GUIDE TO CONTENTS

At the Finish,19. At the End,53. After Us,67. Ambitions,77. Approach of Spring,167. After Storm,188.

Backbone,28. Beautiful Things,43. Bard in the Woods, The,101. Be Joyful,134. Brown October Ale,136. Bystander, The,154. Bleak Days,180.

Clucking Hen, The,1. Christmas Recipe,11. Coming Day, The,21. Clouds,42. Cotter’s Saturday Night,50. “Charge It,” 61. Croaker, The,63. Choosing a Bride, 66. Christmas Musings,79. Crooks, The,115.

Doing Things Right,32. Down and Out,60. Difference, The,94. Dolorous Way,

The,119. Dreamers and Workers,127. Deliver Us,137. Doing One’s Best,138. Doughnuts,165. Discontent,173.

Fatigue,4. Fortune Teller, The,73. Fletcherism, 158. Father Time,159. Field Perils, 160. Friend Bullsnake,164.

Grandmother,14. Great Game, The,17. Generosity, 27. Garden of Dreams,41. Gold Bricks,74. Good and Evil,135. Going to School,146. Girl Graduate, The,153. Good Die Young, The,172. Givers, The, 181. Good Old Days,182.

Home, Sweet Home,8. Homeless,47. Happy Home, The,48. Harvest Hand, The, 70. Hospitality,88. Hon. Croesus Explains, 89.

Iron Men, The,34. In Old Age,46. Immortal Santa,96. In the Spring,132. Idlers, The,141. Idle Rich, The,144.

Ill Wind, The,166. Into the Sunlight, 179. Industry,186.

Joy Cometh,161.

Looking Forward,120. Little While, A,139. Literature,142. Living Too Long,162.

Milkman, The,2. Man Wanted, The,55. Mad World, A,57. Mañana,91. Men Behind, The,98. Mr. Chucklehead,130. Misrepresentation,148. Man of Grief, 149. Melancholy Days,150. Might Be Worse,151. Moderately Good,152. Medicine Hat,156. Moving On,176.

Night is Coming,31. Nursing Grief,143. Not Worth While,147.

Old Maids,10. Old Man, The,12. Old Album, The,109. On the Bridge,129. Old Prayer, The,178.

Poor Work,9. Poorhouse, The,30. Procrastination, 36. Punctuality,58. Prodigal Son, The,87. Polite Man, The,122. Planting a Tree,126. Passing the Hat, 145.

Rural Mail, The,7. Right Side Up,33. Regular Hours,125. Rain, The,184.

Spring Remedies,5. Salting Them Down,22. Success in Life,24. Shut-In, The,45. Some of the Poor,69. Shoveling Coal, 93. Sticking to It,105. Seeing the World,121. Spring Sickness,128. Studying Books,169. Stranger than Fiction, 171. Silver Threads,174. Something to Do,185.

Tornado, The,16. True Happiness,26. Timbertoes, 37. Thankless Job,38. Travelers, 44. Two Salesmen, The,85. “Thanks,” 107. Tramp, The,117.

Undertaker, The,39. Unhappy Home, The, 49. Unconquered,123.

Vagabond, The,20. Values,103.

Winter Night,13. What’s the Use? 54. What I’d Do,71. Way of a Man, The, 82. War and Peace,112. Wet Weather, 187.

THE CLUCKING HEN

THE old gray hen has thirteen chicks, and round the yard she claws and picks, and toils the whole day long; I lean upon the garden fence, and watch that hen of little sense, whose intellect is wrong. She is the most important hen that ever in the haunts of men a waste of effort made; she thinks if she should cease her toil the whole blamed universe would spoil, its institutions fade. Yet vain and trifling is her task; she might as profitably bask and loaf throughout the year; one incubator from the store would bring forth better chicks and more than fifty hens could rear. She ought to rest her scratching legs, get down to tacks and lay some eggs, which bring the valued bucks; but, in her vain perverted way, she says, “I’m derned if I will lay,” and hands out foolish clucks. And many men are just the same; they play some idle, trifling game, and think they’re sawing wood; they hate the work that’s in demand, the jobs that count they cannot stand, and all their toil’s no good.

THE MILKMAN

THE milkman goes his weary way before the rising of the sun; he earns a hundred bones a day, and often takes in less than one. While lucky people snore and drowse, and bask in dreams of rare delight, he takes a stool and milks his cows, about the middle of the night. If you have milked an old red cow, humped o’er a big six-gallon pail, and had her swat you on the brow with seven feet of burry tail, you’ll know the milkman ought to get a plunk for every pint he sells; he earns his pay in blood and sweat, and sorrow in his bosom dwells. As through the city streets he goes, he has to sound his brazen gong, and people wake up from their doze, and curse him as he goes along. He has to stagger through the snow when others stay at home and snore; and through the rain he has to go, to take the cow-juice to your door. Through storm and flood and sun and rain, the milkman goes upon the jump, and all his customers complain, and make allusions to his pump. Because one milkman milks the creek, instead of milking spotted cows, against the whole brave tribe we kick, and stir up everlasting rows. Yetpatiently they go their way, distributing their healthful juice, and what they do not get in pay, they have to take out in abuse.

FATIGUE

FROM day to day we sell our whey, our nutmegs, nails or cotton, and oft we sigh, as hours drag by, “This sort of life is rotten! The dreary game is e’er the same, no respite or diversion; oh, how we long to join the throng on some outdoor excursion! On eager feet, along the street, more lucky folks are hiking, while we must stay and sell our hay—it’s little to our liking!” Those going by perhaps will sigh, “This work we do is brutal; all day we hike along the pike, and all our work is futile. It would be sweet to leave the street and own a nice trade palace, and sell rolled oats to human goats, it would, so help me Alice!” All o’er this sphere the briny tear is shed by people weary, who’d like to quit their jobs and flit to other tasks more dreary. We envy folks who wear their yokes, and tote a bigger burden, we swear and sweat and fume and fret, and oft forget the guerdon. There is no lot entirely fraught with happiness and glory; if you are sore the man next door can tell as sad a story.

SPRING REMEDIES

“THIS is the time,” the doctors say, “when people need our bitters; the sunny, languid, vernal day is hard on human critters. They’re always feeling tired and stale, their blood is thick and sluggish, and so they ought to blow their kale for pills and potions druggish.” And, being told we’re in a plight, we swallow dope in rivers, to get our kidneys acting right, and jack up rusty livers. We pour down tea of sassafras, as ordered by the sawbones, and chewing predigested grass, we exercise our jawbones. We swallow pints of purple pills, and fool with costly drenches, to drive away imagined ills and pipe-dream aches and wrenches. And if we’d only take the spade, and dig the fertile gumbo, the ghost of sickness would be laid, and we’d be strong as Jumbo. Of perfect health, that precious boon, we’d have refreshing glimpses, if we would toil each afternoon out where the jimpson jimpses. There’s medicine in azure skies, and sunshine is a wonder; more cures are wrought by exercise than by all bottled thunder. So let’s forsake the closedup room, and hoe weeds cockle-burrish, where elderberry bushes bloom, and juniorberries flourish.

THE RURAL MAIL

A FIERCE and bitter storm’s abroad, it is a bleak midwinter day, and slowly o’er the frozen sod the postman’s pony picks its way. The postman and his horse are cold, but fearlessly they face the gale; though storms increase a hundredfold, the farmer folk must have their mail. The hours drag on, the lonely road grows rougher with each mile that’s past, the weary pony feels its load, and staggers in the shrieking blast. But man and horse strive on the more; they never learned such word as fail; though tempests beat and torrents pour, the farmer folk must have their mail. At night the pony, to its shed, drags on its cold, exhausted frame; and after supper, to his bed, the wearied postman does the same. Tomorrow brings the same old round, the same exhausting, thankless grind—the journey over frozen ground, the facing of the bitter wind. The postman does a hero’s stunt to earn his scanty roll of kale; of all the storms he bears the brunt—the farmer folk must have their mail!

HOME, SWEET HOME

OH, Home! It is a sacred place—or was, in olden days, before the people learned to chase to moving picture plays; to tango dances and such things, to skating on a floor; and now the youthful laughter rings within the Home no more. You will recall, old men and dames, the homes of long ago, and you’ll recall the fireside games the children used to know. The neighbors’ kids would come along with your own kids to play, and merry as a bridal song the evening passed away. An evening spent away from home in olden days was rare; the children hadn’t learned to roam for pleasure everywhere. But now your house is but a shell where children sleep and eat; it serves that purpose very well—their home is on the street. Their home is where the lights are bright, where ragtime music flows; their noon’s the middle of the night, their friends are—Lord, who knows? The windows of your home are dark, and silence broods o’er all; you call it Home—God save the mark! ’Tis but a sty or stall!

POOR WORK

YOU can’t afford to do poor work, so, therefore, always shun it; for no excuse or quip or quirk will square you when you’ve done it. I hired a man to paint my cow from horntips to the udder, and she’s all blotched and spotted now, and people view and shudder. “Who did the job?” they always ask; and when I say, “Jim Yellow,” they cry, “When we have such a task we’ll hire some other fellow.” And so Jim idly stands and swows bad luck has made him nervous, for when the people paint their cows they do not ask his service. And thus one’s reputation flows, a-skiting, here and yonder; and wheresoe’er the workman goes, his bum renown will wander. ’Twill face him like an evil ghost when he his best is doing, and jolt him where it hurts the most, and still keep on pursuing. A good renown will travel, too, from Gotham to Empory, and make you friends in places new, and bring you cash and glory. So always do your best, old hunks; let nothing be neglected, and you will gather in the plunks, and live and die respected.

OLD MAIDS

ALL girls should marry when they can. There’s naught more useful than a man. A husband has some faults, no doubt, and yet he’s good to have about; and she who doesn’t get a mate will wish she had one, soon or late. That girl is off her base, I fear, who plans to have a high career, who sidesteps vows and wedding rings to follow after abstract things. I know so many ancient maids who in professions, arts or trades have tried to cut a manlike swath, and old age finds them in the broth. A loneliness, as of the tomb, enshrouds the spinsters in its gloom; the jim crow honors they have won they’d sell at seven cents a ton. Their sun is sinking in the West, and they, unloved and uncaressed, must envy, as they bleakly roam, the girl with husband, hearth, and home. Get married, then, Jemima dear; don’t fiddle with a cheap career. Select a man who’s true and good, whose head is not composed of wood, a man who’s sound in wind and limb, then round him up and marry him. Oh, rush him to the altar rail, nor heed his protest or his wail. “This is,” you’ll say, when he’s been won, “the best day’s work I’ve ever done.”

CHRISTMAS RECIPE

MAKE somebody happy today! Each morning that motto repeat, and life, that was gloomy and gray, at once becomes pleasant and sweet. No odds what direction you go, whatever the pathway you wend, there’s somebody weary of woe, there’s somebody sick for a friend; there’s somebody needing a guide, some pilgrim who’s wandered astray; oh, don’t let your help be denied—make somebody happy today! There’s somebody tired of the strife, the wearisome struggle for bread, borne down by the burden of life, and envying those who are dead; a little encouragement now may drive his dark visions away, and smooth out a seam from his brow—make somebody happy today! There’s somebody sick over there, where sunlight is shut from the room; there’s somebody deep in despair, beholding no light in the gloom; there’s somebody needing your aid, your solace, wherever you stray; then let not your help be delayed—make somebody happy today. Make somebody happy today, some comfort and sympathy give, and Christmas shall ne’er go away, but always and ever shall live.

THE OLD MAN

BE kind to your daddy, O gamboling youth; his feet are now sluggish and cold; intent on your pleasures, you don’t see the truth, which is that your dad’s growing old. Ah, once he could whip forty bushels of snakes, but now he is spavined and lame; his joints are all rusty and tortured with aches, and weary and worn is his frame. He toiled and he slaved like a government mule to see that his kids had a chance; he fed them and clothed them and sent them to school, rejoiced when he marked their advance. The landscape is moist with the billows of sweat he cheerfully shed as he toiled, to bring up his children and keep out of debt, and see that the home kettle boiled. He dressed in old duds that his Mary and Jake might bloom like the roses in June, and oft when you swallowed your porterhouse steak, your daddy was chewing a prune. And now that he’s worn by his burden of care, just show you are worth all he did; look out for his comfort, and hand him his chair, and hang up his slicker and lid.

WINTER NIGHT

HAIL, Winter and wild weather, when we are all together, about the glowing fire! Let frost be e’er so stinging, it can’t disturb our singing, nor can the Storm King’s ire. The winds may madly mosey, they only make more cozy the home where we abide; the snow may drift in billows, but we have downy pillows, and good warm beds inside. The night indeed has terrors for lonely, lost wayfarers who for assistance call; who pray for lights to guide them—the lights that are denied them—may God protect them all! And to the poor who grovel in wretched hut and hovel, and feel its icy breath, who mark the long hours dragging their footsteps slow and lagging, the night seems kin to Death. For cheery homes be grateful, when Winter, fierce and fateful, comes shrieking in the night; for books and easy rockers, for larders filled and lockers, and all the warmth and light.

GRANDMOTHER

OLD granny sits serene and knits and talks of bygone ages, when she was young; and from her tongue there comes the truth of sages. “In vanished years,” she says, “my dears, the girls were nice and modest, and they were shy, and didn’t try to see whose wit was broadest. In cushioned nooks they read their books, and loved the poets’ lilting; with eager paws they helped their mas at cooking and at quilting. The maidens then would shy at men and keep them at a distance, and each new sport who came to court was sure to meet resistance. The girls were flowers that bloomed in bowers remote from worldly clamor, and when I view the modern crew they give me katzenjammer. The girls were sweet and trim and neat, as fair as hothouse lilies, and when I scan the modern clan I surely have the willies. Refinement fades when modern maids come forth in all their glory; their hats are freaks, their costume shrieks, their nerve is hunkydory. They waste the night and in daylight they’re doctoring and drugging; when they don’t go to picture show, they’re busy bunny-hugging.” Then granny takes her pipeand breaks some plug tobacco in it, and smokes and smokes till mother chokes and runs out doors a minute.

THE TORNADO

WE people infesting this excellent planet emotions of pride in our victories feel; we put up our buildings of brick and of granite, equip them with trusses and bastions of steel. Regarding the fruit of our earnest endeavor, we cheerily boast as we weave through the town: “A building like that one will stand there forever, for fire can’t destroy it nor wind blow it down.” Behold, as we’re boasting there falls a dun shadow; the harvester Death is abroad for his sheaves, and, tumbled and tossed by the roaring tornado, the man and his building are crumpled like leaves. And then there are dead men in windrows to shock us, and scattered and gone are the homes where they died; a pathway of ruin and wreckage to mock us, and show us how futile and vain is our pride. We’re apt to, when planning and building and striving, forget we are mortals and think we are gods; and then when the lord of the tempest is driving, his wheels break us up with the rest of the clods. Like ants we are busy, all proud and defiant, constructing a home on the face of the lawn; and now comes the step of a wandering giant; it crushes our anthill, and then it is gone.

THE GREAT GAME

THE pitcher is pitching, the batsman is itching to punish the ball in the old-fashioned way; the umpire is umping, the fielders are humping—we’re playing baseball in our village today! Two thousand mad creatures are perched on the bleachers, the grand stand is full and the fences the same, the old and the youthful, the false and the truthful, the plain and the lovely are watching the game. The groaning taxpayers are watching the players, forgetting a while all their burdens and wrongs, and landlord and tenant are saying the pennant will come to this town where it surely belongs. The lounger and toiler, the spoiled and the spoiler, are whooping together like boys at the fair; and foes of long standing as one are demanding the blood of the umpire, his hide and his hair. The game is progressing, now punk and distressing—our boys are all rattled, the audience groans! But see how they rally—O, scorer, keep tally! We’ll win at the finish, I’ll bet seven bones! The long game is ended, we fans have all wended back, back to our labors, our cares andour joys, once more grave and steady—and yet ever ready to stake a few plunks on our own bunch of boys!

AT THE FINISH

OH say, what is this thing called Fame, and is it worth our while? We seek it till we’re old and lame, for weary mile on mile; we seek a gem among the hay, for wheat among the chaff; and in the end some heartless jay will write our epitaph. The naked facts it will relate, and little else beside: “This man was born on such a date, on such a date he died.” The gravestones in the boneyard tell all we shall ever know of men who struggled passing well for glory, long ago. They had their iridescent schemes and lived to see them fail; they had their dreams, as you have dreams, and all of no avail. The gravestones calmly tell their fate, the upshot of their pride: “This man was born on such a date, on such a date he died.” The great men of your fathers’ time, with laurel on each brow, the theme of every poet’s rhyme—where are those giants now? Their names are written in the books which no one ever reads; and on the scroll—where no one looks—the record of their deeds. The idler by the churchyard gate this legend hath espied: “This man was born on such a date, on such a date he died.”

THE VAGABOND

HE’S idle, unsteady, and everyone’s ready to throw him a dornick or give him a biff; he’s always in tatters, but little it matters; he’s evermore happy, so what is the diff? He carries no sorrow, no care for tomorrow, his roof is the heavens, his couch is the soil; no sighing or weeping breaks in on his sleeping, no bell in the morning shall call him to toil. As free as the breezes he goes where he pleases, no rude overseer to boss him around; his joys do not wither, he goes yon and hither, till dead in a haystack or ditch he is found. The joys of such freedom—no sane man can need ’em! Far better to toil for the kids and the wife, till muscles are aching and collarbone breaking, than selfishly follow the vagabond life. One laborer toiling is worth the whole boiling of idlers and tramps of whatever degree; and though we all know it we don’t find a poet embalming the fact as embalmed it should be. The poets will chortle about the blithe mortal who wanders the highways and sleeps in the hay, but who sings the toiler, the sweat-spangled moiler, who raises ten kids on a dollar a day?

THE COMING DAY

THERE’LL come a day when we must make full payment for all the foolish things we do today; and sackcloth then perchance will be our raiment, and we’ll regret the hours we threw away. We loaf today, and we shall loaf tomorrow, hard by the pump or in the corner store; there’ll come a day when we’ll look back with sorrow on wasted hours, the hours that come no more. We say harsh things to friends who look for kindness, and bring the tears to loving, patient eyes; we scold and quarrel in our fretful blindness, instead of smiles, we call up mournful sighs. Our friends will tread the path that leads us only to rest and silence in the grass-grown grave; there’ll come a day when weary, sad and lonely, we’ll think of them and of the wounds we gave. In marts of trade we’re prone to overreaching, to swell our roll we cheat and deal in lies, forgetful oft of early moral teaching, and all the counsel of the good and wise. It is, alas, an evil road we travel, that leads at last to bitterness and woe; there’ll come a day when gold will seem as gravel, and we shall mourn the sins of long ago.

SALTING THEM DOWN

THERE’S trouble in store for the gent who never salts down a red cent, who looks upon cash as the veriest trash, for foolish extravagance meant. Since money comes easy today, he thinks ’twill be always that way, and he burns up the scads with the rollicking lads and warbles a madrigal gay. His dollars are drawn when they’re due; and rather than salt down a few, he throws them, with jests, at the robin red breasts, with riotous hullabaloo. I look down the scurrying years—for I’m the descendant of seers—and the spendthrift descry when his youth is gone by, an object of pity and tears. I see him parading the street, on weary and ring-boney feet, a-begging for dimes, for the sake of old times, to buy him some sauerkraut to eat. I see him abandoned and sick, his pillow a dornick or brick; and the peeler comes by with a vulcanized eye and swats him for luck with a stick. I see him when dying; he groans, but his anguish for nothing atones! And they cart him away in the dawn cold and gray, to the place where they bury cheap bones. Don’t burn upyour money, my friend; don’t squander or foolishly lend; though you say it is dross and regret not its loss, it’s a comfort and staff in the end.

SUCCESS IN LIFE

IT’S easy to be a success, as thousands of winners confess; no man’s so obscure or unlucky or poor that he can’t be a winner, I guess. And success, Mr. Man, doesn’t mean a roll that would stagger a queen, or some gems of your own, or a palace of stone, or a wagon that burns gasoline. A man’s a success, though renown doesn’t place on his forehead a crown, if he pays as he goes, if it’s true that he owes not a red in the dod-gasted town. A man’s a success if his wife finds comfort and pleasure in life; if she’s glad and content that she married a gent reluctant to organize strife. A man’s a success if his kids are joyous as Katy H. Dids; if they’re handsome and neat, with good shoes on their feet, and roses and things on their lids. A man’s a success if he tries to be honest and kindly and wise; if he’s slow to repeat all the lies he may meet, if he swats both the scandals and flies. I know when old Gaffer Pete Gray one morning was taken away, by Death, lantern-jowled, the whole village howled, and mourned him for many a day. Yet he was sopoor that he had but seldom the half of a scad; he tried to do good in such ways as he could—he was a successful old lad!

TRUE HAPPINESS

WHEN torrents are pouring or tempests are roaring how pleasant and cheerful is home! To sit by the winder all drier than tinder and watch the unfortunates roam! With glad eyes to follow the fellows who wallow around in the rain or the sleet, to watch them a-slipping and sliding and tripping, and falling all over the street! There’s nothing so soothing, so apt to be smoothing the furrows of grief from your brow, as sitting and gazing at folks who are raising out there in the mud such a row! To watch a mad neighbor through hurricane labor, while you are all snug by the fire, to see him cavorting and pawing and snorting—what more could a mortal desire? I love storm and blizzard from A clear to Izzard, I’m fond of the sleet and the rain; let winter get busy and whoop till he’s dizzy, and I’ll be the last to complain. For there is a casement just over the basement where I in all comfort may sit, and watch people wading through mud or parading through snow till they fall in a fit.

GENEROSITY

OLD Kink’s always willing to preach, and hand out wise counsel and teach; but ask him for aid when you’re hungry and frayed, and he’ll stick to his wad like a leech. He’s handy with proverb and text to comfort the needy and vexed; but when there’s a plan to feed indigent man, old Kink never seems to get next. He’ll help out the widow with psalms, and pray for her fatherless lambs; but he never would try to bring joy to her eye with codfish and sauerkraut and hams. On Sunday he joins in the hymn, and makes the responses with vim; when they pass round the box for the worshipers’ rocks, his gift is exceedingly slim. He thinks he is fooling the Lord and is sure of a princely reward when to heaven he goes at this life’s journey’s close—with which view I am not in accord. For the Lord, he is wise to gold bricks, and the humbug who crosses the Styx will have to be sharp if he captures a harp; St. Peter will say to him, “Nix!” They size up a man nearly right when he comes to the portals of light; and no stingy old fraud ever hornswoggled God or put on a robe snowy white.

BACKBONE

FROM Yuba Dam to Yonkers the man of backbone conquers, where spineless critters fail; all obstacles o’ercoming, he goes along a-humming, and gathers fame and kale. No ghosts of failure haunt him, no grisly bogies daunt him or make his spirits low; you’ll find him scratching gravel wherever you may travel, from Butte to Broken Bow. From Winnipeg to Wooster you’ll see this cheerful rooster, this model to all men; undaunted by reverses he wastes no time in curses, but digs right in again. His face is always shining though others be repining; you cannot keep him down; his trail is always smoking while cheaper men are croaking about the old dead town. From Humboldt to Hoboken he leaves his sign and token in buildings high and grand; in factories that flourish, in industries that nourish a tired, anaemic land. He brings the work to toilers and fills with bread and broilers their trusty dinner pails; he keeps the ripsaw ripping, the big triphammer tripping, the workman driving nails. All honor to his noblets! We drink to him in goblets of grapejuicerich and red—the man of spine and gizzard who hustles like a blizzard and simply won’t be dead!

Back to Index Next