Chapter 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 whiskers 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 smile 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!

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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 of 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 the 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.

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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 that is harder than bricks, than any old dollar you manage to collar by crooked and devious tricks.

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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 note 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?

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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.

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LOOKING FORWARD