TAFFY was a Welshman,
TAFFY was a thief,
TAFFY came to my house and stole a piece of beef.
I went to TAFFY'S house,
TAFFY wasn't at home,
TAFFY came to my house and stole a mutton bone.
It is not often that a poet descends to the discussion of mundane
affairs. His sphere of usefulness, oftentimes usefulness to himself,
only, lies among the roseate clouds of the morn, or the spiritual
essences of the cerulean regions, but, like other human beings, he
cannot live on the zephyr breeze, or on the moonbeams flitting o'er the
rippling stream. Such ethereal food is highly unproductive of adipose
tissue, and the poet needs adipose like any other man. And our poet is
no exception to the rule, for he well knew that good digestible poetry
can't be written on an empty stomach.
It is seldom that a writer is met with, who does not seize every
opportunity to attract attention to his own deeds. He is never so happy
as when, in contemplation, he hears the remarks of his readers tending
to his praise for the noble and heroic deeds he makes himself perform.
But with our poet--and we have been exceptional in our choice--he has
always been backward in coming forward, and it was not until he was
touched upon a tender point that he concluded to make himself heard,
when he might depict, in glowing terms, some of the few ills which flesh
is heir to.
The opportune moment arrived.
He had been out since early dawn, gathering the dew from the
sweet-scented flower, or painting in liquid vowels the pleasant calmness
of the cow-pasture, or mayhap echoing with hie pencil's point the
well-noted strains of the Shanghai rooster, when the far-off distant
bell announced to him that he must finish his poetic pabulum, and hurry
home to something more in accordance with the science of modern cookery.
He arrived and found his household in tumult. "Who's been here since
I've been gone?" sang he, in pathetic tones. And he heard in mournful
accents the answer, "TAFFY."
Could anything more melancholy have befallen our poet? He could remember
in childhood's merry days the old candy-woman, with her plentiful store
of brown sweetness long drawn out; and how himself and companions spent
many a pleasant hour teasing their little teeth with the delicate
morsels. Now his childhood's dreams vanished. He remembered that
"TAFFY was a Welshman."
And then, after a careful scrutiny of the larder, assisted by the
gratuitous services of his ever faithful feline friend, THOMAS, he
found the extent of his loss.
"TAFFY was a thief,"
he now gave vent to passion, while anguish rent his soul. TAFFY had been
here, and made good his coming, although the good was entirely on
TAFFY'S side, for he walked off again with a piece of beef, and was,
even at this very moment, smacking his chops over its tender fibres.
All his respect for TAFFY now vanished like the misty cloud before the
rays of the morning sun. He buckled on the armor of his strength,
departed for TAFFY'S house, determined to wreak his vengeance thereon,
and scatter TAFFY, limb for limb, throughout his own corn-field. "Woe,
woe to TAFFY," he muttered between his clenched teeth. "I will make
mincemeat of him; I will enclose him in sausage skins, and will send him
to that good man, KI YI SAMPSON."
Judge of our poet's chagrin, however, when, on arriving at TAFFY'S
house, he was informed, with mocking smiles.
"TAFFY wasn't at home."
Here was a fall to his well-formed plans of vengeance.--All dashed to
the ground by one foul scathing blow.
But whither went TAFFY? The poet himself could tell you if you waited,
but we will tell you now. TAFFY liked beef; liked it as no other human
liked it, for he could eat it raw. And when, foraging around the
village, he found a nice piece at the poet's house, his carnivorous
proclivities induced him to steal it, and, with it under his arm,
hurried off to the nearest barn, and there rapidly devoured it. This
only seemed to give him an appetite. He went foraging again, but this
time only picked up a mutton-bone. "The nearer the bone, the sweeter the
meat," cried TAFFY, and with a flourish he hastened to his hiding place,
while the poor poet, disconsolate in his first loss, returned home only
to find a second; and the culprit was still free.
Ah! my kind reader, here was a deep cut to our poet. "Who would care for
mother now?" he sang, for all the meat was gone. Home was no longer the
dearest spot on earth to him, since it was rudely desecrated by the
hands of TAFFY--of DAVID, the Welshman.
Poor poet! Cruel TAFFY!
Let me draw the curtain of popular sympathy over the unhappy household.
The poet has told his story in words which will never die; and he has
proclaimed the infamy of TAFFY to the uttermost corners of the earth.
* * * * *
Sweeping Reform.
The world moves. There is a chiropodist now travelling in the East who
removes excrescences of the feet simply by sweeping them away with a
corn broom. When last heard of he was at Alexandria, and there is no
corn in Egypt, now.
* * * * *