Chapter 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.

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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.

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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!

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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!”

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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.

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MISREPRESENTATION