Chapter 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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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THE BYSTANDER