_By Josiah Allen, Esq., P.M.S.J.C.F._
Yes Christmas has come, it got here at last,
A bringin' me memories out of the past,
And a pair of galluses, a necktie sad--
A gray night-shirt and a paper pad;
Useful presents, but nothin' gay,
_Useful presents_, dum 'em! I say!
I wanted some jew'lry for the brethren to see,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Ministers preach 'tis a blessed day,
And so it is in a meetin' house way;
But to me it has been a day of gloom,
Samantha I see didn't like the broom,
And mop-stick, and pair of cowhide shues,
It took me the heft of a hour to chuse;
It made me deprested, and mournfulee
I've mused on the things that wuzn't to be.
Weak females risin' on every hand
Pertendin' that they're equal to man--
Wantin' to stand right up by his side,
Instead of the place where they ort to abide
Down in the safety and peace at his feet;
Oh the dear old times, so happy so sweet,
Will never come back to my sect, nor to me,
No, it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Yes, I guess old Fate made a slip of her pen,
When fixin' the lot of the children of men,
'Twas bad for the world and for me I ween
That I wuzn't born a king or a queen;
My bald head shines out bare and cold,
Or wears a hat, oh a crown of gold
Would set it off fur agreabler to me,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Fate sets a writin' in darkness and night,
'Tain't spozeable she always gits things right;
To the poor she sends ten children or more
Crowdin' in through Famine Wolves round the door,
While for one kid the rich may vainly sigh,
But she flirts her skirts and passes 'em by;
Why hain't villains shot while the good go free?
It wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
A poet comes with his dreamy way
Right into a nest of common clay;
And in pious home a soul gits in
The size of the hole in the head of a pin;
So 'tain't so strange some feller and I
Should git mixed up on our way through the sky;
If I had to be born why not been he.
It wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Fate sort o' yanked me and throwed me down
On a Yankee hillside bare and brown;
And gin me a chance to die or live
Accordin' to labor I had to give;
I couldn't eat stuns or a burdock burr,
So I had to hustle and make things purr,
No bread-fruit round, nor no custard-tree;
No, it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Now that other feller that might have been me
By a turn of Fate's pen, oh in luxury
He lays and counts up his millions in bed,
With his crown on the bed-post over his head;
I wonder by Snum! if he thinks it straight--
For me to be small and him to be great;
When I might have been him and he might have been me,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
I'd ask how he'd like it to take off his crown
And to good hard hoein' knuckle down.
Or plantin', or hayin', or a weed pullin' bee
In onion beds, (dum 'em from A to Z!)
I bet I could work on his feelin's so deep
He'd up and divide a part of his heap,
Jest a thinkin' of how he might have been me--
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Now that feller's wife, I presoom to say
That some of the time he has his way;
He's so tarnal lucky and happy and fat,
It would be jest like him to git even that.
Oh I'd dearly love to have it to say
That _once_, jest _once_ I'd had my way
When Samantha and I didn't chance to agree,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
Samantha of course had to find fault with these sad but beautiful
verses. And she asked me what them letters meant I had strung along
after my name, showin' plain the inherient weakness of a female's brain.
Of course a man would see to once that they stood for Path Master and
Salesman in the Jonesville Cheese Factory. I had talked it over with
Uncle Sime and we both agreed that at this time, when the hull race of
men wuz facin' complete insignificance, if not teetotal anhiliation,
it behooved us to lay holt of every speck of dignity we could lay our
hands on, and we both thought them letters made my name look more noble
and riz up.
But Samantha didn't like the verses at all, and agin advanced the
uroneous idee that it wuz my liver that ailed me instead of genius.
Sez she, "If folks will gorge themselves 'till their eyes stand
out with fatness,' as the Good Book sez, how can they see plain to
gratefully count over the blessin's the past year has brought 'em, and
lay plans to pass on some of their good cheer to them that set in the
shadders of grief and poverty?"
She said I'd be all right in a day or two, and if I wuzn't she should
soak my head, and doctor me, for, sez she, "I hain't goin' to have
anybody round writin' such deprestin' and ongrateful verses.
"Lots of times," sez she, "if sentimental and melancholy poets would
git their livers to workin' better they wouldn't harrer up their
readers so. Catnip would help 'em to look on the brighter side of life,
or thoroughwort."
And she didn't like the last pathetic and interestin' stanza; she said
I'd had my way, or _thought_ I'd had it time and agin. And agin she
said it wuz my liver that ailed me, and she even approached me with
some catnip tea.
Good heavens! _Catnip!_ to curb my soarin' sperit, and soothe the
ardent emotions of my soul.
A regular fool idee. You might know it sprung from a female's brain,
or ruther the holler spot where brains should be--Gracious heaven!
_Catnip!_