kicked its heels, and pawed the land, and reared and jumped to beat the
band. The older horses stood around and swallowed fodder by the pound,
and gave no notice to the kid that gaily round the haystack slid. I
loafed along and murmured, then: "If horses were as mean as men, some
old gray workhorse, stiff and sour, would jaw that colt for half an
hour; methinks I hear that workhorse say: 'You think you're mighty
smooth and gay, and you are fresh and sporty now, but when they hitch
you to the plow, and strap a harness on your back, and work you till
your innards crack, and kick you when you want to balk, and slug you
with a chunk of rock, and cover you with nasty sores, and leave you
freezing out of doors--O, then you won't kick up your heels! You'll
know, then, how a workhorse feels!' But horses have no croaking voice,
to chill the colt that would rejoice; no graybeard plug will leave its
feed to make the heart of childhood bleed; no dismal prophecies are
heard, no moral homilies absurd, where horses stand and eat their hay,
and so the colts may run and play!"
_Plutocrat and Poet_
Good old opulent John D.! He would look with scorn on me; I consider I'm
in luck, when I have an extra buck; buying ice or buying coal always
keeps me in the hole, and when I have paid the rent I am left without a
cent. Yet I'm always gay and snug, happy as a tumblebug, having still
the best of times, grinding out my blame fool rhymes! Old John D., on
t'other hand, frets away to beat the band; he is burdened with his
care--though he isn't with his hair--and his health is going back, and
his liver's out of whack, and his conscience has grown numb, and his
wishbone's out of plumb, and he's trembling all the day lest a plunk may
get away. Better be a cornfed bard, writing lyrics by the yard, with an
appetite so gay it won't balk at prairie hay, than to have a mighty
pile, and forget the way to smile!
_Mail Order Clothes_
I bought me a suit of the Sears-buck brand, they said it was tailored
and sewed by hand; they said it was woven of finest wool, and couldn't
be torn by an angry bull; they said it was fine, and would surely last,
till Gabriel tooteth the final blast. It was ten cents cheaper than
suits I'd bought, from local dealers, who seemed quite hot, and shed a
bucket of briny tears, when I bought my clothes of the Sawbuck Rears. I
wore that suit when the day was damp, and it shrunk to the size of a
postage stamp; the coat split up and the vest split down and I scared
the horses all over town, for the buttons popped and the seams they
tore, and the stiches gave, with a sullen roar. And I gave that suit to
a maiden small, who found it handy to dress her doll.
_Evening_
Life's little day is fading fast; upon the mountain's brow the sinking
sun is gleaming red; the shadows lengthen now; the twilight hush comes
on apace, and soon the evening star will light us to those chambers dim
where dreamless sleepers are. And when the curfew bell is rung, that
calls us all to rest, and we have left all worldly things, at Azrael's
behest, O may some truthful mourner rise, and say of you or me: "Gee
whiz! I'm sorry that he's dead! He was a honey bee! Whate'er his job he
did his best; he put on all his steam, in every stunt he had to do he
was a four-horse team. He thought that man was placed on earth to help
his fellowguys; he never wore a frosty face, and balked at weeping eyes;
the hard luck pilgrim always got a handout at his door, and any friend
could help himself to all he had in store; he tried to make his humble
home the gayest sort of camp, till Death, the king of bogies, came and
slugged him in the lamp. I don't believe a squarer guy existed in the
land, and Death was surely off his base when this galoot was canned!"
_They All Come Back_
The stars will come back to the azure vault when the clouds are all
blown away; and the sun will come back when the night is done, and give
us another day; the cows will come back from the meadows lush, and the
birds to their trysting tree, but the money I paid to a mining shark
will never come back to me! The leaves will come back to the naked
boughs, and the flowers to the frosty brae; the spring will come back
like a blooming bride, and the breezes that blow in May; and the joy
will come back to the stricken heart, and laughter and hope and glee,
but the money I blew for some mining stock will never come back to me!
_The Cussing Habit_
The jackal is a beastly beast; and when it hankers for a feast, it has
no use for nice fresh meat; the all-fired fool would rather eat some
animal that died last year; and so the jackal, far and near, is shunned
by self-respecting brutes, and slugged with rocks, and bricks, and
boots. And men whose language is decayed, who make profanity a trade,
are like the jackal of the wild, that hunts around for things defiled.
In all your rounds you'll never find a healthy, clean and gentle mind
possessed by any son of wrath whose language needs a Turkish bath. On
great occasions there's excuse for turning ring-tailed cuss-words loose;
the Father of his Country swore at Monmouth, and then cussed some more;
that patient soul, the Man of Uz, with boils so thick he couldn't buzz,
ripped off some language rich and brown, until old Bildad called him
down. Great men, beneath some awful stroke let loose remarks that fairly
smoke, and we forgive them as we write the story of their deeds of
might. But little men, who swear, and swear, and thus pollute our common
air, are foul and foolish as the frogs that trumpet in their native
bogs.
_John Bull_
John Bull looks forth upon the main, and heaves a sigh, as though in
pain; he wipes away the tears and cries, in sorrow: "Blawst my blooming
eyes! There's fungus growing on my realm! I need a hustler at the helm!
These once progressive British isles are left behind a million miles; it
was a blamed Italian chap that made that wireless message trap; a
Frenchman made the whole world blink by flying safely o'er the drink; a
Dutchman built a big balloon, in which he'll journey to the moon; and
now I'm told, lud bless my soul, a Yankee's gone and found the Pole!
Have Britons lost their steam and vim? Are we no longer in the swim? Are
we content to tag behind, and trust in fate, and go it blind? Is this
our England lying dead, with candles at her feet and head? Has Genius
torn her robe and died, and have we naught to brace our pride?" A voice
comes sighing o'er the land--a voice John Bull can understand; a female
voice that's bright and gay, and in his ears it seems to say: "Cheer up!
The gods are with you yet--you always have the suffragette!"
_An Oversight_
We're making laws, with lots of noise, to keep from harm our precious
boys. The curfew bell booms out at eight, and warns the lads to pull
their freight for home and bed and balmy sleep, while wary cops their
vigils keep. The cheap toy pistol's down and out; we won't have things
like that about; and boys who'd hear the pistol's toot must sit and
watch their parents shoot. The cigarette at last is canned; the children
of this happy land can buy such coffin-nails no more, which sometimes
makes the darlings sore. Each year new laws and statutes brings, to
shield them from corrupting things. It's strange that we should overlook
the screaming blood-and-thunder book, the wild and wooly, red-hot yarn,
that Johnnie reads behind the barn. The tales of bandits who have slain
a cord of men, and robbed a train; of thieves who break away from jail,
with punk detectives on their trail; of long haired scouts and men of
wrath who nothing fear--except a bath. Such yarns as these our Johnnie
reads; they brace him up for bloody deeds; and when he can he takes the
trail, and ends his bright career in jail. So, while we're swatting evil
things, and putting little boys on wings, let's swat the book that
leaves a stain upon the reader's soul and brain.
_The Traveler_
He had journeyed, sore and weary, over deserts wide and dreary; through
the snows of far Sibery he had dragged his frozen form; he had searched
the site of Eden, been through Kansas, wild and bleedin'; in the far-off
hills of Sweden he had faced the winter storm. In the vain pursuit of
glory, hoping he would live in story, he had hoofed it to Empory, from
Toronto on the lake; he had heard land agents rattle through the suburbs
of Seattle, he had seen the Creek of Battle, where they live on sawdust
cake. Fate was kind, and just to prove her he had journeyed to
Vancouver, where the emigrant and mover pitch their tents upon the
street; he had roamed the broad Savannah, he had voted in Montana;
hunting with the mighty Bwana, Afric's jungles knew his feet. He had
sung the boomer's ditty down in Oklahoma City, thinking it a blooming
pity that the town had such a name; he had mined in cold Alaska, farmed
with Bryan in Nebraska, and was never known to ask a least advantage in
the game. To his native town returning, all reporters there were
yearning to receive a statement burning, from this calm intrepid soul;
not of fights or sieges gory was the hero's simple story; "I have but
one claim to glory--I have never found the Pole!"
_Saturday Night_
Saturday night, and the week's work done, and the Old Man home with a
bunch of mon'! You see him sit on the cottage porch, and he puffs away
at a five-cent torch, while the good wife sings at her evening chores,
and the children gambol around outdoors. The Old Man sits on his
work-day hat, and he doesn't envy the plutocrat; his debts are paid and
he owns his place, and he'll look a king in the blooming face; his hands
are hard with the brick and loam, but his heart is soft with the love of
home! Saturday night, and it's time for bed! And the kids come in with a
buoyant tread; and they hush their noise at the mother's look, as she
slowly opens a heavy book, and reads the tale of the stormy sea, and the
voice that quieted Galilee. Then away to bed and the calm repose that
only honesty ever knows. Saturday night, and the world is still, and
it's only the erring who finds things ill; there is sweet content and a
sweeter rest, where a good heart beats in a brave man's breast.
_Lady Nicotine_
Smoking is a filthy habit, and a big, fat, black cigar advertises that
you're straying from the Higher Life afar. I have walked in summer
meadows where the sunbeams flashed and broke, and I never saw the horses
or the sheep or cattle smoke; I have watched the birds, with wonder,
when the world with dew was wet, and I never saw a robin puffing at a
cigarette; I have fished in many rivers when the sucker crop was ripe,
and I never saw a catfish pulling at a briar pipe. Man's the only living
creature that parades this vale of tears, like a blooming traction
engine, blowing smoke from mouth and ears. If Dame Nature had intended,
when she first invented man, that he'd smoke, she would have built him
on a widely diff'rent plan; she'd have fixed him with a damper and a
stovepipe and a grate; he'd have had a smoke consumer that was strictly
up-to-date. Therefore, let the erring mortal put his noisome pipe in
soak--he can always get a new one if he feels he needs a smoke.
[Illustration: "_O come, my love, from your bower in haste, let us trim
our sails for the ether waste, away, away!_"]
_Up-to-Date Serenade_
O come, my love, for the world's at rest, and the sun's asleep in the
curtained West, and the night breeze sighs from between the stars, and
my air-ship waits by your window bars! We'll sail the sea of the
waveless wind, we'll leave the earth and its dross behind, and watch its
lights from the cloudy heights--O come, my love, on this best of nights!
O come, my love, from your bower in haste, let us trim our sails for the
ether waste, away, away, where the weary moan of the workday world is
never known; where the only track is the track of wings that the skylark
leaves when it soars and sings! So come, my love ere the night is old,
and the stars have paled, and the dawn is cold; the ship can't wait for
its precious freight, for it's costing a dollar a minute, straight.
_The Consumer_
They will tinker with the tariff till the rivers are gone dry, they will
wrestle with the subject night and day; they'll be piling up the
language when the snow begins to fly, they'll be riddling in the same
old weary way. O the grand old windy wonders who adorn the senate floor,
till the windup of the world will be on deck; and there's just one thing
that's certain, that is sure for ever more; the consumer always gets it
in the neck. There is talk of hides and leather, and there's talk of
nails and glue, there are weary wads of twaddle on cement; and the man
from Buncombe Corners stands and toots his loud bazoo, till his language
in the ceiling makes a dent; no one in this martyred country knows how
long this will endure, and there isn't any way the flood to check; and
there's just one thing about it that is reasonably sure; the consumer
always gets it in the neck.
_Advice To A Damsel_
When a damsel has a steady who's a pretty decent man, and who shows a
disposition to perform the best he can; who is shy of sinful habits, and
whose bosom holds no guile, and who labors in the vineyard with a gay
and cheerful smile, then she shouldn't make him promise that he'll do a
seraph stunt, when they've stood up at the altar with the preacher-man
in front; and she shouldn't spring a lecture when he comes around to
court, for a man is only human, and his wings are pretty short. When a
maiden has a lover who is surely making good, who is winning admiration,
who is sawing lots of wood, then she shouldn't make him promise that
he'll be an angel boy when the wedding ceremony ushers in a life of joy;
she should murmur: "He's a daisy, and we'll take things as they come;
for a man is only human, and his halo's on the bum."
_A New Year Vow_
I don't go much on gilded vows, for I have made them in the past, and
they are with the bow-wow-wows--they were too all-fired good to last.
And so I'll make one vow today: I'll simply try to do my best; that vow
should help me on my way, for it embraces all the rest. I'll take the
middle of the road, and always do the best I can, and pack along my
little load, and try to be a manly man. A man may end his journey here
too poor to buy a decent shroud, and planted be without a tear of
mourning from the worldly crowd; but when he's in the judgment scale,
he'll come triumphant from the test; no man has failed, no man can fail,
who always, always does his best. And though my pathway be obscure, and
void of honor and applause, and though the lean wolf of the moor to my
cheap doorway nearer draws, I'll keep a stout heart in my breast, and
follow up this simple plan; I'll always do my very best, and try to be a
manly man.
_The Stricken Toiler_
He labored on the railway track; his task would break a horse's back; he
tugged at things that weighed a ton, and all the time the summer sun
blazed down and cooked him where he toiled, and still he worked, though
fried and broiled. I grieved for this poor section man, who drank warm
water from a can, and ate rye bread and greenish cheese, and had big
blisters on his knees. "Ods fish!" quoth I, "when day is dead, methinks
you straightway go to bed, too labor-worn to heave a sigh, as wounded
soldiers go to die." "That's where you're off," the toiler said; "I'm in
no rush to go to bed; you must be talking in a trance--tonight I'm going
to a dance!" "Gadzooks!" thought I, "and eke ods blood! My tears have
streamed, a briny flood, because of all the cares and woes the
horny-handed toiler knows! And it would seem, from what I learn, that he
has fun, and some to burn. Gadzooks again! It seemeth plain, that
weeping in this world is vain!"
_The Lawbooks_
The laws are numerous as flies upon a summer day; at making laws the
statesmen wise still pound and pound away. No man on earth could
recollect a list of all the laws; I tried it once--my mind is wrecked,
and now you know the cause. Some gents who are in prison yet proclaim
with angry shout that they are so with laws beset, they really can't
stay out. "A man can't walk around a block," I heard a sad man wail,
"but what the cops will round him flock, and chuck him into jail." I
heard the butcher man repine, and weep, and rail at fate, because he had
to pay a fine for being short on weight. I heard the corner grocer
snort, and use some language sour, because they yanked him into court
for selling moldy flour. The milkman bottled half the creek, and sold it
on his route; he said: "The law just makes me sick," when friends had
bailed him out. The laws are numerous as scales upon a fish, no doubt;
and so some people are in jails, and simply can't stay out; but all the
time and everywhere one great truth stands out clear: The man who acts
upon the square, has nothing much to fear.
_Sleuths of Fiction_
I'm weary now of Sherlock Holmes, and all the imitative crew; I'm tired
of triumphs built upon a collar button, as a clew. The sleuth is always
tall and thin, with nervous hands and hawk-like face; he scours the
slums or moves around in marble halls, with equal grace; he always takes
some kind of dope or plays the flute or violin, and when he's billed for
active work he glues false whiskers on his chin. He always has a Watson
near, a tiresome chump, who sits and broods, the while the
selling-plater sleuth reels off a string of platitudes. Detective yarns
are all so stale! The plot is evermore the same; we always have the
murdered man, with knives or bullets in his frame; the pantry window is
unlocked; the safe's been opened with a file; suspicion shifts until it
rests on every man within a mile; the local peelers blunder round, and
ball things up in frightful shape, and then the Great Detective comes,
with lens and rule and meas'ring tape; he crawls around upon the floor,
examines all the water mains, and tastes the ashes in the stove, and
sticks his nose into the drains, and then he says the problem's solved;
forthwith he spends two weeks or more in showing Watson and the world
how easy 'tis to be a bore!
_Put It On Ice_
When you have written a letter red hot, roasting some chap in his
tenderest spot--some one who's done you an underhand trick, some one
who's wounded your pride to the quick; try to remember that writing
abuse does no more good than the hiss of a goose; this is the meaning of
all of your sass: "You are a villain--and I am an ass." Take up your
letter and read it through thrice; put it on ice awhile, put it on ice!
Maybe your wife isn't much of a cook; maybe she'd rather sit down with a
book, than to go fussing around making pies, doughnuts and cakes and
things good to your eyes; you are preparing a withering speech, you are
preparing to rear up and preach, telling your wife of the beautiful
things cooked by your granny before she had wings; telling your wife
that her duty's to stuff things in your tummy till it has enough. When
you went courting that hausfrau of yours, swearing you'd love her while
nature endures, did you get down on your knee-bones and rave: "Dearest,
I'm needing a drudge and a slave! Come to my cottage and sweep, cook and
scrub! Clean up the dishes and sweat at the tub!" Can the reproaches
you're planning to make; go to a baker when spoiling for cake. Cut out
the sermon you think is so nice--put it on ice awhile, put it on ice!
_The Philanthropist_
"Ten million bones," said good John Dee, "will reach the Sunny South
from me; this hookworm scourge, that ruins men, and lays a country waste
again, must be suppressed at any cost--those broken men must not be
lost! To make them feel like men once more, to drive gaunt Famine from
their door, to make them like strong Saxons live, ten million bones I'll
freely give. The victims of the hookworm scourge, the toilers at the
loom and forge, the humble yeoman at his plow, may see some ray of
comfort now! I shudder when I read the tales of ruin in those Southern
vales; too tired to do the simplest chores, men lounge all day about
their doors, and when the sun's low in the West, the whole caboodle go
to rest. And thus these tillers of the soil burn mighty little of my
oil. When this outrageous worm decamps, they'll trim the wicks and light
the lamps, and read the books they have in stock, and all sit up till
one o'clock. The hookworm's acted very mean in shutting off the
kerosene, and so I'll send a good big roll, to put the blamed thing in
the hole."
_Other Days_
Backward, turn backward, oh time, in thy flight, feed me on gruel again,
just for tonight; I am so wearied of restaurant steaks, vitrified
doughnuts and vulcanized cakes, oysters that sleep in a watery bath,
butter as strong as Goliath of Gath; weary of paying for what I can't
eat, chewing up rubber and calling it meat. Backward, turn backward, for
weary I am! Give me a whack at my grandmother's jam; let me drink milk
that has never been skimmed, let me eat butter whose hair has been
trimmed; let me but once have an old-fashioned pie, then I'll be willing
to curl up and die; I have been eating iron filings for years--is it a
wonder I'm melting in tears?
_The Passing Year_
The year's growing ashen, and weary and gray; full soon he will cash in,
and mosey away. A while yet he'll totter along to his grave; he's marked
for the slaughter, and nothing can save. The year that is leaving seems
weighted with woe; and Nature is grieving because he must go. The
forests are sighing and moaning all day; the night winds are crying,
upon their sad way; the gray clouds are taking a threatening shape; the
dead grass is shaking like billows of crape. Dame Nature is tender, and
dirges she'll croon, regretting the splendor and glory of June; she
knows that tomorrow the old year will sleep; she knows that the sorrow
of parting is deep. In this world, O never can friends with us stay!
Some loved one forever is going away! And that is the story of people
and years; a morning of glory, an evening of tears; an hour of
caressing, a call at the dawn, a prayer and a blessing, and then they
are gone.
UNCLE WALT
FROM THE PRESSES _of_ THE CASLON PRESS
_for_ GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS _Publisher_
ARRANGED AND DECORATED BY WILL BRADLEY
FRONTISPIECE BY JOHN T. McCUTCHEON
ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILLIAM STEVENS
CHICAGO
1910