Few people care to listen to your sorrows, trials and burdens if you are
not succeeding. If you succeed, everybody is grabbing for the stock no
matter how well filled with water it is. They point with pride at the
successful man as he saunters by; he can do a great many things that are
shady, but on account of his success and prominence they are hushed up
and never rise above a whisper; he's dined and wined; gets cut prices on
everything he consumes; rebates from the railroads and special
privileges in the churches. But take the poor fellow that each day's
debts eats up his pay roll and we never hear of his fine qualities until
we read his obituary.
If you will take a few leisure moments and look up the meaning of the
word "gratitude," you will find that there are few words that surpass it
in quality, love and kindness. It clusters near the soul and is properly
a virtue. In this life it is very hard to be misunderstood and
undervalued by those we love, but this too in the journey from the
cradle to the grave we must learn to bear without a murmur, for it's a
tale often repeated.
Any one who has given their time, talent and attention serving the dear
people, either as a Town Trustee, member of the School Board, Mayor, or
any of the petty offices of small towns and villages, used his best
judgment in endeavoring to meet every issue honestly, fairly and
squarely, wins for his gratuitous services the everlasting displeasure
of his constituents.
No matter how hard you strive or how honest you may be there come up
little intricate issues where there is no middle course and no matter
what stand you take some people charge you with graft and dishonest
motives. Any one who can serve for one term and is so unfortunate and
foolish as to accept another, has acquired a character so colored that
it takes from ten to fifteen years in our best Sunday Schools to wash
out the stains.
Don't ever feel elated or think you are popular because you are elected
and people call you alderman, for the first thing they will do will be
to slip out that pleasant, sweet sounding word "Alderman" and put in
"Grafter" with the thumbscrews set. They'd call you a grafter if they
personally know the treasury had been depleted for fifteen years. My,
the pleasures of a gratis councilman!
I have heard of people losing their minds for long intervals and then
suddenly regain them and I have often wondered if they had been favored
with an aldermanic pleasure and the mind commenced to slip into space, I
wonder if when the cog alderman appeared if it wouldn't cause such a
jolt that it would clear the whole mental atmosphere. Perhaps there is
one redeeming feature and if it wasn't for some consolation the pictures
and scenes would be so indelibly impressed that you would be able to
recall them long after you'd said "Amen."
The spirit of revenge and retaliation were never very deeply imbedded in
my make up. The seed being lightly sown I used the harrow instead of the
cultivator and got it out. I am glad I did; it has helped me to get a
good night's rest instead of fondling and caressing discolored orbs that
might have come in sudden contact with solid and knotty obstacles.
I bought a small business one time from a devout Presbyterian; I had the
greatest confidence and trust in him, which I had a sad right to have.
If false colors are carried we must find it out because they carry no
notice to warn us. Well, anyway, he spread the tempting menu of his
careful preparation in great shape. He was pleasant, courteous and very
entertaining. The way he figured up the invoice you'd thought
mathematics was his specialty. His tongue kept pace with his pencil and
after everything was figured up he brought up the "Bonus Good Will" part
and I really thought he was letting me do him a favor by giving him one
hundred iron men. You see I wanted his good will along with everybody
else's.
I am glad I learned about this "Good Will" business. All told "Good
Will" and "Bonuses" have cost me nine hundred and thirty-three dollars
thirty-three and a third cents. Don't try to fool me on "Good Wills"
again; they're a drug on the market, very unsaleable and unpopular to
your humble servant.
After I paid the "Good Will" price and everything was agreeably settled
I started in with my maiden business. Going through the bags and some
other stuff in the back room a few days afterwards, I discovered bags
invoiced and paid for at one hundred pounds shy. "Shy," I said, and he a
Christian! This taught me that there are eighty and ninety pound
Christians. The loud smelling, decaying and life moving gunny sacks
contained prepared meats for poultry. I quit in disgust and went into
the front department; a fellow stepped in and said, "How is business?"
and I answered "Rotten." A frank acknowledgment of a painful truth.
Other things ran about the same; the horses were sold as unblemished,
sound as a dollar, etc., and mind you, he a Christian and ministers
dropping in every few days and talking and planning how to increase the
congregation. My, I'm glad I used that harrow! When I sold out the
business, I marked down experiences one thousand dollars. I felt pretty
blue after I had lost the thousand bones I worked hard to get, and it
used to be when I got the blues I eased my mind with graveyard poetry;
pardon me for inserting it here.
If I should die tonight how few would care;
Perhaps some heart would ache, some one somewhere,
Some might cast a lingering look, a tear
And tremble with emotion at my bier,
But before many days would pass away,
Before my silent form would turn to clay,
I'd be forgotten and alone,
And not a heart to ache or moan.
Oh! this bitter, lonely life's a snare,
The kind friends you hear so much about are rare.
Some may mean it in their hearts but feign
And measure men by dollars not by brain.
A friend came to me one time and said he was in pressing financial
straits and asked me to loan him fifteen dollars for two weeks. I
granted the request and the loan was made. I thought I was familiar with
the calendar and knew when two ordinary weeks ended, but those two weeks
were the longest I have ever known. Fortnight after fortnight passed and
no end came. Long and endless weeks of this kind might be all right for
the man facing the electric chair, but they had no solace for an
individual anxious to get married and needing the husky "Simoleans" to
furnish a cage for his waiting bird.
One day I met the overdue biped and I said, "How about it?" I was young
then and I thought I could glide in as easy this way as well as any
phrase I had in my limited vocabulary. "Well," he said, "I'll tell you
what I'll do. I know you are about to plunge in the matrimonial sea and
I have a proposition to offer you. I have a good standard make of organ
that I don't need and if you will give me forty-five dollars and forget
about that previous fifteen we will call the transaction closed and drop
the curtain."
"All right," I said, "here is your money."
That organ may not be in existence yet, but it's in my memory fresh as
ever. I couldn't play it, for it was all I could do to carry a tune when
it was tied in a bag. I had no wife to play it and I couldn't keep it
and get married, I was in a desperate condition one day when I walked
into a hardware store, that is a store, you know, where they keep ware
that is hard, frying pans, dish pans, bread pans, etc., you know what
those things are for. "Well," I said to the village wit behind the case,
"I'll trade you that organ for enough household paraphernalia to cook
with, take care of enough viands and stuff or whatever you call it, to
keep two people about to start out together; each now separate and apart
but very anxious to be united." "Agreed," he said, "hand over that list
you've got with the articles on and I'll have them ready in a short
time."
Funny, isn't it, how the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, but how
about the one ready to be shorn when there isn't even a zephyr blowing.
Well, the deal was transacted, exchange made, and that is how I got my
household goods when I married dearie. The financial report read like
this: Actual cash in organ, sixty dollars; actual worth, forty-five
dollars; second actual value in organ, forty-five dollars; actual value
of pots and pans twenty-five dollars, experience and pleasure of making
a two weeks' loan, thirty-five dollars. This was not putting a premium
on "Bliss" for a fellow just getting ready to carry the matrimonial
load.
The weight would have been some lighter if that weasened faced Dutchman
had not worked off on me a left handed frying pan for a right-handed
bride, and was so extremely liberal on the good deal he had made that he
threw in a second hand mouse trap when the new ones sold six for a dime.
This was the first time I saw tears in my wife's eyes. The fountain was
opened and they flowed freely. Those tears were trivial to the tears
we've in shed later life, but those first tears moved me to almost
unconsolable grief and the emotion caused a flow of poetry. It's not
very long and will not tire you much, so I will slip it in here as a
filler.
Cheer up, little darling,
You know my love is true,
And nowhere in this great big world
Is a sweeter girl than you.
I have loved you always
Trust me fully, dear,
Let me be your shining star
I'll sparkle when you're near.
And all along our pathway
We'll never pluck a thorn,
But will pluck the roses
In life's dewy morn,
Roses are more fragrant,
They'll give us better cheer
And the thorns we'll cast aside,
They are worthless, dear.
When I was a County Clerk and exceedingly busy pushing the quill over
the big records, a M. E. Minister came in one day and accosted me with
that word that arouses confidence. Brother, he said, we are figuring on
a short order annex to the church, (remember that word SHORT?) and we,
of course, couldn't slight you and if you will kindly donate as
liberally as possible the Lord will bless you abundantly, for you know
he loves a cheerful giver, and etc., and etc. Well, I responded. When
you get your subscription list in these parts drop in and I will help
you.
I know what an annex to some of the churches without or with cook stove
means. It seems nowadays, as the prophecies are being filled, some
churches deem it necessary to feed the stomach before the soul,
realizing, I presume, a full stomach is a twin brother to a big heart.
They beg the food and the utensils to serve it in from uncheerful givers
and then dispense it cautiously and sparingly, the more sparingly the
more money for the Lord. When the ice cream is served they forget all
about scriptural measure of "Heaped up and running over" and run it
under. If one dish of scriptural measure can be stretched into four
dishes of worldly measure, there is forty cents instead of ten. High
finance, you see! I've often thought a society of this kind that would
squeeze down the measure on ice cream procured at a minimum cost, would
bear watching if they were running a milk wagon with a pump near. If any
one else gets money in this way they call it an unearned increment. What
would Jesus call it? I really would be afraid to express my thoughts at
that kind of a meeting for fear they'd request the parcel post.
In a few days the brother dropped in and hoisted from his inside pocket
the subscription list and handed it to me. I glanced over it casually,
as is natural in such cases made and provided, to see who were the
cheerful givers. After concluding what I thought was a liberal donation
and really beyond what a man of my means should give I put down forty
dollars and handed the paper back to him. The ungentlemanly gentleman
took it and looked at it and said, "Well, we expected much better than
this from you." You know what feelings ebb and flow within you when you
get a snub like this. I could feel the Irish blood chasing the English
blood at a hazardous speed, but I said nothing and was glad again of the
early use of that harrow.