Chapter II: Part 2

Every day we read the story of some vessel tempest-tossed, which sends forth a wireless message and would otherwise be lost. It would join the ghostly squadrons in the realm beneath the wave, were it not for modern science, which can rob the ocean grave. Vainly of such mighty marvels--all in vain the poet sings! They would need another Homer and a harp with cast-iron strings! We can only pause in wonder, as we read these thrilling tales of the mystic spark that carries news of shipwreck through the gales. We can only take our lids off to the noble master mind that achieved this latest triumph over fog and wave and wind. Yet, to show appreciation, we might buy some shares of stock in the Wireless Corporation office, just around the block. With each share we'll get a picture of a Hero--maybe twins--and, in time, in every parlor there will hang a Johnnie Binns; there will be so many Binnses, coming from the rescued ships, that they'll form a secret order, with its passwords, signs and grips.

_Helpful Mr. Bok_

I owe so much to Mr. Bok that language fails me when I try about his kindnesses to talk, and briny tears bedim my eye. I owe it to that gifted man that I can take ten yards of string, and decorate a frying pan until it is a beauteous thing. He taught me how to paint a brick and hang it on the parlor wall, which made the blamed room look so slick that callers cry: "It does beat all!" 'Twas Mr. Bok who taught me how to tie pink ribbons on my corns, and when I bought a muley cow, he showed me how to gild her horns. I made a cupboard from a trunk, directed by his kindly charts; a cart-load of hand-painted junk to my poor home a charm imparts. When Arctic stories stirred the soul, his enterprise was just immense; he showed me how to make a pole complete for ninety-seven cents. And when B. Tumbo sailed away, among the roaring beasts to rush, Bok pictured, in his L. H. J., a jungle made of yellow plush. And when I face the tyrant Death, may Bok be with me in the gloom, to decorate my final breath, with tassels and an ostrich plume.

_Beryl's Boudoir_

She is a vain and foolish lass; she stands before her looking-glass, and fusses with her pins and rats, and tries on half a dozen hats, and fixes doodads in her hair, and tints her cheeks, already fair. And when she's fooled three hours away, and she appears, in glad array, she isn't half as nice and neat, she isn't half as slick and sweet as she appeared, four hours ago, when she was wearing calico. If she would take the time she fools away with paints and curling tools, and read some books, of prose or rhyme, she'd get some value for her time. She pads her head outside with rats, machine made hair and monster hats; and gladness might with her abide, if she would pad her head inside. For beauty is a transient thing; the hurried years are on the wing; the dazzling maiden of today will soon be haggard, worn and gray; and in life's winter, when she sits beside her lonely hearth and knits, it will not lessen her despair, to think of rats she used to wear. But if her mind is stored with gold from books the sages wrote of old, with ancient lore or modern song, the days will not seem drear and long; life's twilight will be calm and fair, and loneliness will not be there.

_Post-Mortem Honors_

When you are dead, my weary friend--and some day you must die--the crowds will stand along the curb to see the hearse go by; and at the church the folks will stand and raise a mournful din, and pile a lot of roses on the box that you are in. And people then will shake their heads and say it is a shame, that such a honeybird as you should have to quit the game; and when beneath the sod you rest in your mail order gown, you'll have a big fat monument that's sure to hold you down. But little will it all avail, for you'll be sleeping sound, and honors do not count for much with people underground. You'd rather have some kindness while you tread this vale of tears, than have your dust lamented o'er for fifty million years.

_After A While_

The mother, tired, with aching head, from sweeping floors and baking bread, called to her daughter: "Susan, dear, I wish you'd help a little here." Fair Susan, in the parlor dim, was playing o'er a tender hymn; methinks it was "The Maiden's Prayer"--a melody beyond compare. She cried, while playing on, in style: "I'll help you in a little while." Her lover blew in unawares--a fine young man with princely airs. His heart was free from sordid stains; his head was full of high-class brains; most any girl would give her eyes to gather in so big a prize. He heard the mother's weary cry; he heard the damsel's flip reply. His bosom swelled with noble ire! His tawny eyes flashed streaks of fire! He cried: "Miss Susan Sarah Brown, it's up to me to turn you down! While groundhogs live and comets shine, you'll be no blushing bride of mine! The healthy girl who doesn't jump, and on her system get a hump, when mother calls, I do not want; so get thee hence! Aroint! Avaunt! I'll hunt me up a damsel fair who passes up 'The Maiden's Prayer' when she has got a chance to chase the troubles from her mother's face!"

_Pretty Good Schemes_

It's a pretty good scheme to be cheery, and sing as you follow the road, for a good many pilgrims are weary, and hopelessly carry the load; their hearts from the journey are breaking, and a rod seems to them like a mile; and it may be the noise you are making will hearten them up for a while. It's a pretty good scheme in your joking, to cut out the jest that's unkind, for the barbed kind of fun you are poking, some fellow may carry in mind; and a good many hearts have been broken, a good many hearts fond and true, by words that were carelessly spoken by alecky fellows like you. It's a pretty good scheme to be doing some choring around while you can; for the gods with their gifts are pursuing the earnest industrious man; and those gods, in their own El Dorado, are laying up wrath for the one who loafs all the day in the shadow, while others toil, out in the sun.

_Knowledge By Mail_

When I was young and fresh and ruddy, and full of snap and vim, my parents used to make me study until my head would swim. I sat upon the schoolhouse bleachers, with pencil, book and slate, while sundry bald and weary teachers drilled knowledge through my pate. For some quick method I was yearning, some easy path to tread; "there is no royal road to learning," the bald old teachers said; "stick closely to the printed pages, all idleness eschew, and then, perhaps, in future ages, you'll know a thing or two." And when I left the school and college, to climb life's toilsome hill, I found my little store of knowledge would barely fill the bill. But nowadays the world moves quicker than in the long ago; old-fashioned methods make us snicker, they were so crude and slow. By sending seven wooden dollars to Messrs. Freaks and Freaks, they'll make our children finished scholars, and do it in three weeks. So let us close the schools and leave 'em to ruin and decay, and take the books and maps and heave 'em a million miles away; for now the kids take erudition in three-grain capsule form; the teacher loses the position that he so long kept warm.

_Duke and Plumber_

Samantha Arabella Luke has gone abroad and caught a duke--a nobleman of gilded ease, who has a standard blood disease. She'll build again his stately halls, and pay for papering the walls; she'll straighten up his park and grounds, and buy him nags to ride to hounds; she'll tear the checks from out her book, to pay the butler and the cook, whose wages have been in arrears for maybe twenty-seven years. In fifty ways she'll spend the scads, the good old rocks that were her dad's; and all the nobles in the land will greet her with the arctic hand, and snub her in her husband's lair, and pass her up with stony stare. And ere a year has run its course, the duke will hustle for divorce, and Arabella's tears will drop upon the marble floors, kerflop! Samantha's cousin, Mary Ann, has hooked up with the plumber man, a gent of industry and peace, whose face is often black with grease. They dwell together in a cot surrounded by a garden plot, and there she raises beans and tripe, while he is fixing valve and pipe. He takes his money, like a man, and hands it o'er to Mary Ann, and she is salting down his wage where it will help them in old age. O reader, who has made a fluke? Samantha with her pallid duke, or fat and sassy Mary Ann, who gathered in the plumber man?

_Human Hands_

There's the man whose hand is clammy as a fish that lately died, and to grasp it sends a shudder percolating through your hide, and you feel its cold impression in your muscles and your glands, and you wish he'd wear an oven on his blamed antarctic hands. There's the man with hands so horny that they feel like chunks of slate, and when he is shaking with you, you can feel them grind and grate; and he nearly breaks your fingers, and you mutter through your hat: "I would run them through a smelter if my hands were hard as that!" There's the man whose hands are always pawing, pawing while he talks; they are fussing with your whiskers, they are reaching for your socks; they are patting on your bosom, they are clawing on your arm, and you'd like to meet their owner on the Mrs. Gunness farm. There's the man whose hands are always sliding down into his jeans, to relieve some broken pilgrims of their miseries and pains; and such hands, that in their giving, never falter, never tire, in the golden time a-coming will be twanging at a lyre!

_The Lost Pipe_

Upon the joyous New Year's day I threw my briar pipe away. I said, with conscious rectitude: "The smoking habit's base and lewd; it taints the breath and soils the teeth, and often stains the chin beneath; the smoker's tongue is badly seared, and he has clinkers in his beard; of nicotine he is so full no self-respecting cannibull would eat him raw, well done or rare; and e'en his neckties and his hair, his hat, his breath, and trouserloons, suggest plug-cut and cuspitoons. And so I throw my pipe away, upon this gladsome New Year's day; my friends no more will have to choke and wheeze in my tobacco smoke." Since then the days drag slowly on; it seems as though ten years have gone; I walk the floor the long night through, and, jealous, watch the kitchen flue--for it can smoke and hold carouse, and not bust forty-seven vows; the cookstove makes my vitals gripe, for it can use its trusty pipe. Thus far I've kept the vow I swore, but do not tempt me any more; don't talk of cabbage on the place, or flaunt alfalfa in my face!

_Thanksgiving_

This one day let us forget all the little things that fret, all the little griefs and cares which are bringing us gray hairs; let's forget the evil thought, and the ill that others wrought; thinking only of the hand that has led us through a land smiling with a richer store than fair Canaan knew of yore. Let's forget to jeer and rail at the men who fight and fail; let's forget to criticise motes within our neighbors' eyes; thinking only of the hand that has led us through a land where the toiler gets reward; where no grasping overlord harries men with lash or chain, robbing them of brawn and brain. Let's forget malicious things; better is the heart that sings than the one that harbors hate, which is aye a killing weight. Let's forget the scowling brow; it's the time for gladness now! It's the time for well-stuffed birds, kindly smiles and cheerful words; it's a time to try to rise somewhat nearer to the skies, thinking only of a hand that will lead us to a land in the distances above, where the countersign is love.

_Sir Walter Raleigh_

Sir Walter Raleigh sat in jail, removed from strife and flurry; the light was dim, his bread was stale, and yet he didn't worry. He knew the headsman, grim and dour, with sleeves up-rolled and frock off, might come to him at any hour, and cut his blooming block off. He knew that he would evermore with dismal chains be laden, till he had traveled through the door that opens into Aidenn. To have his name wiped off the map King James was in a hurry; and yet--he was a dauntless chap!--he still refused to worry. Serenely he pursued his work, and wrote his lustrous pages, serenely as a smiling clerk who writes for weekly wages. And when the headsman came and said: "I hate the job, Sir Walter, but I must ask you for your head," the great man did not falter. "Gadzooks," quoth he, "and eke odsfish! Thou art a courteous shaver! Take off my head! I only wish I might return the favor!" And so the headsman swung the axe, beneath the sky of Surrey; Sir Walter died beneath his whacks, but still refused to worry!

_The Country Editor_

"O Come," I said, to the Printer Man, who edits the Weekly Swish, "a rest will do you a lot of good--so come to the creek and fish." "If you'll wait a while," said the Printer Man, "I'll toddle along, I think; but first I must write up some local dope, and open a can of ink, and carry in coal for the office stove, and mix up a lot of paste, and clean the grease from the printing press with a bushel of cotton waste, and set up an ad for the auctioneer, and throw in a lot of type, and hunt up a plumber and have him see what's clogging the waterpipe, and call on the doctor to have him soak the swellings upon my head, for I had it punched but an hour ago, for something the paper said--" "I fear," I said to the Printer Man, "if I wait till your chore list fails, the minnows that frolic along the creek will all be as large as whales!"

_Useless Griefs_

A hundred years ago and more, men wrung their hands, and walked the floor, and worried over this or that, and thought their cares would squash them flat. Where are those worried beings now? The bearded goat and festive cow eat grass above their mouldered bones, and jay birds call, in strident tones. And where the ills they worried o'er? Forgotten all, for ever more. Gone all the sorrow and the woe, that lived a hundred years ago! The grief that makes you scream today, like other griefs, will pass away; and when you've cashed your little string, and jay birds o'er your bosom sing, the stranger pausing there to view the marble works that cover you, will think upon the uselessness of human worry and distress. So let the worry business slide; live while you live, and when you've died, the folks will say, around your bier: "He made a hit while he was here!"

_Fairbanks' Whiskers_

Well may a startled nation mourn, with wailings greet the dawn, for Charlie's whiskers have been shorn--another landmark gone! No more, no more will robins nest within their lilac shade, for they are folded now and pressed, and with the mothballs laid. The zephyrs that have sobbed and sighed athwart that hangdown bunch, through other whiskers now must glide; they'll doubtless take the hunch. Vain world! This life's an empty boast, and gods have feet of clay; the things we love and honor most, are first to pass away. The world seems new at every dawn, seems new and queer, and strange; and we can scarce keep tab upon the ringing grooves of change. The changing sea, the changing land, are speaking of decay; "but Charlie's whiskers still will stand," we used to fondly say; "long may they dodge the glinting shears, and shining snickersnees, and may they brave a thousand years, the battle and the breeze! With Charlie's whiskers in the van, we'll fight and conquer yet, and show the world that there's one man, who's not a suffragette!" Vain dreams! Vain hopes! We now repine, and snort, and sweat, and swear; for Charlie's sluggers are in brine, and Charlie's chin is bare.

_Letting It Alone_

He used to take a flowing bowl perhaps three times a day; he needed it to brace his nerves, or drive the blues away, but as for chaps who drank too much, they simply made him tired; "a drink," he said, "when feeling tough, is much to be desired; some men will never quit the game while they can raise a bone, but I can drink the old red booze, or let the stuff alone." He toddled on the downward path, and seedy grew his clothes, and like a beacon in the night flamed forth his bulbous nose; he lived on slaw and sweitzer cheese, the free lunch brand of fruits, and when he sought his downy couch he always wore his boots; "some day I'll cut it out," he said; "my will is still my own, and I can hit the old red booze, or let the stuff alone." One night a prison surgeon sat by this poor pilgrim's side, and told him that his time had come to cross the great divide. "I've known you since you were a lad," the stern physician said, "and I have watched you as you tried to paint the whole world red, and if you wish, I'll have engraved upon your churchyard stone: 'He, dying, proved that he could let the old red booze alone.'"

_End of The Road_

Some day this heart will cease to beat; some day these worn and weary feet will tread the road no more; some day this hand will drop the pen, and never never write again those rhymes which are a bore. And sometimes, when the stars swing low, and mystic breezes come and go, with music in their breath, I think of Destiny and Fate, and try to calmly contemplate this bogie men call Death. Such thinking does not raise my hair; my cheerful heart declines to scare or thump against my vest; for Death, when all is said and done, is but the dusk, at set of sun, the interval of rest. But lines of sorrow mark my brow when I consider that my frau, when I have ceased to wink, will have to face a crowd of gents who're selling cheap tin monuments, and headstones made of zinc. And crayon portrait sharks will come, and make the house with language hum, and ply their deadly game; they will enlarge my photograph, attach a hand-made epitaph, and put it in a frame. They'll hang that horror on the wall, and then, when neighbors come to call, they'll view my crayon head, and wipe sad tears from either eye, and lean against the chairs, and cry: "How fortunate he's dead!"

_The Dying Fisherman_

Once a fisherman was dying in his humble, lowly cot, and the pastor sat beside him saying things that hit the spot, so that all his futile terrors left the dying sinner's heart, and he said: "The journey's lonely, but I'm ready for the start. There is just one little matter that is fretting me," he sighed, "and perhaps I'd better tell it ere I cross the Great Divide. I have got a string of stories that I've told from day to day; stories of the fish I've captured, and the ones that got away, and I fear that when I tell them they are apt to stretch a mile; and I wonder when I'm wafted to that land that's free from guile, if they'll let me tell my stories if I try to tell them straight, or will angels lose their tempers then, and chase me through the gate?" Then the pastor sat and pondered, for the question vexed him sore; never such a weird conundrum had been sprung on him before. Yet the courage of conviction moved him soon to a reply, and he wished to fill the fisher with fair visions of the sky: "You can doubtless tell fish stories," said the clergyman, aloud, "but I'd stretch them very little if old Jonah's in the crowd."

_George Meredith_

He wrote good books, and wrote in vain, and writing, wore out heart and brain. The few would buy his latest tome, and, filled with gladness, take it home, and read it through, from end to end, and lend it to some high-browed friend. The few would say it was a shame that George was scarcely in the game; that grocers, butlers, clerks and cooks would never read his helpful books, but blew themselves for "Deadwood Dick," and "Howling Hank from Bitter Creek," "The Bandit That Nick Carter Caught," and Laura Libbey's tommyrot. Alas! It is a bitter thing! We'd rather have a Zenda king, or hold, with Sinclair, coarse carouse, in some Chicago packing house, or wade, with Weyman, to our knees, in yarns of swords and snickersnees, or trek with Haggard to the veldt, where Zulus seek each other's pelt, than buy a volume, learned and deep, and o'er it yawn ourselves to sleep!

_The Smart Children_

The other night I took a walk, and called on Jinx, across the block. The home of Jinx was full of boys and girls and forty kinds of noise. Dad Jinx was good, and kind, and straight; he let the children go their gait; he never spoke a sentence cross, he never showed that he was boss, and so his home, as neighbors know, was like the Ringling wild beast show. We tried to talk about the crops; the children raised their fiendish yawps; they hunted up a Thomas cat, and placed it in my stovepipe hat; they jarred me with a carpet tack, and poured ice water down my back; my long coat tails they set afire, and this aroused my slumb'ring ire. I rose, majestic in my wrath, and through those children mowed a path, I smote them sorely, hip and thigh, and piled them in the woodshed nigh; I threw their father in the well, and fired his cottage, with a yell. Some rigid moralists, I hear, have said my course was too severe, but their rebukes can not affright--my conscience tells me I was right.

_The Journey_

A little work, a little sweating, a few brief, flying years; a little joy, a little fretting, some smiles and then some tears; a little resting in the shadow, a struggle to the height, a futile search for El Dorado, and then we say Good Night. Some moiling in the strife and clangor, some years of doubt and debt, some words we spoke in foolish anger that we would fain forget; some cheery words we said unthinking, that made a sad heart light; the banquet, with its feast and drinking--and then we say Good Night. Some questioning of creeds and theories, and judgment of the dead, while God, who never sleeps or wearies, is watching overhead; some little laughing and some sighing, some sorrow, some delight; a little music for the dying, and then we say Good Night.

_Times Have Changed_

The maiden lingered in her bower, within her fathers stately tower--it was four hundred years ago--her lover came, o'er cliff and scar, and twanged the strings of his guitar, and sang his love songs, soft and low. He said her breath was like the breeze that wandered over flowery leas, her cheeks were lovely as the rose; her eyes were stars, from heaven torn, and she was guiltless of a corn upon her sweet angelic toes. For hours and hours his songs were sung, until a puncture spoiled a lung, and then of course he had to quit; but Arabella from her room would shoot a smile that lit the gloom, and gave him a conniption fit. Then homeward would the lover hie, as happy as an August fly upon a bald man's shining head; and Arabella's heart would swell with happiness too great to tell; ah me, those good old times are dead! Just let a modern lover scheme to win the damsel of his dream by punching tunes from his guitar! In silver tones she'd jeer and scoff; she'd call to him: "Come off! come off! where is your blooming motor car?"

_My Little Dog_

My little dog dot is a sassy pup, and I scold him in savage tones, for he keeps the garden all littered up with feathers and rags and bones. He drags dead cats for a half a mile, and sometimes a long-dead hen; and when I have carted away the pile, he builds it all up again. He howls for hours at the beaming moon, and thinks it a Melba chore; and neighbors who list to his throbbing tune, rear up in the air and roar. And often I hand down this stern decree: "This critter will have to die." And he puts his paws on my old fat knee, and turns up a loving eye; and he wags his tail, and he seems to say: "You're almost too fat to walk, and your knees are sprung and your whiskers gray, and your picture would stop a clock; some other doggies might turn you down--some dogs that are proud and grand, but you are the best old boss in town; I love you to beat the band!" And he bats his eye and he wags his tail, conveying this kindly thought; and I'd rather live out my days in jail, than injure that derned dog Dot!

_Harry Thurston Peck_

He's so familiar with the great, this Harry Thurston Peck, that every man of high estate has wept upon his neck. The poet Browning pondered deep the things that Harry said; Lord Tennyson was wont to sleep in Harry's cattle-shed. When Ibsen wrote, he wildly cried: "My life will be a wreck, if this, my drama, is denied, the praise of Thurston Peck!" Said Kipling, in his better days: "What use is my renown, since Harry scans my blooming lays, and blights them with a frown?" The poet, when his end draws near, cries: "Death brings no alarms, if I, in that grim hour of fear, may die in Harry's arms." And, being dead, his spirit knows no shade of doubt or gloom, if Harry plants a little rose upon his humble tomb. Poor Shakespeare and those elder bards, who haunt the blessed isles, were born too soon for such rewards as Harry Thurston's smiles. But joy will lighten their despair, and flood the realms of space, for Harry Peck will join them there--they'll see him face to face!

_Tired Man's Sleep_

Now the long, long day is fading, and the hush of dusk is here, and the stars begin parading, each one in its distant sphere; and the city's strident voices dwindle to a gentle hum, and the heart of man rejoices that the hour of rest has come. Thrown away is labor's fetter, when the day has reached its close; nothing in the world is better than a weary man's repose. Nothing in the world is sweeter than the sleep the toiler finds, while the ravening moskeeter fusses at the window blinds. Nothing 'neath the moon can wake him, short of cannon cracker's roar; if you'd rouse him you must shake him till you dump him on the floor. Idle people seek their couches, seek their beds to toss and weep, for a demon on them crouches, driving from their eyes the sleep. And the weary hours they number, and they cry, in tones distraught: "For a little wad of slumber, I would give a house and lot!" When the long, long day is dying, and you watch the twinkling stars, knowing that you'll soon be lying, sleeping like a train of cars, be, then, thankful, without measure; be as thankful as you can; you have nailed as great a treasure as the gods have given man!

_Tomorrow_

"Tomorrow," said the languid man, "I'll have my life insured, I guess; I know it is the safest plan, to save my children from distress." And when the morrow came around, they placed him gently in a box; at break of morning he was found as dead as Julius Caesar's ox. His widow now is scrubbing floors, and washing shirts, and splitting wood, and doing fifty other chores, that she may rear her wailing brood. "Tomorrow," said the careless jay, "I'll take an hour, and make my will; and then if I should pass away, the wife and kids will know no ill." The morrow came, serene and nice, the weather mild, with signs of rain; the careless jay was placed on ice, embalming fluid in his brain. Alas, alas, poor careless jay! The lawyers got his pile of cash; his wife is toiling night and day, to keep the kids in clothes and hash. Tomorrow is the ambushed walk avoided by the circumspect. Tomorrow is the fatal rock on which a million ships are wrecked.

_Toothache_

Now my weary heart is breaking, for my left hand tooth is aching, with a harsh, persistent rumble that is keeping folks awake; hollowed out by long erosion, it, with spasm and explosion, seems resolved to show the public how a dog-gone tooth can ache. Now it's quivering or quaking; now it's doing fancy aching, then it shoots some Roman candles which go whizzing through my brain; now it does some lofty tumbling, then again it's merely grumbling; and anon it's showing samples of spring novelties in pain. All the time my woe increases; I have kicked a chair to pieces, but it didn't seem to soothe me or to bring my soul relief; I have stormed around the shanty till my wife and maiden auntie said they'd pull their freight and leave me full enjoyment of my grief. I have made myself so pleasant that I'm quarantined at present, and the neighbors say they'll shoot me if I venture from my door; now a voice cries: "If thou'd wentest in the first place, to a dentist--" it is strange that inspiration never came to me before!

_Auf Wiedersehen_

"Farewell," I said, to the friend I loved, and my eyes were filled with tears; "I know you'll come to my heart again, in a few brief, hurried years!" Ah, many come up the garden path, and knock at my cottage door, but the friend I loved when my heart was young, comes back to that heart no more. "Farewell!" I cried to the gentle bird, whose music had filled the dawn; "you fly away, but you'll sing again, when the winter's snows are gone." Ah, the bright birds sway on the apple-boughs, and sing as they sang before; but the bird I loved, with the golden voice, shall sing to my heart no more! "Farewell!" I said to the Thomas Cat, I threw in the gurgling creek, all weighted down with a smoothing iron, and a hundredweight of brick. "You'll not come back, if I know myself, from the silent, sunless shore!" Then I journeyed home, and that blamed old cat was there by the kitchen door!

_After The Game_

When I cash in, and this poor race is run, my chores performed, and all my errands done, I know that folks who mock my efforts here, will weeping bend above my lowly bier, and bring large garlands, worth three bucks a throw, and paw the ground in ecstasy of woe. And friends will wear crape bow-knots on their tiles, while I look down (or up) a million miles, and wonder why those people never knew how smooth I was until my spirit flew. When I cash in I will not care a yen for all the praise that's heaped upon me then; serene and silent, in my handsome box, I shall not heed the laudatory talks, and all the pomp and all the vain display, will just be pomp and feathers thrown away. So tell me now, while I am on the earth, your estimate of my surprising worth; O tell me what a looloo-bird I am, and fill me full of taffy and of jam!

_Nero's Fiddle_

We have often roasted Nero that he played the violin, while his native Rome was burning and the firemen raised a din; there he sat and played "Bedelia," heedless of the fiery storm, while the fire chief pranced and sweated in his neat red uniform. And I often think that Nero had a pretty level head; would the fire have been extinguished had he fussed around instead? Would the fire insurance folks have loosened up a shekel more, had old Nero squirted water on some grocer's cellar door? When there comes a big disaster, people straightway lose their wits; they go round with hands a-wringing, sweating blood and throwing fits; but the wise man sits and fiddles, plays a tune from end to end, for it never pays to worry over things you cannot mend. It is good to offer battle when catastrophes advance, it is well to keep on scrapping while a fellow has a chance; but when failure is as certain as the coming of the dusk, then it's wise to take your fiddle and fall back on "Money Musk."

_The Real Terror_

If you should chance to mention Death, most men will have a grouch; and yet to die is nothing more than going to your couch, when you have done your little stunt, performed the evening chores, wound up the clock, blown out the light, and put the cat outdoors. The good old world jogged smoothly on before you had your fling; and it will jog as smoothly on when you have cashed your string. King Death himself is good and kind; he always does his best to soothe the heart that's sorrowful, and give the weary rest; but there are evils in his train that daunt the stoutest soul, and one of them may serve to end this cheerful rigmarole. I always have a haunting dread that when I come to die, the papers of the town will tell how some insurance guy, paid up the money that was due to weeping kin of mine, before the funeral procesh had fallen out of line; and thus they'll use me for an ad, some Old Line Life to boom, before I've had a chance to get acquainted with my tomb!

_The Talksmiths_

In the hour of stress, when the outlook's blue, and the nation's in a box, there's always a statesman, strong and true, who comes to the front and talks. If wind would banish the ills we see, and drive all our troubles hence, then the talksmith's tongue would our bulwark be, and his larynx our chief defense. We groan and sweat at the forge and mill, to see that our tax is paid, and the money all goes to pay the bill for the noise in congress made. Wherever you go the talksmith stands, with his winning smile and smirk, and busts the welkin and waves his hands--but doesn't get down to work. Ah, well, my friends, we shall scrape and peck along till the judgment day, when the talksmith climbs on the old world's wreck, and talks till he burns away!

_Woman's Progress_

It is woman's firm ambition to attain a high position, and he surely is a caitiff who regrets to see her rise; I for one will hand her praises, load her down with cheering phrases, if, in seeking higher levels, she does not neglect the pies. Let her study art and science, read up Blackstone and his clients, soak herself in Kant or Browning and the truth that in them lies; she may dote on Keats or Ruddy--if she doesn't cease to study worthy books and able pamphlets treating of uplifting pies. Now and then my spirit, shrinking, gets to doubting, brooding, thinking that the pies we have at present are not like the pies of yore; modern dames are good at making crusts for pies, and good at baking, but they buy the stuff to fill them at the nearest grocer's store. Are our pies as good as ever? Do our modern dames endeavor to produce the pie triumphant, pies that make us better men? If they do, then who would chide them, who would blame them or deride them, if they turn from pies and cookies to their Ibsen books again?

_The Magic Mirror_

I went one night with my high-priced thirst to loaf in the booze bazar, and as I sampled the old red dope I leaned on the handsome bar. My purse was full of the good long green, and my raiment was smooth and new, and I looked as slick as a cabbage rose that's kissed by the nice wet dew. Behind the bottles a mirror stood, as large as your parlor floor, and I looked and looked in the shining glass, and wondered, and looked some more. My own reflection did not appear, but there where it should have been, I saw the form of a cringing bum all crumpled and soaked with gin. His nose was red and his eyes were dim, unshorn was his swollen face, and I thought it queer such a seedy bo would come to so smooth a place. I turned around for a better look at this effigy of despair, and nearly fell in a little heap, for the effigy wasn't there! The barkeep laughed. "It's the Magic Glass," he said, with a careless yawn; "it shows a man how he's apt to look years hence when his roll is gone!"

_The Misfit Face_

A certain man, who lived some place, was gifted with a misfit face; when Nature built his mug she broke all rules and tried to play a joke; of pale red hair he had a thatch, his eyes were green and didn't match; his nose was pug, his chin was weak, and freckles grew on either cheek, and sorrel whiskers fringed his chop, too thin to ever make a crop. And people, when they first beheld his countenance, just stopped and yelled. But when they'd known him for a while, and marked his glad and genial smile; when passing time had made them wise to all the kindness in those eyes; and when they found that from his face there came no sayings mean or base, that misfit mug they'd often scan, and cry: "He is a handsome man!"

_A Dog Story_

A large black dog, of stately mien, was walking o'er the village green, on some important errand bent; a little cur, not worth a cent, observed him passing by, and growled, and barked a while, and yapped, and howled. The big one did not deign a look, but walked along, like prince or dook. The cur remarked, beneath its breath: "That big four-flusher's scared to death! Those great big brutes are never game; now just watch Fido climb his frame!" The big black dog went stalking on, as calm and tranquil as the dawn; he knew the cur was at his heels; he heard its yaps and snarls and squeals, and yet he never looked around, or blinked an eye, or made a sound; his meditations had a tone that mangy pups have never known. The cur, unnoticed, lost all fear; it grabbed the big dog by the ear; the latter paused just long enough to take the small one by the scruff, and shake him gently to and fro; and then he let poor Fido go, and said, in quiet tones: "Now get!" And Fido's doubtless running yet. Suppose you see if you can nail the moral hidden in this tale.

_The Pitcher_

I'd like to be a Pitcher, and on the Diamond stand, a cap upon my Forehead, a Ball within my Hand. Before Applauding Thousands, I'd throw the Curving Sphere, and From the eyes of Batsmen, bring forth the Briny Tear. I'd make my Occupation a thing of Pomp and Dread, I'd tie Myself in Bow-Knots, and stand upon my Head; a string of wild Contortions would mark my Every Throw, and all the Fans would Murmur: "Oh, Girls, ain't he a Jo?" And when I left the Diamond, on Rest or Pleasure bent, the Kids would trail behind me, and Worship as they went; and all the Sporty Grownups would say: "He's Warm Enough!" and fair and Cultured Ladies would cry: "He is the Stuff!" I'd like to be a Pitcher, while I Remain Below; by day to Gather Garlands, by night to Count the Dough.

_Lions and Ants_

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame. Once that hunter, absent-minded, sat upon a hill of ants, and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance! And he used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint, and apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print. And it's thus with wordly troubles; when the big ones come along, we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts, put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts.

_The Nameless Dead_

We only know they fought and died, and o'er their graves the wind has sighed, for many a long, slow-footed year; and winter's snow has drifted here; and in the dawning warmth of spring the joyous birds came here to sing; we only know that rest is sweet to weary hearts and toiling feet, and they who sleep beneath the sod gave all they had to give to God. And in the radiance of the Throne, their names are known--their names are known! We know not from what homes they came; we can but guess their dreams of fame; but lamps for them did vainly burn, and mothers waited their return, and listened, at some cottage door, for steps that sounded never more; and loving eyes grew dim with tears, and hearts grew old with grief of years. And here they sleep, as they have slept, since legions o'er the country swept; where mothers wait before the Throne, their names are known--their names are known!

_Ambition_

When I hear a noble singer reeling off entrancing noise, then I bend in admiration, and his music never cloys. And I feel a high ambition as a singer to excel, and I put my voice in training, and I prance around and yell; oh, I dish up trills and warbles, and I think, throughout the day, that I'll have Caruso faded ere a month has rolled away. Then the neighbors come and see me, and they give me stern reproof, saying I am worse than forty yellow cats upon the roof. When I see a splendid painting it appeals to brain and heart, and I blow myself for brushes and decide to follow Art. With a can of yellow ochre and a jug of turpentine, I produce some masterpieces that would make old Rubens pine, and I talk about Perspective and the whatness of the whence, till a neighbor comes and asks me what I'll take to paint his fence. When I read a rattling volume I invest in pens and ink, and prepare to write some chapters that will make the nation think; and I rear some Vandyke whiskers and neglect to cut my hair, and I read up Bulwer Lytton for some good old oaths to swear; when I get the proper bearing, and the literary style, then I'm asked to write a pamphlet booming some one's castor ile!

_Night's Illusions_

At night you seek your downy bed, and ere you sink to sleep and dreams, that strange machine you call your head is full of weird and wondrous schemes; they seem too grand and great to fail; they'll fill your treasury with dough; but morning shows them flat and stale--I often wonder why 'tis so. At eve you are a blithesome soul, your future is the one good bet; you gaily quaff the flowing bowl, or dance the stately minuet; your joy's obtrusive and intense; but morning finds you full of woe; you'd sell yourself for twenty cents--I often wonder why 'tis so. At night you walk beneath the stars, and high ambitions fill your soul; you'll batter down opposing bars, and fight your way, and win the goal; but morning passes you the ice, your visions fade, your spirit's low; you spend the long day shaking dice--I often wonder why 'tis so. At night you think of things sublime, and inspiration fills your heart; you think you'll write a deathless rhyme, or cut a swath in realms of art; but morning finds you looking sick; you feel you haven't any show; you dig some bait and seek the creek--I often wonder why 'tis so.

_Before and After_

Before the fight the bruiser said: "I'll surely kill that aleck dead! He thinks he has a chance with me! His gall is beautiful to see. His friends are betting quite a stack, and say that I cannot come back. I'm better now, I say right here, than ever in my great career; I'm sound and good in wind and limb, and I will put the lid on him. Just take it from me, take it straight; I'm fit to lick a hundredweight of wildcats, wolves or rattlesnakes; I'll whip him in a brace of shakes!" The fight was o'er; the bruiser sat, his head too large to fit his hat, his eyes bunged up, his teeth knocked in; he muttered, with a swollen grin: "Well, yes, he licked me, that blamed ape! But I was badly out of shape; I didn't train the way I should; my knees were stiff, my wind no good; I had lumbago and the gout--no wonder that he knocked me out! But just you wait ten years or more! I'm after that four-flusher's gore! When I have rested for a spell, and when my face is good and well, I'll spring a challenge good and hard, and whip him in his own back yard!"

_Luther Burbank_

The wizard of the garden, the scientist who found a way to raise a peartree with branches underground, who gave us boneless pumpkins and non-explosive peas, and gutta-percha lettuce, and beets that grow on trees--this wizard of the garden, with venom is assailed, by lesser lights of science, who tried his stunts and failed. And thus it was forever, and thus 'twill always be; the man who wins must suffer the shafts of calumny. We're mostly small potatoes, we critters here on earth; we kick at big achievements, we snarl at sterling worth; we view the greater triumphs of industry and art, and if we find no blemish, it nearly breaks our heart. Go on, O Luther Burbank, the Wizard of the West! Heed not the hoots of people by jealousy oppressed; send forth your sea-green roses, to scent a thousand Junes, produce your horseless radish, and double action prunes!

_Governed Too Much_

I love the sun and the gentle breeze, and the brook that winds through the pleasant vale; and I love the birds, and I love the trees, and I'm always glad when I'm out of jail. We are governed now by so many laws that liberty's dead, and we've heard its knell, and the wise man carries a set of saws, to cut his way from a prison cell. The grocer wails in a dungeon deep, for he sold an egg that was out of date; the baker's fetters won't let him sleep, a loaf of his bread was under weight. The butcher beats at his prison door, and fills the air with his doleful moan; they'll cut off his head when the night is o'er, for he sold a steak that was mostly bone. The milkman's there in the prison yard, and the jailers flog him and make him jump; it seems to me that his fate is hard, though he did draw milk from the old home pump. A sickly weed, that was lank and thin, embellished my lot, at the edge of town, and the peelers nabbed me and ran me in, because I neglected to cut it down. I dropped a can as I crossed the park, and that is a crime that's against the law; so they shut me up in a dungeon dark, with its rusty chains and its moldy straw. I love the brook and the summer breeze, and I'm rather mashed on the howling gale; and I'm fond of robins and bumblebees, and I'm always glad when I'm out of jail.

_Success In Life_

The hero of this simple tale was born of parents beastly poor; they toiled and wrought without avail to scrape a living from the moor. Our hero early made resolve that he would strive for greater heights; "let others in these ruts revolve, and carry on their puny fights; to gather wealth, to live in state, is all that makes this life worth while; and when I'm grown I'll pull my freight, and try to raise a mighty pile." His dreams came true, in every way, as visions came, in days of old; he took no time for rest or play, but gathered in fat, yellow gold. By steady steps our hero rose, to heights of usefulness and fame; he put the kibosh on his foes, and held the ace in every game. He laughed at figtrees and at vines, and all domestic, trifling things; he owned some railways and some mines, and was among the copper kings. But why detail his glories so? Why should we try to count his dimes? It is enough for us to know he's been indicted twenty times.

_The Hookworm Victim_

He was a mournful looking wreck, with yellow face and scrawny neck, and weary eyes that looked as though they had monopoly of woe. Too tired to get his labors done, all day he loitered in the sun, and filled the air with yawns and moans, while people called him Lazybones. One day the doctor came, and said: "Brace up, my friend! Hold up your head! The hookworm, deadly as an asp, has got you in its loathsome grasp! But I will break the hookworm lose, and cook its everlasting goose! Swing wide your mouth, and do not cringe--" and then he took his big syringe, and shot about a quart of dope, that tasted like a bar of soap, adown the patient's yawning throat--"I guess I got that hookworm's goat!" One gasping breath the patient drew, and bit a lightning rod in two, and vaulted o'er his cottage roof; and then, on nimble, joyous hoof, he sped across the windswept plain, and burned a school, and robbed a train. The doctor watched his patient streak across the landscape, sere and bleak, and said: "It makes my bosom warm! What wonders Science can perform!"

_Alfred Austin_

O Alfred, of the withered bays and harp of nice clean celluloid, why do you spend the passing days in singing of an aching void? Why sing a roundelay that means no more than Choctaw to a Turk? Is it because the magazines will pay you kopecks for your work? O Alfred, of the bloodless rhyme, that savors more of milk than fire, bethink you of the olden time when poets really smote the lyre, producing strains of noble swell, that touched and stirred the hearts of all, and made the soulful people yell, and bat their heads against the wall! We listen to the songs you croon among the fogs across the sea; your poor old harp is out of tune, its strings were made in Germany. Far better poets roam the hills of this fair land, and feed on hope and write wild songs of liver pills, or Jimson's Non-Explosive Soap.

_Weary Old Age_