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.
[Illustration: "_Like some lone mountain in the starry night._"]
_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!"
[Illustration: "_Boys (durn'em!) will be boys!_"]
_Hallowe'en_
Tonight the boys will take the town, and doubtless turn it upside down;
they'll sport around with joyous zest, and knock the landscape galley
west; and when the morning comes I'll see my buggy in an apple tree; the
sidewalk piled upon the lawn, the hens with all their feathers gone;
I'll hear my trusty milkcow yell down at the bottom of the well, while
Dobbin stands upon the roof and waves for help a frantic hoof. Last year
the boys wrought while I slept, and in the morn I screamed and wept,
when looking at the work they'd done, I said: "Next year I'll get a gun,
and watch for these michievous souls, and shoot the darlings full of
holes." But granny heard me, and she said: "While water's cheap, go soak
your head; you once were young yourself, by George! and people voted you
a scourge; you played so many fiendish tricks, you filled so many hats
with bricks, that terror came to every one when you went forth to have
some fun. The village pastor used to say: 'When that young rascal comes
my way, I always beat a swift retreat--I'd rather have the prickly
heat!'" And so I haven't bought a gun; and so the boys may have their
fun; and if the morning should disclose the chimney filled with garden
hose, the watchdog painted green and brown, the henhouse standing upside
down, I'll make no melancholy noise, but say: "Boys (durn 'em!) will be
boys!"
_Rienzi to the Romans_
He stood erect, and having seen that artists for some magazine had
sketched him in his proper pose, he cleared his throat, and blew his
nose, and said: "Hi, Romans, you are slaves! You've not the price to buy
your shaves! The good old sun's still on the turf, and his last beam
falls on a serf! Great Scott, my friends, is freedom dead? O whence and
whither do we tread? I view the future with alarm! We tremble 'neath the
tyrant's arm, and ye may tremble, sons of Rome, until the muley cows
come home, but you will still be in the hole, unless some fiery,
dauntless soul, like me, shall lead you from the wreck, and soak the
tyrant in the neck! And here I stand to cut the ice! I'm ready for the
sacrifice! I'll save you, if a Roman can! As candidate for councilman,
I ask your votes, and if I win I'll swat the tyrant on the chin. I'll
represent the fourteenth ward, and represent it good and hard, and
drive the grafters from their place, and kick the tyrant in the face!
Corruption in our Rome will die, if you'll support your Uncle Ri!"
_The Sorrel Colt_