Part 7

Old Cic by the gallus with “come-along” hook

Of that gnurly forefinger. And there Cic would

stand,

For he wouldn’t be yankin’ away from that hand,

Unless in his desperate efforts to skip

Cic dodged from his toga, and gave Brown the

slip.

And it’s likely that Brown would talk something

like this:

I ain’t at all anxious to shift with you, Cic.

Your hoss, I’ll admit, has got plenty of speed,

But you know, Cic, you know that he ain’t what

you need.

Outside of a show piece to stand in the barn,

That hoss he ain’t worth, Cic, a tinker’s gol-

darn.

What you want is that hoss of mine--want him

blame bad,

He don’t need no whip, crackers, cudgel, or gad.

’Thout strap, boot, or toeweights, he’s gone out

and showed

His quarters in thirty. He stands lots of road,

And I swow I dunno what I’m sellin’ him for,

--I need him myself. But I’ll sell! Have a

chaw?

And as I was sayin’, he’s just what you want;--

Oh, yes, have to own he’s a leetle dite gaunt!

Been a-drivin’ him hard, for he’ll stand lots of

work,

Never had a sick day, never shows the least

quirk.

He’s young: look yourself; jest you roll up his

lip;

By the way, ever smile? I’ve some stuff on my

hip.

Now as I was sayin’”--and on, and so on,

Till Cicero’d put his suspenders in pawn,

Hand oyer his steed for a wind-broken brute,

And sling in some golden sestertia to boot.

I tell you again,

That of all of the men

Who can slat the King’s English, I swear by

old Ben!

And you’ll never appreciate half of my praise

Till you’ve stood there yourself in the beller

and blaze

Of his thirteen-inch barker, and fust thing you

know

Discover you’ve bought an old bone yard or so,

I hardly expect, O ye hurrying throng,

Ye’ll bow to my hero, applaud my rude song,

But sling, if ye will, all your bouquets and praise

At the cut-and-dried speakers of pod-auger days,

I’ll go by myself and I’ll tenderly crown

With bay the bald brows of old Bennington;

Brown.

“JEST A LIFT”

Feller was far as the foot of the hill in one of

those boggy places,

Had a first-class team,

As strong as a beam,

But the feller had busted his traces;

And the feller gave up when he saw he was

stuck.

He borrowed a chaw and consarned his luck,

--Admitted he didn’t know what to do;

Sat down on a bank and looked so blue

He worried the people that passed, and they

Just turned their noses the other way.

Old Ammi Simmons muttered that he

Was a dite afraid of his whiffle-tree;

It was slivered some, “and there warn’t much

doubt

’Twould bust if he pulled that feller out.”

And Ira Dorsey, regretful and smug,

Would have helped had he brought his heavier

tug,

So he simply beamed a bright “good day”

And clucked to his team and rode away.

So thus they passed for an hour or two;

Many not noticing, while a few

Assured him they’d like to help him out

“If the rigging they had was only stout.”

Feller had thought he was up a stump, when

along drove Ivory Keller;

Saw the sunken hub,

Yelled, “What’s the troub?

Don’t ye want a lift there, feller?”

And the feller said that he did, you bet,

But said he had begged while he’d set and set,

And he hadn’t discovered a single man

Who’d give him a boost with an extra span.

“Why,” Ivory said, “that’s jest my holt.

That off hoss there ain’t more’n a colt,

And it’s hardly an extry pulling pair,

But it’s youm for what it’s worth, I swear.

For I’ve got a home-made sort of a rule

--Won’t kick a cripple nor sass a fool,

And when I find that a feller’s stuck

--A side-tracked chap down on his luck--

Why, bless you, neighbor, in jest about

Two shakes of a sheep’s tail I yank him out.”

And the very next thing that the feller knew

Old Ivory busted a chain or two,

But the horse and the colt and the gay old man

Bent to the job till the clogged wheels ran,

--Tugged and buckled with hearty will

Till the cart rolled over the tough old hill.

Then the feller begged him to take some pay,

But the old man chuckled and shoved him

away;

“Why, bub, see here,” said Ivory Keller,

“I’m a tollable busy son of a gun,

And this is the way I squeeze in fun,

--Grab in same’s this and help a feller.”

BART OF BRIGHTON

‘Tis the tale of Bart of Brighton--meaning

Brighton up in Maine;

It’s the tale of Uncle Bart, sir, and his racker-

gaited mare;

I have toned it down a little where the language

was profane,

But the rest is as he told it--this remarkable

affair.

It is very wrong to swear;

Bart admits the fact--but there!

Times occur when human nature simply is

obliged to “r’ar.”

“It’s all along o’ givin’ lifts to Uncle Isr’el

Clark,

--His folks don’t like him stubbin’ round the

village after dark,--

And old Mis’ Clark has asked of folks that see

him on the road

To take him in and bring him home, if ’tain’t too

much a load.

The day this ’ere affair come off I’d took in

Uncle Pease,

With a pail of new molasses that he hugged be-

tween his knees.

We see old Clark ahead of us, a-lugging home

a gun.

Says I to Pease, ‘Now brace yerhat: we’ll have

a leetle fun.’

‘Set in behind, old Clark,’ I says. ‘Hop in be-

hind,’ says I.

‘Prowidin’ these ’ere tngs don’t bust I’ll take

you like a fly.’

He piled aboard, s’r, master quick, there warn’t

no need to tease,

And there he sot, the gun straight up, the butt

between his knees.

“I’ll tell you ’bout that mare of mine--the

more you holler ‘whoa,’

I’ve larnt the whelp to clench her teeth, and

h’ist her tail--and go!

And when we got clus’ down to Clark’s I thought

for jest a sell

I’d make believe we’d run away. So I com-

menced to yell,

And old man Pease he hugged his knees and

gaffled to his pail.

And now, my boy, purraps you think that turn-

out didn’t sail!

He hugged his gun, did Uncle Clark, and set and

hollered’ Oh!’

While I kep’ nudgin’ Uncle Pease and bellered,

‘Durn ye, whoa!’

“I larfed, suh, like a lunytick, I larfed and

thought ’twas fun

To look around and see old Clark a-hangin’ to

his gun,-

Eor he was scart plum nigh to death, and so was

Uncle Pease,

Who doubled clus’ above that pail he clenched

between his knees.

But while I larfed I clean forgot the Jackson

corderoy,

And when we struck that on the run, we got

our h’ist, my boy.

Old Clark went up jest like a ball and, next the

critter knowed,

Come whizzlin’ down, s’r, gun and all, starn-

fust there in the road.

And when the gun-butt struck the ground, ker-

whango, off she went,

--Both barrels of her, all to onct, and then--

wal, ’twas--hell-bent!

The off-rein bust, the wheels r’ared up--the old

mare give a heave,

That runaway was on for sure--there warn’t

no make-believe;

With t’other rein I geed the mare up-hill to’ards

Clarkses yard,

--We struck the doorstep, struck her fair, and

struck her mighty hard!

And long as Lord shall give me breath I shan’t

forget the eye

That old Aunt Clark shot out at me as we went

whoopin’ by.

Then I went out and Pease went out and things

got kinder blue

--’Twas sev’ral minits by the clock ’fore this

old cock come to.

And there the old mare’d climbed the fence and

stood inside the gate,

With eyes stuck out and ears stuck back and

head and tail up straight.

And from the way she looked at me ’twas master

evident

She wasn’t catchin’ on to what this celebration

meant.

And I was clutchin’ jest about two feet of one

the reins,

While Uncle Pease was dodderin’ round, a-yellin’

‘Blood and brains!’

For, bless my soul, when he had lit he’d run

himself head-fust

Right down in that molasses pail;--he thought

his head had bust!

And that the stuff a-runnin’ down and gobbed

acrost his face

Was quarts of gore, and so old Pease had clean

give up his case.

And there he stood like some old hen a-drippin’

in the rain,

And hollered stiddy, ‘Blood and brain, I’m

dead; oh, blood and brain!’

Old Uncle Clark was on his back, a-listening to

the fuss,

And wonderin’ whuther that old gun had

murdered him or us.

“Now that’s the way the thing come off. Best

is,” concluded Bart,

“They warn’t nobody hurt a mite: three-fifty

fixed the cart.”

But as he spoke he sought to hide a poultice

with his hat

And curtly said, “Oh, jest a tunk! you see,

Aunt Clark done that.”

‘Tis the tale of Bart of Brighton--mean-

ing Brighton up in Maine,

--It’s the tale of Uncle Bart, sir, and his

racker-gaited mare;

I have toned it down a little where the language

was profane,

But the rest is as he told it, this remarkable

affair.

GOIN’ T’ SCHOOL

THE PAIL I LUGGED TO SCHOOL

I know my confession is homely, but Yankees

are Yankees clean through,

Their dollars make shells like a turtle’s, but

their hearts, my dear fellow, are true

To the dear, sacred days of their childhood, and

luxury loses its charm:

--The only good things are the old things to

the fellow brought up on the farm.

And I’d trade all the cheer of a banquet, I’d

“swop” them, as grandpap would say,

For the tang of the infinite gusto that came to

me, when, after play,

I lifted the battered tin cover and squared my

brown arms to assail

The grub that this hearty young shaver had

carried to school in his pail.

God bless her, that darling old mother! She

cherished the honest conceit

That the groundwork of boyish good morals is,

first of all, plenty to eat.

And though I went barefoot in summer, with

trousers cut over from Jim’s,

We scampered to school every morning with

dinner pails filled to their brims.

There were doughnuts, both holed ones and

twisters, and always a bottle of cream,

And jell cakes and tarts and all such like--oh,

bow the kids’ eyes used to gleam!

I pitied the poor little shavers who slunk to a

corner to eat,

Who brought only bread and potatoes and never

had anything sweet;

And some carried grub in their pockets, and hid

with a child’s bitter shame

To choke down the crust and the cooky before

some rude fun-maker came.

But out of such manhood’s successes of which

I’ve a right to be proud

There never was one I’ve uncovered, with such

a delight, to the crowd

As that pail with its bountiful dinner, each

cake and each jelly-tipped tart

A dumb but an eloquent voucher of a thoughtful

and true mother-heart.

And, neighbors, from things I have noted, I

think it’s a pretty good rule

To size up a mother’s devotion by the grub her

child carries to school.

Those savors that float from my childhood dull

all the delights of my board;

The good things from mother’s old kitchen my

dollars can never afford,

And I’d trade all these delicate dishes--a clean

unconditional sale--

For the tang of the infinite gusto from the depths

of that old dinner pail.

THE PADDYWHACKS

Mother says it’s something fearful--way this

pesky young one acts,

And she’s called the Johnson children by the

name of “Paddywhacks.”

And she keeps a-givin’ orders that I musn’t have

’em round;

But she thinks that Satan’s in me, for she says

I’m always bound

To go mixing with ’em somehow when she lets

me out to play;

And you bet I’m going to see ’em if I have to

run away.

I’ll never wear them blamed dude clothes

Nor boots with patent leather toes.

I like to stomp and scoff and kick

And holler round. It makes me sick

To have that Reynolds youngster call,

He’s primped up like a big wax doll.,

My mother says he’s just too sweet,

He always keeps his clothes so neat,

And wishes I’d spruce up a bit;

What! Look like that? Well, I guess not,

--They’ve duty mugs and ragged backs,

But just give me them Paddywhacks.

They can catch ye lots of suckers--know the

brook and shortest cut;

They have got a robber’s dungeon and a nice

browse Injun hut.

They can scrape ye lots of sly ver--juicy stuff

from little pines,

They can make a willow whistle, and they’re

posted on the signs

Of woodchucks, coons, and squirrels; and they

own a brindle houn’,

And they get to going barefoot first of any boys

in town.

That’s the stuff--oh, that’s the stuff,

Let a kid kick up and scuff!

Not go round with mouth all screwed

Goody, like that Reynolds dude.

Say, I’ll push him once, if he

Comes a-making mouths at me.

Yah, yah! See them corkscrew curls!

That’s right, let him play with girls.

Let him wear his ruffled shirt

--Give me one that won’t show dirt.

I’m the chap, you bet, that stacks

Up ’long-side them Paddywhacks.

THAT MAYBASKET FOR MABEL FRY

Mother rigged the little basket, for I’d teased a

day or so,

--I was just a little shaver, and ’twas years and

years ago,--

And I blushed while I was teasing; I was young,

so mother said,

To be running ’round with baskets when I ought

to be in bed.

But she trimmed me up the basket and she asked

me whom ’twas for;

Ah, I didn’t dare to tell her; thought I’d better

hold my jaw,

For I wanted it for Mabel, not for Minnie on the

Hill;

--For a maid in rags and tatters, not a maid in

lace and frill.

Minnie rode behind her ponies; Mabel had a

wooden cart,

But to Mabel went the homage of my foolish

boyish heart.

True, her gown was frayed and ragged, and her

folks were sort of low,

And her brothers swore like demons,” and they

tagged where ’er we’d go,

And my father always scolded me and drove

them all away

Whene ’er they followed Mabel if I asked her np

to play.

But I saw not Mabel’s tatters; for I loved her

sun-browned face,

And I’d lick the kid that didn’t say she was the

handsomest girl in the place.

‘Tis a tricksy prank that memory plays

Taking me back to those early days;

But the purest affection the heart can hold

Is the honest love of a nine-year-old.

It isn’t checked by the five-barred gate

Of worldly prudence and real estate.

And that, my friend, was the reason why

I hung my basket to Mabel Fry,

She’d a tattered dress, and a pink great toe

Stuck out through her shoe, but--I loved

her so--.

Though that was years and years ago.

I sat down and looked at mother while she

trimmed the pasteboard box,

While she crimped the crinkly paper till it fluffed

like curly locks;

Till she fastened on the streamers, red and

yellow, white and blue,

And she held it up and twirled it, saying, “Sonny,

will that do?”

Would it do? It was a beauty! ’Twas a gem

in basket art;

And I piled it full of candy, put on top a big

red heart.

Then as soon as dusk could hide me I escaped

my mother’s eyes,

And I hung the grand creation on the door-latch

of the Frys.

How my youthful limbs were shaking! how my

dizzy noddle rocked!

And my heart was pounding louder than my

knuckles when I knocked.

So she caught me at the corner, for you see I

didn’t fly,

--Might have been I was so frightened; then

perhaps I didn’t try.

When I swung around to meet her, neither of

us dared to stir.

Mabel stood and watched the sidewalk and I

stood and gawked at her,

While those little imps of brothers gobbled every

blessed mite

Of the candy in that basket--Mabel didn’t get a

bite.

But I saved the little basket, gave each kid a

hearty cuff,

And I tried to comfort Mabel; told her she was

sweet enough,

--Said she didn’t need the candy; but my little

Mabel sighed,

Blushed and whispered that she wondered how

I knew--I hadn’t tried--

To-day--to-day from a long-gone May

This tricksy memory strays my way.

Just for a moment I close my eyes

And see that cracked old door of Fry’s.

And my heart is brushed, as the noon day

trees

Are touched with the whisp of the strolling

breeze.

Alas, that the heart mayn’t always hold

The honest love of the nine-year-old.

I haven’t a doubt you’re dreaming now

Of some frank maid with an honest brow

Who chose you out for she loved you so,

When Worth got “Yes,” and Wealth got

“No.”

But that was years and years ago.

THE MYSTIC BAND

I’ve joined the orders that came our way,

--Been sort of a “jiner,” as one would say,--

And I’ve bucked the goat, and trudged the sands,

And taken the oaths in most secret bands,

Till now at last I seldom slip

On test or password, sign or grip.

And every day when I walk the street

I give the signs to the men I meet.

There’s the S. of T. and the K. of P.

And the League of the Order of Liberty;

Masons and Odd Fellows string along,

Thicker than flies in the moving throng.

Till it seems that every fellow could

Give you a sign of a brotherhood.

Oh, I like to meet them, every one,

From the Daughter of Peace to a Son of a Gun.

But I can’t quite feel the same delight

As I used to when, some summer night,

I’d take a few of the high degrees

In the O. K. K. B. W. P’s.

We had no lodge-room with locks and bars

--Our hall was the dome ’neath the winking

stars;

No lofty dais and tufted throne,

No crown or symbol or altar stone,

No velvet carpets or flashing lights

Were needed there in those old-time rites;

There was only the light from some honest eyes

Up-raised to the velvet evening skies;

And the only crown was the flower wreath

Set light on the curling locks beneath,

And the mystic grip was the tender squeeze

Of our hands as we roamed past the orchard

trees;

And the head of the lodge was an elfin chap

With roses heaped in his dimpled lap.

--With wings a-spread and his locks a-blow,

And the wand of his office a silver bow.

He welcomed the timid neophytes.

And into the hearts of his pure delights

He led each happy candidate

Who breathed Love’s password at the gate,

And happy he who sought degrees

In the O. K. K. B. W. P’s.

’Tis just a page from the dear conceit

That makes the volume of school life sweet;

--A bit of a jest from the callow days

When we bashfully trudged the self-same ways

As the girls from the evening meeting took,

And we carried their capes and the singing-book.

--Sauntered along the dim old lanes

With chirrup and chatter and gay refrains,

Shouting “Good-nights” as here and there,

Pausing by gate or stile, a pair

Loitered a bit on the threshold’s stone

For a sweet and fond good-night of their own.

It irks me, friend, that I must profane

The oath of the order and voice that chain

Of mystic letters: yet ’twere not kind

To take you thus far and leave you blind.

And I’ll whisper, you know, just heart to heart,

’Twas “One Kind Kiss Before We Part,”

The mystic grip was a warm hand-press,

The sign and the test a swift caress,

And the dearest and sweetest of Used-to-be’s

Were the O. K. K. B. W. P’s.

AT THE OLD “GOOL”

“Ten, ten and a double ten, forty-five and then

fifteen!”

Stand you here, old friend of mine, close your

eyes the while you lean

Your silvered hair against the wood that’s silvered

too, by sun and rain,

--The butt of storms as well as we,--old aliens

crawling back to Maine.

The driving sleet, the drifting snows have filched

away the vivid red

That matched, as I remember it, the flaming top-

knot on your head.

And this--so gaunt, so bent, so small--it seems,

alas, a wooden ghost

Of what it was when it was “gool”: the school-

house’s old red hitching-post!

And ah, old friend, to lean your brow upon its

crest you have to stoop;

--You had to stretch to reach its top in those

old days of hide-and-coop.

“Ten, ten and a double ten,”

That’s the way we counted then;

--Counted hundreds rapidly,

Begged the happy days to flee.

Moments were not precious then.

What we hoard to-day as men,

Then we flung in careless way;

Counting life as when at play;

“Blinding” at the old red post,

We strove to see who’d count the most.

“Forty-five and then fifteen,--”

Lavish then: ah, now we glean

On our bended knees as men

What we flung uncounted then.

Friend, old friend, the past troops back

With all its smiles and all its sighs,

When I was “It,”

And the world was lit

By the star-shine of two soft brown eyes.

“Ten, ten, and a double ten, forty-five and then

fifteen!”

That talisman of boyhood days has brought a

sorrow that is keen.

And yet there’s joy along with pain; let me bow

my head here too,

And here with brow upon this wood I’ll tell you

what you never knew.

You’ve asked me many times, old friend, the

secret of an unwed life;

I’ll tell you now: I loved but once; that girl

loved you; she was your wife.

I loved her in those boyhood days, but in Life’s

game of counting out

Fate’s happy finger stretched to you, and I--

poor awkward, bashful lout--

Just stepped aside. But ’twas all right! I’m

not the sort to curse and whine,

My joy has been that she was yours, so long as

she could not be mine.

--My joy, old friend, is now to say, as here we

clasp this worn old post,

There is no heart-burn in my past, no shimmer of

a jealous ghost.

For boyhood’s lesson taught me this: ’Tis only

some egregious fool

Who rails at Fate and storms the skies because

some better man “tags gool.”

I’ve been content to stand there, friend, while

one by one the eager troop

Of boyhood’s chums have won their goal in Life’s

more earnest hide-and-coop.

Thank God, old chum, we still clasp hands and

pledge again our boyhood ties.

Though I’ve been “It,”

And your world is lit

By the star-shine of her soft brown eyes.