GUIDE TO CONTENTS (continued 2)

94

THE DIFFERENCE

WHEN I was as poor as Job, and monkeyed around the globe in indolent vagrant style, my life was a joyous thing, devoid of a smart or sting, and everything seemed to smile. I hadn’t a bundle then; I herded with homeless men, and padded the highway dust; and care was a thing unknown, as scarce as the silver bone, in days of the wanderlust. But now I am settled down, a prop to this growing town, respectable till it hurts; and I have a bundle fat, and I have a stovepipe hat, and all kinds of scrambled shirts. I puff at a rich cigar, and ride in a motor car, and I have a spacious lawn; and diamonds upon me shine; my credit is simply fine, the newspapers call me Hon. But Worry is always near, a-whispering in my ear—I’m tired of her morbid talks: “Suppose that the bank should bust in which you have placed your dust, how then would you feel, Old Sox? Suppose that the cyclones swat the farms you have lately bought and blow them clear off the map? Suppose that your mills should fail, and you were locked up in jail, how then would you feel, old chap?” Dame Worry is always there; 95she’s whitened my scanty hair, she’s cankered my weary breast; she never goes far away; she tortures me all the day and ruins my nightly rest. And often at night I sigh for a couch ’neath the open sky and the long white road again; for the march through the sifting dust, and the lure of the wanderlust and the camp of the homeless men.

96

IMMORTAL SANTA

I MET a little maid who cried, as though her heart would break; I asked her why, and she replied, “Oh, Santa is a fake! My teacher says there never was a being by that name, and here I mourn for Santa Claus, and all the Christmas game.”

“Cheer up, my little girl,” I said, “for weeping is a crime; I’ll go and punch that teacher’s head as soon as I have time. Old Santa lives, the good old boy, his race is not yet run; and he will bring the children joy, as he has always done. The pedagogues have grown too smart, and must take in their sails, if they would break a maiden’s heart by telling phony tales.”

The young one, anxious to believe that Santa’s still on earth, looked up and smiled and ceased to grieve, and chortled in her mirth. I have no use for folks so wise that legend makes them sad, who say those stories are but lies which make the children glad. For Santa lives, and that’s the truth; and he will always live, while there is such a thing as Youth to bless the hands that give.

You may not hear his reindeer’s hoofs go 97tinkling o’er the snow; you may not see him climbing roofs to reach the socks below; and down the sooty chimney-hole you may not see him slide—for that would grieve the kindest soul, and scar the toughest hide—but still he goes his rounds and tries to make the children gay, and there is laughter in his eyes, on every Christmas Day.

You’re Santa Claus, and so am I, and so is every dad, who says at Christmas time, “I’ll try to make the young hearts glad!” All other men may lay them down and go to rest some day; the homes they builded, and their town may crumble in decay; and governments may rise and fall, and dynasties may lapse, and still, triumphant over all, that jolliest of chaps will journey through the snow and storm, beneath the midnight sky; while souls are true and hearts are warm, old Santa shall not die.

98

THE MEN BEHIND

THE firm of Jingleson & Jams, which manufactured wooden hams, has closed its doors, and in the mill, the wheels and shafting all stand still.

This mighty business was upbuilt by Humper, Hooperman & Hilt, who kept the factory on the go and made all kinds of fancy dough. Their products went to every mart, and cheered the retail merchant’s heart, and made consumers warble psalms, and ask for more of those elm hams. These owners hired the ablest men that could be got for love or yen; throughout the mill fine workmen wrought; their every motion hit the spot; and expert foremen snooped around, and if some shabby work they found, the riot act they’d promptly speak, in Latin, Choctaw, Dutch and Greek.

The finest salesmen in the land were selling hams to beat the band. Old Humper said, “No ten-cent skate can earn enough to pay the freight; cheap men are evermore a frost—they’re dear, no matter what they cost. We want the ablest men that grow—no other kind will have a show.” And so these owners gathered 99kale until the game seemed old and stale, then sold their mill and stock of hams to Messrs. Jingleson & Jams.

These were a pair of cautious gents, who had a reverence for cents. They looked around, with eager eyes, for chances to economize. They had the willies when they gazed upon the payroll—they were dazed! “Great whiskers!” Jingleson exclaimed, “this wilful waste makes me ashamed! This salesman, Jasper Jimpson Jones, draws, every month, two hundred bones! Why I can hire F. Flimson Flatt, who’ll work I know, for half of that!”

“And by old Pharaoh’s sacred rams,” remarked his partner, Peter Jams, “it’s that way all along the list; old Humper must be crazed, I wist! We’ll cut these salaries in two—that is the first thing we must do!”

And so the high-priced expert men were told to go, nor come again; and soon the shop began to fill with chaps who’d neither brains nor skill. The payroll slumped—which made Jams glad; but so did trade—which made him mad. The product lost its high renown, and merchants turned the salesmen down, and they sent frantic telegrams to weary Jingleson & Jams.

100When things begin down hill to slide, they rush, and will not be denied, and so there came slump after slump until the business reached the dump, and poor old Jingleson & Jams are mournful as a pair of clams.

Economy’s the one best bet—but some kinds cost like blitzen, yet!

101

THE BARD IN THE WOODS

ALONG the forest’s virgin aisles I walk in rapture, miles on miles; at every turn delights unfold, and wondrous vistas I behold. What noble scenes on every hand! I feel my ardent soul expand; I turn my face toward the sky, and to the firmament I cry:

“The derned mosquitoes—how they bite! The woods would be a pure delight, would lure all men back to the soil, if these blamed brutes were boiled in oil! They come forth buzzing from their dens, and they’re as big as Leghorn hens, and when they bite they raise a lump that makes the victim yell and jump.”

What wondrous voices have the trees when they are rocked by morning breeze! The voices of a thousand lyres, the music of a thousand choirs, the chorus of a thousand spheres are in the noble song one hears! The same sad music Adam heard when through the Eden groves he stirred; and ever since the primal birth, through all the ages of the earth, the trees have whispered, chanted, sung, in their soft, untranslated tongue. And, moved to tears, I cry aloud, far from the sordid madding crowd:

102“Doggone these measly, red-backed ants! They will keep climbing up my pants! The woods will soon be shy of guests unless the ants and kindred pests abolished are by force of law; they’ve chewed me up till I am raw.”

Here in these sylvan solitudes, unfettered Nature sweetly broods; she’d clasp her offspring to her breast, and give her weary children rest, and say to them, “No longer weep, but on your mother’s bosom sleep.” Here mighty thoughts disturb my brain—I try to set them down in vain; with noble songs my soul’s afire—I cannot fit them to my lyre, Elysian views awhile I’ve seen—I cannot tell you what they mean; adown the forest aisles I stray, and face the glowing East, and say:

“It must have been a bee, by heck! that stung me that time on the neck! It’s time I trotted back to town, and got those swellings doctored down! With bees and ants and wasps and snakes these bosky groves and tangled brakes are most too fierce for urban bard—I rather long for my back yard!”

103

VALUES

OLD Hiram Hucksmith makes and sells green wagons with red wheels; and merry as a string of bells in his old age he feels. For over all the countryside his wagons have their fame, and Hiram sees with wholesome pride, the prestige of his name.

He always tells his men: “By jings, my output must be good! Don’t ever use dishonest things—no wormy steel or wood; use nothing but the choicest oak, use silver mounted tacks, and every hub and every spoke must be as sound as wax. I want the men who buy my carts to advertise them well; I do not wish to break the hearts of folks to whom I sell.”

The farmers bought those wagons green, with wheels of sparkling red, and worked them up and down, I ween, and of them often said: “You cannot bust or wear them out, and if you’d break their holt, you’d have to have a waterspout or full-sized thunderbolt. The way they hang together’s strange, they ought to break but won’t, most earthly things decay or change, but these blamed wagons don’t.”

Old Hiram’s heart with rapture thrilled, to hear that sort of stuff; he worked and worked 104but couldn’t build his wagons fast enough. And now he lives on Easy Street, most honored of all men who toddle down our village street, and then back up again.

Old Jabez Jenkins long has made blue wagons with pink spokes, and once he had a goodly trade among the farmer folks. With pride his bosom did not swell, he knew not to aspire, to get up wagons that would sell—that was his one desire. And so he made his wheels of pine, where rosewood should have been, and counted on the painting fine, to hide the faults within.

And often when this sad old top was toiling in his shed, a customer would seek his shop and deftly punch his head. Wherever Jenkins’ wagons went, disaster with them flew; the tires came off, the axles bent, the kingbolts broke in two. You’d see the farmers standing guard above their ruined loads, and springing language by the yard that fairly scorched the roads.

This Jenkins now is old and worn, his business is decayed; and he can only sit and mourn o’er dizzy breaks he made. Old Hiram’s plan should suit all men who climb Trade’s rugged hill: Give value for the shining yen you put into your till.

105

STICKING TO IT

I USED to run a beeswax store at Punktown-in-the-Hole, and people asked me o’er and o’er, “Why don’t you deal in coal? The beeswax trade will never pay—you know that it’s a sell; if you take in ten bones a day, you think you’re doing well.”

Thus spake these thoughtful friends of mine; I heard their rigmarole, and straightway quit the beeswax line, and started selling coal. I built up quite a trade in slate, delivered by the pound, and just when I could pay the freight, my friends again came round. “Great Scott!” they cried, “you ought to quit this dark and dirty trade! To clean your face of grime and grit we’d need a hoe and spade! Quit dealing in such dusty wares, and make yourself look slick; lay in a stock of Belgian hares, and you’ll make money quick.”

I bought a thousand Belgian brutes, and watched them beige around, and said: “I’ll fatten these galoots and sell them by the pound, and then I’ll have all kinds of kale, to pleasure to devote; around this blamed old world I’ll 106sail in my own motor boat.” But when the hares were getting fat, my friends began to hiss: “Great Caesar! Would you look at that! What foolishness is this? Why wear out leg and back and arm pursuing idle fads? You ought to have a ginseng farm, and then you’d nail the scads.”

The scheme to me seemed good and grand; I sold the Belgian brutes, and then I bought a strip of land and planted ginseng roots. I hoped to see them come up strong, and tilled them years and years, until the sheriff came along and took me by the ears. And as he pushed me off to jail, I passed that beeswax store; the owner, loaded down with kale, was standing in the door. “If you had stayed right here,” he said, “you’d now be doing well; you would not by the ears be led toward a loathsome cell. But always to disaster wends the man who has no spine, who always listens to his friends, and thinks their counsel fine.”

107

“THANKS”

THE lumber man wrapped up some planks, for which I paid a yen, and as I left he murmured, “Thanks! I hope you’ll call again!”

Such little courtesies as this make business worth the while; they fill a customer with bliss and give his mug a smile. Politeness never fails to win, and bring the trade your way; when I have cash I blow it in with dealers blithe and gay.

Of course, in every merchant’s joint, there are a thousand cares, which file his temper to a point, and give his brow gray hairs. And he should have a goat, no doubt, on which to vent his spite; a sawdust dummy, good and stout, should do for that all right. And then, when burdened with his woe, he might a while withdraw, and to the basement gaily go, and smash that dummy’s jaw. And when he’d sprained the dummy’s back, and spoiled its starboard glim, he to his duties would retrack, refreshed and full of vim.

Some outlet for his flowing bile—on this 108each man depends; but he should always have a smile and “Thank you” for his friends.

When I am needing further planks, to make a chicken pen, I’ll seek the merchant who said, “Thanks! I hope you’ll come again!” I feel that I am welcome there, in that man’s scantling store, and I can use the office chair or sleep upon the floor. His cordial treatment makes me pant to patronize such gents; and I shall wed his maiden aunt and borrow fifty cents.

I’d sing his praises day and night, if singing were allowed; the man consistently polite will always charm the crowd.

109

THE OLD ALBUM

I LIKE to take the album old, with covers made of plush and gold—or maybe it is brass—and see the pictures of the jays who long have gone their divers ways and come no more, alas!

This picture is of Uncle James, who quit these futile worldly games full twenty years ago; up yonder by the village church, where in his pew he used to perch, he now is lying low. Unheard by him the church bell chimes; the grass has grown a score of times above his sleeping form. For him there is no wage or price, with him the weather cuts no ice, the sunshine or the storm.

Yet here he sits as big as life, as dolled up by his loving wife, “to have his picture took.” Though dead to all the world of men, yea, doubly dead, and dead again, he lives in this old book. His long side whiskers, north and south, stand forth, like mudguards for his mouth, his treasure and his pride. With joy he saw those whiskers sprout, with glee he saw them broaden out his face, already wide. In those sweet days of Auld Lang Syne the men considered 110whiskers fine and raised them by the peck; a man grew whiskers every place that they would grow upon his face, and more upon his neck. He made his face a garden spot, and he was sad that he could not grow whiskers on his brow; he prized his whiskers more than mon and raised his spinach by the ton—where are those whiskers now?

Oh, ask the ghost of Uncle James, whose whiskers grew on latticed frames—at least, they look that way, as in this picture they appear, this photograph of yesteryear, so faded, dim and gray.

My Uncle James looks sad and worn; he wears a smile, but it’s forlorn, a grin that seems to freeze. And one can hear the artist say—that artist dead and gone his way—“Now, then, look pleasant, please!” My uncle’s eyes seem full of tears. What wonder when, beneath his ears, two prongs are pressing sore? They’re there to hold his head in place, while he presents a smiling face for half an hour or more. The minutes drag—if they’d but rush! The artist stands and whispers, “Hush! Don’t breathe or wink your eyes! Don’t let your 111smile evaporate, but keep it rigid, firm and straight—in it all virtue lies!”

It is a scene of long ago, when art was long and time was slow, brought back by this old book; there were no anesthetics then, and horror filled the souls of men who “had their pictures took.” Strange thoughts all soulful people hold, when poring o’er an album old, the book of vanished years. The dead ones seem to come again, the queer, old-fashioned dames and men, with prongs beneath their ears!

112

WAR AND PEACE

THE bugles sound, the prancing chargers neigh, and dauntless men have journeyed forth to slay. Mild farmer lads will wade around in gore and shoot up gents they never saw before. Pale dry goods clerks, amid war’s wild alarms, pursue the foe and hew off legs and arms. The long-haired bards forget their metred sins and walk through carnage clear up to their chins.

“My country calls!” the loyal grocer cries, then stops a bullet with his form and dies. “’Tis glory beckons!” cry the ardent clerks; a bursting shell then hits them in the works. And dark-winged vultures float along the air, and dead are piled like cordwood everywhere. A regiment goes forth with banners gay; a mine explodes, and it is blown away. There is a shower of patriotic blood; some bones are swimming in the crimson mud. Strong, brave young men, who might be shucking corn, thus uselessly are mangled, rent and torn. They call it glory when a fellow falls, his midriff split by whizzing cannon balls; but there’s more glory in a field 113of hay, where brave men work for fifteen bits a day.

The bugles blow, the soldiers ride away, to gather glory in the mighty fray; their heads thrown back, their martial shoulders squared—what sight with this can ever be compared? And they have dreams of honors to be won, of wreaths of laurel when the war is done. The women watch the soldiers ride away, and to their homes repair to weep and pray.

No bugles sound when back the soldiers come; there is no marching to the beat of drum. There are no chargers, speckled with their foam; but one by one the soldiers straggle home. With empty sleeves, with wooden legs they drill, along the highway, up the village hill. Their heads are gray, but not with weight of years, and all the sorrow of all worlds and spheres is in their eyes; for they have walked with Doom, have seen their country changed into a tomb. And one comes back where twenty went away, and nineteen widows kneel alone and pray.

They call it glory—oh, let glory cease, and give the world once more the boon of peace! I’d rather watch the farmer go afield than see the soldier buckle on his shield! I’d rather hear 114the reaper’s raucous roar than hear a colonel clamoring for gore! I’d rather watch a hired man milk a cow, and hear him cussing when she kicks his brow, than see a major grind his snickersnee to split a skull and make his country free! I’d rather watch the grocer sell his cheese, his boneless prunes and early winter peas, and feed the people at a modest price, than see a captain whack an ample slice, with sword or claymore, from a warlike foe—for peace is weal, and war is merely woe.

115

THE CROOKS

THE people who beat you, hornswoggle and cheat you, don’t profit for long from the kale; for folks who are tricky find Nemesis sticky—it never abandons their trail. I’ve often been cheated; the trick’s been repeated so often I cannot keep tab; but ne’er has the duffer who thus made me suffer been much better off for his grab. It pays not to swindle; dishonest rolls dwindle like snow when exposed to the sun; like feathers in Tophet is burned up the profit of cheating, the crooked man’s mon. The people who sting me unknowingly bring me philosophy fresh, by the crate; I don’t get excited—my wrongs will be righted, by Nemesis, Fortune, or Fate. I know that the stingers—they think they are dingers, and gloat o’er the coin they don’t earn—I know they’ll be busted and sick and disgusted, while I still have rubles to burn. I’d rather be hollow with hunger than follow the course that the tricksters pursue; I’d rather be “easy” than do as the breezy and conscienceless gentlemen do. Far better the shilling you’ve earned by the tilling of soil 116that is harder than bricks, than any old dollar you manage to collar by crooked and devious tricks.

117

THE TRAMP

HIS hair is long, his breath is strong, his hat is old and battered, his knees are sprung, his nerves unstrung, his clothes are badly tattered, his shoes are worn, his hide’s been torn by bow-wows fierce and snarling; and yet, by heck! this tough old wreck was once some daddy’s darling!

He still must hit the ties and grit. A dismal fate is his’n; for if he stops, the village cops will slam him into prison. Some hayseed judge would make him trudge out where the rock pile’s lying, to labor there, in his despair, till next year’s snows are flying. The women shy when he goes by; with righteous wrath they con him. Men give him kicks and hand him bricks and train their shotguns on him. His legs are sprained, his fetlocks strained, from climbing highways hilly; it’s hard to think this seedy gink was someone’s little Willie!

And yet ’tis so. Once, long ago, some dad of him was bragging, and matrons mild surveyed the child and set their tongues a-wagging. “What lovely eyes!” one woman cries. “They look like strips of heaven!” “And 118note his hairs!” a dame declares. “I’ve counted six or seven!” “His temper’s sweet,” they all repeat; “he makes no fuss or bother. He has a smile that’s free from guile—he looks just like his father!” Thus women talked as he was rocked to slumber in his cradle; they filled with praise his infant days, poured taffy with a ladle.

And ma and dad, with bosoms glad, planned futures for the creature. “I’ll have my way,” the wife would say; “the child must be a preacher! His tastes are pure, of that I’m sure,” she says, with optimism; “for when he strays around and plays, he grabs the catechism!”

“Ah, well,” says dad, “the lovely lad will reach great heights—I know it. I have the dope that he’ll beat Pope or Byron as a poet.”

To give him toys and bring him joys, the savings bank was burgled; folks cried, “Gee whiz! How cute he is!” whenever baby gurgled.

His feet are bare, his matted hair could not be combed with harrows; his garb is weird, and in his beard are bobolinks and sparrows. You’d never think, to see the gink, that ever he had parents! Can it be so that long ago he was somebody’s Clarence?

119

THE DOLOROUS WAY

AS a mortal man grows older he has pains in hoof or shoulder, by a thousand aches and wrenches all his weary frame is torn; he has headache and hay fever till he is a stout believer in the theory of the poet that the race was made to mourn. He has gout or rheumatism and he’s prone to pessimism, and he takes a thousand balsams, and the bottles strew the yard; he has grip and influenzy till his soul is in a frenzy, and he longs to end the journey, for this life is beastly hard. And his system’s revolution is Dame Nature’s retribution for the folly of his conduct in the days of long ago; in his anguish nearly fainting he is paying for the painting, for the wassail and the ruffling that his evenings used to know. We may dance and have our inning in our manhood’s bright beginning, but we all must pay the fiddler, pay him soon or pay him late, and a million men are paying for the dancing and the playing, who are charging up their troubles to misfortune or to fate.

120

LOOKING FORWARD

I OFTEN wonder how this globe will struggle on when I cash in, when I put on my long white robe and sleep with cold but peaceful grin. I find it hard to realize that sun and moon and stars will shine, that clouds will drift along the skies, when everlasting sleep is mine. What is the use of keeping up the long procession of the spheres, when I’m beneath the butter-cup, with gumbo in my eyes and ears? What is the use of dusk or dawn, of starless dark or glaring light, when I from all these scenes am gone, down to a million years of night? Young men will vow the same sweet vows, and maids with beating hearts will hear, beneath the churchyard maple’s boughs, and reck not that I’m resting near. And to the altar, up the aisle, the blooming brides of June will go, and bells will ring and damsels smile, and I’ll be too blamed dead to know. Ah, well, I’ve had my share of fun, I’ve lived and loved and shut the door; and when this little journey’s done, I’ll go to rest without a roar.

121

SEEING THE WORLD

HE jogged around from town to town, “to see the world,” was his excuse; he’d get a job and hold it down a little while, then turn it loose. “Oh, stay,” employers use to say; “your moving is a foolish trick; you’ll soon be earning bigger pay, for we’ll promote you pretty quick.” “This town is punk,” he would reply, “and every street is surnamed Queer; I’d see the world before I die—I do not wish to stagnate here.” Then he was young and quick and strong, and jobs were thick, as he jogged by, till people passed the word along that on him no one could rely. Then, when he landed in a town, and wished to earn a humble scad, the stern employers turned him down—“we want you not, your record’s bad.” He’s homeless in these wintry days, he has no bed, no place to sup; he “saw the world” in every phase; the world saw him—and passed him up. It’s good to “see the world,” no doubt, but one should make his bundle first, or age will find him down and out, panhandling for the wienerwurst.

122

THE POLITE MAN

WHEN Wigglewax is on the street, a charming smile adorns his face; to every dame he haps to meet, he bows with courtly, old world grace. His seat, when riding in a car, to any girl he’ll sweetly yield; and women praise him near and far, and say he is a Chesterfield. Throughout the town, from west to east, the man for chivalry is famed. “The Bayards are not all deceased,” the women say, when he is named. At home this Bayard isn’t thus; his eye is fierce, his face is sour; he looks around for things to cuss, and jaws the women by the hour. His daughters tremble at his frown, and wonder why he’s such a bear; his wife would like to jump the town, and hide herself most anywhere. But if a visitor drops in, his manner changes with a jerk, he wears his false and shallow grin, and bows like some jimtwisted Turk. Then for his daughters and his wife he wears his smile serene and fat, and callers say, “No sordid strife can enter such a home as that!” A million frauds like Wigglewax are smirking on the streets today, and when at eve they seek their shacks, they’ll beef and grouch, the old stale way.

123

UNCONQUERED

LET tribulation’s waters roll, and drench me as I don’t deserve! I am the captain of my soul, I am the colonel of my nerve. Don’t say my boasting’s out of place, don’t greet me with a jeer or scoff; I’ve met misfortune face to face, and pulled its blooming whiskers off. For I have sounded all the deeps of poverty and ill and woe, and that old smile I wear for keeps still pushed my features to and fro. Oh, I have walked the wintry streets all night because I had no bed; and I have hungered for the eats, and no one handed me the bread. And I have herded with the swine like that old prodigal of yore, and this elastic smile of mine upon my countenance I wore. For I believed and still believe that nothing ill is here to stay; the woozy woe, that makes us grieve, tomorrow will be blown away. My old-time griefs went up in smoke, and I remain a giggling bard; I look on trouble as a joke, and chortle when it hits me hard. It’s all your attitude of mind that makes you gay or sad, my boy, that makes your work a beastly grind, or makes it seem a 124round of joy. The mind within me governs all, and brings me gladness or disgust; I am the captain of my gall, I am the major of my crust.

125

REGULAR HOURS

I HIT the hay at ten o’clock, and then I sleep around the block, till half past five; I hear the early robin’s voice, and see the sunrise, and rejoice that I’m alive. From pain and katzenjammer free, my breakfast tastes as good to me as any meal; I throw in luscious buckwheat cakes, and scrambled eggs and sirloin steaks, and breaded veal. And as downtown I gaily wend, I often overtake a friend who’s gone to waste; “I stayed up late last night,” he sighs, “and now I have two bloodshot eyes, and dark brown taste; I’d give a picayune to die, for I’m so full of grief that I can hardly walk; I’ll have to brace the drugstore clerks and throw some bromo to my works, or they will balk.” But yesterday I saw a man to whom had been attached the can by angry boss, he wassailed all the night away, and then showed up for work by day a total loss. Don’t turn the night time into day, or loaf along the Great White Way—that habit grows; if to the front you hope to keep, you must devote your nights to sleep—I tell you those.

126

PLANTING A TREE

TO be in line with worthy folk, you soon must plant an elm or oak, a beech or maple fair to see, a single or a double tree. When winter’s storms no longer roll, go, get a spade and dig a hole, and bring a sapling from the woods, and show your neighbors you’re the goods. What though with years you’re bowed and bent, and feel your life is nearly spent? The tree you plant will rear its limbs, and there the birds will sing their hymns, and in its cool and grateful shade the girls will sip their lemonade; and lovers there on moonlight nights will get Dan Cupid dead to rights; and fervid oaths and tender vows will go a-zipping through its boughs. And folks will say, with gentle sigh, “Long years ago an ancient guy, whose whiskers brushed against his knee, inserted in the ground this tree. ’Twas but a little sapling then; and he, the kindest of old men, was well aware that he’d be dead, long ere its branches grew and spread, but still he stuck it in the mould, and never did his feet grow cold. Oh, he was wise and kind and brave—let’s place a nosegay on his grave!”

127

DREAMERS AND WORKERS

THE dreamers sit and ponder on distant things and dim, across the skyline yonder, where unknown planets swim; they roam the starry reaches—at least, they think they do—with patches on their breeches and holes in either shoe. The workers still are steaming around at useful chores; they always save their dreaming for night, to mix with snores. They’re toiling on their places, they’re raising roastin’ ears, they are not keeping cases on far, uncharted spheres. They’re growing beans and carrots, and hay that can’t be beat, while dreamers in their garrets have not enough to eat. Oh, now and then a dreamer is most unduly smart, and shows he is a screamer in letters or in art; but where one is a winner, ten thousand dreamers weep because they lack a dinner, and have no place to sleep. There is a streak of yellow in dreamers, as a class; the worker is the fellow who makes things come to pass; he keeps the forges burning, the dinner pail he fills, he keeps the pulleys turning in forty thousand mills. The man with dreams a-plenty, who lives on musty prunes, beside him looks like twenty or eighteen picayunes.

128

SPRING SICKNESS

THIS is the season when the blood, according to the learned physician, is thick and flows as slow as mud, which puts a man in bad condition. Spring sickness is a fell disease, according to our time-worn notions, and, having it, the victim flees, to blow himself for dopes and potions. “I have to thin the sluggish stream,” he says, “which through my system passes; it’s thicker now than cheap ice cream, and flows like New Orleans molasses.” From all spring ills he’d have release, if he would tramp his potions under, and get a jar of Elbow Grease, the medicine that’s cheap as thunder. To get out doors where breezes blow, and tinker ’round to beat the dickens, would make a lot of ailments go, and thin the blood that winter thickens. Instead of taking pale pink pills which are designed for purple parties, go, plant the spuds in shallow hills, and you’ll be feeling fine, my hearties! We are too fond of taking dope, while in our easy chairs reclining, when we should shed our coats and slope out yonder where the sun is shining.

129

ON THE BRIDGE

I STOOD on the bridge at midnight, and looked at the sizzling town, where the pleasure seeking people were holding the sidewalks down. The moon rose over the city and shone on the dames and gents, but the glare of the lights electric made it look like twenty cents. The windows of homes were darkened, for no one was staying there; the children, as well, as grownups, were all in the Great White Glare. Deserted were all the firesides, abandoned the old-time game; alas, that the old home circle is naught but an empty name! The father is out chug-chugging, the mother is at her club, the kids see the moving pictures, and go to hotels for grub. How often, oh, how often, in the days that seemed good to me, have I looked at the children playing at home, where they ought to be! How often, oh, how often, in those days of the proper stamp, have I gazed on the parents reading, at home, by the evening lamp! But the world has gone to thunder, forgotten that elder day; and I took up the bridge and broke it, and threw all the chunks away.

130

MR. CHUCKLEHEAD

HE shuts the windows, and shuts the doors, and then he lies in his bed and snores, and breathes old air that is stale and flat—the kind of air that would kill a cat. He says next day: “I am feeling tough; I’ll have to visit old Dr. Guff, and buy a pint of his pale pink pills, or I shall harbor some fatal ills.”

He fills his system with steaks and pies, and never indulges in exercise. He eats and drinks of the market’s best, until the buttons fly off his vest; he’s grown so mighty of breadth and girth that when he gambols he shakes the earth. “I’ll see Doc Faker,” he says; “that’s flat; I’ll get his dope for reducing fat. Doc Faker says he can make me gaunt, and let me eat all the stuff I want.”

He sits and mopes in his study chair, while others toil in the open air. He quaffs iced drinks through the sultry day, electric fans on his person play. “I feel despondent,” he murmurs low; “I lack the vim that I used to know; my liver’s loose and my kidneys balk, and my knee joints creak when I try to walk. I’ll call Doc Clinker 131and have him bring his Compound Juice of the Flowers of Spring.”

His head is bald where the tresses grew in the long gone days when his scalp was new. He won’t believe that the hair won’t grow where it lost its grip in the long ago. He tries all manner of dope and drug; he buys Hair Balm by the gallon jug; he reads the papers and almanacs for news concerning the Mystic Wax which surely maketh the wool appear on heads gone bare in the yesteryear.

The more he uses of patent dopes, the more he worries, the more he mopes. And all he needs to be blithe and gay is just to throw his old jugs away, to do some work, as his fathers toiled, to let in air that has not been spoiled, to rest his stomach and work his thews, quit pressing coat tails and shake his shoes. If Chucklehead and his tribe did this, they’d soon find health, which is short for bliss; and old Doc Faker and all his gang would close their offices and go hang.

132

IN THE SPRING

IN the spring the joyous husband hangs the carpet on the line, and assaults it with a horsewhip till its colors fairly shine; and the dust that rises from it fills the alley and the court, and he murmurs, ’twixt his sneezes: “This is surely splendid sport!”

In the spring the well-trained husband wrestles with the heating stove, while the flippant-minded neighbors go a-fishing in a drove. With the pipes and wire he tinkers, and his laughter fills the place, when the wholesome soot and ashes gather on his hands and face; and he says: “I’d like to labor at this task from sun to sun; this is what I call diversion—this is pure and perfect fun!”

In the spring the model husband carries furniture outdoors, and he gaily helps the women when they want to paint the floors; and he blithely eats his supper sitting on the cellar stairs, for he knows his wife has varnished all the tables and the chairs. Oh, he carries pails of water, and he carries beds and ticks, and he props up the veranda with a wagonload of bricks, and he deftly spades the garden, and he paints the barn and fence, and he rakes and 133burns the rubbish with an energy intense, saying ever as he labors, in the house or out of doors: “How I wish my wife and daughters could suggest some other chores!”

In the spring this sort of husband may be found—there’s one in Spain, there is one in South Dakota and another one in Maine.

134

BE JOYFUL

YOU’D better be joking than kicking or croaking, you’d better be saying that life is a joy, then folks will caress you and praise you and bless you, and say you’re a peach and a broth of a boy. You’d better be cheery, not drooling and dreary, from the time you get up till you go to your couch; or people will hate you and roast and berate you—they don’t like the man with a hangover grouch. You’d better be leaving the groaning and grieving to men who have woes of the genuine kind; you know that your troubles are fragile as bubbles, they are but the growth of a colicky mind. You’d better be grinning while you have your inning, or when a real trouble is racking your soul, your friends will be growling, “He always is howling—he wouldn’t touch joy with a twenty-foot pole.” You’d better be pleasant; if sorrow is present, there’s no use in chaining it fast to your door; far better to shoo it, and hoot and pursue it, and then it may go and come back never more.

135

GOOD AND EVIL

THE poet got his facts awry, concerning what lives after death; the good men do lives on for aye, the evil passes like a breath. A noble thought, by thinker thunk, will live and flourish through the years; a thought ignoble goes kerplunk, to perish in a pool of tears. Man dies, and folks around his bed behold his tranquil, outworn clay; “We’ll speak no evil of the dead, but recollect the good,” they say. Then one recalls some noble trait which figured in the ice-cold gent. “He fixed the Widow Johnsing’s gate, and wouldn’t charge a doggone cent.” “Oh, he was grand when folks were ill; he’d stay and nurse them night and day, hand them the bolus and the pill, and never hint around for pay.” “He ran three blocks to catch my wig when April weather was at large.” “He butchered Mrs. Jagway’s pig, and smoked the hams, and didn’t charge.” Thus men conspire, to place on file and make a record of the good, and they’d forget the mean or vile for which, perhaps, in life you stood. The shining heroes we admire had faults and vices just like you; when they concluded to expire, their failings kicked the bucket, too.

136

BROWN OCTOBER ALE

HOW many ringing songs there are that celebrate the wine, and other goods behind the bar, as being wondrous fine! How many choruses exalt the brown October ale, which puts a fellow’s wits at fault, and lands him in the jail! A hundred poets wasted ink, and ruined good quill pens, describing all the joys of drink in gilded boozing kens. But all those joys are hollow fakes which wisdom can’t indorse; they’re soon converted into aches and sorrow and remorse. The man who drains the brimming glass in haunts of light and song, next morning knows that he’s an ass, with ears twelve inches long. An aching head, a pile of debts, a taste that’s green and stale, that’s what the merry fellow gets from brown October ale. Untimely graves and weeping wives and orphans shedding brine; this sort of thing the world derives from bright and sparkling wine. The prison cell, the scaffold near; such features may be blamed on wholesome keg and bottled beer, which made one city famed. Oh, sing of mud or axle grease, but chant no fairy tale, of that disturber of the peace, the brown October ale!

137

DELIVER US

FROM all the woe and sorrow that bloody warfare brings, when monarchs start to borrow some grief from other kings, from dreadful scenes of slaughter, and dead men by the cord, from blood that flows like water, deliver us, O Lord! From fear and melancholy that every death list gives, from all the pompous folly in which an army lives, from all the strife stupendous, that brings no sane reward, but only loss tremendous, deliver us, O Lord! From seeing friend and neighbor in tools of death arrayed, deserting useful labor to wield the thirsty blade; from seeing plowshares lying all rusty on the sward, where men and boys are dying, deliver us, O Lord! From seeing foreign legions invade our peaceful shore, and turn these smiling regions to scenes of death and gore, from all the desolation the gods of war accord to every fighting nation, deliver us, O Lord!

138

DOING ONE’S BEST

ONE sweetly solemn thought comes to me every night; I at my task have wrought, and tried to do it right. No doubt my work is punk, my efforts are a jest; however poor my junk, it represents my best. If you, at close of day, when sounds the quitting bell, that truthfully can say, you’re doing pretty well. Some beat you galley west, and bear away the prize, but you have done your best—in that the honor lies. And, having done your best, your conscience doesn’t hurt; serene you go to rest, in your long muslin shirt. And at the close of life, when you have said good-bye to cousin, aunt and wife, and all the children nigh, you’ll face the river cold that flows to islands blest, with courage high and bold, if you have done your best. No craven fears you’ll know, no terrors fierce and sharp, but like a prince you’ll go, to draw your crown and harp. So, then, whate’er the field in which you do your stunt, whatever tool you wield to earn your share of blunt, toil on with eager zest, nor falter in that plan; the one who does his best is God’s blue-ribbon man.

139

A LITTLE WHILE

A FEW more years, or a few more days, and we’ll all be gone from the rugged ways wherein we are jogging now; a few more seasons of stress and toil, then we’ll all turn in to enrich the soil, for some future farmer’s plow. A few more years and the grass will grow where you and the push are lying low, your arduous labors o’er; and those surviving will toil and strain, their bosoms full of the same old pain you knew in the days of yore. Oh, what’s the use of the carking care, or the load of grief that we always bear, in such a brief life as this? A few more years and we will not know a side of beef from a woozy woe, an ache from a bridal kiss. “I fear the future,” you trembling say, and nurse your fear in a dotard way, and moisten it with a tear; the future day is a day unborn, and you’ll be dead on its natal morn, so live while the present’s here. A few more years and you cannot tell a quart of tears from a wedding bell, a wreath from a beggar’s rags; you’ll take a ride to the place of tombs in a jaunty hearse with its nodding plumes, and a pair of milk-black nags. So while you stay on 140the old gray earth, cut up and dance with exceeding mirth, have nothing to do with woe; a few more years and you cannot weep, you’ll be so quiet and sound asleep, where the johnnie-jumpups grow.

141

THE IDLERS

MEN labor against the hames, and sweat till they’re old and gray, supporting the stall-fed dames who idle their years away. We’ve bred up a futile race of women who have no care, except for enameled face, or a sea-green shade of hair, who always are richly gowned and wearing imported lids, who carry their poodles ’round, preferring the pups to kids. And husbands exhaust their frames, and strain till their journey’s done, supporting the stall-fed dames, who never have toiled or spun. We’re placed in this world to work, to harvest our crop of prunes; Jehovah abhors the shirk, in gown or in trouserloons. The loafers in gems and silk are bad as the fragrant vags, who pilfer and beg and bilk, and die in their rancid rags. The loafers at bridge-whist games, the loafers at purple teas, the hand-painted stall-fed dames, are chains on the workers’ knees. The women who cook and sew, the women who manage homes, who have no desire to grow green hair on enameled domes, how noble and good they seem, how wholesome and sane their aim, compared with that human scream, the brass-mounted, stall-fed dame!

142

LITERATURE

I LIKE a rattling story of whiskered buccaneers, whose ships are black and gory, who cut off people’s ears. A yarn of Henry Morgan warms up my jaded heart, and makes that ancient organ feel young and brave and smart. I like detective fiction, it always hits the spot, however poor in diction, however punk in plot; I like the sleuth who follows a clue o’er hill and vale, until the victim swallows his medicine in jail. I like all stories ripping, in which some folks are killed, in which the guns go zipping, and everyone is thrilled. But when I have some callers, I hide those books away, those good old soul enthrallers which make my evenings gay. I blush for them, by jingo, and all their harmless games; I talk the highbrow lingo, and swear by Henry James. When sitting in my shanty, to “have my picture took,” I hold a work by Dante, or other heavy book. But when the artist’s vanished, I drop those dippy pomes, old Dante’s stuff is banished—I reach for Sherlock Holmes.

143

NURSING GRIEF

I KNOW not what may be your woe, how deep the grief you nurse, but if you bid the blamed thing go, it’s likely to disperse. If you would say, “Cheap grief, depart!” you soon might dance and sing; instead, you fold it to your heart, or lead it with a string. Oh, every time I go outdoors, I meet some mournful men, who talk about their boils or sores, of felon or of wen. Why put your misery in words, and thus your woe prolong? ’Twere best to talk about the birds, which sing their ragtime song; or of the cheerful clucking hens, which guard their nests of eggs; that beats a tale of corns or wens, of mumps or spavined legs. We go a-groaning of our aches, of damaged feet or backs, and nearly all our pains are fakes, when we come down to tacks. We talk about financial ills when we have coin to burn—and if we wish for dollar bills, there’s lots of them to earn. We cherish every little grief, when we should blithely smile; and if a woe’s by nature brief, we string it out a mile. Oh, let us cease to magnify each trifling ill and pain, and wear a sunbeam in each eye, and show we’re safe and sane.

144

THE IDLE RICH

I’M fond of coin, but I don’t itch to be among the idle rich, who have long green to burn; their wealth I could not well employ, for I could never much enjoy the bone I did not earn. Oh, every coin of mine is wet with honest, rich, transparent sweat, until it has been dried; it represents no sire’s bequest, no buried miser’s treasure chest, no “multi’s” pomp and pride. I grind my anthem mill at home, and every time I make a pome, I take in fifty cents; I get more pleasure blowing in this hard-earned, sweat-stained slice of tin, than do the wealthy gents. Their coin comes easy as the rain, it represents no stress or strain, no toil in shop or den; they use their wealth to buy and sell, like taking water from a well; the hole fills up again. We do not value much the thing, which, like an everlasting spring, wells up, year after year; if you’d appreciate a bone, you have to earn it with a groan, and soak it with a tear. I’d rather have the rusty dime for which I labored overtime, and sprained a wing or slat, than have the large and shining buck that Fortune handed me, or Luck; get wise, rich lad, to that.

145

PASSING THE HAT

PASSING the hat, passing the hat! Some one forever gets busy at that! Oh, it seems useless to struggle and strain, all our endeavor is hopeless and vain; when we have gathered a small, slender roll, hoping to lay in some cordwood or coal, hoping to purchase some flour and some spuds, hoping to pay for the ready made duds, hoping to purchase a bone for the cat, some one comes cheerfully passing the hat! Passing the hat that the bums may be warm, passing the hat for some noble reform, passing the hat for the fellows who fail, passing the hat to remodel the jail, passing the bonnet for this or for that, some one forever is passing the hat! Dig up your bundle and hand out your roll, if you don’t do it you’re lacking a soul! What if the feet of your children are bare? What if your wife has no corset to wear? What if your granny is weeping for shoes? What if the grocer’s demanding his dues? Some one will laugh at such logic as that, some one who’s merrily passing the hat! Passing the hat for the pink lemonade, passing the hat for a moral crusade, passing the hat to extinguish the rat—some one forever is passing the hat!

146

GOING TO SCHOOL

“I HATE to tool my feet to school,” we hear the boy confessin’; “I’d like to play the livelong day, and dodge the useful lesson. The rule of three gives pain to me, old Euclid makes me weary, the verbs of Greece disturb my peace, geography is dreary. I’ll go and fish; I do not wish to spend my lifetime schooling; I do not care to languish there, and hear the teacher drooling.” His books he hates, his maps and slates, and all the schoolhouse litter; he feels oppressed and longs for rest, his sorrows make him bitter. The years scoot on and soon are gone, for years are restless friskers; the schoolboy small is now grown tall, and has twelve kinds of whiskers. “Alas,” he sighs, “had I been wise, when I was young and sassy, I well might hold, now that I’m old, a situation classy. But all the day I thought of play, and fooled away my chances, and here I strain, with grief and pain, in rotten circumstances. I’m always strapped; I’m handicapped by lack of useful knowledge; through briny tears I view the years I loafed in school and college!”

147

NOT WORTH WHILE

THE night of death will soon descend; a few short years and then the end, and perfect rest is ours; forgotten by the busy throng, we’ll sleep, while seasons roll along, beneath the grass and flowers. Our sojourn in this world is brief, so why go hunting care and grief, why have a troubled mind? And what’s the use of getting mad, and making folks around us sad, by saying words unkind? Why not abjure the base and mean, why not be sunny and serene, from spite and envy free? Why not be happy while we may, and make our little earthly stay a joyous jamboree? We’re here for such a little while! And then we go and leave the pile for which we strive and strain; worn out and broken by the grind, we go, and leave our wads behind—such effort’s all in vain. We break our hearts and twist our souls acquiring large and useless rolls of coins and kindred things, and when we reach St. Peter’s Town, they will not buy a sheet-iron crown, or cast-off pair of wings.

148

MISREPRESENTATION

I BOUGHT a pound of yellow cheese, the other day, from Grocer Wheeze. And as he wrapped it up he cried, “In this fine cheese I take much pride. It’s made from Jersey cream and milk, and you will find it fine as silk; it’s absolutely pure and clean, contains no dyes or gasoline, it’s rich and sweet, without a taint, doggone my buttons if it ain’t. Oh, it will chase away your woe, and make your hair and whiskers grow.” I took it home with eager feet, impatient to sit down and eat, for I am fond of high-class cheese, which with my inner works agrees. But that blamed stuff was rank and strong, for it had been on earth too long. My wife, a good and patient soul, remarked, “Bring me a ten-foot pole, before you do your other chores, and I will take that cheese out doors. Before it’s fit for human grub we’ll have to stun it with a club.” What does a sawed-off grocer gain by such a trick, unsafe, insane? And what does any merchant make by boosting some atrocious fake? Yet every day we’re buying junk which proves inferior and punk, although it’s praised to beat the band; such things are hard to understand.

149

MAN OF GRIEF

I NOW am bent and old and gray, and I have come a doleful way. A son of sorrow I have been, since first I reached this world of sin. Year after year, and then repeat, all kinds of troubles dogged my feet; they nagged me when I wished to sleep and made me walk the floor and weep. I had all troubles man can find—and most of them were in my mind. When I would number all the cares which gave me worry and gray hairs, I can’t remember one so bad that it should bother any lad. And often, looking back, I say, “I wonder why I wasn’t gay, when I had youth and strength and health, and all I lacked on earth was wealth? I wonder why I didn’t yip with gladness ere I lost my grip? My whole life long I’ve wailed and whined of cares which lived but in my mind. The griefs that kept me going wrong were things that never came along. The cares that furrowed cheek and brow look much like hop-joint phantoms now. And now that it’s too late, almost, I see that trouble is a ghost, a scarecrow on a crooked stick, to scare the gents whose hearts are sick.”

150

MELANCHOLY DAYS

THE melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year, when you, determined to be glum, produce the flowing tear, when you refuse to see the joys surrounding every gent, and thus discourage other boys, and stir up discontent. A grouch will travel far and long before its work is done; and it will queer the hopeful song, and spoil all kinds of fun. Men start downtown with buoyant tread, and things seem on the boom; then you come forth with blistered head, and fill them up with gloom. There’d be no melancholy days, our lives would all be fair, if it were not for sorehead jays who always preach despair. We’d shake off every kind of grief if Jonah didn’t come, the pessimist who holds a brief for all things on the bum. So, if you really cannot rise above the sob and wail, and see the azure in the skies, and hear the nightingale, let some dark cave be your abode, where men can’t hear your howl, and let your comrades be the toad, the raven, and the owl.

151

MIGHT BE WORSE

THE window sash came hurtling down on Kickshaw’s shapely head and neck; it nearly spoiled his toilworn crown, and made his ears a hopeless wreck. Then Kickshaw sat and nursed his head, a man reduced to grievous pass; yet, with a cheerful smile, he said, “I’m glad it didn’t break the glass.” He might have ripped around and swore, till people heard him round a block, or kicked a panel from the door, or thrown the tomcat through the clock; he might have dealt in language weird, and made the housewife’s blood run cold, he might have raved and torn his beard, and wept as Rachel wept of old. But Kickshaw’s made of better stuff, no tears he sheds, no teeth he grinds; when dire misfortune makes a bluff, he looks for comfort, which he finds. And so he bears his throbbing ache, and puts a poultice on his brain, and says, “I’m glad it didn’t break that rich, imported window pane.” It never helps a man to beef, when trouble comes and knocks him lame; there’s solace back of every grief, if he will recognize the same.

152

MODERATELY GOOD

A LOAD of virtue will never hurt you, if modestly it’s borne; the saintly relic who’s too angelic for week days, makes us mourn. The gloomy mortal who by a chortle or joke is deeply vexed, the turgid person who’s still disbursin’ the precept and the text, is dull and dreary, he makes us weary, we hate to see him come; oh, gent so pious, please don’t come nigh us—your creed is too blamed glum! The saint who mumbles, when some one stumbles, “That man’s forever lost,” is but a fellow with streak of yellow, his words are all a frost. Not what we’re saying, as we go straying adown this tinhorn globe, not words or phrases, though loud as blazes, will gain us harp and robe. It’s what we’re doing while we’re pursuing our course with other skates, that will be counted when we have mounted the ladder to the Gates. A drink of water to tramps who totter with weakness in the sun will help us better than text and letter of sermons by the ton. So let each action give satisfaction, let words be few and wise, and, after dying, we’ll all go flying and whooping through the skies.

153

THE GIRL GRADUATE

IN school, academy and college stands forth the modern cultured girl, her lovely head so stuffed with knowledge it fairly makes her tresses curl. We all lean back in admiration when she stands up to make her speech, the finest product of the nation, the one serene, unblemished peach. Behold her in her snowy garments, the pride, the honor of her class! A malediction on the varmints who say her learning cuts no grass! “She hasn’t learned to fry the mutton, she’s not equipped to be a wife; she couldn’t fasten on a button, to save her sweet angelic life! With all her mighty fund of learning, she’s ignorant of useful chores; she cannot keep an oil stove burning so it won’t smoke us out of doors. The man she weds will know disaster, his dreams of home and love will spoil; she cannot make a mustard plaster, or put a poultice on a boil.” Avaunt, ye croakers, skip and caper, or we’ll upset your apple-carts! The damsel rises with her paper on “Old Greek Gods and Modern Arts.” So pledge her in a grapejuice flagon! Who cares if she can sew or bake? She’s pretty as a new red wagon, and sweeter than an old plum cake.

154

THE BYSTANDER

I STAND by my window alone, and look at the people go by, pursuing the shimmering bone, which is so elusive and shy. Pursuing the beckoning plunk, and no one can make them believe that rubles and kopecks are junk, vain baubles got up to deceive. Their faces are haggard and sad, from weariness often they reel, pursuing the succulent scad, pursuing the wandering wheel. And many are there in the throng who have all the money they need, and still they go racking along, inspired by the demon of greed. “To put some more bucks in the chest,” they sigh, as they toil, “would be grand;” the beauty and blessing of rest is something they don’t understand. We struggle and strain all our years, and wear out our bodies and brains, and when we are stretched on our biers, what profit we then by our pains? The lawyers come down with a whoop, and rake in our bundle of scrip, and plaster a lien on the coop before our poor orphans can yip. I stand at my window again, and see the poor folks as they trail, pursuing the yammering yen, pursuing the conquering kale; and sorrow is filling my 155breast, regret that the people won’t know the infinite blessing of rest, that solace for heartache and woe.

156

MEDICINE HAT

THE tempests that rattle and kill off the cattle and freeze up the combs of the roosters and hens, that worry the granger, whose stock is in danger—the mules in their stables, the pigs in their pens—the loud winds that frolic like sprites with the colic and carry despair to the workingman’s flat, the wild raging blizzard that chills a man’s gizzard, they all come a-whooping from Medicine Hat. When men get together and note that the weather is fixing for ructions, preparing a storm, they cry: “Julius Caesar! The square-headed geezer who’s running the climate should try to reform! The winter’s extensive and coal’s so expensive that none can keep warm but the blamed plutocrat! It’s time that the public should some weather dub lick! It’s time for a lynching at Medicine Hat!” And when the sun’s shining we still are repining. “This weather,” we murmur, “is too good to last; just when we’re haw-hawing because we are thawing there’ll come from the Arctic a stemwinding blast; just when we are dancing and singing and prancing, there’ll come 157down a wind that would freeze a stone cat; just when we are hoping that winter’s eloping, they’ll send us a package from Medicine Hat!”

158

FLETCHERISM

I READ a screed by Brother Fletcher, on how we ought to chew our grub; I said, “It’s sensible, you betcher! I’ll emulate that thoughtful dub. No more like some old anaconda, I’ll swallow all my victuals whole; I’ll eat the sort of things I’m fond o’, but chew them up with heart and soul.” And now I’m always at the table, I have no time to do my chores; the horse is starving in the stable, the weeds are growing out o’ doors. My wife says, “Say, you should be doing some work around this slipshod place.” I answer her, “I’m busy chewing—canst see the motions of my face?” I have no time to hoe the taters, I have no time to mow the lawn; though chewing like ten alligators, I’m still behind, so help me, John! I chew the water I am drinking, I chew the biscuit and the bun; I’ll have to hire a boy, I’m thinking, to help me get my chewing done. Some day they’ll bear me on a stretcher out to the boneyard, where they plant, and send my teeth to Brother Fletcher, to make a necklace for his aunt.

159

FATHER TIME

TIME drills along, and, never stopping, winds up our spool of thread; the time to do our early shopping is looming just ahead. It simply beats old James H. Thunder how time goes scooting on; and now and then we pause and wonder where all the days have gone. When we are old a month seems shorter than did a week in youth; the years are smaller by a quarter, and still they shrink, forsooth. This busy world we throw our fits in will soon be ours no more; time hurries us, and that like blitzen, toward another shore. So do not make me lose a minute, as it goes speeding by; I want to catch each hour and skin it and hang it up to dry. A thousand tasks are set before me, important, every one, and if you stand around and bore me, I’ll die before they’re done. Oh, you may go and herd together, and waste the transient day, and talk about the crops and weather until the roosters lay, but I have work that long has beckoned, and any Jim or Joe who causes me to lose a second, I look on as a foe.

160

FIELD PERILS

THE farmer plants his field of corn—the kind that doesn’t pop—and hopes that on some autumn morn he’ll start to shuck his crop. And shuck his crop he often does, which is exceeding queer, for blights and perils fairly buzz around it through the year. I think it strange that farmers raise the goodly crops they do, for they are scrapping all their days against a deadly crew. To plant and till will not suffice; the men must strain their frames, to kill the bugs and worms and mice, and pests with Latin names. The cut worms cut, the chinchbugs chinch, the weevil weaves its ill, and other pests come up and pinch the corn and eat their fill. And then the rainworks go on strike, and gloom the world enshrouds, and up and down the burning pike the dust is blown in clouds. And if our prayers are of avail, and rain comes in the night, it often brings a grist of hail that riddles all in sight. And still the farmers raise their crops, and nail the shining plunk; none but the kicker stands and yawps, and what he says is bunk. If all men brooded o’er their woes, and looked ahead for grief, that gent would starve who gaily goes to thresh the golden sheaf.

161

JOY COMETH

I SAT and sighed, with downcast head, my heart consumed with sorrow, and then my Aunt Jemima said: “I’m going home tomorrow!” I’d feared that she would never leave, her stay would be eternal, and that’s what made me pine and grieve, and say, “The luck’s infernal!” I thought my dark and gloomy skies no sunshine e’er would borrow, then Aunt Jemima ups and cries, “I’m going home tomorrow!” Thus oft the kindly gods confound the kickist and the carkist, and joy comes cantering around just when things seem the darkest. We all have aunts who come and stay until their welcome’s shabby, who eat our vittles day by day, until the purse is flabby; and when we think they’ll never go, or let us know what peace is, they up and dissipate our woe by packing their valises. The darkest hour’s before the dawn, and when your grief’s intensest, it is a sign ’twill soon be gone, not only hence, but hencest.

162

LIVING TOO LONG

I WOULD not care to live, my dears, much more than seven hundred years, if I should last that long; for I would tire of things in time, and life at last would seem a crime, and I a public wrong. Old Gaffer Goodworth, whom you know, was born a hundred years ago, and states the fact with mirth; he’s rather proud that he has hung around so long while old and young were falling off the earth. But when his boastful fit is gone, a sadness comes his face upon, that speaks of utter woe; he sits and broods and dreams again of vanished days, of long dead men, his friends of long ago. There is no loneliness so dread as that of one who mourns his dead in white and wintry age, who, when the lights extinguished are, the other players scattered far, still lingers on the stage. There is no solitude so deep as that of him whose friends, asleep, shall visit him no more; shall never ask, “How do you stack,” or slap him gaily on the back, as in the days of yore. I do not wish to draw my breath until the papers say that Death has passed me up for keeps; when I am tired I want to die and in my cosy casket lie as one who 163calmly sleeps. When I am tired of dross and gold, when I am tired of heat and cold, and happiness has waned, I want to show the neighbor folk how gracefully a man can croak when he’s correctly trained.

164

FRIEND BULLSNAKE

THESE sunny days bring forth the snakes from holes in quarries, cliffs and brakes. The gentle bullsnake, mild and meek, sets forth his proper prey to seek; of all good snakes he is the best, with high ambitions in his breast; he is the farmer’s truest friend, because he daily puts an end to mice and other beasts which prey upon that farmer’s crops and hay. He is most happy when he feasts on gophers and such measly beasts; and, being six or eight feet high, when stood on end, you can’t deny that forty bullsnakes on a farm are bound to do the vermin harm. The bullsnake never hurts a thing; he doesn’t bite, he doesn’t sting, or wrap you in his slimy folds, and squeeze you till he busts all holds. As harmless as a bale of hay, he does his useful work all day, and when at night he goes to rest, he’s killed off many a wretched pest. And yet the farmers always take a chance to kill this grand old snake. They’ll chase three miles or more to end the labors of their truest friend. They’ll hobble forth from beds of pain to hack a bullsnake’s form in twain, and leave him mangled, torn and raw—which shows there ought to be a law.

165

DOUGHNUTS

I SEEK the high-class eating joint, when my old stomach gives a wrench, and there the waiters proudly point to bills of fare got up in French. I order this, and order that, in eagerness my face to feed, and oftentimes I break a slat pronouncing words I cannot read. And as I eat the costly greens, prepared by an imported cook, to other times and other scenes with reminiscent eyes I look. My mother never was in France, no foreign jargon did she speak, but how I used to sing and dance when she made doughnuts once a week! Oh, they were crisp and brown and sweet, and they were luscious and sublime, and I could stand around and eat a half a bushel at a time. The doughnuts that our mothers made! They were the goods, they were the stuff; we used to eat them with a spade and simply couldn’t get enough. And when I face imported grub, all loaded down with Choctaw names, I sigh and wish I had a tub of doughnuts, made by old-time dames. I do not care for fancy frills, but when the doughnut dish appears, I kick my hind feet o’er the thills, and whoop for joy, and wag my ears.

166

THE ILL WIND

THE cold wet rain kept sloshing down, and flooded yard and street. My uncle cried: “Don’t sigh and frown! It’s splendid for the wheat!” I slipped and fell upon the ice, and made my forehead bleed. “Gee whiz!” cried uncle, “this is nice! Just what the icemen need!” A windstorm blew my whiskers off while I was writing odes. My uncle said: “Don’t scowl and scoff—’twill dry the muddy roads!” If fire my dwelling should destroy, or waters wash it hence, my uncle would exclaim, with joy: “You still have got your fence!” When I was lying, sick to death, expecting every day that I must draw my final breath, I heard my uncle say, “Our undertaker is a jo, and if away you fade, it ought to cheer you up to know that you will help his trade.” And if we study uncle’s graft, we find it good and fair; how often, when we might have laughed, we wept and tore our hair! Such logic from this blooming land should drive away all woe; the thing that’s hard for you to stand, is good for Richard Roe.

167

APPROACH OF SPRING

THE spring will soon be here; the snow will disappear; the hens will cluck, the colts will buck, as will the joyous steer. How sweet an April morn! The whole world seems reborn; and ancient men waltz round again and laugh their years to scorn. And grave and sober dames forsake their quilting frames, and cut up rough, play blind man’s buff, and kindred cheerful games. The pastors hate to preach; the teachers hate to teach; they’d like to play baseball all day, or on the bleachers bleach. The lawyer tires of law; the windsmith rests his jaw; they’d fain forget the toil and sweat, and play among the straw. The spring’s the time for play; let’s put our work away, with joyous spiels kick up our heels, e’en though we’re old and gray. You see old Dobbin trot around the barnyard lot, with flashing eye and tail on high, his burdens all forgot. You see the muley cow that’s old and feeble now, turn somersaults and prance and waltz, and stand upon her brow. The rooster, old is he, and crippled as can be, yet on his toes he stands and crows “My 168Country, ’Tis of Thee.” Shall we inspired galoots have less style than the brutes? Oh, let us rise and fill the skies with echoing toot-toots.

169

STUDYING BOOKS

WITH deep and ancient tomes to toil, and burn the midnight Standard oil may seem a job forbidding; but it’s the proper thing to do, whene’er you have the time, if you would have a mind non-skidding. If one in social spheres would shine, he ought to cut out pool and wine, and give some time to study; load up with wisdom to the guards and read the message of the bards from Homer down to Ruddy. How often conversation flags, how oft the weary evening drags, when people get together, when they have sprung their ancient yawps about the outlook of the crops, the groundhog and the weather. How blest the gent who entertains, who’s loaded up his active brains with lore that’s worth repeating, the man of knowledge, who can talk of other things than wheat and stock and politics and eating! Our lives are lustreless and gray because we sweat around all day and think of naught but lucre; and when we’re at our inglenooks we never open helpful books, but fool with bridge or euchre. Exhausted by the beastly grind we do not try to store the mind with matters 170worth the knowing; our lives are spent in hunting cash, and when we die we make no splash, and none regrets our going.

171

STRANGER THAN FICTION

IT’S strange that people live so long, remaining healthy, sound and strong, when all around us, everywhere, the germs and microbes fill the air. The more we read about the germs, in technical or easy terms, the stranger does it seem that we have so far dodged eternity. No wonder a poor mortal squirms; all things are full of deadly germs. The milk we drink, the pies we eat, the shoes we wear upon our feet, are haunts of vicious things which strive to make us cease to be alive. And yet we live on just the same, ignore the germs, and play our game. Well, that’s just it; we do not stew or fret o’er things we cannot view. If germs were big as hens or hawks, and flew around our heads in flocks, we’d just throw up our hands and cry: “It is no use—it’s time to die!” The evils that we cannot see don’t cut much ice with you and me. A bulldog by the garden hedge, with seven kinds of teeth on edge, will hand to me a bigger scare than all the microbes in the air. So let us live and have our fun, and woo and wed and blow our mon, and not acknowledge coward fright of anything that’s out of sight.

172

THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

BESIDE the road that leads to town the thistle thrives apace, and if you cut the blamed thing down, two more will take its place. The sunflowers flourish in the heat that kills the growing oats; the weeds keep living when the wheat and corn have lost their goats. The roses wither in the glare that keeps the prune alive, the orchards fail of peach and pear while cheap persimmons thrive. The good and useful men depart too soon on death’s dark trip; they just have fairly made a start when they must up and skip. A little cold, a little heat will quickly kill them off; a little wetting of their feet, a little hacking cough; they’re tender as the blushing rose of evanescent bloom; too quickly they turn up their toes and slumber in the tomb. And yet the world is full of scrubs who don’t know how to die, a lot of picayunish dubs, who couldn’t, if they’d try. Year after year, with idle chums, they hang around the place, until at last their age becomes a scandal and disgrace. And thus the men of useful deeds die off, while no-goods thrive; you can’t kill off the human weeds, nor keep the wheat alive.

173

DISCONTENT

THE man who’s discontented, whose temper’s always frayed, who keeps his shanty scented with words that are decayed, would do as much complaining if all the gods on high upon his head were raining ambrosia, gold, and pie. The man who busts his gallus because his house is cheap, would rant if in a palace he could high wassail keep. The vexed and vapid voter who throws a frequent fit because his neighbors motor while he must hit the grit, would have as many worries, his soul would wear its scars, if he had seven surreys and twenty motor cars. The man who earns his living by toiling in the ditch, whose heart is unforgiving toward the idle rich, who hates his lot so humble, his meal of bread and cheese, would go ahead and grumble on downy beds of ease. Contentment is a jewel that some wear in the breast, and life cannot be cruel so long as it’s possessed! This gem makes all things proper, the owner smiles and sings; it may adorn a pauper, and be denied to kings.

174

SILVER THREADS

LIFE is fading fast away, silver threads are on my brow; will you love me when I’m gray, as you love me now, my frau? Will you love me when I’m old, and my temper’s on the blink, and I sit around and scold till I drive the folks to drink? When I have the rheumatiz, and lumbago, and repeat, and the cusswords fairly sizz as I nurse my swollen feet; when a crutch I have to use, since my trilbys are so lame that they will not fit my shoes, will you love me just the same? When the gout infests my toes, and all vanished are my charms, will you kiss me on the nose, will you clasp me in your arms? Silver threads are in the gold, life will soon have run its lease; I’d be glad if I were told that your love will still increase when my high ambition fails, and my hopes are all unstrung, and I tell my tiresome tales of the days when I was young; when I sit around the shack making loud and dismal moan, of the stitches in my back, and my aching collar bone; when the asthma racks my chest so I cannot speak a word, will you fold me to your breast, saying I’m your honeybird? 175When I’m palsied, stiff and sere, when I’m weary of the game, tell me, O Jemima dear, will you love me just the same?

176

MOVING ON

WE foolish folk are discontented with things where’er we chance to dwell. “The air,” we say, “is sweeter scented in some far distant dale or dell.” And so we pull up stakes and travel to seek the fair and promised land, and find our Canaan is but gravel, a wilderness of rocks and sand. “Across the hills the fields are greener,” we murmur, “and the view more fair; the water of the brooks is cleaner, and fish grow larger over there.” And so we leave our pleasant valley, from all our loving friends we part, and o’er the stony hills we sally, to reach a land that breaks the heart. “There’s gold in plenty over yonder,” we say, “and we shall seek the mines.” Then from our cheerful homes we wander, far from our fig trees and our vines; a little while our dreams we cherish, and think that we can never fail; but, tired at last, we drop and perish, and leave our bones upon the trail. How happy is the man whose nature permits him to enjoy his home, who, till compelled by legislature, declines in paths afar to roam! There is no region better, fairer, than that home 177region that you know; there are no zephyrs sweeter, rarer, than those which through your galways blow.

178

THE OLD PRAYER

WHEN the evening shadows fall, oftentimes do I recall other evenings, far away, when, aweary of my play, I would climb on granny’s knee (long since gone to sleep has she), clasp my hands and bow my head, while the simple lines I said, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” Journeyed long have I since then, in this sad, gray world of men; I have seen with aching heart, comrades to their rest depart; friends have left me, one by one, for the shores beyond the sun. Still the Youth enraptured sings, and the world with gladness rings, but the faces I have known all are gone, and I’m alone. All alone, amid the throng, I, who’ve lived and journeyed long. Loneliness and sighs and tears are the wages of the years. Who would dread the journey’s end, when he lives without a friend? Now the sun of life sinks low; in a little while I’ll go where my friends and comrades wait for me by the jasper gate. Though the way be cold and stark, I shall murmur, in the dark, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

179

INTO THE SUNLIGHT

OH cut out the vain repining, cease thinking of dole and doom! Come out where the sun is shining, come out of the cave of gloom! Come out of your hole and borrow a package of joy from me, and say to your secret sorrow, “I’ve no longer use for thee!” For troubles, which are deluding, are timorous beasts, I say; they stick to the gent who’s brooding, and flee from the gent who’s gay. The gateways of Eldorados are open, all o’er the earth; come out of the House of Shadows, and dwell in the House of Mirth. From Boston to far Bobcaygeon the banners of gladness float; oh, grief is a rank contagion, and mirth is the antidote. And most of our woes would perish, or leave us, on sable wings, if only we didn’t cherish and coddle the blame fool things. Long since would your woes have scampered away to their native fogs, but they have been fed and pampered like poodles or hairless dogs. And all of these facts should teach you it’s wise to be bright and gay; come out where the breeze can reach you, and blow all your grief away.

180

BLEAK DAYS

THE clouds are gray and grim today, the winds are sadly sighing; it seems like fall, and over all a sheet of gloom is lying. The dreary rain beats on the pane, and sounds a note of sorrow; but what’s the odds? The genial gods will bring us joy tomorrow. We have the mumps, the doctor humps himself around to cure it; we’re on the blink and often think we simply can’t endure it; to all who list we groan, I wist, and tell a hard-luck story; but why be vexed? Week after next we’ll all be hunkydory. The neighbor folks are tiresome blokes, they bore us and annoy us; with such folks near it’s amply clear that no one can be joyous; things would improve if they would move—we really do not need them; but let’s be gay! They’ll move away, and worse ones will succeed them. The world seems sad, sometimes, my lad, and life is a disaster; but do not roar; for every sore tomorrow brings a plaster. The fool, he kicks against the pricks, all optimism scorning; the wise man goes his way—he knows joy cometh in the morning.

181

THE GIVERS

THE great, fine men are oft obscure; they have no wide, resounding fame, that experts warrant to endure until the finish of the game. Old Clinkenbeard is such a man, and though he has no store of yen, he’s always doing what he can to help along his fellowmen. He has no millions to disburse, but when he meets a hungry guy, he digs a quarter from his purse, which buys the sinkers and the pie. The gifts of bloated millionaires mean nothing of a sacrifice; they sit around in easy chairs and count the scads they have on ice; if Croesus gives ten thousand bucks to help some college off the rocks, he still can have his wine and ducks—he has ten million in his box. The widow’s mite, I do not doubt, in heaven made a bigger splash than shekels Pharisees shelled out from their large wads of ill-gained cash. And so the poor man, when he breaks the only William in his pants, to buy some widow tea and cakes, is making angels sing and dance. In fertile soil he’s sowing seeds, and he shall reap a rich reward; for he who gives the coin he needs, is surely lending to the Lord.

182

GOOD OLD DAYS

HOW I regret the good old days, and all the pleasant, happy ways now perished from the earth! No more the worn breadwinner sings, no more the cottage rooftree rings with sounds of hearty mirth. The good old days! The cheerful nights! We had then no electric lights, but oil lamps flared and smoked; and now and then they would explode and blow the shanty ’cross the road, and sometimes victims croaked. The windows had no window screens, there were no books or magazines to make our morals lame; we used to sit ’round in the dark while father talked of Noah’s ark until our bedtime came. No furnace or steam heating plant would make the cold air gallivant; a fireplace kept us warm; the house was full of flying soot and burning brands, and smoke to boot, whene’er there was a storm. No telephones then made men curse; if with a neighbor you’d converse, you hoofed it fourteen miles; the girl who wished to be a belle believed that she was doing well if she knew last year’s styles. There’ll never be such days as those, when people wore no underclothes, 183and beds were stuffed with hay, when paper collars were the rage—oh, dear, delightful bygone age, when we were young and gay!

184

THE RAIN

THE clouds are banked up overhead, the thunder rips and roars; the lightning hits old Jimpson’s shed, and now the torrent pours. The crazy hens get wet and mad, the ducks rejoice and quack; the patient cow looks pretty sad, and humps her bony back; the hired man, driven from the field, for shelter swiftly hies; old Pluvius can surely wield the faucet when he tries. In half an hour the rain is done, the growling thunder stops, and once again the good old sun is warming up the crops. In half an hour more good is wrought to every human cause, than all our statesmen ever brought by passing helpful laws. Old Pluvius sends down the juice, when he’s blown off the foam, and once again high hangs the goose in every happy home. Not all the armies of the earth, nor fleets that sail the main, can bring us prizes which are worth a half-hour’s honest rain. No prophet with his tongue or pen, no poet with his lyre, can, like the rain, bring joy to men, or answer their desire. The sunflowers have new lease of life, the johnnie-jumpups jump. Now I must go and help my wife to prime the cistern pump.

185

SOMETHING TO DO

OH, ye who complain of the grind, remember these words (which are true!): The dreariest job one can find is looking for something to do! Sometimes, when my work seems a crime, and I’m sorely tempted to sob, I think of the long vanished time when I was out hunting a job. I walked eighty miles every day, and climbed forty thousand high stairs, and people would shoo me away, and pelt me with inkstands and chairs. And then, when the evening grew dark, I knew naught of comfort or ease; I made me a bed in the park, for supper chewed bark from the trees. I looked through the windows at men who tackled their oysters and squabs, and probably grumbled again because they were tired of their jobs. And I was out there in the rain, with nothing to eat but my shoe, and filled with a maddening pain because I had nothing to do. And now when I’m tempted to raise the grand hailing sign of distress, I think of those sorrowful days, and then I feel better, I guess. I go at my labors again with energy vital and new, and say, as I toil in my den, “Thank God, I have something to do!”

186

INDUSTRY

HOW doth the busy little bee improve each shining hour! It honey takes from every tree, and keeps it till it’s sour. Ah, nothing hinders, nothing queers its labors here below; it does not always cock its ears, to hear the whistle blow. Wherever honey is on tap, you see the bumbler climb; for shorter hours it doesn’t scrap, nor charge for overtime. It’s on the wing the livelong day, from rise to set of sun, and when at eve it hits the hay, no chore is left undone. And when the bumblers are possessed of honey by the pound, bad boys come up and swat their nest, and knock it to the ground. The store they gathered day by day has vanished in a breath, and so the bees exclaim, “Foul play!” and sting themselves to death. There is no sense in making work a gospel and a creed, in thinking every hour will spoil that knows no useful deed. No use competing with the sun, and making life a strain; for bees—and boys—must have some fun if they’d be safe and sane.

187

WET WEATHER

ALL spring the rain came down amain, and rills grew into rivers; the bullfrogs croaked that they were soaked till mildewed were their livers. The fish were drowned, and in a swound reclined the muskrat’s daughter, and e’en the snakes, in swamps and brakes, hissed forth “There’s too much water!” And all my greens, the peas and beans, that I with toil had planted, a sickly host, gave up the ghost, the while I raved and ranted. The dew of doom hit spuds in bloom, and slew the tender onion; I viewed the wreck, and said, “By heck!” and other things from Bunyan. All greens of worth drooped to the earth, and died and went to thunder; but useless weeds all went to seeds—no rain could keep them under. When weather’s dry, and in the sky a red-hot sun is burning, it gets the goats of corn and oats, the wheat to wastage turning; the carrots shrink, and on the blink you see the parsnips lying, but weeds still thrive and keep alive, while useful things are dying. It’s strange and sad that critters bad, both veg’table and human, hang on so tight, while critters bright must perish when they’re bloomin’!