Chapter I: WENT up-stairs, this morning, when she rung

I guess she must of just got out of bed—
It seemed to me her nose looked kind of red;
They was a little wad of hair that hung
Down in a pigtail on her back; she brung
A telegram out to the door, and said:
“Well, get a move—good Heavens, are you dead?”
Somehow she didn’t seem to look so young.

I can’t help kind of wonderin’ to-day
What made her look so queer; it seems as though
There’s something that is gone. I’d like to know
If all the ones that’s beautiful when they
Get on their riggin’ and are fixed up gay
Ain’t much but framework when they’ve gone at night
And safely locked themselves in out of sight
And laid what ain’t growed on to them away.

When me and Mike, the porter, were alone
I got to tellin’ him about my thoughts—
Mike’s had two wives, and so, of course, knows lots.
He told me in a kind of sollum tone:
“Me boy, a woman cr-rathure’s like a shtone—
At laste some women ar-re—Whin dr-ressed they’re foine,
But whin they ain’t ye’ll ha-ardly see a soign
Av beauty that ye’d ta-ake to be their own.”

VII.

IT’S all off now. She’s gone out West somewhere—
The papers say to South Dakota—there
She’s got things fixed to get divorced, they claim.
It seems that Mrs. Pickleham’s her name
In private life, instead of Miss Le Claire.
Her father runs a dray in Buffalo,
That’s what the papers say: I s’pose they know.
I wonder why it always has to be
That everything you think is great before
You know about it, when you get to see
Just how it is don’t seem so grand no more?

I wish I had the forty cents I blew
To get the bunch of posies what I threw
At her that night. I had to gasp almost
Whenever she’d look up. Gee! What a roast
The boys would give me fer it if they knew.
But still there ain’t no use of feelin’ bad;
I got my money’s worth, fer I was glad,
And every minute that you’re feelin’ gay
About a thing that never can come true
Is something that’ll not get took away;
It’s in your system and belongs to you.

VIII.

THEY’VE give us a new operator here
To take the telegrams; she’s pretty near
A daisy, too. Her eyes are big and brown;
And when she sets there kind of lookin’ down,
As though she didn’t notice things, it’s queer
The way I get to wishin’ I could go
And save her from the clutches of some foe.
She makes me feel as though I’d like to be
A handsome man, about six foot, and strong,
To take her in my arms and let her see
That I was here protectin’ her from wrong.

The other day I talked to her a while:
It seemed as though whenever she would smile
I’d have a goneish feelin’ in my breast.
She’d be a peach, no matter how she dressed,
She’s got the other girls here beat a mile.
The red that’s on her cheeks ain’t painted there,
And she ain’t wearin’ no dead woman’s hair:
I don’t blame homely women if they try
To make themselves look fine, fer good looks pay—
But hers is not the kind that they can buy—
The beauty that she’s got grew there to stay.

IX.

ONCE, when her instrument was workin’ bad
She jerked the thing and hit it with her fist
And nearly broke her round, soft little wrist—
I never s’posed that she could get so mad.
When I told ma it seemed to make her glad.
She says a girl that looks as nice as pie
Sometimes has awful thoughts: I wonder why
Ma’s always knockin’ so? It makes me sad.

X.

SOME people make me sick. They act as though
They’d leased this hemisphere. See that boy there,
The way he tilts his head up in the air
And struts around so everybody’ll know
He’s cut his second teeth. Now watch him go
And ask about the telegrams. I’ll bet
Nobody ever telegraphed him yet,
Or if they did it’s comin’ mighty slow.

When she was operatin’ yesterday
He leaned against the railin’, lookin’ wise
And spoilin’ blanks and makin’ goo-goo eyes.
I wish he’d pay his bill and go away,
Or that she’d slap his face for gettin’ gay.
When fellows hang around a girl to buzz
Her hours at a time the way he does
I wonder how they think of things to say?

Mike says he never seen a woman yet
That hated men fer showin’ them they’d like
To take them in their lovin’ arms and hike
Away to where nobody else could get.
Mike says it doesn’t seem to make them fret
When men get gone on them—I guess I’ll strike
Out bold, because it must be so, fer Mike
He’s had two wives, and knows a lot, you bet.

There goes that dude again, confound the luck!
I wish he’d get a telegram that said
Some chap was comin’ here to punch his head,
And he’d fergit how sweet she was, and duck:
Mike says that when a fellow shows he’s struck
A woman hardly ever raises Ned
Or seems to get to wishin’ she was dead—
Gee whiz! he’s went and give her chin a chuck.

XI.

THE Johnny’s went away that got so brash;
I let his blamed old satchel fall and smash
When him and me was goin’ out the door;
His razor and his brush rolled on the floor,
Mixed with his nightshirt and some other trash.
He’d just smiled back at her and raised his lid;
I’d hate to get let down the way he did:
She laughed, and all the rest let out a whoop—
I never seen a guy so mad before;
He got his things together with a swoop—
I guess he’ll never be our guest no more.

I s’pose I lost a tip, but I don’t care,
I’d rather have the chance fer gettin’ square;
What good is havin’ money, anyway,
If havin’ it don’t keep you feelin’ gay
Nor make you push your chest out in the air?
I snuck away, out by the barber shop,
And laughed so hard I couldn’t seem to stop:
Mike says that every laugh you ever laugh
Is something that you’re richer fer, and so
I gained about eight dollars and a half—
They called me down and nearly bounced me, though.

XII.

IF I would get to be a millionaire
And didn’t have to work or anything,
I’d go and buy a dimun’ stud and ring
And open up a swell hotel somewhere
And be head clerk myself, and have my hair
All curled and fixed like Morton’s is, and fling
On agony as though I’d be a king
And had a throne behind the counter there.

The guy that owns this joint ain’t got no style:
He wears his whiskers down around his neck:
I’ll bet that I’d have shiners by the peck
If I was in his place and had his pile.
When guests come in he don’t put on a smile
And get to lookin’ chesty and say “Front”
As though he owned the earth: he leaves that stunt
Fer Morton, who can beat him out a mile.

XIII.