Chapter I: WISH some day there’d be a lawyer come

And say I’d got a fortune left by some
Rich relative I didn’t know I had;
The ones that’s kiddin’ now would soon be sad,
You’d see old Morton lookin’ pretty glum.
I’d buy this place and fire him so quick
The tumble that he got would make him sick;
And then I’d get the bridal-chamber key,
And take the little operator there,
And ask her how she’d like to marry me
And let some other girl hold down her chair.

I wish my hair would get to turnin’ gray,
And ma would suddenly find out some day
That I was ten years older than she thunk,
And I would grow six inches while you wunk.
But what’s the use of wishin’, anyway?
Mike says nobody ever caught a fish
By simply settin’ down somewhere to wish;
He claims if all our wishes would come true
We’d none of us be happy any more,
Fer every day we’d all be feelin’ blue
Because we wished fool things the day before.

XV.

THE news-stand lady’s got a steady beau;
He comes each night at six o’clock or so,
And when they leave he takes her by the arm,
As though he thought she might get into harm,
Or slip on something smooth, or stub her toe.
Mike says he’d let his mother get along
Without an arm to hang to that was strong,
And never seem to think she might get hurt
By bein’ bumped, and never fret at all
If she would put her foot down in the dirt,
And never be afraid that she would fall.

I wonder why a fellow’s mother tries
To make you think that every man that’s wise
Steers clear of all the girls? I wonder why
A fellow’s mother thinks they’re mean and sly
And hardly fit to look you in the eyes?
Ma thinks the operator here has planned
To hook the first poor chap that she can land;
And one night, when I got to tellin’ ma
How sweet she was—I mean the operator—
The more I tried to praise her up I saw
The more it kind of seemed to make ma hate ’er.

Ma says they’re all a schemin’ lot, who fix
Themselves up nice to fool the Toms and Dicks
And Harrys that don’t know enough to run:
You’d think, to hear her talk, that all they done
Was try to catch the boys by foxy tricks.
I don’t see why ma runs them down that way;
She used to be a girl herself, one day.
Mike says that when a woman’s married, though,
She never wants the rest that ain’t been took
To ever stand a chance or have a show
To ever get a nibble at the hook.

XVI.

THE other day we had excitement here;
The news-stand caught afire, and I thought
I’d be heroic Johnny-on-the-spot;
I grabbed the operator, yellin’: “Dear,
I’m here to save your life, so never fear.”
But just about that time I felt a swat,
And there was lots of things that I fergot
While Morton dragged me with him by the ear.

They’d doused the blaze before it got a start,
And I’d fergot our fire-drill, you see,
That’s what made Morton come and jump on me—
He nearly tore my head and ear apart—
That Alexander’s too dumnation smart.
They’re all a-kiddin’ me fer what I done,
And she looks on and seems to think it’s fun
Confound it! that’s What nearly breaks my heart.

XVII.

I’M sorry fer the poor old boy we’ve got
In seven-sixty-six; he’s nearly due
To ask St. Peter to please let him through.
His wife’s a beaut and young, and mebby what
She’s doin’ right along is hope he’ll not
Be yanked away and planted in the sod
With her left here to fasten to his wad—
If that’s your guess, though, take another shot.

She won’t allow him to get out of bed,
But once when I went up because she’d rung
The first thing that I knew he up and flung
The quilts and things across the room and said
She’d hid his shirt and pants—that’s on the dead—
And then, before she’d caught her breath, he sprung
Up like a wild man and got in among
Her trunks and looked up pitiful and pled.

“I want my pants,” he says, “I’ll die unless
You let me out to get some exercise.”
She shook her head and looked him in the eyes
And told me it was second childishness
And that he wasn’t strong enough to dress—
Then out he jumped and started fer the door,
With nothin’ but his nightshirt on, and swore
He’d run away—he meant it, too, I guess.

But he was old and slow and she was spry,
And when he started to get out she caught
A pitcherful of water up and got
Around in front of me and let it fly.
She turned and give a sorry little sigh
When he’d went back to bed, and said a lot
Of things about how sad she’d be and not
Know how to bear the shock if he would die.

When I get old and wrinkled up and gray
I want my wife to be as old as me:
Then she’ll not be ashamed if people see
Us out together, and they’ll never say
They wonder what she cost me, anyway.
I’d hate to think that every time when we
Went anywhere the men would wink and she
Had sad clo’s to jump into any day.

XVIII.

IT’S up to me to kick myself some more:
The daisy that is operatin’ here
Has been another fellow’s wife a year,
And he’s a clerk in some department store.
The happy thoughts I used to think before
Are busted up forever. I appear
To always land somewhere back in the rear—
The sound of telegraphin’ makes me sore.

I hope I’ll have a million bucks some day
And be the landlord here, and she will set
There, in the corner, telegraphin’ yet;
And when I pass she’ll look at me and say
All to herself she wished she knew some way
To not be married, and I’d stop and get
A blank sometimes, just so’s to make her fret
When she would count the dimun’s I’d display.

And mebby when I stood there near her, then,
And had broad shoulders, and was six feet high,
Her lips would tremble and she’d give a sigh
And nibble at her pencil or her pen,
And we would both be feelin’ sad, and when
She seen I loved her she’d begin to cry
Because she hadn’t waited, and then I—
Oh, rats! There’s Morton yellin’ “Front” agen.

XIX.

IF yesterday would come to-morrow
There wouldn’t hardly be no sorrow.

For then we’d have another try
At chances that we let go by.

Instead of givin’ luck the blame
We’d grab the good things when they came.

We’d take the best and leave the worst
If all the days came hind-end first.

The fools that stand and wonder now
Would know just when to act and how.

If yesterday would come agen
We’d not say “if” so often then.

We’d turn the merry face to sorrow
If yesterday would come to-morrow.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

By S. E. KISER

Love Sonnets of an Office Boy

WITH TWELVE PICTURES BY JOHN T. MCCUTCHEON

❦

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------------------------------------------------------------------------

By S. E. KISER

Ballads of the Busy Days

ONE hundred poems representing the best work of this well-known poet. Many of them are humorous, some have a delicate vein of pathos that makes a sure appeal to the heart, and all possess that charming human quality which has made Mr. Kiser’s verses widely popular.

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Tastefully printed and bound in an artistic, decorated cover, 12mo,
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Now in Thirtieth Thousand

BEN KING’S VERSE

If I Should Die To-Night

If I should die to-night
And you should come to my cold corpse and say,
Weeping and heartsick o’er my lifeless clay—
If I should die to-night
And you should come in deepest grief and woe
And say, “Here’s that ten dollars that I owe”—
I might arise in my large white cravat
And say, “What’s that?”

If I should die to-night
And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel,
Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel—
I say, if I should die to-night
And you should come to me, and there and then
Just even hint ’bout payin’ me that ten,
I might arise the while;
But I’d drop dead again.
(From “Ben King’s Verse”)

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Beautifully made. 292 pages. Price, $1.25.

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Box 664, CHICAGO

------------------------------------------------------------------------

● Transcriber’ Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.

End of Project Gutenberg's Thrills of a Bell Boy, by Samuel Ellsworth Kiser