Chapter III: Part 3

It was a bent and ancient man who toiled with spade and pick, and down his haggard features ran the sweatdrops, rolling thick. And, as he toiled, his gasping sighs spoke darkly of despair; a hopeless look was in his eyes, a look of grief and care. He toiled, all heedless of the crowd that journeyed to and fro; "it is a shame," I said, aloud, "that Age should suffer so." He overheard me, and he said: "I earned this fate, in truth; when young I stained the landscape red; I was a Gilded Youth. I bought the merchandise that's wet, I fooled with games of chance; and now, in misery and sweat, I wear the name of Pance. I was a rounder and a sport, a spender and a blood, and now, when I loom up in court, my only name is Mud. I filled my years with gorgeous breaks, I thought my life a game; I threw my money to the drakes, and wallowed deep in shame. I used to hate the sissy-boys, those molly-coddle lads, who were content with milder joys, and salted down the scads; and now I see them passing by, in opulence and ease, while I, too luckless e'en to die, am doing tasks like these. Sometimes, in racking dreams I see the money that I burned; but do not waste your tears on me--I'm getting what I earned!"

_Lullaby_

Darling, hush! your tears are welling from your azure angel eyes, but you'll do no good by yelling; hush, my baby, dear, be wise! I would give the soothing syrup that you want, to quell this storm, but I fear that it would stir up trouble in your darling form. Once I prized that syrup highly, thinking it was just the stuff, but I wrote to Dr. Wiley, and he says it's bad enough. Once the doctor, also, prized it, but he found, O baby fair, after he had analyzed it, that an ounce would kill a bear. It's supposed to cure the colic, and to check the infant spleen, but it's strongly alcoholic, and contains some Paris green; it has killed a frightful number, and will kill a legion more; sleep, my darling, sleep and slumber, while your daddy walks the floor!

_The School-marm_

The teacher in the country school, expounding lesson, sum and rule, and teaching children how to rise to heights where lasting honor lies, deserves a fat and handsome wage, for she's a triumph of this age. No better work than hers is done beneath the good old shining sun; she builds the future of the state; she guides the youths who will be great; she gives the childish spirit wings, and points the way to noble things. And we, who do all things so well, and of our "institooshuns" yell, reward the teacher with a roll that brings a shudder to her soul. We have our coin done up in crates, and gladly hand it to the skates who fuss around in politics and fool us with their time-worn tricks. In Congress one cheap common jay will loaf a week, and draw more pay than some tired teacher, toiling near, will ever see in half a year. If I was running this old land, I'd have a lot of statesmen canned; and congressmen, and folks like those, would have to work for board and clothes; I'd put the lid on scores of snaps, and pour into the teachers' laps the wealth that now away is sinned, for words and wigglejaws and wind.

_Poe_

Into this world, the poet Poe was born a hundred years ago; and in this world he lived and wrought, alone, and, understanding not; his feet toiled through this vale of tears; his spirit roamed in other spheres. A dreamer from Parnassus hurled, into a sordid workday world, where gold the god of all things seems, and men who dream must live on dreams. And so, with shades the poet talked, and so with ghosts the poet walked, and watched, with Psyche hand in hand, a world he could not understand.

_Gay Parents_

The children of our neighborhood don't train their parents as they should; they let the latter go their gait, and do not try to keep them straight, and so those giddy parents roam, at sinful hours, away from home. They try to cheer their foolish hearts, joy-riding in the devil-carts; or you will find, when they are missed, that they are playing bridge or whist, or wasting all the golden day in some absurd and useless way. When I was young I seldom saw a sporty pa or giddy ma; the children of that elder day had parents tutored to obey; the mothers seldom left their tubs to fool around at euchre clubs, and fathers, when the day was dead, took off their rags and went to bed. Ah, seldom then were children seen, with furrowed brow and sombre mien, distraught by galivanting dads, or mas who played the cards for scads! O children, to yourselves be true! Round up the galivanting crew of parents who are trotting fast, before it is too everlast--ing late to give the bunch a chance; come forth, O children, from your trance!

_Dad_

Dad is growing old and weary and there's silver in his hair, and his eyes are always solemn, he has seen so much of care; he has seen so much of sorrow, he has known so much of tears, he has borne the heat and burden of so many bitter years! Dad's already in the twilight of life's little fleeting day, and perhaps we'll often ponder, when his load is laid away, on the steps we might have saved him when his feet and hands were sore, on the joy we might have given to the heart that beats no more. We'll recall a hundred errands that we might have gladly run, and a hundred kindly actions that we might have gaily done; we'll remember how he labored, while the boys were all at play, when the darkness hides him from us at the closing of the day.

_John Bunyan_

The village Marshal, watchful wight, was bound to hold his job down right. He saw John Bunyan running loose, and put him in the calaboose. Now John, the tinker, had renown for jarring up the little town, and all the local sages said that he would never die in bed. But when he found himself in soak, he said: "The sporting life's no joke; here's where I cut it out and strive to show the world that I'm alive." And in that dark and dismal den he sat, with paper, ink and pen, and wrote the book that people hold as being worth its weight in gold. The job was hard; in cells beneath, they heard the grinding of his teeth; whene'er he wrote a sentence wise, he had to stop and swat the flies; the grub was poor, the water foul, the jailer sombre as an owl; the jail was full of dirt and dust, the chains he wore were brown with rust. Yet through it all, by hook or crook, he toiled and wrote his matchless book! O, authors of the present day, whose books are dry as bales of hay, who grind "best sellers" by the ton, which last from rise till set of sun, who roll in comfort and ice cream, dictating stories by the ream, try Bunyan's plan--it may avail--and write a masterpiece in jail!

_A Near Anthem_

My country, beauteous land! I'll sing, if you will stand, a song to thee! My harp is rather coarse, my voice is somewhat hoarse, yet will I try to force some melody. Fair land that saw my birth, gem of the whole blamed earth, hark to my screeds! Tell me, O tell me why prices have soared so high that man can scarcely buy things that he needs. Things that a man must eat--lemons and prunes and meat--cost like Sam Hill; carpets and rugs and mats, neckties and shoes and hats, shirting to hide his slats, empty his till. All through the week I work, like an unlaundered Turk, for a few bucks; no odds how hard I try, of wealth I'm always shy, and when I travel I ride on the trucks. They say that half a plunk bought more and better junk, in the old days, than will two bones or more, in the big modern store, since prices learned to soar, five hundred ways. My country, hear my word! You are a hummingbird, also a peach! Splendid in peace and war, thou most effulgent star--tell me why prices are clear out of reach!

_The Yellow Cord_

When a tiresome Chinese statesman bores his queen or overlord, he receives a little package that contains a yellow cord; and the statesman realizes that it is no use to roar, so he hangs himself in silence to the nearest sycamore. Let us borrow from the wisdom of the rulers of Cathay! Let us put this grand old custom into common use today! Let the President distribute samples of the saffron string, to the statesmen who have bored us since the early days of spring, with their figures and statistics and their buncombe and hot air, and their misfit oratory which won't lead us anywhere. We might all, perhaps, be rescued, from an ordeal that's abhorred, if Big Bill would send the talkers twenty feet of yellow cord!

_The Important Man_

You know the man of kingly air? You run across him everywhere. He seems to think his hat a crown; he talks as though he handed down most all the wisdom that the seers have gathered in a thousand years. His dignity is most sublime; to joke about him is a crime, and when you meet him it is wise to lift your hat and close your eyes; and it would please him if you'd just lie down and grovel in the dust. That is the wiser course, I say, but I'm a feeble-minded jay, and when I meet the swelled-up man, I jolly him the best I can; I would to him the fact recall that he's but mortal, after all. He's naught but bones and legs and trunk, and lungs and lights, and kindred junk; he breathes the same old germy air that's breathed by hoboes everywhere. And when he dies, as die he must, he'll make as cheap a grade of dust as any Richard Roe in town; the monument that holds him down may tell his glories for a while, but folks will read it with a smile, and say: "That dead one must have thought that he was Johnnie on the spot, when he was on this earthly shore; I never heard of him before."

_Toddling Home_

A thousand cares oppress the mind, in life's long summer day; we weary of the galling grind, and endless seems the way. The journey's really not so long; we have not far to roam; and soon we'll hear the evensong, and then we'll toddle home. Our burdens seem an awful pile, and yet they're not so great; if we would pack them with a smile, we would not feel the weight. We murmur as we hold the plow, and guide it through the loam; but dusk is coming, even now, and soon we'll toddle home. We see a cloud of sullen gray, and straightway we repine; "the storm is rising fast," we say, "the sun no more will shine." But in a space his golden beams will light the azure dome, until shall come the time for dreams, and then we'll toddle home. No trouble lasts if we are brave, and take a manly stand; and Fear becomes a cringing slave, if we but raise a hand; the evil that disturbs our rest is but a shadow gnome; the sun is sinking in the west, and soon we'll toddle home. Then let us toddle home as gay as birds, that never weep; as glad as children, tired of play, who only wish to sleep; and while Recording Angels write our names in heaven's tome, we'll seek our couch, and say good night when we have toddled home.

_Trifling Things_

The Wise Man, with some boys in tow, beheld a pin upon the ground. "My lads," he said, his face aglow, "come here and see what I have found! 'Tis but a pin, a humble pin, on which the passing thousands tread, and some unthinking men would grin, to see me lift it from its bed. And yet, my lads, the trifles count; the drops of water make the sea; the grains of sand compose the mount, and moments make eternity. Each hour to man its chances brings, but he will gain no goodly store, if he despises little things, nor sees the pin upon his floor. I stoop and grasp this little pin; I'll keep it, maybe, seven years; it yet may let the sunshine in, and brighten up a day of tears." The Wise Man bent to reach the pin, and lost his balance, with a yell; he hit the pavement with his chin; his hat into the gutter fell; he rolled into a crate of eggs, and filled the air with dismal moans, and then a dray ran o'er his legs, and broke about a gross of bones. They took him home upon a door, and there he moans--so tough he feels: "Those dad-blamed children never more will listen to my helpful spiels!"

_Trusty Dobbin_

They doom you, Dobbin, now and then, they say your usefulness is gone; some blame fool thing designed by men has put the equine race in pawn. They doomed you, and your hopes were low, when bicycles were all the rage; they said: "The horse will have to go--he lags superfl'ous on the stage!" They doomed you when the auto-car was given its resplendent birth. "Thus sinks the poor old horse's star--he'll have to beat it from the earth!" And now they're dooming you some more, there are so many motor things; men scorch the earth with sullen roar, or float around on hardware wings. They doom you, Dobbin, now and then, and call you has-been, and the like; but while this world is breeding men, the horse will still be on the pike. No painted thing of cogs and wheels and entrails made of noisy brass can e'er supplant a horse's heels, or make man grudge a horse his grass. No man-made trap of bars and springs can love or confidence impart, nor give the little neigh that brings emotion to the horseman's heart. O build your cars and ships and planes, and doom old Dobbin as you will! While men have souls and hearts and brains, old Dobbin shall be with us still!

_The High Prices_

At the hash-works where I board, but one topic now prevails: "How the price of grub has soared!" Drearily the landlord wails. In his old, accustomed place, he is sitting, at each meal; sad and corpse-like is his face, as he carves his ancient veal. When I ask that solemn jay, if he'll pass the butter 'round, "butter costs," I hear him say, "almost half a bone a pound." When I want a slice of duck, his expression is a sin; "this thin drake cost me a buck, and the quacks were not thrown in." Through the muddy coffee's steam, I can hear him saying now: "I desired a pint of cream, and they charged me for a cow." "Let me have some beans," I cried--I was hungry as could be; "sure!" he wearily replied; "shall I give you two, or three? Beans," he said, "long years ago, of rank cheapness were the signs; now they cost three scads a throw--and you do not get the vines." Once, at morn, I wished an egg, and the landlord had a swoon; with his head soaked in a keg, he regained his mind by noon; "once," he moaned, "an egg was cheap; times have changed, alas! since then; now the price would make you weep--and they don't throw in the hen!"

_Omar Khayyam_

Omar, of the golden pen, come, O come to us again! 'Neath thy fig-tree and thy vine, with thy bread and jug of wine, seat thyself again, and write, in the caustic vein, or light. Thou who swatted many heads, tore so many fakes to shreds, made the ancient humbugs hump, kept the wise guys on the jump--come, great Omar, from the mists, come and swat thy parodists! Come and give the rhymesters fits--all the jingling, grass-fed wits, who profane thy noble verse; come and place them in the hearse! They who love the Khayyam strain, treasure from a master's brain, satire keen as tested steel--they who love old Omar feel that the imitative crew should receive the wages due, be rewarded for their toil with a bath in boiling oil. But the law is in the way; if the poets we should slay, we'd be pulled by the police for disturbance of the peace. Come, then, Omar, from the shade, where thou hast too long delayed, and with sundry skillful twists, wipe out all those parodists.

_The Grouch_

It's all very well to be nursing a grouch, when everything travels awry, and you haven't the pieces-of-eight in your pouch to pay for a cranberry pie; it's all very well to use language galore, and cover your whiskers with foam; you may prance around town with a head that is sore--but it's beastly to carry it home! You may be discouraged and worn by the strife; then make all your kicks on the street, for the man who will wear out his grouch on his wife, isn't fit for a cannibal's meat; if troubles and worries are beating you down, and bringing gray hairs to your dome, 'twill do in the office to carry a frown, but it's ghoulish to carry it home! The Lord, who made sparrows and Katy H. Dids, loves the man who is stalwart and brave, who cheerily goes to his wife and his kids, though his hopes may be fit for the grave; but the Lord has no use for the twenty-cent skate, whose courage is weak as the foam; who piles up his sorrows, and shoulders the weight, and carefully carries it home!

_The Pole_

I'm glad I didn't find the Pole, up there where Arctic billows roll. When first I heard the Pole was lost, for one brief day my wires were crossed; I said: "Methinks I'd better go across the weary wastes of snow, along the white bear's lonely track, and find the Pole, and bring it back. Thus shall I scale the heights of fame, and grow sidewhiskers on my name. I'll be a bigger man than Taft; I'll work the soft Chautauqua graft, and earn a package of long green by writing for a magazine; I'll have some medals in my trunk, and silver cups, and other junk; and kings and queens will cry, with pride, that I'm all wool and three yards wide. So let me hire some Eskimos, and hit the nice cool Arctic snows." But here my granny intervened, and said: "Those stovepipes must be cleaned; you haven't mowed the lawn this week, and it's a sight to make one shriek; there's something clogging up the flue--you ought to wash the buggy, too, and there are forty thousand chores, and here you stand around outdoors, and mumble like a heathen Turk"--and then, my friends, I got to work.

_Wilhelmina_

Long life to you and Holland's heir, Wilhelmina! May all your days be bright and fair, Wilhelmina! And may the babe grow wise and great, and chic and slick and up-to-date, and learn to keep her crown on straight, Wilhelmina! O bring her up with steady hand, Wilhelmina! And train her mind, to beat the band, Wilhelmina! And if you catch her chewing gum, or flirting with a rah-rah chum, then take a strap and make things hum, Wilhelmina! Don't let her fool away her time, Wilhelmina, in painting or in writing rhyme, Wilhelmina; but let her know that glory lies in knowing how to make mince pies, and stews and roasts and fancy fries, Wilhelmina. And if by worries you're perplex'd, Wilhelmina, and don't know what you should do next, Wilhelmina, then come to us for good advice--we always keep a lot on ice--we'll solve your problems in a trice, Wilhelmina.

_Wilbur Wright_

He's won success where others failed; he's built a weird machine, composed of cranks and doodads and propelled by gasoline, that circles proudly overhead, as graceful in its flight, as any eagle that cavorts along the airy height. When Wilbur and his brother bold began their march to fame, the sages of the village sneered, and said: "What is their game? Do these here loonies really think that they can make a trap of iron and brass and canvas things, and junk and other scrap, with which to leave the solid earth, and plow the atmosphere? By jings! It isn't safe for them to be at large, that's clear." But Wilbur and his brother bold, whose courage never fails, kept on a-patching up their trap with wire and tin and nails, they built a new cafoozelum, improved the rinktyram, and tinkered up the doodlewhang until it wouldn't jam; and then one morning up they flew, and all the village seers just stood around and pawed the ground and chewed each other's ears. Good luck be with those Dayton boys--good luck in every flight! It is a pleasant rite to write that Wright is strictly right!

_The Broncho_

You haven't much sense, but I love you well, O wild-eyed broncho of mine! Your heart is hot with the heat of hell, and a cyclone's in your spine; your folly grows with increasing age; you stand by the pasture bars, and bare your teeth in a dotard rage, and kick at the smiling stars. As homely you as the face of sin, with brands on your mottled flanks, and saddle scars on your dusky skin, and burs on your tail and shanks! and old--so old that the men are dead, who branded your neck and side; and their sons have lived and gone to bed, and turned to the wall and died. But it's you for the long, long weary trail, o'er the hills and the desert sand, by the side of the bones of the steeds that fail and perish on either hand. It's you for the steady and tireless lope, through canyon or mountain pass; to be flogged at night with a length of rope, and be fed on a bunch of grass.

_Schubert's Serenade_

There is no tune that grips my heart, and seems to pull me all apart, like this old Serenade; it seems to breathe of distant lands, and orange groves and silver sands, and troubadour and maid. It's freighted with a gentle woe as old as all the seas that flow, as young as yesterday; as changeless as the stars above, as yearning as a woman's love for true knight far away. It seems a prayer, serene and pure; a tale of love that will endure when they who loved are dust, when earthly songs are heard no more, and bridal wreaths are withered sore, and wedding rings are rust. It's weary with a lover's care; it's wailing with a deep despair, that only lovers learn; and yet through all its sadness grope the singing messengers of hope for joys that will return. O, gentle, soothing Serenade! When I am beaten down and frayed, with all my hopes in pawn, when I've forgotten how to laugh, I wind up my old phonograph, and turn the music on! And then I float away, away, to moonlit castles in Cathay, or Araby or Spain, and underneath the glowing skies I read of love in damsels' eyes, and dream, and dream again!

_Mazeppa_

Mazeppa, strapped upon a steed, made sixty miles at frightful speed; through lowland, valley and morass, through verdant strips of garden sass, o'er mountain, brake and flowing stream, he sped, as though propelled by steam. The bear sat up to see him go, the wolves pursued, but had no show; and when at last he reached a town, his dying charger tumbled down. Mazeppa rose, without a scratch, and swiftly wrote a long dispatch, which reached the Sporting Ed. that night: "I've knocked the record flat, all right. No other fellow, anywhere, has traveled on a knee-sprung mare o'er sixty miles of right of way, while trussed up like a bale of hay. Please hire a hall; a statement write, that I will lecture every night, for twenty years--my lecture's fine--the moving picture rights are mine. If any challenger should come, and put up a substantial sum, and say that he'd be glad to ride, upon a raw-boned hearse horse tied, for sixty miles or maybe more, for money, marbles, chalk or gore, just say my last long ride is made, until the lecture graft is played."

_Fashion's Devotee_

She called upon her lawyer, and said to him: "Of course this visit will surprise you--I want a nice divorce." "Why, madam," cried the lawyer, "you're talking through your hat; your husband just adores you, and all the town knows that." "Of course I know he loves me," she answered, with a smile, "but that will cut no figure--divorces are in style. Decrees were won in triumph by friends of mine, of late, and every time I meet them I feel so out of date! I've just come from a party--the swellest of the town; I felt like some old woman who wears a last year's gown; and all the ladies chattered of husbands in their string, decrees of separation, and all that sort of thing." "But, madam," said the lawyer, "what reasons can you give? For better, finer husbands than yours, I think, don't live." "What do I want with reasons?" she answered, in a huff; "I want a separation, and that should be enough; I want the rare distinction a court of justice lends; I'm feeling too old-fashioned among my lady friends. I must have some good reasons? I do not think you're nice; his name is William Henry--that surely will suffice?"

_Christmas_

The Christmas bells again ring out a message sweet and clear; and harmony is round about, and happiness is near; so let us all sing, once again, as on an elder day: "God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay!" Forget the office and the mart, the week-day hook and crook, and loosen up your withered heart, as well as pocketbook; forget the ledger and the pen, and watch the children play; God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay! The Christmas time with peace is fraught, from strife and sorrow free; and every wish and every thought should kind and gentle be; in worlds beyond our mortal ken this is a holy day; God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay! Today, from Eden's plains afar, the shepherds converse hold, and watch again the risen star, as in the days of old; and as those shepherds watched it then, so may we watch today; God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay!

_The Tightwad_

The Tightwad is a pleasant soul who freezes strongly to his roll, until he hasn't any; his bundle colors all his dreams, and when awake he's full of schemes to nail another penny. He counts his roubles day by day, and when a nickel gets away, it nearly drives him dotty; he grovels to the man of biz who has a bigger roll than his, and to the poor he's haughty. All things upon this earth are trash that can't be bought or sold for cash, in Tightwad's estimation; the summer breeze, because it turns the cranks of mills and pumps and churns, receives his toleration; the sun is useful in its way; it nourishes the wheat and hay--so let the world be sunny; he likes to hear the raindrops slosh; they help the pumpkin, beet and squash, and such things sell for money. The tightwad often is a bear around his home, and everywhere, and people hate or fear him; since kindness has no market price, it's waste of effort to be nice to victims who are near him. Methinks that when the tightwad dies, and to his retribution flies, his sentence will be funny; they'll load him with a silver hat, and boil him in a golden vat, and feed him red-hot money!

_Blue Blood_

My sires were strong, heroic men, who fought on many a crimson field; and none could better cut a throat, or batter down a foeman's shield; and some were knighted by the king, and went around with golden spurs, which must have been a nuisance when they walked among the cockleburs. Their sires were barons of the Rhine, who worked a now historic graft; they held up travelers by day, and quaffed their sack at night, and laughed; they always slept upon the floor, and never shaved or cut their hair; they pawed their victuals with their hands, and never heard of underwear. Their sires, some centuries before, ran naked through the virgin vales, distinguished from the other apes because they hadn't any tails. And they had sires, still farther back, but that dim past is veiled to me, and so I fear I cannot claim a really flawless pedigree.

_The Cave Man_

When the cave man found that he needed grub to fill out the bill of fare, he went out doors with his trusty club, and slaughtered the nearest bear; and thus he avoided the butcher's fake of selling a pound of bone, and charging it up as the sirloin steak that you ordered by telephone. The cave man wore, as his Sunday best, the skin of a sheep or goat, and a peck of whiskers on his breast, in lieu of a vest or coat; so he nothing knew of the tailor's knack of sewing a vest all wrong, and making a coat with a crooked back, and the pants half a foot too long. The cave man swallowed his victuals raw, as he sat on his nice mud floor; and his only tool was his faithful jaw, and he wanted for nothing more. He took his drinks at the babbling brook, and healthy and gay was he; and he never swore at the bungling cook for spoiling the pie or tea.

_Rudyard Kipling_

Alas for R. Kipling! When he was a stripling, and filled with the fire of his age, he looked like a dinger--the all-firedest singer that ever wrote rhymes by the page. His harpstrings he pounded with vim till they sounded like strains of a Homeric brand, and people, in wonder, inquired who in thunder was filling with music the land. "At last--now we know it--the world has a poet, who'll set all the rivers afire," in this way we hailed him, when critics assailed him, and knocked on his bargain sale lyre. The years have been flying, and old bards are dying, and some of the young have been called; and Rudyard the rhymer is now an old timer, string-halted and painfully bald. And harder and harder, with counterfeit ardor, he whangs at his lusty old lyre; it's kept caterwauling and wailing and squalling, when it ought to be flung in the fire. O hush up its clangor! In sorrow, not anger, we proffer this little request; let's think of the stripling--the long vanished Kipling, and let the old man take a rest.

_In Indiana_

That Hoosier country's most prolific of folks who scale the heights of fame; excelling in the arts pacific, they give their state a lustrous name. There old Jim Riley writes his verses, and wears, without dispute, the bays; George Ade must pack around six purses to hold the dough he gets for plays. Booth Tarkington is fat and wheezy, from dining on the market's best; he's living on the street called Easy, and gives his faculties a rest. Abe Martin also is a Hoosier, and hands out capsules good to see; and when you take 'em you will lose your suspender buttons in your glee. And Nicholson and many others are writing stuff that hits the spot; O, surely Indiana mothers a most unique and gifted lot! And I've received a little volume, concerning Indiana's crops; it gives the figures, page and column, and rambles on and never stops. It gives the yield of sweet potatoes, and corn and wheat and pigs and eggs, and cabbages and green tomatoes, and sauer kraut packed in wooden kegs. And never once in all the story are any of those writers named; poor Indiana's truest glory is missed--she ought to be ashamed.

_The Colonel at Home_

Oh, Tumbo, Bwana Tumbo, we are glad you're back again, with the lion that you slaughtered in its cheap but useful den; with your crates of anacondas and your sack of crocodiles--we are glad indeed to see you, and the land is wreathed in smiles! For we missed you, Bwana Tumbo, when you roamed the distant field, killing camels with the weapon that no other man could wield; and the rust of peace was on us, and our martial spirits fell, and our lives grew stale and stagnant, and we got too fat to yell. Oh, the land was like a homestead when the boss is gone away, when the women sit and mumble and the kids refuse to play. But you're with us now, B. Tumbo, with the skins of beasts you slew, with the bones of bear and walrus and the stately kangaroo, and the gloom has left the shanty, and we moon around no more, for the colonel's quit his hunting, and his face is at the door!

_The June Bride_

Here she comes, and she's a sight, in her gown of snowy white, thing of beauty and of charm, leaning on her lover's arm! Bright her eyes as summer skies, and a glory in them lies, borrowed from the realms above, where the only light is love. And her lover looks serene, shaven, perfumed, groomed and clean; pride is glowing in his eyes, that he's won so fair a prize. Lover, lover, do your best, ne'er to wound that gentle breast; lover, never bring a smart, to that true and trusting heart! Strive to earn the love you've won, as the years their courses run, knowing ever, as you strive, that no man who is alive, and no man since Adam died, e'er deserved a fair June bride!

_At The Theatre_

I went last night to see the play--a drama of the modern kind; and I am feeling tired today; I'd like to fumigate my mind. I'd hate to always recollect those tawdry jokes and vicious cracks; for I would fain be circumspect, and keep my brain as clean as wax. The playwright did his best to show that married life is flat and stale; that homely virtues are too slow to prosper in this earthly vale; he put Deceit on dress parade, and put a laurel crown on Vice; and Honor saw her trophies fade, and Truth was laid upon the ice. "It held the mirror up to life," and I, who saw it, homeward went, and got a club and beat my wife, and robbed an orphan of a cent. If I saw many plays so rank, so full of dark and evil thought, I'd steal a blind man's savings bank, or swipe a widow's house and lot. You may be lustrous as a star, with all the virtues in you canned, but if you fool around with tar you'll blacken up to beat the band. You may be wholesome as the breeze that chortles through a country lane, but if you eat Limburger cheese, your friends will pass you with disdain. And every time you see a play, or read a book that makes a jest of love and home you throw away some part of you that was the best.

_Club Day Dirge_

Now my wife is reading papers on the Fall of Ancient Rome, and I find myself, her husband, doing all the work at home; I have washed the dinner dishes, I have swept the kitchen floor, and I've pretty near decided that I'll do it never more. For the soap gets in my whiskers and the grease gets on my clothes, and I'm always dropping dishes and big sadirons on my toes; and I cannot herd the children while I'm scrubbing, very well, two have vanished in the distance, three have fallen in the well; and I'm always using coal oil where I should use gasoline, so the stove is blown to pieces, and the roof has holes, I ween. And the neighbors come and chaff me, laugh like horses at the door, as I slop around in sorrow, wiping gravy from the floor. So methinks I'll ask the missus after this to run our home, and I'll do a stunt of reading papers on the Fall of Rome.

_Washington_

Like some lone mountain in the starry night, lifting its head snow-capped, severely white, into the silence of the upper air, serene, remote, and always changeless there! Firm as that mountain in the day of dread, when Freedom wept, and pointed to her dead; grim as that mountain to the ruthless foe, wasting the land that wearied of its woe; strong as that mountain, 'neath his load of care, when brave men faltered in a sick despair. So does his fame, like that lone mountain, rise, cleaving the mists and reaching to the skies; bright as the beams that on its summit glow, firm as its rocks and stainless as its snow!

_Hours and Ponies_

Every hour that's gone's a dead one, and another comes and goes; in the graveyard of the ages hours will find their last repose; and the hour that's come and vanished never can be used again; you may long to live it over, but the longing is in vain. Lasso, then, the hour that's with you, ride it till its back is sore; you can have it sixty minutes--sixty minutes, and no more. Make it earn its board and lodging, make it haul your private wain, for when once it slips its halter it will never work again. So the hours like spotted ponies trot along in single file, and we haven't sense to catch them and to work them for a mile; we just loaf around and watch them, sitting idly in the sun, and the darkness comes and finds us with but mighty little done.

_The Optimist_

We're always glad when he drops in--the pilgrim with the cheerful grin, who won't admit that grief and sin, are in possession; there are so many here below, who coax their briny tears to flow, and talk forevermore of woe, with no digression! The man who takes the cheerful view has friends to burn, and then a few; they like to hear his glad halloo, and loud ki-yoodle; they like to hear him blithely swear that things are right side up with care; they like to hear upon the air, his cock-a-doodle. The Long Felt Want he amply fills; he is a tonic for the ills that can't be reached with liver pills, or porous plasters; he helps to make the desert bloom; he plants the grouches in the tomb; he's here to dissipate the gloom of life's disasters!

_A Few Remarks_

I gaily sought the picnic ground, where children sported in the shade; with them I frolicked round and round, and drank with them red lemonade; and life seemed very full and sweet, as joyous as the song of larks, until a guy got on his feet, and said he'd make a few remarks. I journeyed to the county fair, to view the products of the farm; I marveled at the pumpkins there, and carrots longer than your arm; and happiness was over all, there was no sign of care that carks, until a man, with lots of gall, got up to make a few remarks. Oh, I was born for joy and glee, to sing as blithely as the birds! My life, that should so sunny be, is darkened by a cloud of words; and when my prospects seem most fair, and trouble for its bourne embarks, some Windy Jim is always there, to rise and make a few remarks.

_Little Things_

Little drops of water poured into the milk, give the milkman's daughters lovely gowns of silk. Little grains of sugar, mingled with the sand, make the grocer's assets swell to beat the band. Little bowls of custard, humble though they seem, help enrich the fellow selling pure ice cream. Little rocks and boulders, little chunks of slate, make the coal man's fortune something fierce and great. Little ads, well written, printed nice and neat, give the joyful merchants homes on Easy Street.

_The Umpire_

When the home team loses a well fought game, it causes a lot of woe, but nothing is ever gained, my friends, by laying the umpire low; far better to let him fade away, and die of his soul's remorse, than to muss the diamond with his remains, or sit on his pulseless corpse. When I was younger I always slew the umpire whose work was bum, and now when I go to my downy couch, the ghosts of the umpires come, and moan and gibber around my bed and rattle their fleshless bones, and call me names of the rankest kind, in their deep, sepulchral tones. I always found, when an umpire died, and rode in the village hearse, that the fellow who came to take his place was sure to be ten times worse.

_Sherlock Holmes_

The Great Detective had returned; he'd been some years away, and I supposed that he was dead, and sleeping 'neath the clay. Ah, ne'er shall I forget the joy it gave me thus to greet the king of all detectives in my rooms in Baker street! "I notice, Watson," Sherlock said, with smile serene and wide, "that since I left you, months ago, you've found yourself a bride." I had not spoken of the fact, so how did Sherlock know? I tumbled from my rockingchair, his knowledge jarred me so. "It's easy, Watson," said the sleuth; "deduction makes it plain; you ate an egg for breakfast and your chin still wears the stain; you haven't shaved for half a week--the stubble's growing blue--your pants are baggy at the knees, your necktie's on askew; your vest is buttoned crooked and your shirt is out of plumb; your hat has been in contact with a wad of chewing gum. You were something of a dandy in the good old days of yore--pass the dope, my dearest Watson; what's the use of saying more?"

_The Sanctuary_

I do not like the man who searches his mind for caustic things to say, about the preachers and the churches; he grows more common every day. The cynic is a scurvy tutor, whose head and creed are made of wood; he puts up little gods of pewter, and says that they "are just as good." He thinks that triumphs he is winning, and he emits a joyous laugh, if he can knock the underpinning from Faith, that is our rod and staff. He is a poor and tawdry victor, who would o'er dead religions walk; the church still lives, though fools have kicked her, since first she builded on a rock. I hear the mellow church bells ringing a welcome to that calm retreat; I hear the choir's sweet voices singing an anthem, reverent and sweet. And well I know the gentle pastor is pointing out the path to wend, and urging men to let the Master be evermore their guide and friend. And he, like all good men, is reaching for better, and for higher things; and so the message of his preaching--unlike the cynic's--comfort brings.

_The Newspaper Graveyard_

Beneath the stones they sweetly sleep, the humble toilers of the press, no more to sorrow or to weep, no more to labor in distress. Here lies a youth upon whose tomb the tear of pity often drops; we had to send him to his doom, because he wrote of "bumper crops." Here sleeps the golden years away the fairest of the human tribe; we slew him at the break of day, because he called himself "ye scribe." Beneath that yew another sleeps, who did his work with smiling lips; we had to put him out for keeps when he referred to "flying trips." And one, the noblest of them all, is resting on the windswept hill; in writing up a game of ball, he spoke of one who "hit the pill." Hard by the wall, where roses bloom, and breezes sway the clinging vines, that youth is sleeping in his tomb, who used the phrase, "along these lines." Today the sexton wields his spade, and digs a grave both deep and wide, where soon the stripling will be laid, who wrote about "the blushing bride."

_My Lady's Hair_

She walks in beauty like the night, as some romantic singer said; her eyes give forth a starry light, her lips are of a cherry red; across the floor she seems to float; she seems to me beyond compare, a being perfect--till I note the way that she's done up her hair. She must have toiled a half a day to build that large, unwieldy mass; she must have used a bale of hay, and strips of tin, and wire of brass; her sisters must have helped to braid, her mother wrought and tinkered there, and butler, cook and chambermaid, all helped to wrestle with her hair. And after all the grinding toil, and all the braiding and the fuss, the one effect is just to spoil her beauty, and make people cuss. She walks in beauty like the night where nights are most serenely fair; but, J. H. Caesar! she's a sight, when she's got on her Sunday hair!

_The Sick Minstrel_

I cannot sing today, my dear, about your locks of gold, for my fat head is feeling queer since I have caught a cold; and when a bard is feeling off, and full of pills and care, and has to sit around and cough, he sours on golden hair. I cannot sing today, dear heart, about your coral lips; the doctor's coming in his cart; he's making daily trips; he makes me sit in scalding steam, with blankets loaded down, and people say they hear me scream half way across the town; he makes me swallow slippery elm and ink and moldy paste, and blithely hunts throughout the realm for things with bitter taste. I cannot sing today, my love, about your swanlike neck, for I am sitting by the stove, a grim and ghastly wreck. And many poultices anoint the summit of my head; I've coughed my ribs all out of joint, and I am largely dead; and so the mention of a harp just makes my blood run cold; some other blooming poet sharp must sing your locks of gold! Some other troubadour, my sweet, must sing to you instead, for I have earache in my feet and chilblains in my head!

_The Beggar_

He had a little organ there, the which I watched him grind; and oft he cried, as in despair: "Please help me--I am blind!" I muttered, as his music rose: "He plays in frightful luck!" And then I went down in my clothes, and gave him half a buck. A friend came rushing up just then, and said: "You make me ache! You are the easiest of men--that beggar is a fake! The fraud has money salted down--more than you'll ever earn; he owns a business block in town, and he has farms to burn." I answered: "Though the beggar own a bankroll large and fat, I don't regret the half a bone I threw into his hat. I see a man who looks as though the world had used him bad; it sets my jaded heart aglow to give him half a scad. And though that beggar man may be the worst old fraud about, that makes no sort of odds to me; that isn't my lookout. I'll stake Tom, Harry, Dick or Jack, whene'er he comes my way; my conscience pats me on the back, and says that I'm O. K. But if a busted pilgrim came to work me, in distress, and I inquired his age and name, his pastor's street address, and asked to see the documents to prove he told no lies, before I loosened up ten cents, my conscience would arise and prod me till I couldn't sleep, or eat a grown man's meal; and so the beggar man may keep that section of a wheel."

_Looking Forward_

I like to think that when I'm dead, my restless soul unchained, the things that worry my fat head will then all be explained. This fact a lot of sorrow brings, throughout this weary land; there are so many, many things, we do not understand! Oh, why is Virtue oft oppressed, and scourged and beaten down, while Vice, with gems of East and West, is flaunting through the town? And why is childhood's face with tears of sorrow often stained? When I have reached the shining spheres, these things will be explained. Why does the poor man go to jail, because he steals a trout, while wealthy men who steal a whale quite easily stay out? Why does affliction dog the man who earns two bones a day, who, though he try the best he can, can't drive the wolf away? Why does the weary woman sew, to earn a pauper's gain, while scores of gaudy spendthrifts blow their wealth for dry champagne? Why do we send the shining buck to heathen in Cathay, while in the squalid alley's muck white feet have gone astray? Such questions, in a motley crowd, at my poor mind have strained; but when I sit upon a cloud, these things will be explained.

_The Depot Loafers_

The railway station in our town is seedy, commonplace and plain; yet scores of people rustle down and gather there to meet each train. The waiting room is bleak and bare, a place of never-ending din; yet fifty loafers gather there each day to see the train come in. The station agent's life is sad; the loafers made it grim and gray; they drive the poor man nearly mad, for they are always in the way. The passengers can only sob as they their townward way begin, for they must struggle through the mob that's there to see the train come in. The men who have their work to do are hindered in a hundred ways; in vain they weep and cry out "Shoo!" they can't disperse the loafing jays. These loafers always are the same; they toil not, neither do they spin; they have no other end or aim, than just to see the train come in. I've traveled east, I've traveled west, and every station in the land appears to have its loaferfest, its lazy, idle, useless band; I know the station loafer well; he has red stubble on his chin; he has an ancient, fishlike smell; he lives to see the train come in. Oh, Osler, get your chloroform, and fill your glass syringe again, and come and try to make things warm for those who bother busy men! For loafers, standing in the way, when standing is a yellow sin! For those who gather, day by day, to see a one-horse train come in!

_The Foolish Husband_

He toiled and sweated half his life to hang rich garments on his wife. "I haven't time to cut a dash," he said, "but I will blow the cash to let those swelled-up neighbors know that I have got the cash to blow." And so his good wife wore her furs, and dress parade was always hers; she had her gems from near and far, and glittered like an auto-car; she had a new and wondrous gown for every "function" in the town; her life seemed sunny, gay and glad, this wife who was her husband's ad. One night, his day of labor o'er, he found her weeping at the door, and when he asked her to explain, she stopped a while the briny rain, and cried: "This life my spirit fags! I'm tired of wearing flossy rags! I'm tired of chasing through the town, a dummy in a costly gown! I'd rather wear a burlap sack, or leather flynet on my back--and have you with me as of yore--than all the sables in the store! And if you really love your wife, you'll get back to the simple life. Don't try to gather all the dough that's minted in this world below; just earn enough to pay the freight, and let us live in simple state, in some neat shanty far away from pomp and fuss and vain display--some hut among the cockleburs, remote from jewelry and furs!"

_Hallowe'en_