Chapter I: Am a Friar of Orders Gray (3)

RESPECTED WIFE: By these few lines my whereabouts
thee'll learn:
Moreover, I impart to thee my serious concern.
The language of this people is a riddle unto me;
For words with them are figments of a reckless mockery.
For instance, as I left the cars, a youth with smutty face
Said, "Shine?" "Nay I'll not shine," I said,
"except with inward grace."
"What's inward grace?" said this young Turk;
"A liquid or a paste? Hi, daddy, how does the old thing work?"
I then said to a jehu, whose breath suggested gin,
"Friend, can thee take me to a reputable inn?"
But this man's gross irrelevance I shall not soon forget;
Instead of simply Yea or Nay, he gruffly said, "You bet!"
"Nay, nay, I will not bet," I said, "for that would be a sin.
Why dost not answer plainly? can thee take me to an inn?
Thy vehicle is doubtless made to carry folks about in;
Why then prevaricate?" Said he, "Aha! well now, you're shoutin'!"
"I did not shout," I said, "my friend; surely my speech is mild:
But thine (I grieve to say it) with falsehood is defiled.
Thee ought to be admonished to rid thy heart of guile."
"Look here, my lovely moke," said he, "you sling on too much style."
"I've had these plain drab garments twenty years or more," said I;
"And when thee says I 'sling on style' thee tells a wilful lie."
With that he pranced about as tho' a bee were in his bonnet,
And with hostile demonstrations inquired if I was "on it."
"On what? Till thee explain, I cannot tell," I said;
But he swore that something was "too thin," moreover it was "played."
But all his antics were surpassed in wild absurdity
By threats, profanely emphasized, to "put a head" on me.
"No son of Belial," I said, "that miracle can do."
With that he fell upon me with blows and curses too;
But failed to work that miracle, if such was his design;
Instead of putting on a head, he strove to smite off mine.
Thee knows that I profess the peaceful precepts of our sect,
But this man's acts worked on me to a curious effect;
And when he knocked my broad-brim off, and said, "How's that for high!"
It roused the Adam in me, and I smote him hip and thigh.
This was a signal for the crowd, for calumny broke loose;
They said I'd "snatched him bald-headed," and likewise
"cooked his goose."
But yet I do affirm, that I had not pulled his hair;
Nor had I cooked his poultry, for he had no poultry there.
They called me "bully boy," though I have seen full three-score year;
And they said that I was "lightning when I got upon my ear."
And when I asked if lightning climbed its ear, and dressed in drab,
"You know how 'tis yourself," said one insolent young blab.
So I left them in disgust: plain-spoken men like me
With such perverters of our tongue can have no unity.

ANONYMOUS.

TO THE "SEXTANT."

O Sextant of the meetin house, wich sweeps
And dusts, or is supposed to! and makes fires,
And lites the gass, and sumtimes leaves a screw loose,
in wich case it smells orful, worse than lamp ile;
And wrings the Bel and toles it when men dyes,
to the grief of survivin pardners, and sweeps paths
And for the servusses gets $100 per annum,
Wich them that thinks deer, let 'em try it;
Gettin up before starlite in all wethers and
Kindlin fires when the wether is as cold
As zero, and like as not green wood for kindlin,
i wouldn't be hired to do it for no sum.
But O Sextant! there are 1 kermoddity
Wich's more than gold, wich doant cost nothin,
Worth more than anything except the sole of man!
i mean pewer Are, Sextant, i mean pewer are!
O it is plenty out of doors, so plenty it doant no
What on airth to dew with itself, but flys about
Scatterin leaves and bloin off men's hatts!
in short, it's jest as "fre as are" out dores,
But O Sextant, in our church its scarce as buty,
Scarce as bank bills, when agints begs for mischuns,
Wich some say is purty offten (taint nothin to me,
wat I give aint nothin to nobody) but O Sextant
U shet 500 men, wimmin, and children,
Speshally the latter, up in a tite place,
And every 1 on em brethes in and out, and out and in,
Say 50 times a minnit, or 1 million and a half breths an our.
Now how long will a church ful of are last at that rate,
I ask you--say 15 minits--and then wats to be did?
Why then they must brethe it all over agin,
And then agin, and so on till each has took it down
At least 10 times, and let it up agin, and wats more
The same individoal don't have the priviledge
of brethin his own are, and no ones else,
Each one must take whatever comes to him.
O Sextant, doant you no our lungs is bellusses,
To blo the fier of life, and keep it from goin out;
and how can bellusses blo without wind
And aint wind _are_? i put it to your conschens.
Are is the same to us as milk to babies,
Or water is to fish, or pendlums to clox,
Or roots and airbs unto an injun doctor,
Or little pills unto an omepath,
Or boys to gurls. Are is for us to brethe,
What signifies who preaches if i cant brethe?
Wats Pol? Wats Pollus to sinners who are ded?
Ded for want of breth, why Sextant, when we dy
Its only coz we can't brethe no more, thats all.
And now O Sextant, let me beg of you
To let a little are into our church.
(Pewer are is sertain proper for the pews)
And do it weak days, and Sundays tew,
It aint much trouble, only make a hole
And the are will come of itself;
(It luvs to come in where it can git warm)
And O how it will rouze the people up,
And sperrit up the preacher, and stop garps,
And yawns and figgits, as effectooal
As wind on the dry boans the Profit tells of.

ARABELLA M. WILLSON.

JIM BLUDSO OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE.

PIKE COUNTY BALLADS.

Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives,
Becase he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of livin' like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three year
That you haven't heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Belle?

He weren't no saint,--them engineers
Is all pretty much alike,--
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill
And another one here, in Pike;
A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward hand in a row,
But he never flunked, and he never lied,--
I reckon he never knowed how.

And this was all the religion he had,--
To treat his engine well;
Never be passed on the river;
To mind the pilot's bell;
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire,--
A thousand times he swore
He 'd hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.

All boats has their day on the Mississip,
And her day come at last,--
The Movastar was a better boat,
But the Belle she _wouldn't_ be passed.
And so she come tearin' along that night--
The oldest craft on the line--
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,
And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,
And quick as a flash she turned, and made
For that willer-bank on the right.
There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out,
Over all the infernal roar,
"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last galoot 's ashore."

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat
Jim Bludso's voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And knowed he would keep his word.
And, sure 's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,--
And Bludso's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

He weren't no saint,--but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim,
'Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,--
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

JOHN HAY.

TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL.

A GEOLOGICAL ADDRESS.

"A human skull has been found in California, in the
pliocene formation. This skull is the remnant, not only of
the earliest pioneer of this State, but the oldest known
human being.... The skull was found in a shaft one hundred
and fifty feet deep, two miles from Angel's, in Calaveras
County, by a miner named James Matson, who gave it to Mr.
Scribner, a merchant, and he gave it to Dr. Jones, who sent
it to the State Geological Survey.... The published volume
of the State Survey on the Geology of California states that
man existed contemporaneously with the mastodon, but this
fossil proves that he was here before the mastodon was known
to exist."--_Daily Paper._

"Speak, O man, less recent! Fragmentary fossil!
Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,
Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum
Of Volcanic tufa!

"Older than the beasts, the oldest Palæotherium;
Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogamia;
Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions
Of earth's epidermis!

"Eo--Mio--Plio--whatsoe'er the 'cene' was
That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder,--
Whether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches,--
Tell us thy strange story!

"Or has the Professor slightly antedated
By some thousand years thy advent on this planet,
Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted
For cold-blooded creatures?

"Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest,
When above thy head the stately Sigillaria
Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant
Carboniferous epoch?

"Tell us of that scene,--the dim and watery woodland,
Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or insect,
Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club-mosses,
Lycopodiacea--

"When beside thee walked the solemn Plesiosaurus,
And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus,
While from time to time above thee flew and circled
Cheerful Pterodactyls.

"Tell us of thy food,--those half-marine refections,
Crinoids on the shell, and Brachipods _au naturel_,--
Cuttle-fish to which the _pieuvre_ of Victor Hugo
Seems a periwinkle.

"Speak, thou awful vestige of the earth's creation,--
Solitary fragment of remains organic!
Tell the wondrous secrets of thy past existence,--
Speak! thou oldest primate!"

Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla
And a lateral movement of the condyloid process,
With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication,
Ground the teeth together;

And from that imperfect dental exhibition,
Stained with expressed juices of the weed Nicotian,
Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs
Of expectoration:

"Which my name is Bowers, and my crust was busted
Falling down a shaft, in Calaveras County,
But I'd take it kindly if you'd send the pieces
Home to old Missouri!"

BRET HARTE.

LITTLE BREECHES.

A PIKE COUNTY VIEW OF SPECIAL PROVIDENCE.

I don't go much on religion,
I never ain't had no show;
But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir,
On the handful o' things I know.
I don't pan out on the prophets
And free-will, and that sort o' thing,--
But believe in God and the angels,
Ever sence one night last spring.

I come into town with some turnips,
And my little Gabe come along,--
No four-year-old in the county
Could beat him for pretty and strong,
Peart and chipper and sassy,
Always ready to swear and fight,--
And I'd learnt him ter chaw terbacker,
Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.

The snow come down like a blanket
As I passed by Taggart's store;
I went in for a jug of molasses
And left the team at the door.
They scared at something and started,--
I heard one little squall,
And hell-to-split over the prairie
Went team, Little Breeches and all.

Hell-to-split over the prairie!
I was almost froze with skeer;
But we rousted up some torches,
And sarched for 'em far and near.
At last we struck hosses and wagon,
Snowed under a soft white mound,
Upsot, dead beat,--but of little Gabe
No hide nor hair was found.

And here all hope soured on me
Of my fellow-critter's aid,--
I jest flopped down on my marrow-bones,
Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed.

* * * * *

By this, the torches was played out,
And me and Isrul Parr
Went off for some wood to a sheepfold
That he said was somewhar thar.

We found it at last, and a little shed
Where they shut up the lambs at night.
We looked in, and seen them huddled thar,
So warm and sleepy and white;
And THAR sot Little Breeches and chirped,
As pert as ever you see,
"I want a chaw of terbacker,
And that's what's the matter of me."

How did he git thar? Angels.
He could never have walked in that storm.
They just scooped down and toted him
To whar it was safe and warm.
And I think that saving a little child,
And bringing him to his own,
Is a derned sight better business
Than loafing around the Throne.

JOHN HAY.

JIM

Say there! P'r'aps
Some on you chaps
Might know Jim Wild?
Well,--no offence:
Thar ain't no sense
In gettin' riled!

Jim was my chum
Up on the Bar:
That's why I come
Down from up thar,
Lookin' for Jim.
Thank ye, sir! _you_
Ain't of that crew,--
Blest if you are!

Money?--Not much:
That ain't my kind;
I an't no such.
Rum?--I don't mind,
Seein' it's you.

Well, this yer Jim,
Did you know him?--
Jess 'bout your size;
Same kind of eyes?--
Well, that is strange:
Why, it's two year
Since he come here,
Sick, for a change.

Well, here's to us;
Eh?
The _deuce_ you say!
Dead?--
That little cuss?

What makes you star,--
You over thar?
Can't a man drop
's glass in yer shop

But you must rar'?
It wouldn't take
_Derned_ much to break
You and your bar.

Dead!
Poor--little--Jim!
--Why, there was me,
Jones, and Bob Lee,
Harry and Ben,--
No-account men:
Then to take _him_!

Well, thar--Good-bye,--
No more, sir,--I--
Eh?
What's that you say?--
Why, dern it!--sho!--
No? Yes! By Jo!
Sold!
Sold! Why you limb,
You ornery,
Derned old
Long-leggèd Jim!

BRET HARTE.

BANTY TIM.

[Remarks of Sergeant Tilmon Joy to the White Man's
Committee of Spunky Point, Illinois.]

I reckon I git your drift, gents--
You 'low the boy sha'n't stay;
This is a white man's country:
You're Dimocrats, you say:
And whereas, and seein', and wherefore,
The times bein' all out o' jint,
The nigger has got to mosey
From the limits o' Spunky P'int!

Let's reason the thing a minute;
I'm an old-fashioned Dimocrat, too,
Though I laid my politics out o' the way
For to keep till the war was through.
But I come back here allowin'
To vote as I used to do,
Though it gravels me like the devil to train
Along o' sich fools as you.

Now dog my cats if I kin see
In all the light of the day,
What you've got to do with the question
Ef Tim shall go or stay.
And furder than that I give notice,
Ef one of you tetches the boy,
He kin check his trunks to a warmer clime
Than he'll find in Illanoy.

Why, blame your hearts, jist hear me!
You know that ungodly day
When our left struck Vicksburg Heights, how ripped
And torn and tattered we lay.
When the rest retreated, I stayed behind,
Fur reasons sufficient to me,--
With a rib caved in, and a leg on a strike,
I sprawled on that cursed glacee.

Lord! how the hot sun went for us,
And broiled and blistered and burned!
How the rebel bullets whizzed round us
When a cuss in his death-grip turned!
Till along toward dusk I seen a thing
I couldn't believe for a spell:
That nigger--that Tim--was a-crawlin' to me
Through that fire-proof, gilt-edged hell!

The rebels seen him as quick as me,
And the bullets buzzed like bees;
But he jumped for me, and shouldered me,
Though a shot brought him once to his knees;
But he staggered up, and packed me off,
With a dozen stumbles and falls,
Till safe in our lines he drapped us both,
His black hide riddled with balls.

So, my gentle gazelles, thar's my answer,
And here stays Banty Tim:
He trumped Death's ace for me that day,
And I 'm not goin' back on him!
You may rezoloot till the cows come home,
But ef one of you tetches the boy,
He 'll wrastle his hash to-night in hell,
Or my name's not Tilmon Joy!

JOHN HAY.

DOW'S FLAT.

1856.

Dow's flat. That's its name.
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger? The same?
Well, I thought it was true,
For thar isn't a man on the river as can't spot
the place at first view.

It was called after Dow,--
Which the same was an ass;
And as to the how
Thet the thing kem to pass,--
Just tie up your hoss to that buckeye, and sit ye
down here in the grass.

You see this yer Dow
Hed the worst kind of luck;
He slipped up somehow
On each thing thet he struck.
Why, ef he'd straddled thet fence-rail the derned
thing 'ed get up and buck.

He mined on the bar
Till he couldn't pay rates;
He was smashed by a car
When he tunnelled with Bates;
And right on top of his trouble kem his wife and
five kids from the States.

It was rough,--mighty rough;
But the boys they stood by,
And they brought him the stuff
For a house, on the sly;
And the old woman,--well, she did washing, and
took on when no one was nigh.

But this yer luck of Dow's
Was so powerful mean
That the spring near his house
Dried right up on the green;
And he sunk forty feet down for water, but nary
a drop to be seen.

Then the bar petered out,
And the boys wouldn't stay;
And the chills got about,
And his wife fell away;
But Dow, in his well, kept a peggin' in his usual
ridikilous way.

One day,--it was June,--
And a year ago, jest,--
This Dow kem at noon
To his work like the rest,
With a shovel and pick on his shoulder, and a
derringer hid in his breast.

He goes to the well,
And he stands on the brink,
And stops for a spell
Jest to listen and think:
For the sun in his eyes, (jest like this, sir!) you
see, kinder made the cuss blink.

His two ragged gals
In the gulch were at play,
And a gownd that was Sal's
Kinder flapped on a bay:
Not much for a man to be leavin', but his all,--
as I've heer'd the folks say.

And--that's a peart hoss
Thet you've got--ain't it now?
What might be her cost?
Eh? Oh!--Well then, Dow--
Let's see,--well, that forty-foot grave wasn't his,
sir, that day, anyhow.

For a blow of his pick
Sorter caved in the side,
And he looked and turned sick,
Then he trembled and cried.
For you see the dern cuss had struck--"Water?"
--beg your parding, young man, there you lied!

It was _gold_,--in the quartz,
And it ran all alike;
And I reckon five oughts
Was the worth of that strike;
And that house with coopilow's his'n,--which
the same isn't bad for a Pike.

Thet's why it's Dow's Flat;
And the thing of it is
That he kinder got that
Through sheer contrairiness:
For 't was =water= the derned cuss was seekin', and
his luck made him certain to miss.

Thet's so. Thar's your way
To the left of yon tree;
But--a--look h'yur, say,
Won't you come up to tea?
No? Well, then the next time you're passin'; and
ask after Dow,--and thet's _me_.

BRET HARTE.

THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLAUS.

I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James:
I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;
And I'll tell in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.

But first I would remark, that 'tis not a proper plan
For any scientific gent to whale his fellow-man;
And, if a member don't agree with his peculiar whim,
To lay for that same member for to "put a head" on him.

Now, nothing could be finer, or more beautiful to see,
Than the first six months' proceedings of that same society;
Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones
That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones.

Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,
From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare;
And Jones then asked the Chair for a suspension of the rules,
Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost mules.

Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault;
It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones's family vault;
He was a most sarcastic man this quiet Mr. Brown,
And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town.

Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent
To say another is an ass,--at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent.

Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order, when
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen;
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled upon the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.

For in less time than I write it, every member did engage
In a warfare with the remnants of a palæozoic age;
And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,
Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.

And this is all I have to say of these improper games,
For I live at Table Mountain and my name is Truthful James,
And I've told in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.

BRET HARTE.

PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES.

POPULARLY KNOWN AS "THE HEATHEN CHINEE."

Which I wish to remark--
And my language is plain--
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar:
Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny
In regard to the same
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies,
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was euchre. The same
He did not understand,
But he smiled, as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland.

Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see,--
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, "Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,"--
And he went for that heathen Chinee.
In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed,
Like the leaves on the strand,
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding
In the game "he did not understand."

In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four jacks,--
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts.
And we found on his nails, which were taper,--
What is frequent in tapers,--that's wax.

Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark,
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,--
Which the same I am free to maintain.

BRET HARTE.

A PLANTATION DITTY.

De gray owl sing fum de chimbly top:
"Who--who--is--you-oo?"
En I say: "Good Lawd, hit's des po' me,
En I ain't quite ready fer de Jasper Sea;
I'm po' en sinful, en you 'lowed I'd be;
Oh, wait, good Lawd, 'twell ter-morror!"

De gray owl sing fum de cypress tree:
"Who--who--is--you-oo?"
En I say: "Good Lawd, ef you look you'll see
Hit ain't nobody but des po' me,
En I like ter stay 'twell my time is free;
Oh, wait, good Lawd, 'twell ter-morror!"

FRANK LEBBY STANTON.

DE FUST BANJO.

Go 'way, fiddle! folks is tired o' hearin' you a-squawkin'.
Keep silence fur yo' betters!--don't you hear de banjo talkin'?
About de 'possum's tail she's gwine to lecter--ladies, listen!--
About de ha'r whut isn't dar, an' why de ha'r is missin':

"Dar's gwine to be a' oberflow," said Noah, lookin' solemn--
Fur Noah tuk the "Herald," an' he read de ribber column--
An' so he sot his hands to wuk a-cl'arin' timber-patches,
An' lowed he's gwine to build a boat to beat the steamah Natchez.

Ol' Noah kep' a-nailin' an' a-chippin' an' a-sawin';
An' all de wicked neighbors kep' a-laughin' an' a-pshawin';
But Noah didn't min' 'em, knowin' whut wuz gwine to happen:
An' forty days an' forty nights de rain it kep' a-drappin'.

Now, Noah had done cotched a lot ob ebry sort o' beas'es--
Ob all de shows a-trabbelin', it beat 'em all to pieces!
He had a Morgan colt an' sebral head o' Jarsey cattle--
An' druv 'em 'board de Ark as soon 's he heered de thunder rattle.

Den sech anoder fall ob rain!--it come so awful hebby,
De ribber riz immejitly, an' busted troo de lebbee;
De people all wuz drowned out--'cep' Noah an' de critters,
An' men he'd hired to work de boat--an' one to mix de bitters.

De Ark she kep' a-sailin' an' a-sailin' an' a-sailin';
De lion got his dander up, an' like to bruk de palin';
De sarpints hissed; de painters yelled; tell, whut
wid all de fussin',
You c'u'dn't hardly heah de mate a-bossin' 'roun' an' cussin'.

Now Ham, de only nigger whut wuz runnin' on de packet,
Got lonesome in de barber-shop, an' c'u'dn't stan' de racket;
An' so, fur to amuse he-se'f, he steamed some wood an' bent it,
An' soon he had a banjo made--de fust dat wuz invented.

He wet de ledder, stretched it on; made bridge an' screws an' aprin;
An' fitted in a proper neck--'t wuz berry long an' tap'rin';
He tuk some tin an' twisted him a thimble fur to ring it;
An' den de mighty question riz: how wuz he gwine to string it?

De 'possum had as fine a tail as dis dat I's a-singin';
De ha'rs so long an' thick an' strong,--des fit fur banjo-stringin';
Dat nigger shaved 'em off as short as washday-dinner graces;
An' sorted ob 'em by de size, f'om little E's to basses.

He strung her, tuned her, struck a jig,--'t wuz
"Nebber min' de wedder,"--
She soun' like forty-lebben bands a-playin' all togedder;
Some went to pattin'; some to dancin': Noah called de figgers;
An' Ham he sot an' knocked de tune, de happiest ob niggers!

Now, sence dat time--it's mighty strange--der 's not
de slightes' showin'
Ob any ha'r at all upon de 'possum's tail a-growin';
An' curi's, too, dat nigger's ways: his people nebber los' 'em--
Fur whar you finds de nigger--dar's de banjo an' an' de 'possum!

IRWIN RUSSELL.

PERILS OF THINKING.

A centipede was happy quite,
Until a frog in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in the ditch
Considering how to run.

ANONYMOUS.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR.

You, Nebuchadnezzah, whoa, sah!
Whar is you tryin' to go, sah?
I'd hab you fur to know, sah,
I's a-holdin' ob de lines.
You better stop dat prancin',
You's paw'ful fond ob dancin',
But I'll bet my yeah's advancin'
Dat I'll cure you ob yo' shines.

Look heah, mule! Better min' out;
Fus' t'ing you know you'll fin' out
How quick I'll wear dis line out
On your ugly, stubbo'n back.
You needn't try to steal up;
An' lif' dat precious heel up;
You's got to plough dis fiel' up,
You has, sah, fur a fac'.

Dar, _dat's_ de way to do it;
He's comin' right down to it;
Jes watch him ploughin' troo it!
Dis nigger ain't no fool.
Some folks dey would 'a' beat him;
Now, dat would only heat him--
I know just how to treat him:
You mus' _reason_ wid a mule.

He minds me like a nigger.
If he wuz only bigger
He'd fotch a mighty figger,
He would, I _tell_ you! Yes, sah!
See how he keeps a-clickin'!
He's as gentle as a chicken,
And nebber thinks o' kickin'--
_Whoa dar! Nebuchadnezzah!_

Is this heah me, or not me?
Or is de debbil got me?
Wuz dat a cannon shot me?
Hab I laid heah more 'n a week?
Dat mule do kick amazin'!
De beast was sp'iled in raisin';
But now I spect he's grazin'
On de oder side de creek.

IRWIN RUSSELL.

A LIFE'S LOVE.

I loved him in my dawning years--
Far years, divinely dim;
My blithest smiles, my saddest tears,
Were evermore for him.
My dreaming when the day began,
The latest thought I had,
Was still some little loving plan
To make my darling glad.

They deemed he lacked the conquering wiles,
That other children wear;
To me his face, in frowns or smiles,
Was never aught but fair.
They said that self was all his goal,
He knew no thought beyond;
To me, I know, no living soul
Was half so true and fond.

In love's eclipse, in friendship's dearth,
In grief and feud and bale,
My heart has learnt the sacred worth
Of one that cannot fail;
And come what must, and come what may.
Nor power, nor praise, nor pelf,
Shall lure my faith from thee to stray.
My sweet, my own--_Myself_.

ANONYMOUS.

DARWIN.

There was an ape in the days that were earlier;
Centuries passed, and his hair grew curlier;
Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist,
Then he was a Man and a Positivist.

MORTIMER COLLINS.

ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING.

WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALLER.

[Transcriber Note:
The words contained in braces "{}" have been struck through
by an imaginary editor, to be placed with the words written
immediately above. Strikethrough cannot be done in text
format, so this is a compromise in order to retain the
poet's intention. ]

Come! fill a fresh bumper,--for why should we go

logwood
While the {nectar} still reddens our cups as they flow?

decoction
Pour out the {rich juices} still bright with the sun,

dye-stuff
Till o'er the brimmed crystal the {rubies} shall run.

half-ripened apples
The {purple-globed clusters} their life-dews have bled;

taste sugar of lead
How sweet is the {breath} of the {fragrance they shed}!

rank-poisons _wines_!!!
For summer's {last roses} lie hid in the {wines}

stable-boys smoking long-nines
That were garnered by {maidens who laughed through the vines}.

scowl howl scoff sneer
Then a {smile}, and a {glass}, and a {toast}, and a {cheer},

strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer
For {all the good wine, and we 've some of it here}!

In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall,

Down, down with the tyrant that masters us all!
{Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all!}

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

HOLLOW HOSPITALITY.

FROM "SATIRES," BOOK III. SAT. 3.

The courteous citizen bade me to his feast
With hollow words, and overly[7] request:
"Come, will ye dine with me this holiday?"
I yielded, though he hoped I would say nay:
For I had maidened it, as many use;
Loath for to grant, but loather to refuse.
"Alack, sir, I were loath--another day,--
I should but trouble you;--pardon me, if you may."
No pardon should I need; for, to depart
He gives me leave, and thanks too, in his heart.
Two words for money, Darbyshirian wise:
(That's one too many) is a naughty guise.
Who looks for double biddings to a feast,
May dine at home for an importune guest.
I went, then saw, and found the great expense;
The face and fashions of our citizens.
Oh, Cleopatrical! what wanteth there
For curious cost, and wondrous choice of cheer?
Beef, that erst Hercules held for finest fare;
Pork, for the fat Boeotian, or the hare
For Martial; fish for the Venetian;
Goose-liver for the licorous Roman;
Th' Athenian's goat; quail, Iolaus' cheer;
The hen for Esculape, and the Parthian deer;
Grapes for Arcesilas, figs for Pluto's mouth,
And chestnuts fair for Amarillis' tooth.
Hadst thou such cheer? wert thou ever there before?
Never,--I thought so: nor come there no more.
Come there no more; for so meant all that cost:
Never hence take me for thy second host.
For whom he means to make an often guest,
One dish shall serve; and welcome make the rest.

DR. JOSEPH HALL.

[7] Superficial.

A RECIPE.

ROASTED SUCKING-PIG.

_Air._--"Scots wha hae."

Cooks who'd roast a sucking-pig,
Purchase one not over big;
Coarse ones are not worth a fig;
So a young one buy.
See that he is scalded well
(That is done by those who sell,
Therefore on that point to dwell
Were absurdity).

Sage and bread, mix just enough,
Salt and pepper _quantum suff._,
And the pig's interior stuff,
With the whole combined.
To a fire that 's rather high,
Lay it till completely dry;
Then to every part apply
Cloth, with butter lined.

Dredge with flour o'er and o'er,
Till the pig will hold no more;
Then do nothing else before
'T is for serving fit.
Then scrape off the flour with care;
Then a buttered cloth prepare;
Rub it well; then cut--not tear--
Off the head of it.

Then take out and mix the brains
With the gravy it contains;
While it on the spit remains,
Cut the pig in two.
Chop the sage and chop the bread
Fine as very finest shred;
O'er it melted butter spread,--
Stinginess won't do.

When it in the dish appears,
Garnish with the jaws and ears;
And when dinner-hour nears,
Ready let it be.
Who can offer such a dish
May dispense with fowl and fish;
And if he a guest should wish,
Let him send for me!

PUNCH'S _Poetical Cookery Book_.

A RECIPE FOR SALAD.

To make this condiment your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give;
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half suspected, animate the whole;
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt;
Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca crown,
And twice with vinegar, procured from town;
And lastly, o'er the flavored compound toss
A magic _soupçon_ of anchovy sauce.
O green and glorious! O herbaceous treat!
'T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl;
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
"Fate cannot harm me,--I have dined to-day."

SYDNEY SMITH.

ODE TO TOBACCO.

Thou who, when fears attack,
Bid'st them avaunt, and Black
Care, at the horseman's back
Perching, unseatest;
Sweet when the morn is gray;
Sweet, when they 've cleared away
Lunch; and at close of day
Possibly sweetest:

I have a liking old
For thee, though manifold
Stories, I know, are told,
Not to thy credit;
How one (or two at most)
Drops make a cat a ghost--
Useless, except to roast--
Doctors have said it:

How they who use fusees
All grow by slow degrees
Brainless as chimpanzees,
Meagre as lizards;
Go mad, and beat their wives;
Plunge (after shocking lives)
Razors and carving-knives
Into their gizzards.

Confound such knavish tricks!
Yet know I five or six
Smokers who freely mix
Still with their neighbors;
Jones--(who, I 'm glad to say,
Asked leave of Mrs. J.)--
Daily absorbs a clay
After his labors.

Cats may have had their goose
Cooked by tobacco-juice;
Still why deny its use
Thoughtfully taken?
We're not as tabbies are:
Smith, take a fresh cigar!
Jones, the tobacco-jar!
Here's to thee, Bacon!

CHARLES S. CALVERLEY.

A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.

May the Babylonish curse
Straight confound my stammering verse,
If I can a passage see
In this word-perplexity,
Or a fit expression find,
Or a language to my mind
(Still the phrase is wide or scant),
To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT!
Or in any terms relate
Half my love, or half my hate;
For I hate, yet love, thee so,
That, whichever thing I show,
The plain truth will seem to be
A constrained hyperbole,
And the passion to proceed
More from a mistress than a weed.

Sooty retainer to the vine!
Bacchus' black servant, negro fine!
Sorcerer! that mak'st us dote upon
Thy begrimed complexion,
And, for thy pernicious sake,
More and greater oaths to break
Than reclaimèd lovers take
'Gainst women! Thou thy siege dost lay
Much, too, in the female way,
While thou suck'st the laboring breath
Faster than kisses, or than death.

Thou in such a cloud dost bind us
That our worst foes cannot find us,
And ill fortune, that would thwart us,
Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;
While each man, through thy heightening steam,
Does like a smoking Etna seem;
And all about us does express
(Fancy and wit in richest dress)
A Sicilian fruitfulness.

Thou through such a mist dost show us
That our best friends do not know us,
And, for those allowèd features
Due to reasonable creatures,
Liken'st us to fell chimeras,
Monsters,--that who see us, fear us;
Worse than Cerberus or Geryon,
Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.

Bacchus we know, and we allow
His tipsy rites. But what art thou,
That but by reflex canst show
What his deity can do,--
As the false Egyptian spell
Aped the true Hebrew miracle?
Some few vapors thou mayst raise
The weak brain may serve to amaze;
But to the reins and nobler heart
Canst nor life nor heat impart.

Brother of Bacchus, later born!
The old world was sure forlorn,
Wanting thee, that aidest more
The god's victories than, before,
All his panthers, and the brawls
Of his piping Bacchanals.
These, as stale, we disallow,
Or judge of thee meant: only thou
His true Indian conquest art;
And, for ivy round his dart,
The reformèd god now weaves
A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.

Scent to match thy rich perfume
Chemic art did ne'er presume,
Through her quaint alembic strain,
None so sovereign to the brain.
Nature, that did in thee excel,
Framed again no second smell.
Roses, violets, but toys
For the smaller sort of boys,
Or for greener damsels meant;
Thou art the only manly scent.

Stinkingest of the stinking kind!
Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind!
Africa, that brags her foison,
Breeds no such prodigious poison!
Henbane, nightshade, both together,
Hemlock, aconite--
Nay rather,
Plant divine, of rarest virtue;
Blisters on the tongue would hurt you!
'T was but in a sort I blamed thee;
None e'er prospered who defamed thee;
Irony all, and feigned abuse,
Such as perplexèd lovers use
At a need, when, in despair
To paint forth their fairest fair,
Or in part but to express
That exceeding comeliness
Which their fancies doth so strike,
They borrow language of dislike;
And, instead of dearest Miss,
Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss,
And those forms of old admiring,
Call her cockatrice and siren,
Basilisk, and all that 's evil,
Witch, hyena, mermaid, devil,
Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor,
Monkey, ape, and twenty more;
Friendly trait'ress, loving foe,--
Not that she is truly so,
But no other way they know,
A contentment to express
Borders so upon excess
That they do not rightly wot
Whether it be from pain or not.

Or, as men, constrained to part
With what 's nearest to their heart,
While their sorrow 's at the height
Lose discrimination quite,
And their hasty wrath let fall,
To appease their frantic gall,
On the darling thing, whatever,
Whence they feel it death to sever,
Though it be, as they, perforce,
Guiltless of the sad divorce.

For I must (nor let it grieve thee,
Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee.
Would do anything but die,
And but seek to extend my days
Long enough to sing thy praise.
But, as she who once hath been
A king's consort is a queen
Ever after, nor will bate
Any tittle of her state
Though a widow, or divorced,
So I, from thy converse forced,
The old name and style retain,
A right Katherine of Spain;
And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys
Of the blest Tobacco Boys;
Where, though I, by sour physician,
Am debarred the full fruition
Of thy favors, I may catch
Some collateral sweets, and snatch
Sidelong odors, that give life
Like glances from a neighbor's wife;
And still live in the by-places
And the suburbs of thy graces;
And in thy borders take delight,
An unconquered Canaanite.

CHARLES LAMB.

TOO GREAT A SACRIFICE.

The maid, as by the papers doth appear,
Whom fifty thousand dollars made so dear,
To test Lothario's passion, simply said:
"Forego the weed before we go to wed.
For smoke take flame; I 'll be that flame's bright fanner:
To have your Anna, give up your Havana."
But he, when thus she brought him to the scratch,
Lit his cigar and threw away his match.

ANONYMOUS.

FROM "LOVE SONNETS OF A HOODLUM."