Read Ebook: Uncle Walt [Walt Mason] the Poet Philosopher by Mason Walt

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We have often roasted Nero that he played the violin, while his native Rome was burning and the firemen raised a din; there he sat and played "Bedelia," heedless of the fiery storm, while the fire chief pranced and sweated in his neat red uniform. And I often think that Nero had a pretty level head; would the fire have been extinguished had he fussed around instead? Would the fire insurance folks have loosened up a shekel more, had old Nero squirted water on some grocer's cellar door? When there comes a big disaster, people straightway lose their wits; they go round with hands a-wringing, sweating blood and throwing fits; but the wise man sits and fiddles, plays a tune from end to end, for it never pays to worry over things you cannot mend. It is good to offer battle when catastrophes advance, it is well to keep on scrapping while a fellow has a chance; but when failure is as certain as the coming of the dusk, then it's wise to take your fiddle and fall back on "Money Musk."

If you should chance to mention Death, most men will have a grouch; and yet to die is nothing more than going to your couch, when you have done your little stunt, performed the evening chores, wound up the clock, blown out the light, and put the cat outdoors. The good old world jogged smoothly on before you had your fling; and it will jog as smoothly on when you have cashed your string. King Death himself is good and kind; he always does his best to soothe the heart that's sorrowful, and give the weary rest; but there are evils in his train that daunt the stoutest soul, and one of them may serve to end this cheerful rigmarole. I always have a haunting dread that when I come to die, the papers of the town will tell how some insurance guy, paid up the money that was due to weeping kin of mine, before the funeral procesh had fallen out of line; and thus they'll use me for an ad, some Old Line Life to boom, before I've had a chance to get acquainted with my tomb!

In the hour of stress, when the outlook's blue, and the nation's in a box, there's always a statesman, strong and true, who comes to the front and talks. If wind would banish the ills we see, and drive all our troubles hence, then the talksmith's tongue would our bulwark be, and his larynx our chief defense. We groan and sweat at the forge and mill, to see that our tax is paid, and the money all goes to pay the bill for the noise in congress made. Wherever you go the talksmith stands, with his winning smile and smirk, and busts the welkin and waves his hands--but doesn't get down to work. Ah, well, my friends, we shall scrape and peck along till the judgment day, when the talksmith climbs on the old world's wreck, and talks till he burns away!

It is woman's firm ambition to attain a high position, and he surely is a caitiff who regrets to see her rise; I for one will hand her praises, load her down with cheering phrases, if, in seeking higher levels, she does not neglect the pies. Let her study art and science, read up Blackstone and his clients, soak herself in Kant or Browning and the truth that in them lies; she may dote on Keats or Ruddy--if she doesn't cease to study worthy books and able pamphlets treating of uplifting pies. Now and then my spirit, shrinking, gets to doubting, brooding, thinking that the pies we have at present are not like the pies of yore; modern dames are good at making crusts for pies, and good at baking, but they buy the stuff to fill them at the nearest grocer's store. Are our pies as good as ever? Do our modern dames endeavor to produce the pie triumphant, pies that make us better men? If they do, then who would chide them, who would blame them or deride them, if they turn from pies and cookies to their Ibsen books again?

I went one night with my high-priced thirst to loaf in the booze bazar, and as I sampled the old red dope I leaned on the handsome bar. My purse was full of the good long green, and my raiment was smooth and new, and I looked as slick as a cabbage rose that's kissed by the nice wet dew. Behind the bottles a mirror stood, as large as your parlor floor, and I looked and looked in the shining glass, and wondered, and looked some more. My own reflection did not appear, but there where it should have been, I saw the form of a cringing bum all crumpled and soaked with gin. His nose was red and his eyes were dim, unshorn was his swollen face, and I thought it queer such a seedy bo would come to so smooth a place. I turned around for a better look at this effigy of despair, and nearly fell in a little heap, for the effigy wasn't there! The barkeep laughed. "It's the Magic Glass," he said, with a careless yawn; "it shows a man how he's apt to look years hence when his roll is gone!"

A certain man, who lived some place, was gifted with a misfit face; when Nature built his mug she broke all rules and tried to play a joke; of pale red hair he had a thatch, his eyes were green and didn't match; his nose was pug, his chin was weak, and freckles grew on either cheek, and sorrel whiskers fringed his chop, too thin to ever make a crop. And people, when they first beheld his countenance, just stopped and yelled. But when they'd known him for a while, and marked his glad and genial smile; when passing time had made them wise to all the kindness in those eyes; and when they found that from his face there came no sayings mean or base, that misfit mug they'd often scan, and cry: "He is a handsome man!"

A large black dog, of stately mien, was walking o'er the village green, on some important errand bent; a little cur, not worth a cent, observed him passing by, and growled, and barked a while, and yapped, and howled. The big one did not deign a look, but walked along, like prince or dook. The cur remarked, beneath its breath: "That big four-flusher's scared to death! Those great big brutes are never game; now just watch Fido climb his frame!" The big black dog went stalking on, as calm and tranquil as the dawn; he knew the cur was at his heels; he heard its yaps and snarls and squeals, and yet he never looked around, or blinked an eye, or made a sound; his meditations had a tone that mangy pups have never known. The cur, unnoticed, lost all fear; it grabbed the big dog by the ear; the latter paused just long enough to take the small one by the scruff, and shake him gently to and fro; and then he let poor Fido go, and said, in quiet tones: "Now get!" And Fido's doubtless running yet. Suppose you see if you can nail the moral hidden in this tale.

I'd like to be a Pitcher, and on the Diamond stand, a cap upon my Forehead, a Ball within my Hand. Before Applauding Thousands, I'd throw the Curving Sphere, and From the eyes of Batsmen, bring forth the Briny Tear. I'd make my Occupation a thing of Pomp and Dread, I'd tie Myself in Bow-Knots, and stand upon my Head; a string of wild Contortions would mark my Every Throw, and all the Fans would Murmur: "Oh, Girls, ain't he a Jo?" And when I left the Diamond, on Rest or Pleasure bent, the Kids would trail behind me, and Worship as they went; and all the Sporty Grownups would say: "He's Warm Enough!" and fair and Cultured Ladies would cry: "He is the Stuff!" I'd like to be a Pitcher, while I Remain Below; by day to Gather Garlands, by night to Count the Dough.

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame. Once that hunter, absent-minded, sat upon a hill of ants, and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance! And he used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint, and apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print. And it's thus with wordly troubles; when the big ones come along, we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts, put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts.

We only know they fought and died, and o'er their graves the wind has sighed, for many a long, slow-footed year; and winter's snow has drifted here; and in the dawning warmth of spring the joyous birds came here to sing; we only know that rest is sweet to weary hearts and toiling feet, and they who sleep beneath the sod gave all they had to give to God. And in the radiance of the Throne, their names are known--their names are known! We know not from what homes they came; we can but guess their dreams of fame; but lamps for them did vainly burn, and mothers waited their return, and listened, at some cottage door, for steps that sounded never more; and loving eyes grew dim with tears, and hearts grew old with grief of years. And here they sleep, as they have slept, since legions o'er the country swept; where mothers wait before the Throne, their names are known--their names are known!

When I hear a noble singer reeling off entrancing noise, then I bend in admiration, and his music never cloys. And I feel a high ambition as a singer to excel, and I put my voice in training, and I prance around and yell; oh, I dish up trills and warbles, and I think, throughout the day, that I'll have Caruso faded ere a month has rolled away. Then the neighbors come and see me, and they give me stern reproof, saying I am worse than forty yellow cats upon the roof. When I see a splendid painting it appeals to brain and heart, and I blow myself for brushes and decide to follow Art. With a can of yellow ochre and a jug of turpentine, I produce some masterpieces that would make old Rubens pine, and I talk about Perspective and the whatness of the whence, till a neighbor comes and asks me what I'll take to paint his fence. When I read a rattling volume I invest in pens and ink, and prepare to write some chapters that will make the nation think; and I rear some Vandyke whiskers and neglect to cut my hair, and I read up Bulwer Lytton for some good old oaths to swear; when I get the proper bearing, and the literary style, then I'm asked to write a pamphlet booming some one's castor ile!

At night you seek your downy bed, and ere you sink to sleep and dreams, that strange machine you call your head is full of weird and wondrous schemes; they seem too grand and great to fail; they'll fill your treasury with dough; but morning shows them flat and stale--I often wonder why 'tis so. At eve you are a blithesome soul, your future is the one good bet; you gaily quaff the flowing bowl, or dance the stately minuet; your joy's obtrusive and intense; but morning finds you full of woe; you'd sell yourself for twenty cents--I often wonder why 'tis so. At night you walk beneath the stars, and high ambitions fill your soul; you'll batter down opposing bars, and fight your way, and win the goal; but morning passes you the ice, your visions fade, your spirit's low; you spend the long day shaking dice--I often wonder why 'tis so. At night you think of things sublime, and inspiration fills your heart; you think you'll write a deathless rhyme, or cut a swath in realms of art; but morning finds you looking sick; you feel you haven't any show; you dig some bait and seek the creek--I often wonder why 'tis so.

Before the fight the bruiser said: "I'll surely kill that aleck dead! He thinks he has a chance with me! His gall is beautiful to see. His friends are betting quite a stack, and say that I cannot come back. I'm better now, I say right here, than ever in my great career; I'm sound and good in wind and limb, and I will put the lid on him. Just take it from me, take it straight; I'm fit to lick a hundredweight of wildcats, wolves or rattlesnakes; I'll whip him in a brace of shakes!" The fight was o'er; the bruiser sat, his head too large to fit his hat, his eyes bunged up, his teeth knocked in; he muttered, with a swollen grin: "Well, yes, he licked me, that blamed ape! But I was badly out of shape; I didn't train the way I should; my knees were stiff, my wind no good; I had lumbago and the gout--no wonder that he knocked me out! But just you wait ten years or more! I'm after that four-flusher's gore! When I have rested for a spell, and when my face is good and well, I'll spring a challenge good and hard, and whip him in his own back yard!"

The wizard of the garden, the scientist who found a way to raise a peartree with branches underground, who gave us boneless pumpkins and non-explosive peas, and gutta-percha lettuce, and beets that grow on trees--this wizard of the garden, with venom is assailed, by lesser lights of science, who tried his stunts and failed. And thus it was forever, and thus 'twill always be; the man who wins must suffer the shafts of calumny. We're mostly small potatoes, we critters here on earth; we kick at big achievements, we snarl at sterling worth; we view the greater triumphs of industry and art, and if we find no blemish, it nearly breaks our heart. Go on, O Luther Burbank, the Wizard of the West! Heed not the hoots of people by jealousy oppressed; send forth your sea-green roses, to scent a thousand Junes, produce your horseless radish, and double action prunes!

I love the sun and the gentle breeze, and the brook that winds through the pleasant vale; and I love the birds, and I love the trees, and I'm always glad when I'm out of jail. We are governed now by so many laws that liberty's dead, and we've heard its knell, and the wise man carries a set of saws, to cut his way from a prison cell. The grocer wails in a dungeon deep, for he sold an egg that was out of date; the baker's fetters won't let him sleep, a loaf of his bread was under weight. The butcher beats at his prison door, and fills the air with his doleful moan; they'll cut off his head when the night is o'er, for he sold a steak that was mostly bone. The milkman's there in the prison yard, and the jailers flog him and make him jump; it seems to me that his fate is hard, though he did draw milk from the old home pump. A sickly weed, that was lank and thin, embellished my lot, at the edge of town, and the peelers nabbed me and ran me in, because I neglected to cut it down. I dropped a can as I crossed the park, and that is a crime that's against the law; so they shut me up in a dungeon dark, with its rusty chains and its moldy straw. I love the brook and the summer breeze, and I'm rather mashed on the howling gale; and I'm fond of robins and bumblebees, and I'm always glad when I'm out of jail.

He was a mournful looking wreck, with yellow face and scrawny neck, and weary eyes that looked as though they had monopoly of woe. Too tired to get his labors done, all day he loitered in the sun, and filled the air with yawns and moans, while people called him Lazybones. One day the doctor came, and said: "Brace up, my friend! Hold up your head! The hookworm, deadly as an asp, has got you in its loathsome grasp! But I will break the hookworm lose, and cook its everlasting goose! Swing wide your mouth, and do not cringe--" and then he took his big syringe, and shot about a quart of dope, that tasted like a bar of soap, adown the patient's yawning throat--"I guess I got that hookworm's goat!" One gasping breath the patient drew, and bit a lightning rod in two, and vaulted o'er his cottage roof; and then, on nimble, joyous hoof, he sped across the windswept plain, and burned a school, and robbed a train. The doctor watched his patient streak across the landscape, sere and bleak, and said: "It makes my bosom warm! What wonders Science can perform!"

O Alfred, of the withered bays and harp of nice clean celluloid, why do you spend the passing days in singing of an aching void? Why sing a roundelay that means no more than Choctaw to a Turk? Is it because the magazines will pay you kopecks for your work? O Alfred, of the bloodless rhyme, that savors more of milk than fire, bethink you of the olden time when poets really smote the lyre, producing strains of noble swell, that touched and stirred the hearts of all, and made the soulful people yell, and bat their heads against the wall! We listen to the songs you croon among the fogs across the sea; your poor old harp is out of tune, its strings were made in Germany. Far better poets roam the hills of this fair land, and feed on hope and write wild songs of liver pills, or Jimson's Non-Explosive Soap.

It was a bent and ancient man who toiled with spade and pick, and down his haggard features ran the sweatdrops, rolling thick. And, as he toiled, his gasping sighs spoke darkly of despair; a hopeless look was in his eyes, a look of grief and care. He toiled, all heedless of the crowd that journeyed to and fro; "it is a shame," I said, aloud, "that Age should suffer so." He overheard me, and he said: "I earned this fate, in truth; when young I stained the landscape red; I was a Gilded Youth. I bought the merchandise that's wet, I fooled with games of chance; and now, in misery and sweat, I wear the name of Pance. I was a rounder and a sport, a spender and a blood, and now, when I loom up in court, my only name is Mud. I filled my years with gorgeous breaks, I thought my life a game; I threw my money to the drakes, and wallowed deep in shame. I used to hate the sissy-boys, those molly-coddle lads, who were content with milder joys, and salted down the scads; and now I see them passing by, in opulence and ease, while I, too luckless e'en to die, am doing tasks like these. Sometimes, in racking dreams I see the money that I burned; but do not waste your tears on me--I'm getting what I earned!"

Darling, hush! your tears are welling from your azure angel eyes, but you'll do no good by yelling; hush, my baby, dear, be wise! I would give the soothing syrup that you want, to quell this storm, but I fear that it would stir up trouble in your darling form. Once I prized that syrup highly, thinking it was just the stuff, but I wrote to Dr. Wiley, and he says it's bad enough. Once the doctor, also, prized it, but he found, O baby fair, after he had analyzed it, that an ounce would kill a bear. It's supposed to cure the colic, and to check the infant spleen, but it's strongly alcoholic, and contains some Paris green; it has killed a frightful number, and will kill a legion more; sleep, my darling, sleep and slumber, while your daddy walks the floor!

The teacher in the country school, expounding lesson, sum and rule, and teaching children how to rise to heights where lasting honor lies, deserves a fat and handsome wage, for she's a triumph of this age. No better work than hers is done beneath the good old shining sun; she builds the future of the state; she guides the youths who will be great; she gives the childish spirit wings, and points the way to noble things. And we, who do all things so well, and of our "institooshuns" yell, reward the teacher with a roll that brings a shudder to her soul. We have our coin done up in crates, and gladly hand it to the skates who fuss around in politics and fool us with their time-worn tricks. In Congress one cheap common jay will loaf a week, and draw more pay than some tired teacher, toiling near, will ever see in half a year. If I was running this old land, I'd have a lot of statesmen canned; and congressmen, and folks like those, would have to work for board and clothes; I'd put the lid on scores of snaps, and pour into the teachers' laps the wealth that now away is sinned, for words and wigglejaws and wind.

Into this world, the poet Poe was born a hundred years ago; and in this world he lived and wrought, alone, and, understanding not; his feet toiled through this vale of tears; his spirit roamed in other spheres. A dreamer from Parnassus hurled, into a sordid workday world, where gold the god of all things seems, and men who dream must live on dreams. And so, with shades the poet talked, and so with ghosts the poet walked, and watched, with Psyche hand in hand, a world he could not understand.

The children of our neighborhood don't train their parents as they should; they let the latter go their gait, and do not try to keep them straight, and so those giddy parents roam, at sinful hours, away from home. They try to cheer their foolish hearts, joy-riding in the devil-carts; or you will find, when they are missed, that they are playing bridge or whist, or wasting all the golden day in some absurd and useless way. When I was young I seldom saw a sporty pa or giddy ma; the children of that elder day had parents tutored to obey; the mothers seldom left their tubs to fool around at euchre clubs, and fathers, when the day was dead, took off their rags and went to bed. Ah, seldom then were children seen, with furrowed brow and sombre mien, distraught by galivanting dads, or mas who played the cards for scads! O children, to yourselves be true! Round up the galivanting crew of parents who are trotting fast, before it is too everlast--ing late to give the bunch a chance; come forth, O children, from your trance!

Dad is growing old and weary and there's silver in his hair, and his eyes are always solemn, he has seen so much of care; he has seen so much of sorrow, he has known so much of tears, he has borne the heat and burden of so many bitter years! Dad's already in the twilight of life's little fleeting day, and perhaps we'll often ponder, when his load is laid away, on the steps we might have saved him when his feet and hands were sore, on the joy we might have given to the heart that beats no more. We'll recall a hundred errands that we might have gladly run, and a hundred kindly actions that we might have gaily done; we'll remember how he labored, while the boys were all at play, when the darkness hides him from us at the closing of the day.

The village Marshal, watchful wight, was bound to hold his job down right. He saw John Bunyan running loose, and put him in the calaboose. Now John, the tinker, had renown for jarring up the little town, and all the local sages said that he would never die in bed. But when he found himself in soak, he said: "The sporting life's no joke; here's where I cut it out and strive to show the world that I'm alive." And in that dark and dismal den he sat, with paper, ink and pen, and wrote the book that people hold as being worth its weight in gold. The job was hard; in cells beneath, they heard the grinding of his teeth; whene'er he wrote a sentence wise, he had to stop and swat the flies; the grub was poor, the water foul, the jailer sombre as an owl; the jail was full of dirt and dust, the chains he wore were brown with rust. Yet through it all, by hook or crook, he toiled and wrote his matchless book! O, authors of the present day, whose books are dry as bales of hay, who grind "best sellers" by the ton, which last from rise till set of sun, who roll in comfort and ice cream, dictating stories by the ream, try Bunyan's plan--it may avail--and write a masterpiece in jail!

My country, beauteous land! I'll sing, if you will stand, a song to thee! My harp is rather coarse, my voice is somewhat hoarse, yet will I try to force some melody. Fair land that saw my birth, gem of the whole blamed earth, hark to my screeds! Tell me, O tell me why prices have soared so high that man can scarcely buy things that he needs. Things that a man must eat--lemons and prunes and meat--cost like Sam Hill; carpets and rugs and mats, neckties and shoes and hats, shirting to hide his slats, empty his till. All through the week I work, like an unlaundered Turk, for a few bucks; no odds how hard I try, of wealth I'm always shy, and when I travel I ride on the trucks. They say that half a plunk bought more and better junk, in the old days, than will two bones or more, in the big modern store, since prices learned to soar, five hundred ways. My country, hear my word! You are a hummingbird, also a peach! Splendid in peace and war, thou most effulgent star--tell me why prices are clear out of reach!

When a tiresome Chinese statesman bores his queen or overlord, he receives a little package that contains a yellow cord; and the statesman realizes that it is no use to roar, so he hangs himself in silence to the nearest sycamore. Let us borrow from the wisdom of the rulers of Cathay! Let us put this grand old custom into common use today! Let the President distribute samples of the saffron string, to the statesmen who have bored us since the early days of spring, with their figures and statistics and their buncombe and hot air, and their misfit oratory which won't lead us anywhere. We might all, perhaps, be rescued, from an ordeal that's abhorred, if Big Bill would send the talkers twenty feet of yellow cord!

You know the man of kingly air? You run across him everywhere. He seems to think his hat a crown; he talks as though he handed down most all the wisdom that the seers have gathered in a thousand years. His dignity is most sublime; to joke about him is a crime, and when you meet him it is wise to lift your hat and close your eyes; and it would please him if you'd just lie down and grovel in the dust. That is the wiser course, I say, but I'm a feeble-minded jay, and when I meet the swelled-up man, I jolly him the best I can; I would to him the fact recall that he's but mortal, after all. He's naught but bones and legs and trunk, and lungs and lights, and kindred junk; he breathes the same old germy air that's breathed by hoboes everywhere. And when he dies, as die he must, he'll make as cheap a grade of dust as any Richard Roe in town; the monument that holds him down may tell his glories for a while, but folks will read it with a smile, and say: "That dead one must have thought that he was Johnnie on the spot, when he was on this earthly shore; I never heard of him before."

A thousand cares oppress the mind, in life's long summer day; we weary of the galling grind, and endless seems the way. The journey's really not so long; we have not far to roam; and soon we'll hear the evensong, and then we'll toddle home. Our burdens seem an awful pile, and yet they're not so great; if we would pack them with a smile, we would not feel the weight. We murmur as we hold the plow, and guide it through the loam; but dusk is coming, even now, and soon we'll toddle home. We see a cloud of sullen gray, and straightway we repine; "the storm is rising fast," we say, "the sun no more will shine." But in a space his golden beams will light the azure dome, until shall come the time for dreams, and then we'll toddle home. No trouble lasts if we are brave, and take a manly stand; and Fear becomes a cringing slave, if we but raise a hand; the evil that disturbs our rest is but a shadow gnome; the sun is sinking in the west, and soon we'll toddle home. Then let us toddle home as gay as birds, that never weep; as glad as children, tired of play, who only wish to sleep; and while Recording Angels write our names in heaven's tome, we'll seek our couch, and say good night when we have toddled home.

The Wise Man, with some boys in tow, beheld a pin upon the ground. "My lads," he said, his face aglow, "come here and see what I have found! 'Tis but a pin, a humble pin, on which the passing thousands tread, and some unthinking men would grin, to see me lift it from its bed. And yet, my lads, the trifles count; the drops of water make the sea; the grains of sand compose the mount, and moments make eternity. Each hour to man its chances brings, but he will gain no goodly store, if he despises little things, nor sees the pin upon his floor. I stoop and grasp this little pin; I'll keep it, maybe, seven years; it yet may let the sunshine in, and brighten up a day of tears." The Wise Man bent to reach the pin, and lost his balance, with a yell; he hit the pavement with his chin; his hat into the gutter fell; he rolled into a crate of eggs, and filled the air with dismal moans, and then a dray ran o'er his legs, and broke about a gross of bones. They took him home upon a door, and there he moans--so tough he feels: "Those dad-blamed children never more will listen to my helpful spiels!"

They doom you, Dobbin, now and then, they say your usefulness is gone; some blame fool thing designed by men has put the equine race in pawn. They doomed you, and your hopes were low, when bicycles were all the rage; they said: "The horse will have to go--he lags superfl'ous on the stage!" They doomed you when the auto-car was given its resplendent birth. "Thus sinks the poor old horse's star--he'll have to beat it from the earth!" And now they're dooming you some more, there are so many motor things; men scorch the earth with sullen roar, or float around on hardware wings. They doom you, Dobbin, now and then, and call you has-been, and the like; but while this world is breeding men, the horse will still be on the pike. No painted thing of cogs and wheels and entrails made of noisy brass can e'er supplant a horse's heels, or make man grudge a horse his grass. No man-made trap of bars and springs can love or confidence impart, nor give the little neigh that brings emotion to the horseman's heart. O build your cars and ships and planes, and doom old Dobbin as you will! While men have souls and hearts and brains, old Dobbin shall be with us still!

At the hash-works where I board, but one topic now prevails: "How the price of grub has soared!" Drearily the landlord wails. In his old, accustomed place, he is sitting, at each meal; sad and corpse-like is his face, as he carves his ancient veal. When I ask that solemn jay, if he'll pass the butter 'round, "butter costs," I hear him say, "almost half a bone a pound." When I want a slice of duck, his expression is a sin; "this thin drake cost me a buck, and the quacks were not thrown in." Through the muddy coffee's steam, I can hear him saying now: "I desired a pint of cream, and they charged me for a cow." "Let me have some beans," I cried--I was hungry as could be; "sure!" he wearily replied; "shall I give you two, or three? Beans," he said, "long years ago, of rank cheapness were the signs; now they cost three scads a throw--and you do not get the vines." Once, at morn, I wished an egg, and the landlord had a swoon; with his head soaked in a keg, he regained his mind by noon; "once," he moaned, "an egg was cheap; times have changed, alas! since then; now the price would make you weep--and they don't throw in the hen!"

Omar, of the golden pen, come, O come to us again! 'Neath thy fig-tree and thy vine, with thy bread and jug of wine, seat thyself again, and write, in the caustic vein, or light. Thou who swatted many heads, tore so many fakes to shreds, made the ancient humbugs hump, kept the wise guys on the jump--come, great Omar, from the mists, come and swat thy parodists! Come and give the rhymesters fits--all the jingling, grass-fed wits, who profane thy noble verse; come and place them in the hearse! They who love the Khayyam strain, treasure from a master's brain, satire keen as tested steel--they who love old Omar feel that the imitative crew should receive the wages due, be rewarded for their toil with a bath in boiling oil. But the law is in the way; if the poets we should slay, we'd be pulled by the police for disturbance of the peace. Come, then, Omar, from the shade, where thou hast too long delayed, and with sundry skillful twists, wipe out all those parodists.

It's all very well to be nursing a grouch, when everything travels awry, and you haven't the pieces-of-eight in your pouch to pay for a cranberry pie; it's all very well to use language galore, and cover your whiskers with foam; you may prance around town with a head that is sore--but it's beastly to carry it home! You may be discouraged and worn by the strife; then make all your kicks on the street, for the man who will wear out his grouch on his wife, isn't fit for a cannibal's meat; if troubles and worries are beating you down, and bringing gray hairs to your dome, 'twill do in the office to carry a frown, but it's ghoulish to carry it home! The Lord, who made sparrows and Katy H. Dids, loves the man who is stalwart and brave, who cheerily goes to his wife and his kids, though his hopes may be fit for the grave; but the Lord has no use for the twenty-cent skate, whose courage is weak as the foam; who piles up his sorrows, and shoulders the weight, and carefully carries it home!

I'm glad I didn't find the Pole, up there where Arctic billows roll. When first I heard the Pole was lost, for one brief day my wires were crossed; I said: "Methinks I'd better go across the weary wastes of snow, along the white bear's lonely track, and find the Pole, and bring it back. Thus shall I scale the heights of fame, and grow sidewhiskers on my name. I'll be a bigger man than Taft; I'll work the soft Chautauqua graft, and earn a package of long green by writing for a magazine; I'll have some medals in my trunk, and silver cups, and other junk; and kings and queens will cry, with pride, that I'm all wool and three yards wide. So let me hire some Eskimos, and hit the nice cool Arctic snows." But here my granny intervened, and said: "Those stovepipes must be cleaned; you haven't mowed the lawn this week, and it's a sight to make one shriek; there's something clogging up the flue--you ought to wash the buggy, too, and there are forty thousand chores, and here you stand around outdoors, and mumble like a heathen Turk"--and then, my friends, I got to work.

Long life to you and Holland's heir, Wilhelmina! May all your days be bright and fair, Wilhelmina! And may the babe grow wise and great, and chic and slick and up-to-date, and learn to keep her crown on straight, Wilhelmina! O bring her up with steady hand, Wilhelmina! And train her mind, to beat the band, Wilhelmina! And if you catch her chewing gum, or flirting with a rah-rah chum, then take a strap and make things hum, Wilhelmina! Don't let her fool away her time, Wilhelmina, in painting or in writing rhyme, Wilhelmina; but let her know that glory lies in knowing how to make mince pies, and stews and roasts and fancy fries, Wilhelmina. And if by worries you're perplex'd, Wilhelmina, and don't know what you should do next, Wilhelmina, then come to us for good advice--we always keep a lot on ice--we'll solve your problems in a trice, Wilhelmina.

You haven't much sense, but I love you well, O wild-eyed broncho of mine! Your heart is hot with the heat of hell, and a cyclone's in your spine; your folly grows with increasing age; you stand by the pasture bars, and bare your teeth in a dotard rage, and kick at the smiling stars. As homely you as the face of sin, with brands on your mottled flanks, and saddle scars on your dusky skin, and burs on your tail and shanks! and old--so old that the men are dead, who branded your neck and side; and their sons have lived and gone to bed, and turned to the wall and died. But it's you for the long, long weary trail, o'er the hills and the desert sand, by the side of the bones of the steeds that fail and perish on either hand. It's you for the steady and tireless lope, through canyon or mountain pass; to be flogged at night with a length of rope, and be fed on a bunch of grass.

There is no tune that grips my heart, and seems to pull me all apart, like this old Serenade; it seems to breathe of distant lands, and orange groves and silver sands, and troubadour and maid. It's freighted with a gentle woe as old as all the seas that flow, as young as yesterday; as changeless as the stars above, as yearning as a woman's love for true knight far away. It seems a prayer, serene and pure; a tale of love that will endure when they who loved are dust, when earthly songs are heard no more, and bridal wreaths are withered sore, and wedding rings are rust. It's weary with a lover's care; it's wailing with a deep despair, that only lovers learn; and yet through all its sadness grope the singing messengers of hope for joys that will return. O, gentle, soothing Serenade! When I am beaten down and frayed, with all my hopes in pawn, when I've forgotten how to laugh, I wind up my old phonograph, and turn the music on! And then I float away, away, to moonlit castles in Cathay, or Araby or Spain, and underneath the glowing skies I read of love in damsels' eyes, and dream, and dream again!

Mazeppa, strapped upon a steed, made sixty miles at frightful speed; through lowland, valley and morass, through verdant strips of garden sass, o'er mountain, brake and flowing stream, he sped, as though propelled by steam. The bear sat up to see him go, the wolves pursued, but had no show; and when at last he reached a town, his dying charger tumbled down. Mazeppa rose, without a scratch, and swiftly wrote a long dispatch, which reached the Sporting Ed. that night: "I've knocked the record flat, all right. No other fellow, anywhere, has traveled on a knee-sprung mare o'er sixty miles of right of way, while trussed up like a bale of hay. Please hire a hall; a statement write, that I will lecture every night, for twenty years--my lecture's fine--the moving picture rights are mine. If any challenger should come, and put up a substantial sum, and say that he'd be glad to ride, upon a raw-boned hearse horse tied, for sixty miles or maybe more, for money, marbles, chalk or gore, just say my last long ride is made, until the lecture graft is played."

She called upon her lawyer, and said to him: "Of course this visit will surprise you--I want a nice divorce." "Why, madam," cried the lawyer, "you're talking through your hat; your husband just adores you, and all the town knows that." "Of course I know he loves me," she answered, with a smile, "but that will cut no figure--divorces are in style. Decrees were won in triumph by friends of mine, of late, and every time I meet them I feel so out of date! I've just come from a party--the swellest of the town; I felt like some old woman who wears a last year's gown; and all the ladies chattered of husbands in their string, decrees of separation, and all that sort of thing." "But, madam," said the lawyer, "what reasons can you give? For better, finer husbands than yours, I think, don't live." "What do I want with reasons?" she answered, in a huff; "I want a separation, and that should be enough; I want the rare distinction a court of justice lends; I'm feeling too old-fashioned among my lady friends. I must have some good reasons? I do not think you're nice; his name is William Henry--that surely will suffice?"

The Christmas bells again ring out a message sweet and clear; and harmony is round about, and happiness is near; so let us all sing, once again, as on an elder day: "God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay!" Forget the office and the mart, the week-day hook and crook, and loosen up your withered heart, as well as pocketbook; forget the ledger and the pen, and watch the children play; God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay! The Christmas time with peace is fraught, from strife and sorrow free; and every wish and every thought should kind and gentle be; in worlds beyond our mortal ken this is a holy day; God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay! Today, from Eden's plains afar, the shepherds converse hold, and watch again the risen star, as in the days of old; and as those shepherds watched it then, so may we watch today; God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay!

The Tightwad is a pleasant soul who freezes strongly to his roll, until he hasn't any; his bundle colors all his dreams, and when awake he's full of schemes to nail another penny. He counts his roubles day by day, and when a nickel gets away, it nearly drives him dotty; he grovels to the man of biz who has a bigger roll than his, and to the poor he's haughty. All things upon this earth are trash that can't be bought or sold for cash, in Tightwad's estimation; the summer breeze, because it turns the cranks of mills and pumps and churns, receives his toleration; the sun is useful in its way; it nourishes the wheat and hay--so let the world be sunny; he likes to hear the raindrops slosh; they help the pumpkin, beet and squash, and such things sell for money. The tightwad often is a bear around his home, and everywhere, and people hate or fear him; since kindness has no market price, it's waste of effort to be nice to victims who are near him. Methinks that when the tightwad dies, and to his retribution flies, his sentence will be funny; they'll load him with a silver hat, and boil him in a golden vat, and feed him red-hot money!

My sires were strong, heroic men, who fought on many a crimson field; and none could better cut a throat, or batter down a foeman's shield; and some were knighted by the king, and went around with golden spurs, which must have been a nuisance when they walked among the cockleburs. Their sires were barons of the Rhine, who worked a now historic graft; they held up travelers by day, and quaffed their sack at night, and laughed; they always slept upon the floor, and never shaved or cut their hair; they pawed their victuals with their hands, and never heard of underwear. Their sires, some centuries before, ran naked through the virgin vales, distinguished from the other apes because they hadn't any tails. And they had sires, still farther back, but that dim past is veiled to me, and so I fear I cannot claim a really flawless pedigree.

When the cave man found that he needed grub to fill out the bill of fare, he went out doors with his trusty club, and slaughtered the nearest bear; and thus he avoided the butcher's fake of selling a pound of bone, and charging it up as the sirloin steak that you ordered by telephone. The cave man wore, as his Sunday best, the skin of a sheep or goat, and a peck of whiskers on his breast, in lieu of a vest or coat; so he nothing knew of the tailor's knack of sewing a vest all wrong, and making a coat with a crooked back, and the pants half a foot too long. The cave man swallowed his victuals raw, as he sat on his nice mud floor; and his only tool was his faithful jaw, and he wanted for nothing more. He took his drinks at the babbling brook, and healthy and gay was he; and he never swore at the bungling cook for spoiling the pie or tea.

Alas for R. Kipling! When he was a stripling, and filled with the fire of his age, he looked like a dinger--the all-firedest singer that ever wrote rhymes by the page. His harpstrings he pounded with vim till they sounded like strains of a Homeric brand, and people, in wonder, inquired who in thunder was filling with music the land. "At last--now we know it--the world has a poet, who'll set all the rivers afire," in this way we hailed him, when critics assailed him, and knocked on his bargain sale lyre. The years have been flying, and old bards are dying, and some of the young have been called; and Rudyard the rhymer is now an old timer, string-halted and painfully bald. And harder and harder, with counterfeit ardor, he whangs at his lusty old lyre; it's kept caterwauling and wailing and squalling, when it ought to be flung in the fire. O hush up its clangor! In sorrow, not anger, we proffer this little request; let's think of the stripling--the long vanished Kipling, and let the old man take a rest.

That Hoosier country's most prolific of folks who scale the heights of fame; excelling in the arts pacific, they give their state a lustrous name. There old Jim Riley writes his verses, and wears, without dispute, the bays; George Ade must pack around six purses to hold the dough he gets for plays. Booth Tarkington is fat and wheezy, from dining on the market's best; he's living on the street called Easy, and gives his faculties a rest. Abe Martin also is a Hoosier, and hands out capsules good to see; and when you take 'em you will lose your suspender buttons in your glee. And Nicholson and many others are writing stuff that hits the spot; O, surely Indiana mothers a most unique and gifted lot! And I've received a little volume, concerning Indiana's crops; it gives the figures, page and column, and rambles on and never stops. It gives the yield of sweet potatoes, and corn and wheat and pigs and eggs, and cabbages and green tomatoes, and sauer kraut packed in wooden kegs. And never once in all the story are any of those writers named; poor Indiana's truest glory is missed--she ought to be ashamed.

Oh, Tumbo, Bwana Tumbo, we are glad you're back again, with the lion that you slaughtered in its cheap but useful den; with your crates of anacondas and your sack of crocodiles--we are glad indeed to see you, and the land is wreathed in smiles! For we missed you, Bwana Tumbo, when you roamed the distant field, killing camels with the weapon that no other man could wield; and the rust of peace was on us, and our martial spirits fell, and our lives grew stale and stagnant, and we got too fat to yell. Oh, the land was like a homestead when the boss is gone away, when the women sit and mumble and the kids refuse to play. But you're with us now, B. Tumbo, with the skins of beasts you slew, with the bones of bear and walrus and the stately kangaroo, and the gloom has left the shanty, and we moon around no more, for the colonel's quit his hunting, and his face is at the door!

Here she comes, and she's a sight, in her gown of snowy white, thing of beauty and of charm, leaning on her lover's arm! Bright her eyes as summer skies, and a glory in them lies, borrowed from the realms above, where the only light is love. And her lover looks serene, shaven, perfumed, groomed and clean; pride is glowing in his eyes, that he's won so fair a prize. Lover, lover, do your best, ne'er to wound that gentle breast; lover, never bring a smart, to that true and trusting heart! Strive to earn the love you've won, as the years their courses run, knowing ever, as you strive, that no man who is alive, and no man since Adam died, e'er deserved a fair June bride!

I went last night to see the play--a drama of the modern kind; and I am feeling tired today; I'd like to fumigate my mind. I'd hate to always recollect those tawdry jokes and vicious cracks; for I would fain be circumspect, and keep my brain as clean as wax. The playwright did his best to show that married life is flat and stale; that homely virtues are too slow to prosper in this earthly vale; he put Deceit on dress parade, and put a laurel crown on Vice; and Honor saw her trophies fade, and Truth was laid upon the ice. "It held the mirror up to life," and I, who saw it, homeward went, and got a club and beat my wife, and robbed an orphan of a cent. If I saw many plays so rank, so full of dark and evil thought, I'd steal a blind man's savings bank, or swipe a widow's house and lot. You may be lustrous as a star, with all the virtues in you canned, but if you fool around with tar you'll blacken up to beat the band. You may be wholesome as the breeze that chortles through a country lane, but if you eat Limburger cheese, your friends will pass you with disdain. And every time you see a play, or read a book that makes a jest of love and home you throw away some part of you that was the best.

Now my wife is reading papers on the Fall of Ancient Rome, and I find myself, her husband, doing all the work at home; I have washed the dinner dishes, I have swept the kitchen floor, and I've pretty near decided that I'll do it never more. For the soap gets in my whiskers and the grease gets on my clothes, and I'm always dropping dishes and big sadirons on my toes; and I cannot herd the children while I'm scrubbing, very well, two have vanished in the distance, three have fallen in the well; and I'm always using coal oil where I should use gasoline, so the stove is blown to pieces, and the roof has holes, I ween. And the neighbors come and chaff me, laugh like horses at the door, as I slop around in sorrow, wiping gravy from the floor. So methinks I'll ask the missus after this to run our home, and I'll do a stunt of reading papers on the Fall of Rome.

Like some lone mountain in the starry night, lifting its head snow-capped, severely white, into the silence of the upper air, serene, remote, and always changeless there! Firm as that mountain in the day of dread, when Freedom wept, and pointed to her dead; grim as that mountain to the ruthless foe, wasting the land that wearied of its woe; strong as that mountain, 'neath his load of care, when brave men faltered in a sick despair. So does his fame, like that lone mountain, rise, cleaving the mists and reaching to the skies; bright as the beams that on its summit glow, firm as its rocks and stainless as its snow!

Every hour that's gone's a dead one, and another comes and goes; in the graveyard of the ages hours will find their last repose; and the hour that's come and vanished never can be used again; you may long to live it over, but the longing is in vain. Lasso, then, the hour that's with you, ride it till its back is sore; you can have it sixty minutes--sixty minutes, and no more. Make it earn its board and lodging, make it haul your private wain, for when once it slips its halter it will never work again. So the hours like spotted ponies trot along in single file, and we haven't sense to catch them and to work them for a mile; we just loaf around and watch them, sitting idly in the sun, and the darkness comes and finds us with but mighty little done.

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