Part 7

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!"

_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_

A sorrel colt, one pleasant day, ran round and round a stack of hay, and 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.

_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_