockleburs are still alive — you can- not cook their goose. A Keats will perish in his youth, while some old cross-roads bard, for- sooth, will live two hundred years; a horse dies early, as a rule, but for a century the mule will wag its misfit ears. The cow that gives all kinds of milk, whose butterfat is fine as silk, will seek the railway track, and there she'll stand and chew her gums, until a locomotive comes, and telescopes her back. With thoughts like these I stand and spray my dying rosebush every day, and know it's all in vain, for everything that's lovely dies, and man can only swat the flies in sorrow and in pain. [16] WHISKERS I OFTEN cry, "Oh, goodness gracious! My whiskers, rank, apocynaceous, grow faster every year; it takes so much of toil and trouble, to mow away the doggone stubble — I still must shear and shear." I'm shaving, with the lather foaming, at early morn and in the gloaming, and by the midnight lamp; I'm shaving when I should be earning some coin to keep the fires a-burning, till I have barber's cramp. The time men waste, their whiskers mowing, if it were spent in useful sowing, would renovate the earth; why, ask the Innocent Bystanders, do faces run to oleanders, which have no price or worth? It must be great to be a woman, upon whose face, so fair and bloomin', alfalfa doesn't grow; she doesn't, with her sisters, gather, at barbershops, the taste of lather she doesn't ever know. But man must always be a-stropping; to mow away the new outcropping, his tools must have an edge; and if his whiskers are neg- lected, his friends will cry, till he's dejected, "Come from behind the hedge I" [17] .aSK«!VS'Ji.^««S«3»t.-»MWW»i5?^ NO CHANCE THE man who never had a chance, the victim of fell circumstance, who ne'er was Johnnie- on-the-spot — how sad and pitiful his lot! He had two hands, as good as those of t'other chap, who bravely rose to affluence and high renown, and was a credit to the town. He had two legs, without a flaw; two smoother legs I never saw, and had he used them wisely well, they might have made him — who can tell? He had two eyes, two ears, a nose, the usual array of toes, a dome on which to wear his hats, a liver and a set of slats, and whiskers till we couldn't rest; the whole equipment he possessed, by which the human tribes advance, and yet, he says, he had no chance. The wolf was always at his door; he had no tick at any store, his wife did washing every day, to buy the hungry children hay. He had a wishbone and a lung, a solar plexus and a tongue, he had two kidneys and a wart, and vital organs by the quart; and yet he raised the same old whine — because he hadn't any spine. i [18] .>T FARMING THE farmer drives his team afield, and whistles as he goes. 'Twas thus some by- gone poet spieled, of things no poet knows. Few poets ever pushed a mule across a rocky farm, or, laboring with rusty tool, disabled back and arm. Burns was the only farmer bard I can remember now; and he believed the life too hard, and gladly soaked his plow. I've never heard a farmer lift his voice in ardent song, except when, at the noonday shift, he heard the dinner gong. I used to drag my weary bones the furrowed field along, and I put up a thou- sand groans, where I turned loose one song. The farmer has so much to do, before the day takes wing, so many errands to pursue, he has no time to sing. He only whistles now and then, when he would call the dog, to chase from out the corn again, some stray, bone-headed hog. His eyes are fixed upon the sky, to note the weather signs, for rain will rust his growing rye, and spoil his pumpkin vines; and drouth will kill the beans and peas he planted in the spring; and, thinking over things like these, he fails to smile and sing. [19] w H^' SAM AND JIM WHEN old Sam Johnson sat in state, that man of learning, wis^ and great, with Burke and Goldsmith and the rest, Jim Boswell ■was the butt and jest. They all must have their flings at Jim, and none had much respect for him. Methinks, had some prophetic dub ap- peared before them at their club, and said, "This man who is your goat, at whom you laugh with scornful note, will by the multitudes be read, when all your junk is stale and dead," old Sam would then have raised a roar: "Begone, false prophet — there's the door!" And yet great Johnson, mighty sage, the shining marvel of his age, lives only in the book that Jim so reverently w^rote of him. Jim's immortality is sure; down to the Judgment 'twill endure, w^hile those who jeered his little games, have left but half-forgotten names. And it may be, men now on earth, whose work we think has little worth, will leave a deathless fame behind when they have quit their humble grind, while pompous prodigies lie down, and, dying, kill off their renown. [20] li LOOKING ON I LIKE to linger in the shade, close to the pail of lemonade, and watch the honest sons of toil get busy with the fertile soil. I like to see them shock the wheat, out in the blinding glare of heat, the great strong mien who do not tire, and all their labors I admire. I wonder at the giant strength that they display, the whole day's length, and wish I had such thews as theirs — I'm soft from riding easy chairs — I envy them the appetite which makes coarse fodder a de- light, I envy them the sleep profound they know when slumbertime comes round; I envy them, but do not flee from my retreat beneath a tree. I often counsel other men to get back to the soil again, to simply live and labor hard, and work away their surplus lard. But this soft place beneath a tree is plenty good enough for me. The men who toil with might and main, who plow the glebe and reap the grain, receive my earnest, ardent praise, and I embalm them in my lays; and I am happy in the shade, with my tall jug of lemonade. [21] THE DANGER CAR ^ THE auto, as a grim destroyer. Is difficult to ^ beat. Just yesterday I killed a lawyer, while 1 1 scorching up the street. When first I got my car I uttered a vow that I'd go slow. "This speeding mania," 1 muttered, "is what brings death and woe." But I got going fast and faster, like many another scout; and now there's always a disaster, whenever I go out. When home I come from some brief journey, my wife asks, "Who was slain?" I say, "Three clerks and an attorney lay dead upon the plain." I go kerwhooping every morning, o'er valley, weald and wold, all rules and regulations scorn- ing, I knock the records cold. A cloud of dust, a roar and rattle, and I'm beyond your ken, as deadly as a modern battle, a menace to all men. The rural cops would like to pinch me, but can't get close enough; some day a bunch of men will lynch me, and that will be the stuff. And while for such a stunt they hanker, I'm scorch- ing, far and near; today I crumpled up a bank- er, and maimed an auctioneer. [22] THE LIFE WE LIVE THIS life, my friends, is just the thing; one day we weep, the next we sing; today we whoop, tomorrow wail, which keeps us all from going stale. And as our days and years ad- vance, we never know just what will chance. Tomorrow's mysteries are hid, and she is sit- ting on the lid, and what she has in her old chest can never be by mortal guessed. And that is why this life's sublime, and why we have so great a time. If we could in the future tread, if we could see a year ahead, and know just what the gods will send, the spice of life would have an end. The unexpected is the stuff that makes this planet good enough. At morn you rise, depressed, and say, "I fear 'twill be a lone- some day, with none to brush away my tears, or tie some tassels on my ears." And while you raise a mournful din, your aunt and seven kids blow in, with baggage packed in trunk and crate, to stay six months, or maybe eight. 'Tis then that you, with buoyant mirth, rear up and bless your native earth. [23] IS USB ^WWBSCaKS^ ^>^.*. s:'*^a.^-S6CJ»t'fi«3ais7:d WIDER FIELDS THE young men drift away from home ; tKey go to Rahway and to Nome, to Boston and New York! and some of them will cross the sea, to try their luck in Gay Paree, in Edin- burgh or Cork. They go afar, to play the game, to win the laurel w^reath of fame, acquire a goodly roll; their native village doesn't yield a chance, they want a wider field than Punk- town-in-the-Hole. Yet Punktown is a goodly town, and here a man may gain renown, and wealth, and honors, too; but you are full of dreams, my lad, and so you'll hike for Petro- grad, across the ocean blue. Across the hills and far away, you'll have a better chance, you say, as hosts have said before; and so you say farewell to all, and leave behind your father's hall, his rooftree and his door. I know you'd do as well at home as you will do, where'er you roam, but it were vain to speak, for youth must tread the distant road, find for itself its own abode, its Eldorados seek. Go forth and hew and carve and build, and may the visions be fulfilled that agitate your soul! Go, wander 'neath a foreign sky, while we old codgers wilt and die, at Punktown-in-the-Hole! [24] SALESMEN THROUGHOUT the town my wares I holler, and try to sell a new gold dollar for sixty- seven cents; in vain, alas, are all my yellings; in vain I haunt your shops and dwellings, your woodsheds and your tents. No man will buy my handsome money; men seem to think it must be phony, because I'd sell it cheap; so all day long I seek a market, display my coin and boost and bark it, and then break down and weep. But now comes Nestor Newton Neuter, who deals in dollars made of pewter, alloyed with lead and tin; he seems to loaf while I am sweating, and yet men's bundles he is getting, he rakes the greenbacks in. One man has got the trick of selling; he needs to do no frantic yelling to gather in the plunk; he just leans back, his system sunning, and all the people come a-running, to buy his blooming junk. The other fellow strives and labors to sell good plunder to his neighbors, and never gets the kale; no scraps of business can he rake up; there's something lacking in his make-up, he cannot make a sale. [25] THE DEAD ONES WE have grown up in the behef that all the geniuses are dead; the living writers run to beef, instead of brains, within the head. We talk of Addison and Steele, and grow excited o'er their charms; and as we talk of them we feel that modern scribes are false alarms. The other day, distraught and tired, I took Joe Addison, his book, and, hoping that I'd be in- spired, I read it, in the inglenook. Oh, yes, he has a graceful style — as Goldsmith had, and all that bunch — but you must read about a mile before you come across a punch. And Joseph's morals were O. K., the output of a thoughtful dome; but he would preach for half a day, to drive one little lesson home. If I should make my screeds so long, you'd close your eyes and gently snore, or else, im- pelled by sense of wrong, you'd shoot me for a turgid bore. I don't believe that he or Steele, or any other old time bard, could sell the stuff they used to reel, today, and get five cents a yard. [26 ] THE MARTYR "ly^Y wife and seven daughters," said G. IVX Augustus Grimes, "beside the briny waters are having gorgeous times. This cli- mate is a hummer for heat and dust and flies, and so they'll spend the summer beneath more kindly skies." I said, "But why in Cadiz are you thus left behind? Why don't you join the ladies, and drop this beastly grind?" "That girls may have their pleasure, some man must find the dimes, and so I hump for treasure," said G. Augustus Grimes. "I like to sweat and swelter, to give the girls a treat, and so I leave my shelter, and tread the burning street, to earn an extra shilling, that they may have their fun; of course, I'm more than willing to keep them staked with mon. My daughters all are peaches, my wife's a lollipop, and on the ocean beaches long may they bask and flop." Oh, cheerful, manly martyrs, who drag their spavined feet, and toil like gravel carters, that girls may have a treat I MORNING ON THE FARM GET up, my lad I The sun is rising, it is a most majestic day; Aurora's beauties aie surprising, you should be glad to quit the hay. Get up, get up, the dew is gleaming, like price- less jewels on the grass; it is a sin to lie here dreaming, while morning's transient glories pass. Get up, my son, the light is stealing athwart the summit of the hill, and I can hear the porkers squealing for buckets of refreshing swill. The oriole's already soaring, the mock- ing bird begins to mock, and you, O sluggish youth, are snoring, although it's nearly four o'clock! When I was young my sainted father ne'er had to rouse me from my bed; I thought it shame to cause such bother — I rose before the East was red. Before the wren began its carols, or catbird raised its solo fine, I went and carried seven barrels of slop to feed the hump- backed swine. I went about my labors singing, as I would see you do, my son; and when the breakfast bell was ringing, the morning chores were always done. Get up, get up, the world is waking I The morn is grand, but soon it fades! And in three shakes I will be breaking this slat across your shoulder blades! [28] tl THE GRAYBEARDS WE relics of a bygone time insist that old things were sublime, that modern things are punk; but our old domes are full of bats, and we are talking through our hats, and all we say is bunk. The lovely dames come down the street, togged out in raiment slick and neat, and we look on and sigh; "The modern fash- ions," we declaim, "are nothing but a burning shame — they shock the purist's eye. They make the tired spectator ache; and how the w^omen- folk can make themselves a holy show, is something that we can't explain; oh, for the fashions safe and sane, of forty years ago!" We make such statements free and bold, but if you take an album old, and view the women there, with gowns that look like circus tents, and shawls that look like twenty cents, and nets upon their hair, you'll say, "Those girls were surely shrieks! The world was overrun with freaks when those tintypes were made; if any woman should appear in such a spread of rags this year, the cops would make a raid!" [ 29] '=^. THE OTHER FELLOW THE other fellow ought to do the things I leave undone; I like to hand him precepts true, and counsel by the ton. The other fel- low'd find it wise to lead the simple life, to rigidly economize, assisted by his wife. While I blow in the good long green for diamond- studded lyres, for jugs of sparkling gasoline, and costly rubber tires. The other fellow ought to buy the cheaper cuts of meat, and feed his children prunes while I the juicy sirloin eat. The other fellow ought to keep within his mod- est means, and he can make his living cheap, by raising spuds and beans. The other fellow ought to sweat and struggle for each dime, while I go blithely into debt, and have a bully time. The other fellow ought to know that rainy days will come, and he, to sidestep grief and woe, should save an ample sum. While I blow all my coin away, much faster than it's earned, and say about the rainy day, "The rainy day be derned." ' [30] TWO KINDS THE lad who'd prosper well, and rise, to work will blithely walk, and toil with vim, nor keep his eyes forever on the clock. "The Boss's interests are mine," he to himself will say; but the worthless swab loafs on his job, when the Boss has gone away. The youth who'd reach a higher place, his duties does not shirk; the cheerful smile upon his face shows that he likes his work. In earning trust and confidence he takes a keen delight; but the worthless oaf begins to loaf, when the Boss is out of sight. The chap who gets the good fat check when his week's work is through, is he who always is on deck, when there is work to do, who toils as bravely when alone as when the Boss is near; but the worthless runt neglects his stunt, should the Old Man disappear. [31] iif SOLEMN SANCTITY SOME pious men are on this earth, who think that any kind of mirth is sacrilege or sin, and they would tumble from their perch if any one should enter church and wear a cheerful grin. So gloomy is their house of prayer, you'd almost think a corpse was there, a-waiting for the hearse; all festive words their souls annoy, and they will squelch the signs of joy, with chapter and with verse. "Serve Him with mirth. His praise foretell," I've heard the grand old anthem swell, all through my passing years; but those who sing it sing as though His service meant the deeps of woe, and misery and tears. Why make your creed a doleful thing? Why pull long faces when you sing, or grovel when you pray? Jehovah made this world so glad, he doesn't mean us to be sad throughout our little stay. I do not often seek the kirk, be- cause if ever smile or smirk my toilworn fea- tures wore, a deacon* d drag me from my pew, and push me down the aisle and through the large cathedral door. [32] ADAM'S OFF OX THE world is old, the man still talks, at times, of Adam's starboard ox. When any man's profoundly dead, of him it's usually said, by folks on the adjacent blocks, that he's as dead as Adam's ox. And if a stranger you shall see, and you are asked who he may be, you say, "I give it up, old sox; I know him not from Adam's ox." You say the "off ox," all the time, but that won't fit into this rhyme. Oh, famous beast, iminortal ox, whose shade still on this footstool walks! No other brute, since time began, no mouse or mule or mole or man, thus effortless has won renown, a fame the ages cannot down! How did you play your bovine game, that you have earned this deathless fame? We hear no word of Adam's hog, of Adam's mule, of Adam's dog; we've no description of his stove, or of the motor car he drove, or of his w^atch or Sunday hat, or his imported Maltese cat, but his "off ox" has come to stay; we hear it quoted every day. II [ 33 1 EVICTED NEW gray hairs are adorning my venerable dome. The sheriff came this morning and shooed me from my home. My good wife, Jane Mirandy,is weeping by the gate, and little Bess and Andy can't get their smiles on straight. Life treated us so gayly, that living seemed like play, but now it's willow-waly, alas, alackadayl We used up every dollar, as fast as it was earned, and now we sit and holler for all the coin we burned. We laughed at plodding neighbors, who pickled half their scads, the product of their labors, the dollars of their dads. While they were toiling, plugging, with fun from them afar, we went around chug- chugging, in mortgaged motor car. We heard the sages gabble of rainy days and woe, but laughed, and joined the rabble, to see the movie show. We hit the higher places, regard- less of expense, and now the sheriff chases us from our residence. Well may you weep. Mi- randy, and squirt the tears around, and well may Bess and Andy send up a doleful sound. Now that we've come our croppers, we view things with alarm; and we shall join the pau- pers, out at the county farm. [34] OBEDIENCE I HEARD the bonehead parent say, "Now, Clarence, put your toy away, and toddle off to bed." And Clarence, pampered little boy, proceeded to dissect the toy, to amputate its head. In half an hour the parent said, "Now, Clarence, you must go to bed — I told you once before." But little Clarence paid no heed; his hobbyhorse he ran with speed, around the par- lor floor. Ten minutes later Father cried, "Now son, I will not be denied — it's time you were asleep." But Clarence barkened not to that; he pushed some pins into the cat, and made the critter weep. And then I thought of other days, of other parents and their ways, and of my father* s stick; he never gave an order twice; and if I balked I paid the price, which made me sore and sick. Perhaps my father was too prone to lam my person till each bone felt like an aching tooth; but since that parent made me scream, we've reached the opposite extreme, the boss is giddy youth. And how I yearn to have a club when some precocious little dub ignores his dad's commands; how I would like to comb his hair, and groom his person with a chair, and pat him v/ith my hands! r 35 ] TOWN AND COUNTRY THE flowers are blooming in the woods, the daffodils and kindred goods, the cowslip and the rose; and, as I do my office task, I wish that I could go and bask among such things as those. Oh, it would surely be sublime, upon a fragrant bank of thyme, for drowsy hours to rest; to revel in the wholesome breeze, and pluck the toadstools from the trees, and rob a hornet's nest. But now a farmer comes to town — a man whose residence is down where buds are bathed in dew; all day he sees the posies grow, all day he feels the zephyrs blow his flowing sideboards through. And when I'd talk, in burning words, of bumblebees and bats and birds, and other woodland things, he looks at me as though he feels that my fat head is full of wheels, and cranks and rusty springs. He interrupts my glad harangue, and says, "I do not give a dang for cowslip or for rose; I'm happy, when the sun goes down, if I can chase myself to town, to see the movie shows." r 3c 1 w A^ THE MENAGERIE LL living creatures seem to throng the road that I would tour along, in my tin chug- mobile; they'll leave their homes and travel far, to throw themselves beneath my car, and bust a costly wheel. All thoroughfares, with j \j mules and goats, and sheep and hens and calves and shotes, forevermore are packed; I just collided with a cow — against her adaman- tine brow, my radiator cracked. The cows will leave the tender grass to block the road where I must pass, upon my road to town; the hogs will leave their sparkling swill to make a stand on yonder hill, and turn me upside down. Anon I squash a farmer's hen, that surely wasn't worth a yen, when it was in its prime; but now I hear the owner howl. "You killed my rare imported fowl, of pedigree sublime!" I jog along and break the slats of dogs and ducks and geese and cats, and always, v/hen they die, the price goes up to beat the band; "They were the finest in the land,** I hear the owners cry. The way the farmers' beasts run loose is cer- tainly a great abuse, it is no more a joke; and if I travel west or east, at every corner there's a beast that's suffering to croak. [27 1 ^. BIRTHDAYS A BIRTHDAY is a solemn thing; a fellow realizes then, how speedily the days take wing, the days that do not come again. A little grayer than last year, a little slower in my gait, I feel the dump is drawing near, and still I keep my smile on straight. A little failure of my sight; a bit more deafness in my ears; a few more aches — but that's all right! I would not stop the scudding years. My bald spot is a bit more wide, my muscles grow a trifle slack; I have more stitches in my side, a few more cricks are in my back. But yonder vault of azure bends above no gladder heart than mine, for all about me there are friends, who keep an old gent feeling fine. Their kind words make my bosom swell, and fill my piebald eyes with tears; they tell me I am looking well, and hope I'll live a hundred years. A few more symp- toms of the gout have vainly tried to kill my joy; a few more teeth have fallen out, but I'm as happy as a boy. [38] I THE MONEY GOES SPENT a pfennig for a rose, a groschen for some taffy, and said, "The way the money ' goes would drive a fellow daffy! The cost of living keeps us hot, it's threatening to bust us, and some one surely should be shot, if there's 1 such stuflF as justice." I paid a pistole for a I pup, a doubloon for a daisy, and then I reared ■ I three cubits up, and said the times are crazy. ! j "No matter what a fellow makes," I said, my bosom bleeding, "the money goes for cats and cakes, and other things he's needing. He can- not save a single yen, however hard he's try- ing, he's stony broke and broke again, when- I I ever he goes buying." I paid a guilder for a goose, a kroner for a cradle, a noble for a hangman's noose, a livre for a ladle. And I was just about to say that it is past man's pow- ers, to put a little sum away, against the day of 1 1 showers. And then my nephew said, "Dear Unk, the riot act I'm reading; if you would cut out buying junk that no sane man is needing, you'd land in Easy street, perhaps, to stay there, ere you know it; it's blowing coin for useless traps that breaks an old fat poet." [39] a-. a ,; A> ^i A'r'»>r » fra B g'/ doesn't keep his word. " This is the punkest recommend that any man has heard. The delegate with that renown can't find much work to do; whenever he appears in town, employers cry out "Shoo." I hired a youth whose name is Charles, to help me bale some hay; to bind the deal I paid him arles, he said he'd come next day. But never did that youth appear, which made my life- blood boil; he went a-fishing in the mere, and passed up honest toil. He comes to me when days are flown, and hits me for a job, but evermore I turn him down, the piker and the swab. He comes to me when tempest blows, and asks me for a pie, but I've no charity for those on whom one can't rely. I hire a youth named Bennie Bird to ply the saw and sperthe, for lads who do not keep their word are of but little worth. The down-and- outs are mostly men who this false system played; who broke and broke, and broke again the promises they made. r 50 ] gl TIMES CHANGE THE other day I bought a hen, which fowl the butcher tossed me, and I was pained and startled when I found out what it cost me. Just eighty cents it set me back, that chicken thin and scrawny; with wails I filled the butcher's shack, and tore my whiskers tawny. "When I was young," I sternly cried, "and lived three miles from Wooster, one-third that sum, dog- gone your hide, would buy a hen or rooster. Then for a dollar one could buy all kinds of goods and chattels, a fowl, a parasol, a pie, and divers baby rattles." "When you were young," the butcher said, "a man would work like thunder, and when at night he crawled to bed, he'd earned but little plunder. I have no doubt your father deemed a dollar big as blazes; too wonderful and great it seemed for any human phrases. You take in ten where he drew one, and yet, when buying chickens, because your plunk won't buy a ton, you grumble like the dickens." And then, because his heart was sore, he wept a briny river, and with my person mopped his floor, and smote me with a liver. [Bl] IN THE FALL IN the Fall Tired Father's fancy gravely turns to thoughts of coal, and he sheds nine kinds of briny as he sizes up his roll. He has thirty- seven dollars — two of them are plugged with zinc — and the outlook for the winter is ex- tremely on the blink. And he hears the children clamor for a lot of winter duds, and his wife makes requisition for some bacon and some spuds; and his lovely grown-up daughter wants no poverty in hers — she must have a stylish bonnet and a costly set of furs, and the son will need some money as he studies for the bar; thirty-seven hard-earned dollars won't take Father very far. Father has so many problems that his hair has fallen out, yet it's safe to bet a kopeck on that patient, dauntless scout. Some- how he will buy the bacon, somehow he'll pro- vide the spuds, Susan Jane will have her sables, and the kids will have their duds; there'll be coal to feed the furnace, there'll be comfort in the shack, while Tired Father fights his battle with eight stitches in his back. [B2] RUBBER TIRES SOME soothing balm the soul requires, when one must fuss with rubber tires. I am a highly moral man; I guard my tongue the best I can ; and if, perchance, I cuss a streak, remorse lambasts me for a week. A model I would gladly be, to growing youth and infancy, and ere I got a motor car, my fame for virtue traveled far. But often now I may be seen, all bathed in sweat and gasoline, and spotted o'er with rancid grease, dispensing words that break the peace. I jack my car up with my lyre, and try to patch a busted tire, and while I labor in the ditch, I'm laughed at by the idle rich, who whiz along in pomp and state, and jeer the more unlucky skate. And as I toil with wrench and crank, I keep on saying, "Blinky blank," and children toddling on their way give ear to smoky things I say, and as they leave, on learn- ing bent, they whisper, "What a sinful gent!" [53] iS OLD ENGLISH WHEN Chaucer lived there were some other bards, with inspiration loaded to the guards. And there were highbrows in that distant age, who looked with scorn upon great Geoffrey's page, and said, "Gadzooks, he writeth middling fair, for one whose soul is of afflatus bare; as crossroads jingler he may cut some grass, but who'll recall him when ten years shall pass? If you'd read verse of great, ma- jestic power, you must peruse the gorgeous works of Gower," Now, it is true that in G. Chaucer's time, the critics joshed him for his paltry rhyme, and held that Langland, of "Piers Plowman" dope, had moderns skinned beyond all hint of hope. How vain the judg- ment of the critic clan! They heap their laurels on some ten cent man, and say his harp will never be unstrung, while there are men to read his native tongue. Their petted poet crosses the divide, and is forgotten ere he's fairly died, while some unknown, who smarted 'neath their jeers, lives in men's hearts through all the roll- ing years, [64] >X»ii(Cf\i''Vetf>ii^jf^ ,^'«i^"W*Ww«iii PERVERSITY THE doctor says that pies are harmful, I must eat them no more; and that is why they seem so charmful I'd like to eat a score. Before m,e there are wholesome vittles that I may safely try; I'll have of them no jots or tittles, my system shrieks for pie. I didn't much enjoy my smoking until the doctor came, in- forming me I'd soon be croaking unless I quit the same. Then fascinating and enchanting seemed my old pipe of oak, and here I'm sitting, yearning, panting, for something I can smoke. Last winter, when the boys were skating — a sport of which I'm fond — I, too, began absquatulating along the village pond. The boys all said I was a winner, for fluent legs are mine, until I saw, where ice was thinner, a big square "Danger" sign. I skated up to see it closer — ^you should have seen me sink! It took two blacksmiths and a grocer to drag me from the drink. Who cares a kopeck for a warning? Man to his doom inclines because he takes a pride in scorning all sorts of danger signs. [55] iaffigfifih^- i^ UNRULY KIDS I DON'T like little Albert Clarence, thougK he's a sprightly lad, because he won't obey his parence, his mother and his dad. This Clarence boy is strangely gifted, he is no per- son's fool, and divers prizes he has lifted down at the village school. He knows what war or revolution distinguished every king, and when it comes to elocution, he makes the welkin ring. It sends a sort of thrill and shiver all up my spine and neck, when he arises to deliver 'The Boy and Burning Deck." In divers ologies excelling, in Greek he cuts much grass, and when it comes to hard word spelling, he cleans up all his class. But when his mother or his father remarks, "Go, hunt the eggs,** he seems to think it too much bother to exercise his legs. And when his father or his mother observes, "Go, feed the cat,*' he says to them, "My little brother is here — let him do that." There are no Hies on Albert Clarence, his teachers all agree; but kids Avho don't obey their parence don't make a hit with me. reel > SWEETEST WORDS "INCLOSED find check!" The sweetest 1 words that e'er outclassed the song of birds! How they allay the widow's fears, and dry the orphan's tears! When sad and tired and short of kale, a letter comes by morning mail; like other letters it appears, with postage stamps and inky smears. "No doubt," we sigh, "it is a dun; some frantic gent is after mon. These beastly bills we cannot pay take all the sunshine from the day, and make us wish that we were dead, with stacks of granite overhead." And then, with languid hands we tear the envelope to see what's there, and out there comes a note, by heck, with these brave words, "Inclosed find check!" Ah, then we bid farewell to w^oe, and like nine Brahma roosters crow, and to the soft drink joint repair, and buy a quart of soapsuds there. The sun once more is cutting hay, the gloomy clouds are blown away, the world is glad that was a wreck, changed by the words, "Inclosed find check." [57] HIGH PRICES OUR forebears, whose bright shades are soar- ing where noble anthems swell, while here on earth did little roaring about H. C. of L. Of simple manners, they went plugging around the mundane scene; they had no wish to go chug-chugging, or burn up gasoline. To Mother Nature they were closer; they did not spend their brass, for canned provisions, with the gro- cer, but raised their garden sass. The barber seldom saw their money into his cashbox drop; when hair and w^hiskers got too funny, their wives would shear the crop. They went to roost at early gloaming, tired by the toilsome day; you never saw our grandsires roaming along the Great White Way. They read no fiction, light and shallow, they sought no movie shows; they greased their boots with mutton tallow, and wore no underclothes. If they could journey back from Eden, and watch us for a spell, they'd understand, as we went speedin', our fierce H, C. of L, «{ [ 58] m» PROMPT PAY A MAN runs up a little bill, and when it's due he pays it; he coughs up for the mer- chant's till, and no excuse delays it. Unlike the deadbeats and the bums, he makes a proper showing; the merchants bless him when he comes, and praise him when he's going. This man, in season, meets reverse, as all men strike disaster; and then, when empty is his purse, and hard luck is his master, the dealers say, "Buy all you wish, until your luck grows stable; we'll gladly trust a man, oddsfish, who pays up when he's able." Another man runs up a bill, he keeps it climbing steady; when asked to pay, he says, "I will, when I get good and ready." Though he has roubles in his belt, and other roubles handy, he'd rather lose his freckled pelt than pay up like a dandy. And when misfor- tune dogs his feet, and want has badly frayed him, and he has but his hat to eat, the mer- chants will not aid him. If you are building in your town a bad pay reputation, some day that rep will knock you down, and hurt like all crea- tion. [ 59] ■ c <«M9>iN»n»iiwi«rtm' CAMPAIGN THUNDER MY friends, when I'm elected, the people, now dejected, will bid farewell to grief; I'll make their sorrows bubbles, to all their tears and troubles 1*11 bring a prompt relief. The people now are groaning; for justice they are honing, and hone for it in vain; but when I am elected, an end may be expected to all the stress and strain. The tyrant and the spoiler now rob the humble toiler, their feet upon his neck; but when I am elected the tree will be erected on which they'll swing, by heck! Oh, men with spades and axes! they burden you with taxes — that is the tyrants' plan ! But when I am elected all laws will be rejected which tax the working man. The rich men ride in motors; on foot you go, O voters, your feet all seamed with scars; but when I am elected this sin will be corrected; you'll all have choo-choo cars. Alas, my friends and neighbors, you're wearied by your labors, your strivings gall and irk; but when 1 am elected a change will be detected — no man will have to work ! [60] J FALL DAYS OH, the frost is on the pumpkin, Mary Jane; and the farmer hauls the fodder in his wain; and the ancient claybank mare has her •winter coat of hair, and the cows are bawling sadly in the rain. In the morning there's a nipping, eager breeze, and the edges of the brook begin to freeze; all the summer bloom is dead, and the pretty birds are sped, and I have rheumatic twinges in my knees. You have heard me in the suntimer, Mary Jane, you have heard me raise the dickens and com- plain, wishing for some winter sleet, telling how the sizzling heat filled my person with a punk, unpleasant pain. And already, with a sad and longing sigh, I am thinking of the beauties of July, and I swear by August, too; then the skies are bright and blue, and a man can sit in conafort then and fry. I'm opposed to Father Winter and his storm.; I indorse the kind of climate that is warm; when the nights are white with frost they increase our living's cost, and it's time the weather bureau knew reform. H. C61] MAN'S PLANS HE sat beside me by the fire, and chattered while I greased my lyre. "I've toiled," he said, "for thirty years, like Adam's team of brindled steers. And now that I have made my wad, I'll do some traveling abroad. I want to see this good old globe before I don a long white robe. My wife and I for years have planned a journey to the Holy Land; next year we'll see the storied things of w^hich the pious psalmist sings. And if the war shall ever cease, we'll jog through Italy and Greece, and see the Spaniard train his vine, and have a joy ride on the Rhine. I hope to climb the Alps and see the moonlight on the Zuyder Zee, and tread the ancient streets of Rome — but now, methinks, I must go home." He took his rainstick and his hat and vanished from my humble flat, to seek his home, which wasn't far; and on his way a motor car came up behind and climbed his frame, and he forever quit the game. Alas, poor chap! He "went abroad," and didn't need to take his wad. [62] SALTED DOWN 1 SAVED five dollars every week, against the day that's wet and dank. Sometimes it made my spirit shriek, to put that plunder in the bank. For there were sights I longed to see, and junketings I wished to make; to save was such a strain on me, I thought my old tin heart would break. But Susan Jane, my thrifty wife, was always watching at my side ; and she would say, "You bet your life, you do not let the kopecks slide. Our strongbox must not spring a leak," my wife would say, in solemn tones; "and at the end of every week, you'll pickle five gun- metal bones." I used to wish that Susan Jane w^ere more like other wives I know, that she would think it safe and sane to let the coin for pleasure go. Then I lay down with divers ills, and spent three w^eary months in bed, my stomach full of drugs and pills, and poultices upon my head. We paid the druggist and the nurse, the doc, who brought me back to health; and if I dodged the village hearse, it was be- cause I'd saved some wealth. To every man there comes a day when Fortune wears a gloomy frown; and, while you're earning coin, I say, it's wise to salt some roubles down. [63] THE ANOMALY WHILE riding in my buzz-buzz cart, I hit Bill Wax and spoiled his frame, and knocked his marrow-bones apart, and he re- marked, "I was to blame I" I said, "This dark disaster. Bill, to my sad life new sorrow lends; I do not run my car to kill or mutilate my dearest friends. I'll pay the surgeon if he'll fix the bones I've broken, rent and bowed; and if you journey o'er the Styx, I'll see you have a Palm Beach shroud." "It was my fault," I heard him say, "and you don't have to pay a cent, for I was walking like a jay, and wasn't looking where I went. I busted every rule, I think, which ought to govern gents on foot, and now you've put me on the blink, I think a while I should stay put." Bill Wax shines brighter than a star; Bill Wcix deserves immortal fame; he says the owner of a car is not in every case to blame I Hereafter, as I tour the town, in my new car that swiftly hies, I'll always try to run him down in preference to other guys. [64 J ■.'.■if^issfwssimjn-K ■ 'r'^-iZ^ GHOSTS «^ O FTEN when I cannot sleep, in my dark and _ quiet room, ugly phantoms round me creep, grinning at me in the gloom. Oft they come in grisly bands, to my sorrow and my shame, beckoning with fleshless hands, clank- ing chains and breathing flame. Many sin- ful things I've done, in the days that are gone by; that advantage might be won, I have sprung the vicious lie. Adding to this wad of mine, I've been tricky, mean and low, and I skinned a learned divine in a horse trade, long ago. In my scheming for the kale, at no trifles would I stop ; when I had some spuds for sale, all the biggest were on top. I ve committed many crimes; I confess it, now I m gray; I have voted seven times on the same election day. And when sleep from me re- cedes, and I lie in bed awake, ghosts of all these evil deeds come and fill me with an ache. Man of his achievements boasts, of the "killings" he has made; but he can't es- cape the ghosts — spectres which are never laid. r 65 ] OLD TIMERS WHEN old men meet they ask for news of friends they used to know. "Say, what's become of Hiram Hughes?" "The anthrax laid him low." "Well, what's become of Wil- liam Bill, and what's become of Fred?" "They both are sleeping on the hill, and each is doubly dead." "Why, truly, friend, if these things be, we're pretty much alone; but where is Silas J. McGee?" "He sleeps beneath the stone," "I used to know a lovely maid, whose name was Julia Jones." "She's resting in the willow's shade, out in the place of bones." No wonder that the old are bent beneath their weight of gloom; they cannot gossip worth a cent and not bring in the tomb. Mirth to their discourse they would lend, and cheerfully behave, but when they ask about a friend they hear about the grave. "Oh, what's become of Jim and Joe, and Nell and Bess and Jane?" "They died the death long years ago, and dead they still remain," [66] BURROS THE burros lazily infest the mountain regions of the West. You see them on the dizzy trails, with drooping ears and switching tails; and as they climb the rocky steep, they all seem walking in their sleep. The world has many mournful things, that walk on legs or fly on wings; the moping owl seems so depressed it gives you fantods in your breast; the cross- eyed jackal sits and howls more dismally than all the owls. The circus clown has won renown as being utterly cast down. But if you'd see the soul of woe, pack up your thermos flasks and go, out to some rugged western place, and look a burro in the face. There you will find, beneath those ears, the sorrow of a million years. I wondered why he looked so sad, when, in a Colorado grad, I first beheld him packing round a dame who weighed two hundred pound. But soon I knew; where'er he wends, a gale of merriment ascends, and dreary jokes assail his ears and fill his patient eyes with tears. No beast can be a standing jest, and find in life much joy or zest. r 67 1 KNOWING THE WORST EVERY morning John, the granger, looked with sadness on his corn, for it was in deadly danger, by the hot winds seared and torn. Through the weary weeks he'd tilled it — only nightfall made him stop — hoping by his toil to build it into something like a crop. It was perishing for water, and the heavens leaked no more; every day was fiercer, hotter, than the day that went before. And it seemed to John the granger, as he watched his corn crop go, that henceforth he'd be a stranger to all things but grief and woe. But when once suspense was ended, and he knew the crop was gone, "Next year's crop may well be splendid, and I'll bank on that," said John. 'Two bad years don't come together — that would be too fierce, gadzooksl So next year we'll have such weather as we read about in books." Thus the buoyant, hopeful mortal rises when the worst is known, to surprise you with a chortle when you're looking for a groan. [68] THE GRUNTER IF you're complaining of your task, and sigh ing as you labor, I greatly fear you'll never bask in Easy street, my neighbor. The world is seeking willing hands to keep its pulleys turning; it will pass up the gent who stands, for soft employment yearning. The man who drops away behind, who cannot make the riffle, keeps talking of the dreary grind, and all that sort of piffle. The man who gayly does his work, pretending to enjoy it, who, be his tool a spade or dirk, will cheerfully employ it, who, though he may be feeling dead, will never make confession, is he who marches s.t the head of industry's procession. The man who grunts whene'er he swings his fountain pen or hammer, who never smiles and never sings, or makes a cheerful clamor, who never will consent to hump until he sees his wages, will land some morning at the dump, and there he'll stay for ages. i [69] MAKING GOOD I BOUGHT an ax of Ezra Wax, who said to me, "Now, sonny, if it's no good at chop- ping wood, come back and get your money. If I sell junk that turns out punk, the buyer is no loser; I'll make it good, as dealers should — I'm that sort of a snoozer." With that new ax I took some whacks at divers kinds of lumber; the edge was spoiled, and I was roiled, and said things without number. I took the ax to Ezra Wax, and showed him it was pewter, and for an hour, with wrathful power, I roared like baseball rooter. My spiel he heard; without a word, he handed me a new one; an ax so neat, so bright, so sweet, a keen one and a true one I Said Ezra Wax, "You bet your yaks, warthogs and dromedaries, that I make good, as dealers | should — my system never varies!" I buy my j tacks of Ezra Wax, my wringers and my ^ whistles, my hoes and rakes and oil meal cakes, my seed of grass and thistles. He would not break the pledge he'd make, or tramp a prom- ise under, so I make tracks to Ezra Wax for every kind of plunder. [70] ) • 44r-i^>yw**i-i*»-i f;i .' ROOT OF EVIL WHEN I have got a goodly wad, I say that wealth's an empty gawd, a cheap, delud- ing snare; with fluent tongue and aspect wise, I sf ind around and moralize, and roast the millionaire. I look with sorrow and disdain on those who sweat and strive and strain to get another plunk; I tell them money is but dross, a sordid dream, a total loss, a worthless lot of junk. But when I've had some small reverse, that makes my roll look sick, or worse, on lucre I am bent; I hustle till I melt my fat, and you may see me break a slat, to nail another cent. Forgotten all the platitudes that I dis- pensed in lofty moods, in times when I was flush; forgotten all the moral saws, and every text that ever was, as I pursue the cush. And when I've made a roll again, I sternly lecture weary men, and chide them for their greed, for striving for the picayune, and say the trail be- hind them's strewn with morals gone to seed. ansMBsaBrnw THE SPEED FIEN: THEY dread my coming, east and west, and north and south they dread me, and if my person they possessed, no doubt they would behead me. Along the country roads I go, still striving to go faster, and every other mile or so I spring some small disaster. To beat all records, west and east, it is for that I hanker! And here and there 1 kill a priest, and here and there a banker. I'm worse than lightning's lurid breath; I am the scourge titanic; I'm battle, murder, sudden death; my other name is panic. With Azrael I deftly work, to fill the churchyard acre; and here and there I slay a clerk, and here and there a baker. I am a threat to all who drive their motor wagons sanely; by care they try to keep alive, and free from wounds, but vainly. I whiz around a corner sharp, and grind such people under; and while my victim draws a harp, I scorch along like thunder. To all who in this valley jog, I bring the last trump closer; and here I spoil a pedagogue, and there I bag a grocer. [72] CONTENTMENT CONTENTMENT isn't often seen where men have bundles of long green. The more a man requires, it seems, the more does worry haunt his dreams, and every millionaire I know looks like a cheap tintype of woe. I have a friend who once was broke; then he considered life a joke; he filled the air with gladsome song, and no one laughed so loud or long. It w^as a joy to meet him then; he was a tonic to sad men. But fortune slipped around, by stealth, and loaded him with unearned wealth. He comes to see me now and then — I wish he'd never come again — and talks so much of dole and gloom, of properties that ceased to boom, of plants requiring ready cash, investments which have gone kersmash, the grief that capital endures, the grief no legislature cures — he talks so much along this line, and puts up such a bitter whine, that when he leaves my humble door my feet are chilled, my heart is sore. Your wealth will buy a lot of things; all kinds of luxuries it brings, but you can't take it to the mart, and buy a glad, contented heart. m [73] • j'.-.i.M-', -.X ;-r Tk^ttw;,': ♦i*,.vy'". '"•,■»«■* S tt>iga;.agaitii&'iaat*«aaaa.»n3tnwia«jaap rrnv^ THE BEGGAR THE snow will soon be flying, the snow we love so w^ell; in drifts it will be lying along the hazel dell. The brawling winds will grip us, and give our ears a biff, the morning frost will nip us, and make our whiskers stiff. But we who toiled and panted preparing for this time, are cheerful and enchanted to see the snow and rime. And now there is a comer to every worker's door — the man who loafed all summer, and dodged the useful chore. The man who lounged and idled, hard by the vil- lage kirk, and who in anger bridled, when he w^as asked to work. In ancient, chestnut phrasin's, he asks for things to chaw, for liver- wurst and raisins, for pumpkin pies and slaw. His kids, in countless numbers, are suffering for bread; his aunts are robbed of slumbers be- cause they have no bed. The same old whiskered story, you've heard for years and years, told by a sinner hoary, with alligator tears! He profits by your bounty, you give him tripe and tea, and wonder why the county won't feed such skates as he. r 74 ] PROGRESSIVE PIETY THE old-time brimstone preacher, when once he waded in, said every human creature was loaded down with sin. Beneath his tower- ing steeple, in bitter, scathing terms, he roasted all the people, and said we were but worms. This poor old earth we cumbered, according to his rede, and when our days were numbered, we'd have some grief, indeed. The hymns that we were singing were of the same grim style, such lines as this one springing: "Where only man is vile." We all of us were lepers, the baby and the dame, the cripples and high steppers — all soaked in sin and shame; the lovely girls were ditto, their beauty was a snare, and none of us were fit to pack liver to a bear. But nowadays the preacher is willing to confess that man is quite a peach, or, at least, a great success. The learned and reverend thriller no longer says I'm vile, or calls me caterpillar, or worm, or crocodile. t75] I HOPE some day to write a song that will astonish all the throng on this old planet groping; but meanwhile, since 1 have to buy the children lids and shoes and pie, I'll take it out in hoping. I often think if I had time to put my best into a rhyme, John Milton would look faded; but writing doggerel that pays takes up the passing hours and days, and keeps me worn and jaded. I don't suppose I'll ever pen the ode that will astonish men, and bring me Shakespeare's laurels; and as of old my ink shall flow, expounding lessons all men know, and bargain counter morals. But when all day I've lyred and lyred, until I'm frazzled out and tired, it's pleasant to sit dreaming of that far day when I shall write an ode so full of force and light, the critics will be screaming. And thus your dream is soothing you, though you may know it won't come true, this side the river Jordan; it's good to have some kind of goal; and so, for duds and grub and coal, you struggle on accordin'. r [76] I HEARD the down-and-outer say, "I'm canned because I'm old and gray. Employ- ers shoo me from their doors; they want young men to do their chores. I know I'm long on sterling worth, but there's no place for me on earth, no job for me beneath the moon, for I was born some years too soon. Youth must be served, and age must slide down where the dump is yawning wide." I've often heard this dismal spiel from gents panhandling for a meal, but in my daily walks I find that old boys do not fall behind, if they still keep their smiles on straight, and keep their habits up to date. Too many old men sing this song, that every mod- ern thing is wrong. They're always talking of the past, and so they're also-rans at last. A man's gray hair will cut no grass, if he can make things come to pass, if he will blithely do his stunt with cheerful and undaunted front. ii ■9/ [77] jiaaas; "\/OUR money back if things don't suit," 1 our grocer says, in all his ads; but when I bought some wormy fruit, for which I paid my hard-earned scads, he did not cheerfully refund; his whiskers he began to comb, and tightened up his cummerbund, and talked until the cows came home. "Those prunes," he said, in heated terms, "were fresh when taken from the shelf," implying that I put the worms into the doggone prunes myself. I pulled his ears and tweaked his nose, and said, "We'll just forget those prunes, but never more, till life shall close, will I spend here my picayunes." A lot of merchants make that bluff, "Your money back, if things don't please," but when you call to get the stuff, they hand you out the same old wheeze. But now and then a mer- chant bold makes good and never bats a glim; you say that man's as good as gold, and name your infant after him. [78] THE WATCH MY watch wouldn't work worth a dime, it was always a fortnight too slow; instead of recording the time, it monkeyed around, to and fro. The mainspring seemed out of repair, it traveled by spasms and jerks; so I sat me right down in a chair, and studied the watch and its works. I took it apart with a wrench, and studied the levers and gears, all piled in a heap on a bench; I studied and wiggled my ears. I put the wheels back in the case, and shook them to give them a shock; but the hands didn't go round the face, and the works didn't tick nor yet tock, I asked of the plumber advice, and counsel I asked of the judge, con- sulted the dealer in ice — and still the blamed works wouldn't budge. "Methinks," I re- marked, "and I wist, I must go to the jeweler's shop." He gave it three twists of the wrist, and the watch went along like a top. That plan's kept me down in the past — a plan that is doubtless the worst; I always reserve till the last the thing I should tackle at first. H [79 ] THE MODEL KID HOW sweet the child who says, "I will," when weary father cries, "I wish you'd take an ax and kill about a million flies!" The child who's active to obey, who heeds, with cheerful brow, whatever Pa or Ma may say, is worth more than a cow. I have a pair of young galoots, and when I bid them work, they answer me, "You bet your boots," and never think to shirk. I say to them, "Go rake the leaves from off the lawn today" ; they get their rakes and neither grieves that he must quit his play. I say to them, "Go paint the pump, and mow the priceless grass," and they go to it on the jump, and hand me back no sass. For such a wholesome brace of kids, it is a joy to toil, to buy them underwear and lids, and cake and castor oil. How sharper than a serpent's tooth, how worthless and how bad, is that un- seemly, graceless youth, who won't obey his dad! For him the world will hold no prize, the dump will be his bourne; he'll live unloved, and when he dies, no soul in town will mourn. r 80 1 ■'•"*3a;««iK!5«^^Kt?''VJi.wr?. ■Ml vfU' THE SAFE DRIVER ALONG the street I drive my car, my rate of L speed is safe and slow. I pull up where the children are, and give pedestrians a show^. Some day pedestrians will be, by statute, from our highways cast, for any candid man must see that they're a nuisance, first and last. But since they are permitted here, in spite of mo- torists' appeals, I hold it wise my car to steer so they won't get beneath the wheels. I watch the street where'er I go, and dodge all live stock gone astray, and toot my horn that men may know my juggernaut is on the way. The road rules 1 have all by heart — I learned the whole blamed list, complete, and no man ever sees my cart upon the wrong side of the street. And while I exercise such care, w^hile modestly my motor hums, along the teeming thorough- fare some badly locoed speed fan comes. He knocks the sawdust from some gent who hasn't time to climb a tree, and then, without or with intent, he slams his car right into me. I say, when from the dismal wreck I climb, and realize the worst, 'The man who gets it in the neck, is he who swears by Safety First!" [«i ] SHWSflfMSW'^tii/v. -i^- ■ THE BANK ACCOUNT OH, happy day when I began to put my doubloons down in brine! While you with fear the future scan, a soul serene and calm is mine. Long was I slammed around by Fate, the dregs of sorrow oft I drank, before I got my head on straight, and put some guilders in the bank. I used to blow my money in as fast or faster than 'twas earned, and one could fill a good large bin with iron dollars that I burned. I blew in every kind of pelf, the mark, the kopeck and the franc, before I tumbled to myself, and put my moidores in the bank. And then I always lived on prunes, was up against the ragged edge, until, to salt down my doubloons, I made a large brass-mounted pledge. Since then on rosy paths I tread, and merrily I whoop and yell; I do not fret, I do not dread the dreary old H. C. of L. I buy my car new rubber tires, and pour rich gas into its tank; he has all things that he desires, who puts his rupees in the bank. [82] l«WTvWS»«fl!l«f^^v*€ft'WfCT^VfeflKTWf»*?o*-Tfc»*^^ . FUTURE DEEDS SWEET friend of mine, it doesn't pay to tell of things you will achieve; the golden era is today; and promises too oft deceive. "To- morrow I will cut much grass, tomorrow prizes will be won." Tomorrow! But today, alas, goes by and you have nothing done. Tomor- row is a vision dim, that makes the dreamer's heart feel good. Today the man of sense and vim goes forth and saws three cords of wood. Today we know we are alive, our bones and thews obey our will ; it is our privilege to strive, and put some kopecks in the till. Tomorrow, when the madding crowds of workers throng along the pave, we may be wearing jaunty shrouds, all neatly dolled up for the grave. The things I've done may count a bit, and gain some measure of applause, when I this daily round have quit, when I have crossed my pulseless paws. The lofty ends that I pursue won't make a record till they're won; the things that I intend to do, will never count until they're done. And so, my friend, again I say — and, saying it, I'm strangely moved — the golden era is today; don't let it vanish unimproved. 83 >■■■■—■ ■■— —— OUR DESTINATION THE poorhouse has no Persian rugs, no costly chandeliers; and there we'll dwell and chase the bugs in our declining years. On bread and meat and spuds and pie there's an unholy price; the cost of coal has gone so high the poor are burning ice. The butchers used to give away the liver of the cow; today they wrap it up and say, "Cough up a quarter now." The poorhouse has no movie stage, no joyous minstrel troupe; and there we'll spend our wintry age, and live on cabbage soup. When o'er the daily sheet we glance, we drop it with a frown; the price of everything's advanced, and nothing has gone down. The printer howls because his stock more precious is than gems; the tailor wets with tears the frock which drearily he hems. Man wears his sweater in his bed, because he has no shift, and cries aloud, while seeing red, "Oh, whither do we drift?" The poorhouse has no plutocrats, no closed or open cars; and there we'll dwell and swat the rats until we climb the stars. [84] 'V'*"r.>^is4*»»SAV!4M-«iC(*«a[ HAPPINESS MY neighbor Johnsing can afford a lot of things that I can not; yet I'm not envious or bored, beneath my collar I'm not hot. My neighbor Johnsing has a roll that's large enough to choke a steer; I contemplate him, and my soul is smiling still, from ear to ear. For one thing is supremely true — as some one said, in ringing tones — that happiness has naught to do with what a human being owns. Old Mas- ters hung upon the wall won't bring a nickel's worth of bliss. The rich man, in his gilded hall, is always saying things like this: "The gladdest time I ever spent, was when I lived in yonder shack, and had to husband every cent, to buy suspenders for my back." I like to have enough to eat, I like to have some clothes to wear, and caskets for my shapely feet, and gasoline to feed the mare. I like to feel, in dismal times, upon the day that's wet and dank, that I have half a dozen dimes in storage in the village bank. Let neighbor Johnsing view his roll, through tears that make his vision dim; I wouldn't touch it with a pole, when seeing what it's done for him. [ 85] SLOW BUT SURE ^■1 THE delegate who's slow but sure is nearly always sadly poor. I hire some fellows, then and now, to mow the lawn or sheer the cow, to shovel snow or whack up wood, and "Slow but Sure" is not much good. It puts a wire edge on my nerves to watch the slow man's languid curves, to see him stand around perplext, as doubting what he should do next. I pay him, when he's done, his yen, but do not hire that man again, if I need help to mow the grass, or cultivate the garden sass. He may be sure, but he's too slow; when he is weaving to and fro, you have to line him with a post, to see which one is moving most. The man who wishes to arrive, must show the village he's alive. When he is going anywhere, his coat tails flap the balmy air; however humble be his grind, he leaves a trail of dust behind. In every action, every step, he shows that he is full of pep. Employers seek that hustling gent, in whom such shining traits are blent. His energy allures, enchants. We let him wed our maiden aunts. [86] SPRING THOUGHTS A MAN grows sick of the walls of brick, and the city's endless roar, when old winter goes, with its frosts and snows, and the spring- time's at the door. His soul rebels at the city's smells, and he says to himself, says he, "There are banks of thyme with a scent sublime, and the woodland's calling me!" His soul revolts at the jars and jolts that the urban dweller knows, at his sordid task, when he longs to bask in the glen where the cowslip grows; and he says, "Gee whiz! I am tired of biz, and sick of the sights I see, of the stress and strain for a tawdry gain, when the wood- land's calling me!" In all human lives, when the spring arrives, there riseth the wanderlust; and a fellow's dreams are of woods and streams, and the long road white with dust. And he heaves a sob as he views his job, from which he won't dare to flee; and he says, "By Hoyle! It is hard to toil, when the woodland's calling me!" [ 87] ■smmttB'i^ssaauataawiKri. A.. UNAPPRECIATIVE MAN "TV /fY husband," sighed the weeping wife, iVl "has made a ruin of my life. He does not seem to yearn or long for Higher Things, like Art and Song. The sordid things to him appeal; he'd rather have a good square meal, than sit with me through dreamful days, recit- ing Robert Browning's lays. A noble painting on the wall makes no appeal to him at all; with scorn he'll pass the picture by, and say he'd rather have a pie. Because the bread is always hard, because his porterhouse is charred, because the coffee's weak and thin, he'll make a most unseemly din. He can't be made to realize that noble odes beat oyster fries, that Ibsen's pen, surcharged with ink, surpasses sausage in the link, that Handel's grand harmonic burst beats Schweitzer cheese or liverwurst. So here 1 sit upon the floor, and weep and wail forevermore. " [88] THE POOR LISTENER I SIT in the grocery store, discoursing of cur- rent events, each eve, when my labors are o'er, with other industrious gents. We talk of the scrapping in France, discuss the high prices of hay; and each gives the others a chance to say what they suffer to say. When Johnson unlimbers his jaws, we listen politely to him; when Jimpson stands up for his cause, we cheer his remarks with a vim. There's peace in that grocery store, each orator feels at his best, till Kickshaw, the champion bore, comes in to take part in the fest. This man, with his head full of wheels, too oft in our presence has sinned; he wants to make all of the spiels, to furnish the bulk of the wind. That's why we old fellows arose, last night, at the grocery store, and lifted that chump with our toes, and hoisted him clear through the door. Free speech is a blessing to men, without it no race can advance; but talkers should pause now and then, and give other fellows a chance. 89 ] CONVALESCENCE WHEN one's been lying sick in bed, with plaster casts upon his head, and poultices upon his feet, recovery seems, oh, so sweet! The doctors, round my couch of straw, have plied the squirtgun and the saw; for weary days, that endless seemed, I tied myself in knots and screamed, for every ache that has a name held wassail in my stricken frame, and many aches not classified whizzed through my sinews and my hide. At last I fell into a sleep, an old-time slumber, rich and deep, and when I woke my form was free from every brand of agony. 'Tis at a crucial time like this, when full of convalescent bliss, a fellow feels how great is health — far greater than the "whole w^orld's wealth. And he can clearly realize how dippy, batty and unw^ise, it is to sacrifice that boon, to gain another picayune. A million men, you may observe, are straining every bone and nerve, year after year, to add one more gun-metal dollar to their store. Some day they'll be where I have been, with poul- tices from feet to chin, and when they lie in solitude, and o'er their years of folly brood, they'll say, as I am saying yet, that health's the one and only bet. [90] ''■;i-3i>\'ia£i^M^3i'- ^■i.o^Tstens^-xmi^ w CARELESSNESS I STRIKE a match upon my boot, and ligKt my three-for-five cheroot, then throw the match away. "The fire fiend snorted through the town, and burned our finest buildings down," the morning papers say. I suck an orange as I talk, and drop the peel upon the walk, then journey to my flat; a friend steps on that peel of mine, and breaks a gallus and a spine, an ankle and a slat. I scrubbed the cellar stairs with pep, then left the pail upon a step, and went to groom the cow; my aunt went down to get some jell; she stumbled o'er that pail and fell, and spoiled her queenly brow. I'm always doing thoughtless tricks, which bring dire grief to other hicks, and fill them with alarm; and when I've made some dizzy break, I say, "Twas merely a mistake — I surely meant no harm." But being sorry doesn't cure the griefs my victims must endure, and now and then they rise, brush my apologies aside, and make som.e punctures in my hide, and black my starry eyes. [91] 1 ^sjbl.>g^flj :Ja3ffla>;^''^^^4>»^K^«B 4Ma«rBB»a.(., .' /Si., H [93] HOUSE AND HOME " T OWN my house, but have no home," said 1 J. Augustus Cork, as wearily he tried to comb his whiskers with a fork. "My house is strictly up-to-date, with every modern fad, and visitors pronounce it great, and think I should be glad. An English butler buttles round, and wields a frozen stare; imported maids are on the ground, to comb my lady's hair. And I have works of art to burn, all swell and reshershay, with here a bust or Grecian urn, and there The Stag at Bay.' No kids along the hallway rush, or bump along the stair, but over all's a solemn hush, as though a corpse were there. The kids would like full well to romp, and raise a howdydo, but they must live up to our pomp and vulgar noise eschew. I have a house but not a home, and hence my air of gloom; this mansion, with its gaudy dome, is cheerless as a tomb. I'd like to swap this swell abode, with all its works of art, for that cheap cottage down the road, where first we made our start" [94 1 r%} THE HERMIT OLD HUNX is a hermit and mystic, his manner is stately and grave, his diet is antiphlogistic, he spends all his years in a cave. "My health," he remarks, "is a wonder, al- though I'm as old as get-out; rheumatics don't pull me asunder, I have not the stringhalt or gout. I warble my optimist ditties, my soul's full of sunshine and hope; but when I resided in cities, I always was swallowing dope. I always had shingles or colic, or Bright's justly famous disease; the rheumatiz often would frolic all over my fetlocks and knees. If man would keep grief in the distance, and feel like a Percheron steer, he must lead the simple existence, and cut out the urban career." "Me- thinks," I replied, "you are paying too heavy a price for your bliss; while far from the bright lights you're staying, just think of the fun that you miss! I'd rather have smallpox or bunions, I'd rather have seven-year itch, than fill up with turnips and onions, and live in a cave or a ditch!" [95] OLD SONGS ^^S^^^Sj LAST night I heard an ancient dame hum divers songs of bygone years, and tender recollections came, which filled my old green eyes with tears. "Oh, Birdie, I am tired now, I do not care to hear you sing"; thus warbled on the withered frau, while darning socks, like everything. Beneath the bright Canadian skies I used to sing that simple lay; folks heard my boyish treble rise, and wished I'd quit, or go away. Where are the men who cried "Shut up I" and promptly sicked their dogs on me, when I, before their wickiup, turned loose that song in ecstasy? The beldame by my fireside waits, and sings old songs to you unknown, as "Wait for me at heaven's gates, sweet Belle Mahone, sweet Belle Mahone!" I used to sing the same sweet song, beneath the warm Canadian sun, and neighbors rang the chestnut gong, and put more buckshot in the gun. Old songs! Sweet songs I They blaze the track to bygone days and vanished scenes, before I had to break my back to earn the beefsteak and the beans. [96] 1^ THE LUCKLESS MAN I HEARD a fellow say, this morn, "I've had hard luck since 1 was born." Yet he was fixed with hands and feet, and health so good 'twas hard to beat. While he bemoaned his gloomy fate, and tried to keep his grouch on straight, and while some maudlin tears he shed, an ailing cripple forged ahead, ambition glowing in his eyes, and gathered in a hand- some prize. A blind man, groping in the dark, in human annals made his mark. A sick man, toiling with his pen, produced a book that drew from men so loud a burst of honest praise, as cheered the balance of his days. A thou- sand brave, undaunted chaps, borne down by grievous handicaps, were struggling up life's rugged steep, too full of hopeful plans to weep. How pitiful the man who stands, with active lungs and idle hands, complaining of the luck he's had, since he was but a knee-high lad! [97 1 t; THINK TWICE HINK twice before y6v# mail the note in which you give your anger vent, in which \ you recklessly devote yourself to skinning some I poor gent. For doubtless when your anger ] cools, you'll kick your spine up through your f hat, and say, "I was the prince of fools to send \ a man such rot as that!" Think twice before I you pass along the scandal that you heard last I night; you may do some good man a wrong I that years of effort can't set right. And though 1 the story true may seem, why rob a neighbor \ of his goat? From your own eye remove the i beam, before you reach for t'other's mote. Think twice before you jaw your wife; there was a time, some years ago, w^hen you de- clared you'd make her life as cheerful as a ! picture show. Alas, she took you at your word, as damsels do, and always did; and all her married years she's heard her husband I yawping through his lid. Think twice before 1 you do a thing your soul refuses to indorse; j for every wicked act will bring the certain penalty, remorse! I 98 ] I F •T^HEF 1 briel GOOD SCOUTS HERE are 80*^1x1307 noble gents in this bright world of joy and glee, that men who seem like eighteen cents don't need to worry you or me. We do not need associates who are not built to put up ice, we need not mingle w^ith the skates who w^ould be dear at any price. The woods are full of splendid scouts whose friendship is a thing to prize, but if you herd with down-and-outs, you cannot to such friendship rise. Man must be honest, good and straight, if he'd have friends who' re worth the while; he cannot trot a crooked gait and be considered quite in style. The men whose friendship is a boon are found all o'er this cheerful earth; they do not give a picayune for anything but sterling worth. You may be poor, you may be bald, you may have water on the brain, but when you're to their circle called, you know you have not lived in vain. r 99 1 wmm STOLEN OR STRAYED WHAT has become of the maidens fair, who pleased the eyes of the old-time swells, who made the dresses they used to wear, and looked as smooth as the modern belles? They made their gowns and they made their hose, they made their hats with a right good will; they made their quilts and such things as those, they sewed and darned with the darnedest skill. They made good bread and they made good pies, they made good jam and they made good tarts; their doughnuts gladdened our weary eyes, and put new vim in our jaded hearts. They took blue ribbons at county fairs, for fragrant butter in golden rolls; a noble pride in their skill was theirs — but now they're vanished, God rest their souls. They're past and gone to the brighter spheres, and no successors they left below; about one time in a hundred years you'll see a girl who can cook and sew. I like eggs soft and I get them hard, I like tea strong and I get it w^eak, the toast is burned and the steak is charred, and tears are glimmering on my cheek. [ 100] i»lJ-UJUlJiil« <» J-W^iu.lii- ' J!«litl «g«aggj!ili'j«^wr>. MARY JANE, you dizzy daisy, what a mess you always make! Are you careless oi just lazy? Is your intellect a fake? All your traps, you heedless critter, I see strewn around the floors; Ma will come and clean the litter, when she's done her other chores. Always counting on another to do things you ought to do, always waiting for your mother to come toiling after you ! Ma will all this mess abolish, when she's dusted forty chairs, when she's put a coat of polish on the furniture upstairs; when she's cleaned and scaled some fishes, when she's pared a pail of spuds, when she's washed the dinner dishes, when she's patched a heap of duds, when she's so dodgasted weary that her work-worn soul is frayed, she'll come toil- ing round you, dearie, cleaning up the muss you've made. Mary Jane, your mother's older than she was when she was young; she has stitches in her shoulder, and the asthma in her lung; every step she takes is harder than the step she took before, as she wanders from the larder to the well or henhouse door. Some sad day we shall have laid her to her rest, her labors through; while she's with us you should aid her, not make work for her to do. ri59] THE HELLO GIRL WE hear her silver voice, and mutter, "That damsel surely is a peach! She helps us earn our bread and butter, and brings all things within our reach. Intelligent and prompt, she labors, we hear her voice by night and day, she makes us seem like next door neigh- bors to folks a thousand miles away. She is the modern maid of magic, the priestess of a mystic fire, and tidings glad, and tidings tragic, she sends us daily, o'er her wire. If she dropped out, the w^orld, confounded, would stagger back and groan and yelp, and Trade, by all its loot surrounded, would raise a frenzied cry for help. If she no longer drew her wages, con- fusion would supremely reign, and back into the pitch dark ages we'd swear we had been dumped again. She's boosting science, art and learning, she is the prop of modern trade, she keeps the old world's wheels a-turning, so we should bless the hello maid!" [l«0 3 LAND O* DREAMS IT'S over the mountains, a million miles, it's over the misty sea, it's off at the end of the forest aisles — it's ne'er where we chance to be. Our homes are gay with the rose and thyme, and the grass is bright with dew, but we always think of a far-off clime, as the land where the dreams come true. The young man frets in his native ditch, and pines for a place afar; if he stays at home he can never hitch his cart to a rising star. He hears the travelers warmly speak of wonderful things they knew, and he wanders off in the dawn to seek the land where the dreams come true. After many years, when he's bent and old, he totters on feeble limbs, to lay him down in the old home fold, and die to the sound of hymns. His head was gray ere he learned the truth, the truth that is old and new, that home's the ful- filment of dreams of youth — the place where our dreams come true. [161] e , i Wra^^'.^"-i-"-,jjj*». >*5»ttw>» <\*A^i5l THE LASTING FAME ^bS I'D like to leave behind me some work that will endure, but briny teardrops blind me, the prospect is so poor! Man hates to think of sleeping through ages four or five, with nothing brilliant keeping his memory alive. But there is no foretelling whose fame for aye will stand, or who has built his dwelling upon the shifting sand. The lions we're adoring, the great men of today, whose bright renown goes soaring from Juneau to Cathay, whose voices give direction to all our projects here, may pass from recollection when they've been dead a year. Perchance some humble plodder, who seems to cut no grass, or other kinds of fodder, will, when the ages pass, in people's hearts be living, his fame secure and strong, immortalized for giving the world some simple song. No man can say, "It's certain, as taxes, and as sure, that when Death drops the curtain, my fame will still endure." To make our best endeavor, that is the only way; let fame live on forever, or die in half a day. [162] SOLACE IT little takes to heal the aches of people who are human; the song of bird, at daybreak heard, will cheer a weeping woman; a kindly act performed with tact will make some man less bitter; a friendly smile will quell the bile of some disgusted critter. Where'er I go I find that woe is always up and doing, and care- worn chumps have doleful dumps, their little griefs pursuing. This view they gain from years of strain and stress and long endeavor, they seem to think that on the blink all things will be forever. But when I come I make things hum, with joke and whiskered story; I always preach that life's a peach, the world all hunkydory. And it beats all how gloom will fall, when anyone defies it; if you w^ould scare away dull care, just show that you despise it. The things I say, though lame and gray, from almanacs collected, make jaded me/n wear grins again, and brace up the dejected. So every gent who's worth a cent should preach the gospel sunny, and take men's minds from sordid grinds, and scratching after money. 16!! 1 How sweet to rest serenely in the gloaming, the week's work done, your princely wages drawn; to rest and read, the winds your sideboards combing, and watch the children play upon the lawn. I tell you this, my grouchy friend and neighbor, there's naught on earth more soothing to the soul, than rest that fol- lows days of earnest labor, the toil that brings a small but honest roll. The pride of wealth, the pride of birth or beauty, the pride that swells the chests of beau and belle, seems shoddy stuff to him w^ho does his duty, who does his tasks, and strives to do them well. Beneath his vine the workingman is sitting, his bills are paid, some roubles put away; upon the porch his smiling wife is knitting, around his feet the tow-haired kidlets play. For pomp and state he wastes no time in sighing, he knows how oft such longings lives have queered; and past his home the motor cars go flying, by men in debt and divers bankrupts steered. A cottage home that's yours and fully paid for, a happy frau, a sense of duty done; that pleasant lot a millionaire might trade for, and get big value for his heaps of mon. » [164 1 A EXERCISE GOOD long walk each day is wise, but as old age approaches, we hate the thought of exercise, and ride in cars and coaches. And it is when w^e're waxing old that exercise is needed; if we'd dispel the fat and mold, our trilbys must be speeded. We ought to walk to work and back, and shun the elevator, and do the chores around the shack, and hoe the , jj beet and 'tater. Instead of riding in a car, on 1 \f seats of padded leather, 'twere better if we walked afar, in every kind of w^eather. We ought to sweat beneath the sun, absorb the heat it launches, and then perhaps we wouldn't run to double chins and paunches. We let all rules of health go hang, and when in bad condi- tion, we do not walk a parasang, but send for a physician. Instead of climbing sunlit hills, inhaling wholesome breezes, we take a pint of purple pills and grunt of our diseases. We dodge all forms of exercise, which course is truly batty; and when we die the doctor cries, "Degeneration fatty!" r ifir. ] -.-_^^," 1 asked the cashier at the bank; he sighed, as with regrets, and sadly shook his weary head, and swatted seven flies and said, "He doesn't pay his debts." Thus finally the cashier spake, no explanations did he make — there was no more to say; no use of arguing about — for that pronouncement lets Hank out, the man who doesn't pay. A man's forgiven many things as through this busy life he swings, and swears and swats and sweats; a thousand faults we lightly scan, but there's no pardon for the man who doesn't pay his debts. If I had seven silly sons, I'd hand them counsel, tons on tons, to help them on their way; the burden of my spiel would be, "My batty boys, on land or sea, be prompt your bills to pay. You may have stacks of sterling worth, and seem too good for this cheap earth, but if you dodge your bills, the world will strike your balance sheets, and set you down as chronic beats, which reputation kills. Go forth, my beamish boys," I'd say, "and always be as prompt to pay, as you are prompt to buy; and you will flourish then, and thrive, and men will boost you while alive, and praise you when you die." [168] ■^^^^^^S^S^ i DREAMS REALIZED WE all have dreams when we are young, sweet dreams of future splendor; we see upon our pathway flung all kinds of legal tender; we see ourselves achieve a fame that spreads from Troy to Goshen, so all the people speak our name with fervor and emotion. Then some of us sit down and wait the vision's sweet fulfilling, depending on a kindly fate to help us make a killing. We wait till we are weak and old, for Fortune's kindly token; we wait till we are green with mold, and all our dreams are broken. Our hearts are filled with bleak despair when wintry age approaches, and to the poorhouse we repair, to weep and swat the roaches. And some have dreams of gorgeous hue, fine dreams of coming glory. "We'll make those dreams," they say, "come true, before we're old and hoary." With willing feet and eager hands they're chasing Fortune always, while t'other dreamer idly stands, or sits and chews his galways. Oh, dreams are fine if you have spunk to follow up the vision, but all those dreams are simply bunk which bring free gifts elysian. [169] DEAD LEAVES THE fallen leaves were lying thick upon the withered grass. "My lawn's no longer span and spick, alack," 1 cried, "alas! The look of things imparts an ache, and kills my sunny smile; I'll get a muzzle-loading rake, and heap them in a pile." A learned professor came along, just at that fateful time. "To rake the fallen leaves is wrong," he said; "in fact, a crime. The sod demands the nutriment that rotting leaves bestow, so let them with the soil be blent, and they will make things grow." I thanked that learned and able guy, and gave him a cheroot; then took the rake and laid it by, and played upon my lute. The leaves grew deeper on the lawn, blown there by every breeze, and when I took a walk thereon, they reached up to my knees. Then ambled to my garden gate the sawbones, stern and pale. "You make me tired," he said, "you skate — you ought to be in jail. For public health have you no care, most reckless of all knaves? These rotting leaves pollute the air, and send men to their graves." And thus it's been my journey through, a journey rough and long; whatever I attempt to do, is sure to be all wrong. [170] #mmmmmimmmmmmmam W fifmm- BEDTIME STORIES LONG years ago, when I was small, not more than forty inches tall, an ancient Avoman used to tell fierce goblin stories passing well. Before I went to roost at night, she'd spring those yarns with keen delight, and all the long dark night I'd dream of horrid shapes, each one a scream. And now that I am old and gray, and bent and worn, and full of hay, I fear the dark and all its hosts of witches weird and sheeted ghosts, and only daylight can disperse the things that make the night a curse. And oftentimes I go and fume around that foolish beldame's tomb, and tell her — though she cannot hear — how she made night a thing of fear. And even as we go to press fool dames are sowing long distress, by telling kids, in solemn tones, dark tales of ghosts and bats and bones. Oh, tell the children pleasant tales of silver ships with purple sails, that come across the sunlit seas to bring them dolls and Christmas trees. [171 ] WORK AND REST TO work is good, to saw your wood, while yet the sun is shining, to make the hoe move to and fro, where pumpkin vines are twining. For men who shirk all useful work are never happy mortals, by any chance — they do not dance and fill the air w^ith chortles. But don't, my lad, make w^ork a fad, the end and aim of living; for every day some time to play all toilers should be giving. In this broad land we beat the band, the w^ay we hump and hustle; we keep up steam and work and scheme, and wear out mind and muscle. While young in years, above our ears the gray of age is showing; it would be best to stop and rest, but still we keep on going. Then something snaps — the brain, perhaps — beyond all cures or patches, and we are shown to walls of stone, to cells in booby hatches. To work is grand, but stay your hand, when comes the evening playtime; take in the shows and things like those, and leave your tasks for daytime. "s I nr [172 ] ^^i-i^Oui^it^ IF wishes were motors, the beggars would ride, and throw on us voters the dust, in their pride. But wishes won't carry a man to his goal, and beggars must tarry down there in the hole. "I wish," sighs the ditcher, the creature of brawn, "that I was some richer than Andy or John. But Fortune is spurning a poor, honest jay, and I'll go on earning a dollar a day." If he had quit wishing and dreaming his dream, and spent some time fish- ing in Knowledge's stream; if he'd made en- deavor to master some trade, he would not forever be wielding a spade; he would not be sweating in gumbo and clay, intent upon get- ting his dollar a day. If wishes were horses the beggars would ride, but down where re- morse is the beggars abide. A wish is a daisy when backed up by toil, but if you are lazy your wishes will spoil. Your wishes are dizzy if idly they grew, but if you get busy they'll likely come true. [173] AUTUMN LEAVES THE Autumn leaves are falling, and poets heave a sigh, and say that Nature's calling on living things to die. A pensive melancholy Fall months to poets bring; but I am fat and jolly and gambol as I sing. I do not think of hearses when Autumn zephyrs wail, but write some cheer-up verses, and earn nine kinds of kale. The skies are dark and dreary, the rain begins to spout, but people should be cheery unless they have the gout. The wind is chill and snappy, the earth is dank and wet, but people should be happy, unless they are in debt. The wind will soon be piling big snow- drifts on the plain, but people should be smiling unless they are insane. I love all kinds of weather, I love the Autumn well, when we all sit together around the fiire and yell, and keep the corn a-popping, each in his easy chair; the Autumn leaves are dropping — it's little that I care. The Autumn leaves are falling; I let the blamed things fall; my phonograph is squalling, "Dear Days Beyond Recall." There's firelight on the rafter, and kidlets on the floor, around me joy and laughter, and neighbors at the door. [174] '«!SE?S' CONFIDENCE I KNOW a man who hunts for snakes, and kills them for their grease. He says 'twill cure rheumatic aches, and make your anguish cease. The doctors say that serpent oil no sort of virtue owns; it will not cure the pains that coil around your joints and bones. But this old gun who kills the snakes has never had a doubt; he says all other cures are fakes, when reptile oil's about. He is so everlasting sure that what he says is true, that even skeptics buy his "cure," to see what it will do. And so it keeps him toiling hard, the keen demand to meet, and he has bought with bullsnake lard a home in Easy street. If you believe in what you sell, have faith in what you say, in that same avenue you'll dwell, upon a future day. If one is not supremely sure that what he has for sale makes all competitors look poor, his eloquence will fail. A man can sell me setting hens, or swarms of bumblebees, or double action fountain pens, or cures for housemaids* knees, if he's convinced that what he sells beats everything around; that sort of salesman's wearing bells, wherever he is found. S— g^W J I Il l l ll! >■ r i7r. 1 MONUMENTAL WHEN I have ceased to rant and rave, and all my earthly days are spent, 1 pray you place not on my grave a large and gaudy monument. All ostentation's doubly vain, when on this world we've closed our eyes; give me a slab, with legend plain: "Beneath this board your uncle lies." For if I've cut some grass on earth, I'll need no marble to proclaim the story of my sterling worth, or to perpetuate my fame. And if I am a false alarm, not worth the room I occupy, no towering shaft can add a charm to my bum record, when I die. How foolish look the gents who sleep beneath all kinds of sculptured rocks, who were considered passing cheap, before we placed each in his box. How foolish is all such parade, such pomp amid the graveyard gorse! A hundred- dollar saddle laid upon a fifteen-dollar horse! When I have jumped this mundane realm, and journeyed o'er the silent sea, a three-foot slab of slippery elm is plenty good enough for me. tl7B1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 015 940 904 1 4