Chapter I: HATE to eat at a friend’s abode—he makes me carry too big a load. He

keeps close tab, and he has a fit, if I show a sign that I’d like to quit. “You do not eat as a host could wish—pray, try some more of the deviled fish. Do put some vinegar on your greens, and take some more of the boneless beans, and have a slice of the rich, red beet, and here’s a chunk of the potted meat. We’ll think our cooking has failed to please, if you don’t eat more of the Lima peas, of the stringless squash and the graham rolls, and the doughnuts crisp, with their large round holes. You are no good with the forks and spoons—do try a dish of our home grown prunes!” I eat and eat, at my friend’s behest, till the buttons fly from my creaking vest. I stagger home when the meal is o’er, and nightmares come when I sleep and snore; and long thereafter my stomach wails, as though I’d swallowed a keg of nails. Be wise, be kind to the cherished guest, and let him quit when he wants to rest! Don’t make him eat through the bill of fare, when you see he’s full of a dumb despair!

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HON. CROESUS EXPLAINS

Oh, yes, I own a mill or two where little children toil; but why this foolish how-de-do, this uproar and turmoil? You say these children are but slaves, who, through the age-long day, must work in dark and noisome caves to earn a pauper’s pay? You hold me up to public scorn as one who’s steeped in sin; and yet I feel that I adorn the world I’m living in.

_But yesterday I wrote two checks for twenty-seven plunks to build a Home for Human Wrecks and buy them horsehair trunks._

In building up monopolies I’ve crushed a thousand men? I’m tired of that old chestnut; please don’t spring that gag again. I cannot answer for the fate of those by Trade unmade; for men who cannot hit the gait must drop from the parade. If scores of people got the worst of deals I had in line, if by the losers I am cursed, that is no fault of mine. And you, who come with platitude, are but an also ran; I use my money doing good, as much as any man.

_I’m doing good while Virtue rants and of my conduct moans; for a Retreat for Maiden Aunts I just gave twenty bones._

I hold too cheap employees’ lives, you cry in tones intense; I’m making widows of their wives, to keep down my expense. I will not buy a fire escape, or lifeguards now in style, and so the orphan’s wearing crape upon his Sunday tile. I know just what my trade will stand before it bankrupt falls, and so I can’t equip each hand with costly folderols. There is no sentiment in trade, let that be understood; but when my work aside is laid, my joy’s in doing good.

_Today I coughed up seven bucks to Ladies of the Grail, who wish to furnish roasted ducks to suffragists in jail._

You say I violate all laws and laugh the courts to scorn, and war on every worthy cause as soon as it is born? You can’t admit my moral health—you wouldn’t if you could; I spend my days in gaining wealth, my nights in doing good.

_And while the hostile critic roars, I’m giving every day; I’m sending nice pink pinafores to heathen in Cathay._

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MAÑANA

THE weeds in the garden are growing, while I’m sitting here in the shade; I know that I ought to be hoeing and doing some things with a spade. I know that I shouldn’t be shirking in pleasant, arboreal nooks; I know that I ought to be working like good little boys in the books. They tell me that idling brings sorrow, and doubtless they tell me the truth; I’ll tackle that garden tomorrow—today I’ve a yarn by Old Sleuth!

The fence, so my mother reminds me, needs fixing the worst kind of way! So it does; but, alas! how it grinds me to wrestle with fence boards today! I ought to do stunts with a hammer, and cut a wide swath with a saw, and raise an industrial clamor out there at the fence by the draw. The punishing fires of Gomorrah on idlers, ma says, will rain down; I’ll fix up that blamed fence tomorrow—today there’s a circus in town!

I ought to be whacking up kindling, says ma, as she fools with the churn; the pile in the woodshed is dwindling, and soon there’ll be nothing to burn. There’s Laura, my sister, as busy as any old bee that you know, while all my employments are dizzy, productive of nothing but woe. I’ll show I’m as eager as Laura to make in the sunshine my hay! I’ll split up some kindling tomorrow—I planned to go fishing today!

I’ve made up my mind to quit fooling and do all the chores round the shack. Just wait till you see me a-tooling the cow to the pasture and back! I’ll show that I’m willing and able! I’ll weed out the cucumber vines, I’ll gather the eggs ’neath the stable, and curry the horse till he shines! A leaf from ma’s book I shall borrow and labor away till I fall! I’ll surely get busy tomorrow—today there’s a game of baseball!

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SHOVELING COAL

SHOVELING coal, shoveling coal, into the furnace’s crater-like hole! Thus goes the coin we so wearily earn, into the furnace to sizzle and burn; thus it’s converted to ashes and smoke, and we keep shoveling, weeping, and broke. Oh, it’s a labor that tortures the soul, shoveling coal, shoveling coal! “The house,” says the wife, “is as cold as a barn,” so I must emigrate, muttering “darn,” down to the furnace, the which I must feed; it is a glutton, a demon of greed! Into its cavern I throw a large load—there goes the money I got for an ode! There goes the check that I got for a pome, boosting the joys of an evening at home! There goes the price of full many a scroll, shoveling coal, shoveling coal! Things that I need I’m not able to buy, I have shut down on the cake and the pie; most of my jewels are lying in soak, gone is the money for ashes and smoke; all I can earn, all the long winter through, goes in the furnace and then up the flue. Still says the frau, “It’s as cold as a floe, up in the Arctic where polar bears grow.” So all my song is of sorrow and dole, shoveling coal, shoveling coal!

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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; she’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.

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IMMORTAL SANTA