THE POORHOUSE
THE poorhouse, naked, grim, and bare, stands in a valley low; and most of us are headed there as fast as we can go. The paupers sit behind the gate, a solemn thing to see, and there all patiently they wait, they wait for you and me. We come, we come, O sad-eyed wrecks, we’re coming with a will! We’re all in debt up to our necks, and going deeper still! We’re buying things we can’t afford, and mock the old-time way of salting down a little hoard against the rainy day! No more afoot the poor man roams; in gorgeous car he scoots; we’ve mortgages upon our homes, our furniture, our boots. We’ve banished all the ancient cares, we paint the country red, we live like drunken millionaires, and never look ahead. The paupers, on the poorhouse lawn, are waiting in a group; they know we’ll all be there anon, to share their cabbage soup; they see us in our costly garb, and say: “Their course is brief; we see the harbingers that harb of bankruptcy and grief.” Be patient, paupers, for a span, ye friendless men and dames! We’re coming, blithely as we can, to join you in your games!
NIGHT IS COMING
WHILE the blessed daylight lingers, let us work with might and main, with our busy feet and fingers, also with the busy brain; let the setting sun behold us tired, but filled with honest pride; for the night will soon enfold us, when we lay our tools aside. When we’re in the churchyard lonely, where the weeping willows lean, there’s one thing and one thing only that will keep our memory green. If we did the tasks appointed as we lived our speeding years, then our graves will be anointed with a mourning legion’s tears. All our good intentions perish when is closed the coffin lid, and the world will only cherish and remember what we did. Nothing granite, monumental, can preserve your little fame; epitaphs are incidental, and will not embalm your name. Nothing counts when you are sleeping, but the goodly work you’ve done; that will last till gods are weeping round the ruins of the sun. Let no obstacles confound us, let us work till day is o’er; soon the night will gather round us, when we’ll sleep to work no more.
DOING THINGS RIGHT
TO do things right, with all your might—that is a goodly motto; I’ve pasted that inside my hat, and if you don’t you’d ought to. To do things right, as leads your light, with faith and hope abiding; to do your best and let the rest to Jericho go sliding! With such an aim you’ll win the game and see your fortune founded; and goodly deed beats any creed that ever man expounded. To do things right, to bravely fight, when fate cuts up unfairly, to pay your way from day to day, and treat your neighbor squarely! That doctrine fills all wants and stills the doubter’s qualms and terrors, and guides him straight at goodly gait through all the field of errors. To do your best, within your breast a cheerful heart undaunted—that is the plan that brings a man all things he ever wanted. At finding snares and nests of mares I am not very handy; but when it comes to finding plums folks say I am a dandy; and my receipt is short and sweet, an easy one to follow; just do things right, with all your might—it beats all others hollow!
RIGHT SIDE UP
THOUGH now and then our feet descend to byways of despair, we nearly always in the end land right side up with care. I’ve seen a thousand frenzied guys declare that all was lost, there was no hope beneath the skies, this life was but a frost. And then next year I’d see them scoot around in motor cars, each one a-holding in his snoot the richest of cigars. I’ve seen men at the wailing place declare they were undone; no more the cold world could they face, their course, they said, was run. Again I’d see them prance along, all burbling with delight; whatever in their lives was wrong, became at last all right. And so it’s foolishness, my friend, to weep or tear your hair; we nearly always, in the end, land right side up with care. Some call it luck, some providence, and some declare it fate; but there’s a kind, o’erruling sense that makes our tangles straight; and there are watchful eyes that mark our movements as we roam; a hand extended in the dark to guide us safely home. In what direction do you wend? You’ll find the helper there; we nearly always, in the end, land right side up with care.
THE IRON MEN
WHEN the north wind roars at your cottage doors and batters the window panes, and the cold’s so fierce that it seems to pierce right into your bones and veins, then it’s sweet to sit by the fire and knit, and think, while the needles clank, of the iron men, of the shining yen, you have in the village bank! When you’ve lost your job and misfortunes rob your face of its wonted grin, when the money goes for your grub and clothes, though there’s nothing coming in; when the fates are rough and they kick and cuff and give you a frequent spank, how sweet to think of the bunch of chink you have in the village bank! When you’re gray and old and your feet are cold, and the night is drawing on; when you’re tired and weak and your joints all creak, and the strength of youth is gone; when you watch and wait at the sunset gate for the boatman grim and lank, oh, it’s nice to know there’s a roll of dough all safe in the village bank! The worst, my friend, that the fates can send, is softened for you and yours if you have the price, have the coin on ice—the best of all earthly cures; oh, a healthy wad is your staff androd when the luck seems tough and rank; your consolers then are the iron men you have in the village bank!
PROCRASTINATION
YOU are merely storing sorrow for the future, sages say, if you put off till tomorrow things which should be done today. When there is a job unpleasant that it’s up to me to do, I attack it in the present, give a whoop and push it through; then my mind is free from troubles, and I sit before the fire popping corn or blowing bubbles, or a-whanging at my lyre. If I said: “There is no hurry—that old job will do next week,” there would be a constant worry making my old brain-pan creak. For a man knows no enjoyment resting at the close of day, if he knows that some employment is neglected in that way. There is nothing more consoling at the setting of the sun, when the evening bells are tolling, than the sense of duty done. And that solace cometh never to the man of backbone weak who postpones all sane endeavor till the middle of next week. Let us then be up and doing, with a heart for any fate, as the poet said, when shooing agents from his garden gate. Let us shake ourselves and borrow wisdom from the poet’s lay; leaving nothing for tomorrow, doing all our chores today!
TIMBERTOES
OLD GOMER, of a Kansas town, was never known to wear a frown, or for man’s pity beg, although he stumps along his way, and does his work from day to day, upon a wooden leg. And every time he goes out doors he meets some peevish guy who roars about his evil luck; some fretful gent with leg of flesh who, when vicissitudes enmesh, proceeds to run amuck. Strong men with legs of flesh and bone just stand around the streets and groan, while Gomer pegs along and puts up hay the long hours through, and sounds his joyous whoopsydo, and makes his life a song. Old Gomer never sits and broods or seeks the hermit’s solitudes to fill the air with sighs; there’s no despondency in him! He brags about that basswood limb as though it were a prize. Sometimes I’m full of woe and grief, convinced the world brings no relief until a man is dead; and as I wail that things are wrong I see old Gomer hop along and then I soak my head. I’ve noticed that the men who growl, the ones who storm around and howl o’er fate’s unwise decrees, are mostly Fortune’s special pets; and then the man who never frets is one with red elm knees.
THE THANKLESS JOB
THERE’S nothing but tears for the man who steers our ship o’er the troubled sea; there’s nothing but grief for the nation’s chief, whoever that chief may be. Whatever he does, he can hear the buzz of critics as thick as flies; and all of his aims are sins and shames, and nothing he does is wise. There’s nothing but kicks for the man who sticks four years to the White House chair; and his stout heart aches and his wishbone breaks and he loses most of his hair. There’s nothing but growls and the knockers’ howls, and the spiteful slings and slams; and the vile cartoons and the dish of prunes and a chorus of tinkers’ dams. Oh, we humble skates in our low estates, who fuss with our garden sass, should view the woes of the men who rose above and beyond the mass, and be glad today that we go our way mid quiet and peaceful scenes; should thankfully take the hoe and rake, and wrestle with spuds and greens!
THE UNDERTAKER
WHEN life is done—this life that galls and frets us, this life so full of tears and doubts and dreads—the undertaker comes along and gets us, and tucks us neatly in our little beds. When we are done with toiling, hoarding, giving, when we are done with drawing checks and breath, he comes to show us that the cost of living cuts little ice beside the cost of death. I meet him daily in the street or alley, a cheerful man, he dances and he sings; and we exchange the buoyant jest and sally, and ne’er discourse of grim, unpleasant things. We talk of crops, the campaign and the weather, the I. and R., the trusts—this nation’s curse; no graveyard hints while we converse together, no reference to joyrides in a hearse. And yet I feel—perchance it is a blunder—that as I stand there, rugged, hale and strong, he’d like to ask me: “Comrade, why in thunder and other things, do you hang on so long?” When I complain of how the asthma tightens upon my lungs, and makes me feel a wreck, it seems to me his face with rapture lightens, smiles stretch his lips and wind around his neck. And when I say I’mfeeling like a heifer turned out to grass, or like a hummingbird, he heaves a sigh as gentle as a zephyr, yet fraught with pain and grief and hope deferred.
GARDEN OF DREAMS
IN the garden of dreams let me rest, far, far from the laboring throng, from the moans of the tired and distressed, from the strains of the conqueror’s song. As a native of Bagdad, or Turk, I’d live in Arabian nights, away from the regions of work, from troubles and hollow delights. In the garden of dreams I would stray, and bother my fat head no more, a-wondering how I shall pay for groceries bought at the store. Ah, there in that garden I’d sit, communing in peace with my soul, and never again have a fit when handed the bill for the coal. In the garden of dreams I’d recline and soar on the wings of romance, forgetting this old hat of mine, the patches all over my pants, the clamor of children for shoes, the hausfrau’s demands for a gown, the lodge’s exorbitant dues, the polltax to work in the town. Alas! It is as I supposed—there is no escaping my fate, for the garden of dreams has been closed, a padlock is fixed on the gate. The young, who are buoyant and glad, may enter that garden, it seems; but the old, who are weary and sad, are warned from the garden of dreams!
CLOUDS
IF every day was sunny, with ne’er a cloud in view, we’d soon be spending money to buy a cloud or two. It always makes me weary when people say: “Old boy, may all your days be cheery and bright and full of joy!” If all my days were sunny, existence would seem flat; if I were fed on honey I’d soon get sick of that. I like a slice of sorrow to hold me down today, for that will make tomorrow seem fifty times as gay. A little dose of sickness won’t make me whine or yell; ’twill emphasize the slickness of life when I am well. A little siege of trouble won’t put my hopes in pawn, for I’ll be trotting double with joy when it is gone. Down there in tropic regions where sunshine gleams all day, the fat and lazy legions just sleep their lives away; there every idle bumpkin who in the sunshine lies, lives like a yellow pumpkin, and like a squash he dies. I want my share of changes, my share of ups and downs; I want a life that ranges from crosses up to crowns.
BEAUTIFUL THINGS
THE beautiful things are the things we do; they are not the things we wear, as we shall find when the journey’s through, and the roll call’s read up there. We’re illustrating the latest styles, with raiment that beats the band; but the beautiful things are the kindly smiles that go with the helping hand. We burden ourselves with gleaming gems, that neighbors may stop and stare; but the beautiful things are the diadems of stars that the righteous wear. There are beautiful things in the poor man’s cot, though empty the hearth and cold, if love and service are in each thought that husband and wife may hold. There are beautiful things in the lowest slum where wandering outcasts grope, when down to its depths they see you come with message of help and hope. The beautiful things that we mortals buy and flash in the crowded street, will all be junk when we come to die, and march to the judgment seat. When everything’s weighed on that fateful day, the lightest thing will be gold. There are beautiful things within reach today, but they are not bought or sold.
TRAVELERS
DOWN this little world we travel, headed for the land of Dawn, sawing wood and scratching gravel, here today, tomorrow gone! Down our path of doubts and dangers, we are toddling, mile on mile, transient and inquiring strangers, dumped into this world a while. Let us make the journey pleasant for the little time we stay; all we have is just the Present—all we need is just Today. Let’s encourage one another as we push along the road, saying to a jaded brother: “Here, I’ll help you with your load!” Banish scorn and vain reviling, banish useless tears and woe; let us do the journey smiling, all our hearts with love aglow. Let us never search for sorrow, since the journey is so brief; here today and gone tomorrow, what have we to do with grief? Down this little world we wander, strangers from some unknown spheres, headed for the country yonder where they have no sighs or tears; let us therefore cease complaining, let us be no longer glum; let us all go into training for the joyful life to come!
THE SHUT-IN
I KNOW a crippled woman who lives through years of pain with patience superhuman—for ne’er does she complain. An endless torture rages throughout her stricken frame; an hour would seem like ages if I endured the same. Sometimes I call upon her to ask her how she stacks; it is her point of honor to utter no alacks; she hands out no alases, but says she’s feeling gay, and every hour that passes brings some new joy her way. “I’m all serene, old chappie,” she says, “as you can see; my heart is always happy, the Lord’s so good to me!” Thus chortles pain-racked Auntie, and says it with a smile; and when I leave her shanty I kick myself a while. For I am strong and scrappy; I’m sound in wind and limb; and yet I’m seldom happy; I wail a graveyard hymn; whene’er I meet reverses my howls are agonized; I say, with bitter curses, the gods are subsidized. When life seems like December, a thing of gloom and care, I wish I could remember old Auntie in her chair, forget my whinings hateful, and that wan shut-in see, who says that she is grateful, “the Lord’s so good to me!”
IN OLD AGE
WHEN I have reached three score and ten I hope I will not be like sundry sad and ancient men that every day I see. I hope I’ll never be so old, so broken down and gray, that I will lift my voice and scold when children round me play. I hope I’ll never be so sere, so close to muffled drums, that I can’t waltz around and cheer whene’er the circus comes. I hope I’ll never wither up or yet so foundered be, that I won’t gambol with a pup when it would play with me. I hope I’ll not, while yet alive, be so much like a corse, that I won’t seize a chance to drive a good high-stepping horse. Though I must hobble on a crutch to help my feeble shins, I’ll always yell to beat the Dutch whene’er the home team wins. Perhaps I’ll live a thousand years—I sometimes fear I will, for something whispers in my ears I am too tough to kill—I may outlast the modern thrones and all the kings thereon, but while I navigate my bones I’ll try, so help me John, to be as young in mind and heart as any springald near, and when for Jordan I depart, go like a gay roan steer.
HOMELESS
WHEN the wind blows shrill, with a deadly chill, and we sit by the cheerful blaze, do we ever think of the homeless gink, a-going his weary ways? The daylight’s gone and we sit and yawn, and comfort is all around; do we care a whoop for the dismal troop adrift on the frozen ground? You eat and drink and count your chink as you sit in your easy chair; and you’ve grown hog-fat, and beneath your hat there’s hardly a sign of care. Do you never pause, as you ply your jaws, devouring the oyster stew, to heave a sigh for the waifs who lie outdoors, all the long night through? It was good of Fate that she paid the freight, and planted you here at ease, while the other lads, who are shy of scads, must sit in the park and freeze. But she may repent ere your days are spent, and juggle things all around, and the bo may sleep on your mattress deep, and you on the frozen ground!
THE HAPPY HOME
“OH these pancakes are sublime,” brightly cries Josiah Jakes; “mother, in the olden time, thought that she could fashion cakes; she was always getting praise, and deserved it, I maintain; but she, in her palmy days, couldn’t touch you, Sarah Jane. Oh, the king upon his throne for such fodder surely aches; you are in a class alone, when it comes to griddle cakes.” Then upon his shining dome he adjusts his lid and goes, and his wife remains at home, making pies and things like those. She is stewing luscious prunes, in her eye a happy tear, and her heart is singing tunes such as angels like to hear. O’er and o’er she still repeats all the kindly words he said, as she fixes further treats, pumpkin pie and gingerbread. When the evening’s growing gray, following the set of sun, “This has been a perfect day,” murmurs she, her labors done. Perfect nearly all the days of our loved ones well might be, if with words of honest praise we were generous and free.
THE UNHAPPY HOME
TIRED father to his home returns, all jaded by the stress and fray, to have the rest for which he yearns throughout the long and toilsome day. His supper’s ready on the board, as good a meal as e’er was sprung, a meal no worker could afford in olden times, when we were young. He looks around with frowning brow, and sighs, “Ah, what a lot of junk! This butter never knew a cow, the coffee is extremely punk. You know I like potatoes boiled, and so, of course, you dish them fried; this poor old beefsteak has been broiled until it’s tough as walrus hide. It beats me, Susan, where you find such doughnuts, which resemble rock; these biscuits you no doubt designed to act as weights for yonder clock. You couldn’t fracture with a club the kind of sponge cake that you dish; alas, for dear old mother’s grub throughout my days I vainly wish.” Then Susan, burdened with her cares, worn out, discouraged, sad and weak, sits down beneath the cellar stairs, and weeps in German, French, and Greek. Alas, the poor, unhappy soul, whose maiden dreams are all a wreck! She ought to take a ten-foot pole and prod her husband in the neck.
COTTER’S SATURDAY NIGHT
THE labor of the week is o’er, the stress and toil titanic, and to his humble cottage door returns the tired mechanic. He hangs his weather-beaten tile and coat upon a rafter; the housewife greets him with a smile, the bairns with joyous laughter. The supper is a merry meal, and when they’ve had their vittles, the mother plies her spinning wheel, while father smokes and whittles. But now the kids, a joyous crowd, must cease to romp and caper, for father starts to read aloud the helpful daily paper:
“A cancer on the neck or knees once meant complete disaster; but Dr. Chowder guarantees to cure it with a plaster. He doesn’t use an ax or spade, or blast it out with powder; don’t let your coming be delayed—rely on Dr. Chowder!”
Outdoors there is a rising gale, a fitful rain is falling; they hear the east winds sadly wail like lonely phantoms calling. But all is peace and joy within, and eyes with gladness glisten, and father, with a happy grin, reads on, and bids them listen:
“If you have pimples on your nose or bunions on your shoulder, if you have ringbones on your toes—ere you’re a minute older call up the druggist on the phone and have him send a basket of Faker’s pills, for they alone will save you from a casket.”
The clock ticks on the cottage wall, and marks the minutes’ speeding; the firelight dances in the hall, on dad, where he sits reading. Oh, quiet, homely scene of bliss, the nation’s pride and glory! And in a million homes like this, dad reads the precious story:
“Oh, countless are the grievous ills, afflicting human critters, but we have always Bunkum’s Pills, and Skookum’s Hogwash Bitters. Have you the symptoms of the gout along your muscles playing? And are your whiskers falling out, and are your teeth decaying? Have you no appetite for greens, and do you balk at fritters? We’ll tell you, reader, what it means—you need some Hogwash Bitters!”
The children nod their drowsy heads, their toys around them lying. “I’ll take them to their little beds,” says mother, softly sighing. “It’s time they were away from here—the evening is advancing; but ere they go, O husband dear,read one more tale entrancing.” And father seeks that inside page where “Household Hints” are printed, where, for the good of youth and age, this “Household Hint” is hinted:
“If you have maladies so rank they are too fierce to mention, just call on good old Dr. Crank; you’ll find it his intention to cure you up where others fail, though t’others number twenty; but don’t forget to bring the kale, and see that you have plenty.”
AT THE END
WE do our little stunt on earth, and when it’s time to die, “The ice we cut has little worth—we wasted time,” we sigh. When one has snow above his ears, and age has chilled his veins, he looks back on the vanished years, his spirit racked with pains. However well he may have done, it all seems trifling then; alas, if he could only run his little course again! He would not then so greatly prize the sordid silver plunk; for when a man grows old and wise, he knows that coin is junk. One kindly action of the past, if such you can recall, will soothe you greatly at the last when memory is All. If you have helped some pilgrim climb from darkness and despair, that action, in your twilight time, will ease your weight of care. The triumphs of your business day, by stealth or sharpness gained, will seem, when you are tired and gray, to leave your record stained. Ah, comrade, in the dusk of life, when you have ceased your grind, when all your strategy and strife are left for aye behind, when you await the curtain’s fall, the setting of the sun, how you will struggle to recall the good that you have done!
WHAT’S THE USE?
MAN toils at his appointed task till hair is gray and teeth are loose, and pauses now and then to ask, in tones despondent, “What’s the use?” We have distempers of the mind when we are tired and sorely tried; we’d like to quit the beastly grind, and let the tail go with the hide. The money goes for shoes and pie, for hats and pork and dairy juice; to get ahead we strive and try, and still are broke, so what’s the use? Then, gazing round us, we behold the down-and-outers in the street; they shiver in the biting cold, they trudge along on weary feet. They have no home, they have no bed, no shelter neath the wintry sky; they’ll have no peace till they are dead, and planted where the paupers lie. No comfort theirs till in the cell that has a clammy earthen lid; yet some of them deserve as well of Fortune as we ever did. And, having seen the hungry throng, if we’re good sports we cease to sigh; we go to work with cheery song, and make the fur and feathers fly.
THE MAN WANTED
NEVER was there such a clamor for the man who knows his trade! Whether with a pen or hammer, whether with a brush or spade he’s equipped, the world demands him, calls upon him for his skill, and on pay day gladly hands him rolls of roubles from its till. Little boots it what his trade is, building bridges, shoeing mules—men will come from Cork and Cadiz to engage him and his tools. All the world is busy hunting for the workman who’s supreme, whether he is best at punting or at flavoring ice cream.
Up and down the land are treading men who find this world a frost, toiling on for board and bedding, in an age of hustling lost. “We have never had fair chances, Fortune ever used us sore,” they complain, as age advances, and the poorhouse lies before. “Handy men are we,” they mutter, “masters of a dozen trades, yet we can’t earn bread and butter, much less jams and marmalades. When we ask a situation, stern employers cry again: ‘Chase yourselves! This weary nation crowded is with handy men! Learn one thing and learn it fully, learn in somethingto excel, then you’ll find this old world bully—it will please you passing well!’ Thus reply the stern employers when for work we sadly plead, saying we are farmers, sawyers, tinkers, tailors gone to seed. So we sing our doleful chorus as adown the world we wind, for the poorhouse lies before us, and the free lunch lies behind.”
While this tragedy’s unfolding in each corner of the land, men of skill are still beholding chances rise on every hand; men who learned one thing and learned it up and down and to and fro, got reward because they earned it—men who study, men who Know. If you’re raising sweet potatoes, see that they’re the best on earth; if you’re rearing alligators, see that they’re of special worth; if you’re shoeing dromedaries, shoe the brutes with all your might; if you’re peddling trained canaries, let your birds be out of sight. Whatsoever you are doing, do it well and with a will, and you’ll find the world pursuing, offering to buy your skill.
A MAD WORLD
WHILE seated in my warm abode I see John Doe pass up the road, that man of many woes; he wears one rubber and one shoe, the wintry blast is blowing through his whiskers and his clothes. He has no place to sleep or eat, his only refuge is the street, his shelter heaven’s vault; I see him in the storm abroad, and say, “But for the grace of God, there goes your Uncle Walt.” John Doe with gifts was richly blest; he might have distanced all the rest, had Fortune kindly been; but Fortune put the kibosh on the efforts of the luckless John, and never wore a grin. I wonder why an Edgar Poe found life a wilderness of woe, and starved in garrets bare, while bards who cannot sing for prunes eat costly grub from golden spoons, and purple raiment wear. I wonder why a Robert Burns must try all kinds of shifts and turns to gain his daily bread, the while a Southey basked at ease and stuffed himself with jam and cheese, a wreath upon his head. Such things have never been explained; I know not why it is ordained that I find life a snap; and gazing from my door I see John Doe, in speechless misery, a homeless, hungry chap.
PUNCTUALITY
THE punctual man is a bird; he always is true to his word; he knows that the skate who is ten minutes late is trifling and vain and absurd. He says, “I’ll be with you at four”; though torrents may ruthlessly pour, you know when the clock strikes the hour he will knock with his punctual fist at your door. And you say, “He is surely a trump! I haven’t much use for the chump who is evermore late, making other men wait—the place for that gent is the dump.” The punctual man is a peach; he sticks to his dates like a leech; it’s a pity, alas, that he hasn’t a class of boneheaded sluggards to teach. He’s welcome wherever he wends; the country is full of his friends; he goes by the watch and he ne’er makes a botch of his time, so he never offends. If he says he’ll get married at nine, you can bet he’ll be standing in line, with his beautiful bride, and the knot will be tied ere the clock is done making the sign. If he says he’ll have cashed in at five, at that hour he will not be alive; you can order his shroud and assemble a crowd, clear out to the boneyard to drive. Thepunctual man is a jo! The biggest success that I know! He is grand and sublime, he is always on time, not late by ten minutes or so.
DOWN AND OUT
MISFORTUNE punched you in the neck, and knocked you down and tramped you under; will you survey the gloomy wreck, and stand around and weep, I wonder? Your hold upon success has slipped, and still you ought to bob up grinning; for when a man admits he’s whipped, he throws away his chance of winning. I like to think of John Paul Jones, whose ship was split from truck to fender; the British asked, in blawsted tones, if he was ready to surrender. The Yankee mariner replied, “Our ship is sinking at this writing, but don’t begin to put on side—for we have just begun our fighting!” There is a motto, luckless lad, that you should paste inside your bonnet; when this old world seems stern and sad, with nothing but some Jonahs on it, don’t murmur in a futile way, about misfortune, bleak and biting, but gird your well known loins and say, “Great Scott! I’ve just begun my fighting!” The man who won’t admit he’s licked is bound to win a triumph shining, and all the lemons will be picked by weak-kneed fellows, fond of whining.
“CHARGE IT”
“JUST chalk it down,” the poor man said, when he had bought some boneless bread, and many costly things, his wife and brood of bairns to feed—the most of which they didn’t need as much as you need wings. He buys the richest things in town, and always says, “Just chalk it down, I’ll pay you soon, you bet;” and payday evening finds him broke, his hard earned plunks gone up in smoke, and still he is in debt. The man who doesn’t buy for cash lays in all kinds of costly trash, that he could do without; he spends his coin before it’s earned, and roars about it when it’s burned—is that your way, old scout? When comes the day of evil luck the war bag doesn’t hold a buck to keep the wolf away; the “charge it” plan will work no more at any market, shop, or store—no goods unless you pay. The poor man for his money sweats, and he should pay for what he gets, just when he gets the same; then, when he goes his prunes to buy, and sees how fast the nickels fly, he’ll dodge the spendthrift game. If you begin to save your stamps, some day, with teardrops inyour lamps, this writer you will thank; when man in grief and sickness groans there’s naught like having fifteen bones in some good savings bank.
THE CROAKER
THERE is a man—you know him well; in every village doth he dwell—who all the time and every day can dig up something sad to say. The good, the beautiful, the fine, the things that others think divine, remind him that all flesh is grass, that all things must decay and pass. He shakes his head and wags his ears and sheds all kinds of briny tears and cries, “Alack and wella-day! All flesh is grass, and grass is hay!”
He gazes on the blooming bride, who, in her beauty and her pride, is fairer than the fairest flower that ever charmed a summer hour. Wise people watch her with delight, and hope her future may be bright; they whisper blessings and declare that she is radiant and rare, and better feel for having seen so charming and so sweet a queen.
But Croaker notes her brave array and sighs, “Her bloom will pass away! A few short years, and she’ll be bent and wrinkled up, I’ll bet a cent! The hair that looks like gold just now will soon be graying on her brow. She’ll shrivel in this world of sin, and there’ll be whiskerson her chin; and she will seem all hide and bone, a withered and obnoxious crone! I’ve seen so many brides before, with orange wreaths and veils galore, and I have seen their glories pass—all flesh is grass, all flesh is grass!”
The people hear his tale of woe and murmur, “What he says is so!” For that’s the way with evil words; they travel faster than the birds.
I go to see the football game, and note the athlete, strong of frame, his giant arms, his mighty chest, and glory in his youthful zest. It fires my ancient soul to see exultant youth, so strong and free.
But someone at my elbow sighs—and there sits Croaker—dern his eyes!
“These youths,” he says, “so brave and strong, will all be crippled up ere long. If they’re not slaughtered in this game, they’ll all be bunged up, just the same. A few short years, and they will groan, with rheumatism in each bone; they’ll all be lame in feet and knees, they’ll have the hoof and mouth disease, the mumps, the glanders and the gout. Go on, ye springalds, laugh and shout and play the game as best ye may, for youth and strength will pass away!Like snow wreaths in the thaw they’ll pass—all flesh is grass, all flesh is grass!”
I bust him once upon the nose, I tie his whiskers to his toes, and, with an ardent, eager hoof, I kick his person through the roof. But he has spoiled my happy day; the croaker drives all glee away.
CHOOSING A BRIDE
THE man who goes to choose a bride should cautious be, and falcon-eyed, or he will harvest woes; it is a most important chore—more so than going to the store to buy a suit of clothes. If you have dreams of pleasant nights around the fire, and home delights, sidestep the giddy maid whose thoughts are all of hats and gowns, and other female hand-me-downs, of show and dress parade. And always shun the festive skirt who’ll never miss a chance to flirt with men, at any cost; she may seem sweet and charming now, but, as your own and only frau, she’s sure to be a frost. And when you see a woman near, who hankers for a high career, and combs her hair back straight, who says she’s wedded to her art, whose brow is high, whose tongue is tart—oh, Clarence, pull your freight! Select a damsel safe and sane, who has no folly in her brain, who wants to build a home; if you can win that sort of bride, peace shall with you and yours abide, and crown your old bald dome.
AFTER US
THE workman, in my new abode, now spreads the luscious plaster; he hums a blithe and cheerful ode, and labors fast and faster. I stand and watch him as he works, I stand and watch and ponder; I mark how skillfully he jerks the plaster here and yonder. “This plaster will be here,” he cries, “unbroken and unshredded, when you sing anthems in the skies—if that’s where you are headed.” How good to feel, as on we strive, in this bright world enchanted, that what we do will be alive when we are dead and planted! For this the poet racks his brain (and not for coin or rubies) until he finds he’s gone insane and has to join the boobies. For this the painter plies his brush and spreads his yellow ochre, to find, when comes life’s twilight hush, that Fame’s an artful joker. For this the singer sprains her throat, and burns the midnight candle, and tries to reach a higher note than Ellen Yaw could handle. For this the actor rants and barks, the poor old welkin stabbin’, and takes the part of Lawyer Marks in Uncle Tommy’s Cabin. Alas, my laborswill not last! In vain my rhythmic rages! I cannot make my plaster plast so it will stick for ages!
SOME OF THE POOR
So many have no roofs or doors, no sheets to cuddle under! You hire some men to do your chores, and then you cease to wonder. Alas, he is so hard to find—he takes so much pursuing—the worker who will keep his mind on what he may be doing. I hire a man to saw some sticks, to keep the fire a-going, and he discusses politics, in language smooth and flowing; the saw grows rusty while he stands, the welkin shrinks and totters, as he, with swinging jaws and hands, denounces Wall Street plotters. When I go home, as dusk grows dense, I hear his windy rages, and kick him sadly through the fence, when I have paid his wages. I hire a man to paint the churn and hoe the morning glories, and when at evening I return he’s busy telling stories. “That toiler is no good, I fear,” remarks the hausfrau, Sally; I take him gently by the ear and lead him to the alley. I hire a man the stove to black, and fix the kitchen table, and when at evening I come back, he’s sleeping in the stable. And thus we suffer and endure the trifler’s vain endeavor; we do not wonder that the poor are with us here forever.
THE HARVEST HAND
Triumphantly the toiler roared, “I get three bones a day and board! That’s going some, eh, what?” And on he labored, brave and strong; the work was hard, the hours were long, the day was passing hot. I sat at ease beneath a tree—that sort of thing appeals to me—and watched him as he toiled; the sweat rolled down him in a stream, and I could see his garments steam, his face and hands were broiled. He chuckled as he toiled away, “They’re paying me three bones a day, with board and washing, too!” That was his dream of easy mon—to stew and simmer in the sun, for that, the long day through! And I, who earn three iron men with sundry scratches of a pen, felt sorry for the jay; but, as I watched his stalwart form, the pity that was growing warm within me, blew away. For he was getting more than wealth—keen appetite and rugged health, and blessings such as those; and when the day of toil was through, no doubt the stalwart worker knew a weary child’s repose!
WHAT I’D DO
If I were Binks the baker, I’d tidy up my store; I would not have an acre of dust upon the floor. I’d be a skilled adjuster and make things please the eyes; I’d take a feather duster and clean the pumpkin pies. I’d keep the doorknob shining, and polish up the glass, and never sit repining, and never say, “Alas!”
If I were Binks the baker, I’d have a cheerful heart, as always should the maker of bread and pie and tart; for looking sad and grewsome will never bring the trade of folks who want to chew some doughnuts and marmalade. When I go blowing money I always seek the store whose boss is gay and sunny, with gladness bubbling o’er; and when I chance to enter a bakery whose chief is roaring like a stentor about his woe and grief, his bellowings confound me, I do not spend a yen; I merely glance around me, and hustle out again.
If I were Binks the baker, and had a grouch on hand, I’d surely try to shake her, and smile to beat the band. For no one wants to harken to tales of woe and strife, to hear of clouds that darken a merchant’s weary life. For customers,have troubles, like you, through all their years; and when they spend their rubles they are not buying tears. They’ll like you all the better, you and your cakes and jam, if you are not a fretter, a kicker and a clam.
If I were Bakes, the binker—my wires are crossed, I swow—I’d sell the pie and sinker with calm, unclouded brow. No grumblings wild and woolly would from my larynx slide; I’d swear that things were bully, and seven meters wide. Then folks would all admire me, and seek me in my den, and load me till they’d tire me, with kopecks, taels, and yen.