Part 3

Making out the order for the butcher shop occupied three hours, and when that was done it was time for her music lesson, for Helen never allowed anything to interfere with her musical education, and at ten o’clock she seated herself at the Victrola and under the skillful tutelage of her teacher she was soon able to play the overture from “Lily of the Alley.”

From eleven until two was spent in eating a light lunch, and then Jacquiline Olson dropped in to complain about Mabel, Helen’s pet cobra, biting her little boy. The Olson woman was always distasteful to Helen and when she requested that the snake be kept tied up during the summer months, Helen arose majestically and with a deft uppercut knocked her over three chairs into the wood-box, where she lay moaning feebly and offered no resistance when Helen carried her over to the window and dropped her with a crash into the alley.

Most women would have considered their day wrecked after such an incident, but Helen, after draining a dipperful of hemlock wine, dismissed the affair from her mind and started to repair one of the dining room chairs she had broken in a friendly argument with Warren the evening before. After several futile attempts to make the glue stick she gave it up as a bad job and flung the chair in the bath tub where she was certain Warren would not see it for months. Then the telephone rang and a deep bass voice informed her that Baby Winifred had been arrested for throwing rocks at the statue of Benedict Arnold in front of the city hall.

“Well, there’s nothing I can do till Warren comes home,” said Helen as she hung up the receiver and went out in the back yard to dig a hole to bury the neighbor’s bull dog which Pussy Purr-mew had just dragged in the house. “I wish the dear thing wouldn’t bring home all the dogs she kills,” sighed Helen, “but I suppose she wants to show me what a good fighter she is.”

After burying the dog, Helen went back to the house and picking up the latest issue of Naughty Stories, soon was so interested that she did not hear the voices of the men at the front door when they brought Warren home from the office, drunk, and dumped him on the front porch, where he lay until she stumbled over him an hour later.

By this time Warren was sober enough to eat supper, which he did in a silence only broken when he inhaled the soup and drank his coffee.

“Why don’t you talk to me?” Helen demanded toward the end of the meal. “Don’t sit there like a dummy and never say a word. Men are such brutes!” And throwing herself behind the kitchen stove she wept bitterly.

* * * * *

Too Fast!

The Victor Dog sat on a talking machine and the record ran so fast, that the dog’s head caught up with his tail, and he didn’t have room to pass “His Master’s Voice.”

* * * * *

_Olaf had a little dog,_ _’Twas free from fleas and sins;_ _One day it squeezed right through the fence,_ _And barked—its little shins._

—_Shakespeare._

* * * * *

Sweet Dada

My girl’s ears are so large that if you were to look at her from the back you would swear she was a loving cup.

* * * * *

As thou hast made thy bed, why lie about it?

_Smokehouse Poetry_

_In the April issue Smokehouse Poetry fans will be treated to an old classic, “Absolution,” by Nesbit._

_“But the Priest’s duty bade him seek her out_ _And say, ‘My child, why dost thou sit apart?_ _Hast thou some grief? Hast thou some secret doubt?_ _Come and unfold to me thine inmost heart.’”_ * * *

_And as the dim east brightened, slowly ceased_ _The wild devotion that had filled the priest—_ _And with full sunlight he sprang up—a man!_ * * *

_“Oh, lips so quiet, eyes that will not see!_ _Oh, clinging hands that not again will cling!_ _This last poor sin may well be pardoned thee,_ _Since for the right’s sake thou hast done this thing.”_ * * *

* * * * *

Night After Night

Night after night the cards were fairly shuffled And fairly dealt, but still I got no hand. The morning came, but I with mind unruffled Did simply say, “I do not understand.”

Life is a game of whist; from unseen sources The cards are shuffled and the hands are dealt. Vain are our efforts to control the forces Which though unseen are no less strongly felt.

* * * * *

The Kid’s Last Fight

Us two was pals, the Kid and me; ’Twould cut no ice if some gayzee, As tough as hell jumped either one, We’d both light in and hand him some.

Both of a size, the Kid and me, We tipped the scales at thirty-three; And when we’d spar ’twas give and take, I wouldn’t slug for any stake.

One day we worked out at the gym, Some swell guy hangin’ round called “Slim,” Watched us and got stuck on the Kid, Then signed him up, that’s what he did.

This guy called “Slim” he owned a string Of lightweights, welters, everything; He took the Kid out on the road, And where they went none of us knowed.

I guessed the Kid had changed his name, And fightin’ best ones in the game, I used to dream of him at night, No letters came—he couldn’t write.

In just about two months or three I signed up with Bucktooth McGee, He got me matched with Denver Brown, I finished him in half a round.

Next month I fought with Brooklyn Mike, As tough a boy who hit the pike; Then Frisco Jim and Battlin’ Ben, And knocked them all inside of ten.

I took ’em all and won each bout, None of them birds could put me out; The sportin’ writers watched me slug, Then all the papers run my mug.

“He’d rather fight than eat,” they said, “He’s got the punch, he’ll knock ’em dead.” There’s only one I hadn’t met, That guy they called “The Yorkshire Pet.”

He’d cleaned ’em all around in France, No one in England stood a chance; And I was champ in U. S. A., And knocked ’em cuckoo every day.

Now all McGee and me could think, Was how we’d like to cross the drink, And knock this bucko for a row, And grab a wagon load of dough.

At last Mac got me matched all right, Five thousand smackers for the fight; Then me and him packed up our grip, And went to grab that championship.

I done some trainin’ and the night Set for the battle, sure was right; The crowd was wild, for this here bout Was set to last till one was out.

The mob went crazy when the Pet Came in, I’d never seen him yet; And then I climbed up through the ropes, All full of fight and full of hopes.

The crowd gave me an awful yell, (’Twas even money at the bell) They stamped their feet and shook the place; The Pet turned ’round, I saw his face!

My guts went sick, that’s what they did, For Holy Gee, it was the Kid! We just had time for one good shake, We meant it too, it wasn’t fake.

Whang! went the bell, the fight was on. I clinched until the round was gone, A beggin’ that he’d let me take The fall for him—he wouldn’t fake.

Hell, no, the Kid was on the square, And said we had to fight it fair, The crowd had bet their dough on us— We had to fight (the honest cuss).

The referee was yellin’ “break,” The crowd was sore and howlin’ “fake,” They’d paid their dough to see a scrap, And so far we’d not hit a tap.

The second round we both begin, I caught a fast one on my chin; And stood like I was in a doze, Until I got one on the nose.

I started landin’ body blows, He hooked another on my nose, That riled my fightin’ blood like hell, And we was sluggin’ at the bell.

The next round started, from the go, The millin’ we did wasn’t slow, I landed hard on him, and then, He took the count right up to ten.

He took the limit on one knee, —A chance to get his wind you see; At ten he jumped up like a flash And on my jaw he hung a smash.

I’m fightin’ too there, toe to toe, And hittin’ harder, blow for blow, I damn soon knowed he couldn’t stay, He rolled his eyes—you know the way.

The way he staggered made me sick, I stalled, McGee yelled “cop him quick!” The crowd was wise and yellin’ “fake,” They’d seen the chance I wouldn’t take.

That mob kept tellin’ me to land, And callin’ things I couldn’t stand; I stepped in close and smashed his chin, The Kid fell hard, he was all in.

I carried him into his chair, And tried to bring him to for fair, I rubbed his wrists, done everything, —A doctor climbed into the ring.

And I was scared as I could be, The Kid was starin’ and can’t see; The doctor turned and shook his head, I looked again—the Kid was dead!

* * * * *

_Just because you own an Ingersoll watch is no indication you’re a horological expert._

* * * * *

The Rolling Stone

The reason I never can quit the road Is a reason that’s plain and clear; It’s because no matter where I may stop And whether it’s far or near, There is a place beyond the place I am Wherever I may be at, And then beyond is a place beyond, And the world beyond all that.

And as long as a man has eyes to see And a brain that wants to know, I figure there are things he’s bound to miss If he doesn’t go on and go. For there’s always a place beyond that place I happen to hand my hat; And another place beyond that place And the world beyond all that.

* * * * *

_“Did you hear the one about the mouse-trap?”_

_“No.”_

_“Well, it’s snappy.”_

* * * * *

A fool and his honey are soon mated.

* * * * *

_“I’m glad my affairs are rounded into good shape,” said the pretty young thing as she pulled on her stockings._

* * * * *

You Can’t Tamper

Heard about the classy new neckwear for trainmen? They say these railroad ties are quite the rage.

* * * * *

_“Is she a very modest girl?”_

_“Very—she won’t even look at the weather strip on the house!”_

* * * * *

Slobbering Blues

“Let me kiss those tears away!” he begged tenderly.

She fell in his arms, and he was busy for the next few moments. And yet the tears flowed on.

“Can nothing stop them?” he asked, breathlessly sad.

“No,” she murmured; “it is hay fever, you know. But go on with the treatment.”

* * * * *

Encore Ha Ha

Mr. Jones had recently become the father of twins. The minister stopped him in the street to congratulate him.

“Well, Jones, I hear that the Lord has smiled on you,” he said.

“Smiled on me!” repeated Jones. “He laughed out loud at me.”

* * * * *

A Colorado Egg

While a Denver physician was inspecting the insane hospital at Pueblo an inmate approached him and asked: “I beg your pardon, sir, but have you a piece of toast?” “No,” replied the doctor, in surprise, “but I can get a piece if you want it badly.” “Oh, I wish you would. I’m a poached egg and I want to sit down.”

* * * * *

Jockey thrown in first race at New Orleans:

“Let Zybszko ride him.”

* * * * *

A Startling Exegesis

At a colored camp meeting in Louisiana the following sermon was delivered by a very black old darky, wearing huge spectacles:

“Brethren and Sistren, de preachifying dis mawnin’ will be from de text on de 10 virgins. De bridegroom war a-coming and ’spectin’ dem 10 virgins to be ready wif dere lamps all trimmed and a-burnin’, but, lo, when he was come he done foun’ dat on’y five of dem virgins war ready; yessir, five was trimmed and five was ontrimmed; five was wise and five was onwise; five was ready and five was onready; five was male and five was female.”—Harper’s Magazine.

* * * * *

Must Be Dr. Cupid

“I don’t like your heart action,” said the doctor, applying his stethoscope.

“You’ve had some trouble with angina pectoris, haven’t you?”

“You’re partly right, Doc,” answered the young man, sheepishly. “Only that ain’t her name.”—Pathfinder.

* * * * *

Roll ’Em Out Kid

When I was farmin’ in North Dakota I raised spuds an’ one day I went out to see how my spuds was comin’. The patch was right on a side hill. Well, sir, do you know that when I pulled up that vine two bushels of spuds rolled out of that hill before I could plug up the hole.

* * * * *

The Piping Costs

The colored minister had just concluded a powerful sermon on “Salvation is Free” and was announcing that a collection would be taken. Up jumped a brother in the back of the church. “If salvation is free,” he interrupted, “what’s the use paying for it? I’m going to give you nothing till I find out. Now—”

“Patience, brother, patience,” said the parson. “I’ll illustrate. Suppose you were thirsty and came to a river. You could kneel right down and drink, couldn’t you? And it would cost you nothing, would it?”

“Of course not. That’s just what I—”

“That water would be free,” continued the parson. “But supposing you were to have that water piped to your house, you would have to pay, would you not?”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“Well, brother, salvation is free, but it is the having it piped to you that you got to pay for. Pass the hat, sexton.”

* * * * *

It was rather quiet at the postoffice the other day and outside of the Whiz Bang mail our genial postmaster, Bud Nasset, sorted out only two letters. The first one was addressed to Deacon Miller from his son, reading as follows: “Dear Father—I am in jail. Son.” The Deacon’s answer was the other letter, “Dear Son—So am I. Father.”

_Chinese Nightmare Cities_

BY REV. “GOLIGHTLY” MORRILL

Pastor People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn.

All aboard for China, the country of Confucius and chop suey! At Canton a wonderful spectacle took place at the wharf. A sampan man had beaten his wife and thrown her on the dock where she sat and chanted in a monotonous voice while a hundred coolies gathered round and watched the interesting ceremony. She referred to her husband and his ancestors, then scraped up a little pile of dirt, spat on it, molded it into the image of a man, addressed it with a few words, suddenly knelt and foully insulted it, and so eased her conscience, balanced the books of honor and “saved her face.”

From the Hotel Victoria in the Shameen, or Foreign Quarter, two cadaverous coolies carried me in a coffin-shaped sedan chair across a stinking canal into native Canton. My guide, Ah Cum, led the way. The streets were so narrow and the show windows so near that I could have been a shoplifter with both hands. If hungry, there was a free lunch counter extending along the streets with tea and rice, live fish, glazed ducks, gory pigs, a choice assortment of fresh entrails, some dead dogs and rats, crates of yowling cats, and huge pots of slimy soup thickened with animal, vegetable and other matter that would make the Witches’ Cauldron in “Macbeth” look like a cup of consomme in comparison.

At the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii, where the prayers of the holy had given way to the harangues of the politicians, I saw a gilded statue big as life of the first European globe-trotter to China, Marco Polo. Such a traveler was a novelty then, but now is a nuisance. I went by old walls whose painted dragons the new Chinese had wiped out; by temples whose only occupants were a few second-hand gods and bats; took time to visit the water-clock tower where drops of water instead of grains of sand mark the time of China’s millions towards the grave; passed through gates of the old city wall to the hillside where hundreds had been shot; looked into the graveyard where the poor common people rest after life’s fitful fever, while the restless rich, who shunned them in life, lie apart from them in the City of the Dead.

Like mummies in a museum, they sleep unburied in their rich caskets and await the grafting geomancer, that oriental undertaker, who promises the relatives to find some place in the ground undisturbed by the Great Dragon. By the religious milestone of the five-storied, weedy, seedy Pagoda, whose oracles are dumb, I headed for the Execution Grounds in the pottery district where the sharp sword had sent many a man back to his original clay.

China is becoming civilized now and stands her criminals up against a wall and shoots them. Here was a narrow alley lined with earthen pots covered with mats, under which were fleshless skulls. One of them seemed to look imploringly at me, and I picked it up. Alas, some poor Chinese Yorick! I was anxious to see the man who struck the fearful blows, and Ah Cum called the executioner who came out with a knife estimated to have cut off 300,000 heads in thirty years. There is a death here by “seventy-two cuts,” but one from his sword was enough.

Bayard Taylor said China was a good place to leave, and I was not very sorry when the whistle blew to cast off and say good-bye to the city of dreadful sights, sounds, suffering and smells. Leaving the grotesque outline of an old fort, a little island stained by some dark murder, a place where pirates had scuttled a ship, a picturesque Pagoda looking like an eight-story Easter bonnet, Grecian-bend shaped junk-boats and sampans like big, broken barrels floating along, we sailed down the Pearl River and at midnight reached the Portuguese town of Macao. On deck we were surprised to find the officers embracing the coolies. Were they trying to relieve them of their hard-earned spoils of fan-tan which they had won during the night? No, the honest officials were only searching for concealed arms, but found only those which Nature had allowed and provided.

An illuminated sign, “First-class Gambling House,” drew my attention. Gambling, next to loafing and the manufacture of opium, is the principal occupation of the youngest and oldest inhabitants. Macao is the Oriental Monte Carlo. Gambling here is backed by the government which gets back a certain per cent of the earnings which it invests in hospitals, asylums and cheap lodgings for the people who have been beaten at the game. At this gambling-hell one could play at the big table downstairs, or drop into the game by lowering his money in a small basket from the balcony above. Tired of the game, the player recuperates his wasted energies here by eating bird-nest soup and shark-fins, or drinking Portuguese wines. If he is sleepy, he may take the opium-pipe train of thought to the Flowery Land where every-day is Sunday.

At a “song-parlor” some Chinese dolls amused us with their squeaky voices and knife-scraping music. It sadly recalled my visit to a Hongkong house of pleasure whose almond-eyed inmates illustrated Confucius’ remark that “women had no souls,” and the Chinese philosophy which attributes death and evil to Yin, the female principle in Nature. Their artificially whitened and rouged faces were ghastly, and their flower-and-jewel-bedecked hair glued down to the skull was anything but attractive to an Occidental eye. Their lips were red like the dawn of day, their complexions like congealed ointment, and their betel-nut-stained teeth like black watermelon seeds. They unfurled painted fans, sipped tea, nibbled sweetmeats, puffed at opium-pipes, and looked quite flowery in their blue collars, purple tunics and bright green trousers. I wonder if the men, whom they were entertaining, remembered the Chinese proverb, “There is no such poison in the green snake’s mouth or in the hornet’s sting as in a woman’s heart.”

After visiting next day a firecracker factory, temples, joss-houses, and a tobacco plant where little children and old women were at work sorting the leaves, I was conducted to Macao’s notorious opium factory. I entered a low-ceiling room where men were stripped to their waists like blacksmiths at the forge. They picked up the crude opium, shaped like a cocoanut shell, scooped out the chocolate-looking substance, threw it into a kind of brass wash-basin under which roared the fire, until it steamed and blubbered like a pot of hot mush or molasses. They darted here and there like imps with these pans. Then the liquid was poured in porcelain boxes of various sizes. The whole place seemed like a Devil’s smithyshop where chains were being forged for lost souls. The odor was peculiar and penetrating. I must have absorbed some of the dope, for I felt dizzy and was glad to get outside in the fresh air.

There is no more melancholy sight, in China’s teeming nightmare cities, than a drug-befuddled victim staggering out in the early dawn from some hasheesh house and tumbling down in the street where he dreams he is in the Celestial City with his ancestors. When he is rudely awakened by a hungry rat gnawing his hand or foot, the golden vision vanishes. In the cold light of the morning, racked with nameless pains, he crawls off to work at some mean job, hoping to make enough for another night’s opium dream in which to forget the hell of this tormenting world.

* * * * *

Be An “I Can” Giant

As on through Life’s journey we go, day by day, There are two whom we meet, at each turn of the way, To help or to hinder—to bless or to ban, And the names of these two are “I Can’t” and “I Can!”

“I Can’t” is a dwarf, a poor, pale, puny imp, His eyes are half blind and his walk is a limp, He stumbles and falls, or lies writhing in fits, And for those who would help him plants snares and digs pits.

“I Can” is a giant, unbending he stands, There is strength in his arms, and skill in his hands, He asks for no favors, he wants but a share Where labor is honest and wages are fair.

* * * * *

“Now, let’s stick together, boys,” said the first of three flies as they lit on the piece of tanglefoot.

* * * * *

An Immediate Saving

Ikey kicked in the bathroom door and discovered Rebecca dead in the bath tub. For a moment he gazed horror stricken, then rushed to the head of the stairs and shouted to the maid, “Mary, Mary!”

“Yes, sir,” answered the shixa.

“Only von egg for breakfast dis morning, Mary.”

* * * * *

Ad In Theatrical Paper

Engagement wanted. Small part, such as dead body or outside shouts.

* * * * *

Fancy Poetry

Father got his hand blown off. That was a terrible sin. It could have been worse if it was the hand that he had his wages in.

* * * * *

“Paris is falling,” delicately hinted the maiden, as her escort’s garter snapped and fell over his shoe-top.

* * * * *

“Trash!” exclaimed the president of the Ash Men’s Union, as the secretary finished reading the reports.

* * * * *

Bang! Bang!

Lady went into a store and asked for a camisole. “What bust?” asked the salesman. “I didn’t hear anything,” she replied.

* * * * *

_Tell the truth and shame the family._

* * * * *

They Shot Spitballs

A good story is told on our old friend Colonel Luce of the Minnesota National Guard. Two battalions of the Colonel’s regiment were staging a sham battle at their summer encampment.

The defending forces took possession of a small hill overlooking a river and destroyed the only bridge by the simple method of tacking up a notice on it stating that they had done so. As a result it was quite a surprise to them to see the attacking forces swarming across the bridge, making extraordinary motions in front of them with their hands.

“Hold on there, men!” shouted the Colonel’s aide from the observer’s post, “you can’t cross that bridge. It has been blown up.”