Part 12

When your dress and your hat cost you five, and you sewed on them nights when half alive, but when you wear them the neighbors smile, and say to each other, “just see that style--catch on to the Paris gown and hat; where did she get coin to dress like that? That rig is a mighty costly one--and I wonder her husband don’t catch on.” You smile as you trip through the merry throng, smarting under an awful wrong. And it’s hell!

When you marry some mother’s angel pet, who away from coddling you cannot get, just make up your mind to find a way to bear your burden day by day. And when his misdoings are laid to you, you’ll say this old world is all askew. And it’s hell!

THE LOCO GERM.

When it enters your system, don’t try to squirm; just take your medicine, it’s a loco germ. It may not come till you’re old and gray, but every guy takes it on some day. It cuts no ice if her feet are big, and if in your heart you don’t like her rig; if her hands are coarse and a little bit red, and horse-hair rats are in her head. You will see the defects and will says, “By Jove! She’s the one for me.” You’re in love.

She’ll be indifferent, it’s just their way; a little bit selfish, a little bit gay, but she touched your hand and she makes you thrill; then lookout, old chap, you are losing your will. You’ll notice the paint if she uses such, but you’ll never think she has on too much. You’ll see she ain’t real, where she ought to be, and a thousand other defects you’ll see. But, no matter, you only think of the bliss, of getting from her the fatal kiss. You’re in love.

All your traditions are quite upset; what your mother taught you, you’ll quite forget; you’ll get suspicious of those you knew, and you’ll think your pals are in love with her, too. You’ll spend your coin, and you’ll spend it well, on the richest things the Chinks have to sell, and you’ll lay them down on the floor at her feet, and your heart will throb when her glance you meet. You’re in love.

You may have cherished a grand ideal all your former days, but there’s nothing real; the ones you knew in the days gone by will fade from your mind, and you will not sigh. The loved one’s voice may be rather strong, her chin may be weak and her nose too long; her manners, too, are a little crude, and she isn’t herself when she plays the prude. The grammar she uses is not in tone with the district school ma’am away back home. You’re in love.

You are caught in a net she has woven for you--a net from which have escaped a few; and if on the whole she offends your taste, being forty-five inches about the waist, and if you don’t fancy that seven shoe, never mind; she’s the one for you. You’ll forget and forgive if she has a past; you think you’re her first real love, and her last. You are hot all over, your heart beats fast. You’re in love.

AN ISTHMIAN WOOER.

Say, girl, I admire your shape, an’ I want to take you to ride. I’m goin’ to get a coach closed in, so they won’t know who’s inside. An’, say, I wish you lived down the line, but you live like a speakitty. Wouldn’t you like a little time with a lovin’ guy like me? Straight goods, I like your style; I told a feller so; I admired you for quite a while, an’ I bet you didn’t know. I said to a guy, “I’m goin’ around an’ I’ll bet I’ll make a hit.” I won’t never breathe a dog gone sound--let me love you up a bit. How could I squeal, when I have a wife that thinks me the finest thing that ever drew the breath of life, an angel without a wing? I’d like to bring you a bottle of jam, some day from the commissary, livin’ alone without a man.

Say, kid, ain’t you free to marry? Class! What’s that got to do with us? Say, that puts me on the bum. Education, your foot! Don’t make such a fuss; see, I brought you some chewin’ gum. You’re just a little too touchy, see! I don’t understand your way. The wimmin I know are easy an’ free, an’ just a little bit gay. If I was just a man about town, don’t you believe I’d look it? I like you, girl; don’t wear such a frown! Do you think I’m a guy that’s crooked? I’m not of your class? Oh, that’s it, eh? Some chump that pushes a pen, that gets but a hundred a month for pay, is more in your line of men. Do you know what the Colonel said to me? an’ I think he’s always right. Education ain’t worth a darn, says he; ’tis a man that puts up the fight. Well, so long, kid, since you prefer a guy that pushes a pen, who has his little hundred per, but ain’t my class of men.

PRESERVED PEACHES.

The chumps in Panama were glad to do the turkey trot, and other stunts not quite so bad that folks call tommy rot. When Morton with his peaches came, the cavaliers made bids, preserved them up in dry champagne, and acted just like kids. A banker now is bankrupt, and the guy in the Elite is selling out his socks and pants to put him on his feet. Raul E. has a broken limb, he capered so each night. The peaches all looked up to him because his heart was light.

We hoary heads came from the Zone, in force, to see it done, and spent our coin, lest it be thought we didn’t like the fun. Our wives and mothers thought that we were at a mission church, listening to a sermon by the Rev. Baldhead Birch. And when we sought our peaceful homes with sanctimonious airs, and knelt beside our babies’ cots and taught them little prayers, we felt a sort of sneakish, like other hypocrites, and worried lest our wives hear, and have a thousand fits. But now these spasms are all gone; we’re quite ourselves again; our wives have never yet caught on, and therefore have felt no pain. The Morton Peaches were so wise, they took our coin away, and told us we were silly guys, like those along Broadway.

EUGENICS.

Catch on to the girl with a dog on a string--a dog that was bred for the eye of a king--and she a pathetic figure to see, is proud that the mut has a pedigree. She studied eugenics for many a year, and lectured on institutions queer, but she was poor, and she feared to get old, so she sold herself for a pot of gold.

Ain’t that life?

She married a guy whose toes turn in, when he opens his mouth he has no chin, no lobes to his ears and he stutters some, and chews on opium as if ’twas gum. But she says she is proud to be that man’s wife, and calls him her dearest--

Say! Ain’t that life?

On a little farther a chap you’ll see, who is just as straight as a poplar tree; his chin is normal, his forehead is high; see, his face turns red as he passes her by, for down in his heart there’s a tiny spot, where her image will ever lie unforgot, and a restless longing has he for her. If the neighborhood knew it he’d be called a cur.

Ain’t that life?

As they pass each other they never speak. He looks indifferent, while she looks meek. And they drop their eyes when they chance to meet, and look at each other from some retreat. And she pretends that she doesn’t care, though in her face you can see despair. Her heart beats high; it’s an awful sin, but she’d like a son the image of him.

Ain’t that life?

In her home there’s a bundle of bone and skin; it has its father’s ears and chin, and the neighbors say, with voices glad, “Isn’t he cute? He looks like his dad!” But on her heart there’s an awful load, for she sees that her baby’s legs are bowed. She sees in his eyes a peculiar light, that keeps her awake in the dead of night. And she kneels on her knees and she breathes a prayer, for she knows that old Nature has gotten square.

That’s life!

TABOGA.

The latest order given out has made the chumps feel blue; they don’t know what it’s all about, but let me tell you, they’ve lost their graft, for when they go to the Isle across the bay they have to take their wallets, because they have to pay.

Some blame it all on Uncle Sam, and some on Uncle George, and others say he’s not to blame, because his heart is large; but a guy told me, in confidence, who seldom ever speaks, that he isn’t blaming any one but poor old baldhead Meeks.

Before that guy came back, said he, we could spend a little more on drinks and turkey trottings at Jones’s by the short. There’s one good thing about it, though, if you get a little tight, you’re not an orphan chap no more; you can stay away all night. And if you stay out after nine, your time they cannot dock, since we began to pay our way we stay till twelve o’clock.

But, say! the wife won’t let me go to the Isle across the bay, because she says we can’t afford to pay two plunks a day. Should hubby rest, the wife will stay to mend the socks and pants; it cost too much to go with hub to learn the latest dance. To give good coin for rent and light and rest she can’t endure; the future isn’t looking bright, our graft is slipping sure.

OUR UNCLE GEORGE.

Our Uncle George is wide awake to things that are not so; he’s weeding out for pity’s sake the guys that ought to go. The vultures all are talking, they say he’s acting queer, because he’s on to faking ones that passed for highbrows here.

Our little faker daddy, with the whiskers on his chin, has gone to get a better job; now, isn’t that a sin? He was the king of fakers, all whiskers and no soul; he didn’t fake a single day when Uncle got control.

We hear that in Nebraska some folks are sawing wood that used to live in splendor here when faking times were good. If it was not for our Uncle they’d all be living still, in mansions fit for harem girls on Slyvan Ancon Hill. They say his nerve is getting weak, but he’s only getting wise; he’s handing out a line of dope that takes them by surprise. He has his wits about him yet, and his love for all things just, so when he says get up and get, the fakers know they must. Our Uncle has the helm, and he’s steering mighty well; he fears no politicians, they all can go to heaven.

The fawners and the cringers think the Zone is all askew, but Uncle never did have use for that that was not true.

End of Project Gutenberg's Droll Stories of Isthmian Life, by Evelyn Saxton