Part 6

There is never any mark-downs at the wangan camp._

The folks that knit the stockin’s that they sell to us, why say--

They’d git as rich as Moses on a half of what we pay.

I haven’t seen the papers, but I jedge this Bower war

Is a-raisin’ Ned with prices--they are wust I ever saw.

I was figg’rin’ t’other ev’nin’ what I’d bought, --by Jim, I’ll bet

That a few more pairs o’larrigans will fetch me out in debt.

For I’ve knowed a stiddy worker to go out as poor’s a tramp ‘Cause he traded som’at reg’lar at the com- p’ny’s wangan camp.

_The wangan camp!

The wangan camp!

They tuck it to you solid at the wangan camp_.

PLUG TOBACCO AT SOURDNAHUNK

Now just for a moment I’ll let the machine, Grind lyrical praise of the base nicotine.

--An ode of a sort of a commonplace stripe Addressed to plebeian cut-plug and the pipe. Oh, answer me now, gentle friends of the line, Who have sought the blest haunts of the spruce and the pine,

Have you found in the woods that a fragrant cigar

Tastes worse than an elm-root slopped over with tar?

Queer thing, that, my friend, but it’s none the less true,

--This quirk of tobacco--I’ll leave it to you!

But there’s savor in wreaths from the brier and cob,

In the depths of the forest afar from the mob;

And an incense that’s sweet to ecstatic degree

Curls up from the bowl of the ancient T. D.

While choicest Perfectos smell ranker than punk

In the shade of the hemlocks of Sourdnahunk.

Ah, here do the tables most wondrously turn!

The city olfactories sniff if you burn

Aught else than the finest Havana in rolls;

Folks turn up their noses at cut-plug in bowls;

You may roam where you like with the base cigarette

But you can’t smoke your pipe in the house, now you bet.

For curtains and pictures and hangings and lace

All flutter rebukingly there in your face;

And wife and the daughters and neighbors all cough

And wish that the pipe-smoking man would break off.

But ah, gentle fisher, the woods shout to thee,

With fervent request that you bring the T. D.

For the reek that the flavored tobacco roll pours

Belongs back in town and not here out-of- doors.

Leave there city manners, creased trousers, your “job,”

Bring here to the woods your tobacco and cob,

The hemlocks above you will tenderly sigh

As the incense from pipe bowls drifts past to the sky.

Ah, human magician, the secret is yours!

Would you work mystic charms in the world out-of-doors?

Take you the alembic of chastened brown bowl.

Touch fire--and visions will comfort your soul,

As you gaze out at Life through the wreaths from a junk

Of good plug tobacco at Sourdnahunk.

O’CONNOR FROM THE DRIVE

_Men who plough the sea, spend they may--and free!

But nowhere is there prodigal among those careless Jacks,

Who will toss the hard-won spoil of a year of lusty toil,

Like the Prodigals of Pick-pole and the Ish- maels of the Axe._

You could hear him when he started from the Rapogenus Chutes,

You could hear the cronching-cranching of his swashing, spike-sole boots,

You could even hear the colors in the flannel shirt he wore,

And the forest fairly shivered at the way O’Connor swore.

’Twas averred that in the city, full a hundred miles away,

They felt a little tremor when O’Connor drew his pay.

Though he drew it miles away,

When O’Connor drew his pay,

The people in the city felt the shock of it that day.

And they said in deepest gloom,

“The drive is in the boom,

And O’Connor’s drawn his wages; clear the track and give him room.”

He rode two giant spruces thro’ the smother of the Chutes,

He rode them, standing straddled, shod and spurred in spike-sole boots;

And just for exhibition, when he struck Che- suncook Rip

He rolled the logs and ran them with never miss or slip.

For a dozen miles thro* rapids did he balance on one log,

And he shot the Big Seboomook at a mighty lively jog.

He reached Megantic Landing where he nim- bly leaped ashore,

And he bought some liquid fire at the Bemis wangan store.

For, O’Connor’d drawn his pay,

He was then upon his way

For a little relaxation and a day or two of play. The drive was in the boom,

Safely past Seboois flume,

And all O’Connor wanted was rum enough-- and room.

O’Connor owned the steamboat from Megantic to the Cove:

Whatever there was stavable, he forthwith calmly stove.

He larruped crew and captain when they wouldn’t let him steer,

Sat down upon the smoke-stack--smoked out the engineer.

Of course he was arrested when the steamer got to shore;

A justice fined O’Connor and he paid the fine --and more!

He had drawn his season’s pay,

He had cash to throw away,

He had cash to burn! O’Connor’d spurn for clemency to pray.

The drive was safely down,

He was on his way to town;

He was doing up the section and proposed to do it brown.

O’Connor owned the railroad, as O’Connor’d owned the craft.

Pie cronched from rear to engine, and he chaffed and quaffed and laughed.

He smashed the plate-glass windows, for he didn’t like the styles.

He smashed and promptly settled for a dozen stove-pipe tiles;

They took him into limbo right and left along the line,

He pulled his roll and willingly kept peeling off his fine.

With his portly wad of pay He paved his genial way,

He’d had no chance to spend it on the far-off Brass-u-a.

But now the drive was in,

As he’d neither kith nor kin,

There seemed no special reason why he shouldn’t throw his tin.

O’Connor reached the city and he reached it with a jar,

He had piled up all the cushions in the center of the car.

--Had set them all on fire, and around the blaz- ing pile

He was dancing “dingle breakdowns” in a very jovial style.

And before they got him cornered they had rung in three alarms,

And it took the whole department to tie his legs and arms.

He had spent his last lone copper, but they sold his spike-sole boots

For enough to pay his freightage back to Rapo- genus Chutes.

They put him in a crate,

And they shipped him back by freight,

To commence his year of chopping up in Town- ship Number Eight.

And earnestly he swore,

When they dumped him on the shore,

He had never spent his wages quite so pleas- urably before.

_Men who plough the sea, spend they may--and free!

But nowhere is there prodigal among those careless Jacks,

Who will toss the hard-won spoil of a year of lusty toil,

Like the Prodigals of Pick-pole and the Ish- maels of the Axe._

JUST HUMAN NATURE

BALLAD OF OZY B. ORR

Here’s a plain and straight story of Ozy B. Orr--

A ballad unvarnished, but practical, for

It tells how the critter he wouldn’t lie down

When a Hoodoo had reckoned to do him up brown.

It shows how a Yankee alights on his feet

When folks looking on have concluded he’s beat

Now Ozy had money and owned a good farm

And matters were working all right to a charm.

When he “went on” some papers to help his son Bill

Who was all tangled up in a dowel-stock mill.

Now Bill was a quitter, and therefore one day

Those notes became due and his dad had to pay.

So he slapped on a mortgage and then buckled down

To pay up the int’rest and keep off the town.

Oh, that mortgage, it clung like a sheep-tick in wool,

And the more she sagged back, harder Ozy would pull;

But a mortgage can tucker the likeliest man,

And Ozy he found himself flat on hard pan.

He dumped in his stock and his grain and his hay,

He scrimped and he skived and endeavored to pay;

He sold off his hay and his grain and his stock

Till the ricky-tick-tack of the auctioneer’s knock

Kept up such a rapping on Ozy’s old farm

That the auctioneer nigh had a kink in his arm--

And it happened at last,’long o’ Thanksgiving time,

Old Ozy was stripped to his very last dime.

And he said to his helpmeet: “Poor mummy, I van

I guess them ’ere critters have got all they can.

For they’ve sued off the stock till the barns are all bare,

’Cept the old turkey-gobbler, a-peckin’ out there;

They’d’a’ lifted him, too, for those lawyers are rough,

But they reckoned that gobbler was rather too tough.

So they’ve left us our dinner for Thanksgivin’ Day;

Just remember that, mummy, to-night when you pray.

Now chirk up your appetite, for, with God’s grace,

We’ll eat all at once all the stock on the place.”

But Ozy he was a cheerful man,

A goodly man, a godly man--

He didn’t repine at Heaven’s plan, but he took things as they came;

And cheerfully soon he whistled his tune

That he always whistled-- ’twas Old Zip Coon,

And he whistled it all the afternoon with never a word of blame.

While all unaware of his owner’s care,

The gobbler pecked in the sunshine there,

With a tip-toe, tip-toe Nancy air, and ruffled like dancing dame;

Till it seemed to Ozy, whistling still To the ripity-rap of the turkey’s bill,

That the prim old gobbler was keeping time

To the sweep and the swing of the wordless rhyme:

Pickety-peck,

With arching neck,

The turkey strutted with bow and beck.

And a Yankee notion was thereby born To Ozy Orr ere another morn.

A practical fellow was Ozy B. Orr,

As keen an old Yankee as ever you saw A bit of a platform he made out of tin,

With a chance for a kerosene lantern within; He took his old fiddle and rosined the bow And took the old turkey--and there was his show!

You don’t understand? Well, I’ll own up to you

The crowds that he gathered were mystified, too.

For he advertised there on his banner unfurled “A Jig-dancing Turkey--Sole one in the World.”

And the more the folks saw it, the more and the more

They flocked with their dimes, and jammed at the door;

For it really did seem that precocious old bird At sound of the fiddle was wondrously stirred. In stateliest fashion the dance would commence, Then faster and faster, with fervor intense, Until, at the end, with a shriek of the strings And a furious gobble and whirlwind of wings,

The turkey would side-step and two-step and spin,

Then larrup with ardor that echoing tin.

And widely renowned, and regarded with awe,

Was the “Great Dancing Turkey of Ozy B. Orr.”

And the mortgage was paid by the old gobbler’s legs--

Now Ozy is heading up money in kegs. [Illustration: 0149]

He would calmly tuck beneath his chin The bulge of his cracked old violin,

He sawed while the turkey whacked the tin, the people they paid and came;

For swift and soon to the lilting tune,

When he fiddled the measure of Old Zip Coon,

The gobbler would whirl in a rigadoon--or something about the same!

While under the tin, tucked snugly in,

Was the worthless Bill, that brand of Sin;

And’twas Bill that made the turkey spin with the tip of the lantern flame;

For, as ever and ever the tin grew hot

The turkey made haste for to leave that spot,

Till it seemed that the gobbler was keeping time

To the sweep and the swing of the fiddle’s rhyme.

Pickety-peck,

With snapping neck,

The gobbler gamboled with bow and beck! Does a notion pay? It doth--it doth!

Just reckon what O. B. Orr is “wuth.”

THE BALLAD OF “OLD SCRATCH”

They have always called him “Scratchy,” Ezry “Scratch” and “Uncle Scratch,”

Since the time he cut that ding-do in a certain wrasslin’ match;

’Twas a pesky scaly caper; he deserved to get the name

--If he lives to be a hundred he will carry it the same.

He had vummed that he could wallop any feller in the place,

He allowed that as a wrassler he could sort of set the pace,

And he bragged so much about it that at last we came to think.

If he’d lived in time o’ Samson--could have downed Sam quick’s a wink.

And there wasn’t nary feller in the town nor round about

Who had grit or grab or gumption to take holt and shake him out.

And he set around the gros’ry keepin’ up his steady clack

That there never was a feller who could put him on his back.

So it went till Penley Peaslee’s oldest boy came home from school

--And I tell you that’s a shaver that ain’t any- body’s fool--!

He ain’t tall nor big nor husky and he isn’t very stout,

But he’s nimble as a cricket and as spry as all git out!

Well, he heard old Ezry braggin’ and at last as cool’s could be

Boy says, “Uncle, shed your weskit; I will take your stump,” says he.

Guess’twas jest about a minute’fore old Ezry got his breath,

Then says he, “Scat on ye, youngster! I should squat ye ha’f to death.

What ye think ye know’bout wrasslin’? S’pose I’m go’n’ to fool with boys?”

But the crowd commenced to hoot him and they made sech pesky noise

That at last they got him swearing and he shed his coat and vest

And commenced to stretch his muscles and to pound against his breast.

“S’pose I’ve got to if ye say so,” says he scorn- ful as ye please,

“But I’ll throw that little shaver, one hand tied and on my knees.

I can slat him galley-endways and not use one- ha’f my strength.

What ye want bub? Take your ch’ice now; side holts, back holts, or arm’s length?

Collar’n elbow if ye say so. Name yer pizen! Take your pick!”

“Suit yourself,” the youngster answered; “long’s ye git to business quick.”

As I’ve said the boy wam’t heavy;--he was spry, though, quicker’n scat,

And he had old Ezry spinnin’’fore he knew where he was at;

Hooked him solid, give a twister, doubled up the old gent’s back

And Ez tumbled like a chimbly--smooth and solid and ker-whack!

Well, he lay there stunned and breathless with his mouth jam-full o’ dirt

And his both hands full o’ gingham, for he had the youngster’s shirt.

When the crowd commenced to holler as he staid there on the ground

Grocer Weaver’s old black tom-cat came on tip- toe sniffin’ round.

He was just a-gettin’ ready for to gnaw off Ezry’s nose

When the old man got his senses and he sud- denly arose.

Then he grabbed that old black tom-cat good and solid by the tail

And commenced to welt the youngster just as hard as he could whale.

Ev’ry time he reached and raked him on that bare white back of his--

Ow! them claws they grabbed in dretful and they hurt him--ah, gee whiz!

There were howls and yowls and spittin’s; it was rip and slit and tear,

And the air was full of tom-cat and of flyin’ skin and hair.

Final clip that Ezry hit him it was such a tarnal clout

That the cat he stuck on solid till they pried his toe-nails out.

So they’ve always called him “Scratchy” Ezry “Scratch” and “Uncle Scratch.”

Since the time he cut that ding-do in a certain wrasslin’ match;

’Twas a pesky scaly caper; he deserved to get the name,

--If he lives to be a hundred he will carry it the same.

WHEN ’LISH PLAYED OX

Grouty and gruff,

Profane and rough,

Old’Lish Henderson slammed through life; Swore at his workers,

--Both honest and shirkers, Threatened his children and raved at his wife. Yes,’Lish was a waspish and churlish old man, Who was certainly built on a porcupine plan,

In all of the section there couldn’t be found A neighbor whom Henderson hadn’t “stood ‘round.”

And the men that he hired surveyed him with awe

And cowered whenever he flourished his jaw. Till it came to the time that he hired John Gile, A brawny six-footer from Prince Edward’s Isle.

He wanted a teamster, old Henderson did,

And a number of candidates offered a bid,

But his puffy red face and the glare in his eyes,

And his thunderous tones and his ominous size

And the wealth of his language embarrassed them so

Their fright made them foolish;--he told them to go.

And then, gaunt and shambling, with good- natured smile,

Came bashfully forward the giant John Gile.

“Have ye ever driv’ oxen?” old Henderson roared.

Gile said he could tell the brad-end of a goad.

Then Henderson grinned at the crowd stand- ing’round

And he dropped to his hands and his knees on the ground.

“Here, fellow,” he bellowed, “you take that ’ere gad,

Just imagine I’m oxen; now drive me, my lad.

Just give me some samples of handlin’ the stick,

I can tell if I want ye and tell ye blame quick.”

Gile fingered the goad hesitatingly, then

As he saw Uncle’Lish grinning up at the men

Who were eyeing the trial, said, “Mister, I swan,

‘Tain’t fair on a feller--this teamin’ a man.”

“I’m oxen--I’m oxen,” old Henderson cried,

“Git onto your job or git out an’ go hide.”

Then Gile held the goad-stick in uncertain pose

And gingerly swished it near Uncle’Lish’s nose.

“Wo hysh,” he said gently; “gee up, there, old Bright!

Wo hysh--wo, wo, hysh,”--but with mischiev- ous light

In his beady old eyes Uncle’Lish never stirred

And the language he used was the worst ever heard.

“Why, drat ye,” he roared “hain’t ye got no more sprawl

Than a five year old girl? Why, ye might as well call

Your team ‘Mister Oxen,’ and say to ’em, ‘please!’”

And then Uncle’Lish settled down on his knees.

And he snapped, “Hain’t ye grit enough, man, to say scat?

Ye’ll never git anywhere, drivin’ like that.

I’ll tell ye right now that the oxen I own

Hain’t driven like kittens; they don’t go alone,

There’s pepper-sass in ’em--they’re r’arin’ an’ hot, .

An’ I--I’m the r’arin’est ox in the lot.”

Then Uncle’Lish Henderson lowered his head

And bellowed and snorted. John Gile calmly said,

“Of course--oh, of course in a case such as that--”

He threw out his quid and he threw down his hat,

Jumped up, cracked his heels, danced around Uncle’Lish

And yelled like a maniac, “Blast ye, wo hysh!”

Ere Uncle’Lish Henderson knew what was what

His teeth fairly chattered, he got such a swat

From that vicious ash stick--though that wasn’t as bad

As when the man gave him two inches of brad,

--Just jabbed it with all of his two-handed might,

“Wo, haw, there,” he shouted, “gee up there, old Bright!”

Well, Uncle’Lish gee-ed--there’s no doubt about that--

Went into the air and he squalled like a cat,

Made a swing and a swoop at that man in a style

That would show he proposed to annihilate Gile.

But Gile clinched the goad-stick and hit him a whack

On the bridge of his nose--sent him staggering back,

And he reeled and he gasped and he sunk on his knee,

“Dad-rat ye,” yelled Gile, “don’t ye try to hook me!

Gee up, there--go’long there; wo haw an’ wo hysh!”

And again did he bury that brad in old’Lish,

Then he lammed and he basted him, steady and hard,

He chased and he bradded him all’round the yard,

Till’Lish fairly screamed, as he dodged like a

fox,

“For heaven’s sake, stranger, let’s play I hain’t ox.”

Gile bashfully stammered, “Why,’course ye are not!

But ye’ll have to excuse me--I sort o’ forgot!”

With a twisted smile ‘Lish looked at Gile,

Then he lifted one hand from the place where he smarted;

And he held it out,

--Gripped good and stout,

“Ye’re hired,” said he; “I reckin I’m started!”

OLD “TEN PER CENT”

His mouth is pooched and solemn and he’ll never squeeze a smile,

He’s yeller ’em saffron bitters’cause he’s col- ored so by bile;

No organ in his system seems to run the way it should,

--He never has a hearty shake or says a word of good.

He’ll soften, though, a crumb or so if money’s to be lent

And some poor strugglin’ devil comes to time with ten per cent.

He is flingin’ and is dingin’ first at this and then at that,

And to ev’ry reputation gives a cuff or kick or slat;

Pretty lately he was spewin’ sland’rous gossip he had heard,

And our minister was passin’. Wal, the elder he was stirred

And he says, “Ah, Brother Bowler, if you’d lived in Jesus’ time

When they brought to him the woman whom they’d taken in her crime,

That story in the Scriptures would have took a diff’rent tone,

For I s’picion if you’d been there you’d’a’ up and thrown the stone.