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Walt Mason 
 
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 I 
 
WALT MASON 
 
 HIS BOOK 
 
 With an Introduction 
 By Irvin S. Cobb 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 New York 
 
 Barse & H opkins 
 
 Publishers 
 

 This book is compiled from a careful selection of the best prose 
 
 poems of Walt Mason. 
 
 Acknowledgment is made for the use of these poems to Walt Mason 
 and George Matthew Adams. 
 
 Copyright, 1911, by George Matthew Adams. 
 Copyright, jpi6, by Barse & Hopkins. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 MAY 24i9l6 
 
 0)CI.A43;j1i9 
 
To ELLA FOSS MASON 
 
 Who's read my stuff daily, 
 A long, happy time, 
 
 I dedicate gay ly 
 
 This package of rhyme. 
 
Cobb's Masonism 
 
 Ihave never met Walt Mason — that is, I've 
 never met him face to face. By the same 
 token he has never met me. So the benefit 
 to date is as much his as it is mine. We are 
 splitting our blessings, fifty-fifty. 
 
 I have never met him but I have seen his pic- 
 ture. I have a feeling that his picture will be 
 printed in this, the fifth volume of his assembled 
 works. This the publisher will do to keep peo- 
 ple from saying Mason's verse is the homeliest 
 thing in the book. 
 
 Well, quite a number of us are doing very lit- 
 tle in the pretty line this year. 
 
 Looking at his likeness I visualize the man 
 who posed for it. He is set solid, like his 
 rhymes. Actuated by the spirit of the Initiative 
 and Referendum, which I believe also originated 
 in his native Kansas, his nose started to go away 
 from here but was subjected to the Recall in time 
 to prevent it from leaving entirely. He has, as I 
 observe, a mouth built for a blueberry pie. I 
 suspect him of being addicted to chewing tobacco 
 and corn on the ear. He wears one of those 
 loose-fitting, home-shaped Kansas collars which 
 give the blood a chance to circulate to the brain 
 and at the same time permit the Adam's apple to 
 exercise its ordained functions. I'll risk any 
 amount within reason that he wears fifty-cent 
 suspenders and utters low glad cries when he 
 pulls his shoes off. In short, I gather from his 
 portrait that Walt Mason, to look at, is just ex- 
 actly the kind of person Walt Mason should be, 
 to look at. 
 
 I repeat it. I have never seen him. But I 
 read his verses. I read them at dewy eve, and 
 then my dewy eve is a success. Give me this day 
 my daily Walt Mason — that is part of my morn- 
 ing prayer. And at night time he comes and 
 answers me my prayer. 
 
Cobb's M a s o n 1 s m 
 
 George Ade said it — "Mason is the high priest 
 of horse sense." He is the sweet singer of our 
 American Israel. Because he says a thing in his 
 own way, he says it the way the average Ameri- 
 can would say it, if he could only say it that way. 
 Any one of us may have the thought but to him 
 is given the gift of expression. He whangs a 
 home-made harp and because it is home-made, — 
 because it voices the true homely, plain, honest- 
 to-God sentiments of the real people in a homely 
 fashion, because it rings with a sweetness, a san- 
 ity and a wit that belongs to that old low-combed, 
 red-necked Kansas rooster, in a greater degree 
 than to any other being known to me as resident 
 upon this planet at the present moment — we love 
 the Harpist and we love the Tune. 
 
 Poets come and poets go. Some of them never 
 arrive and some of them start going before they 
 get through coming. There have been poets that 
 I, personally, could spare without a pang, and 
 poets that I could strangle M'ith my bare hands 
 and feel no pricks of conscience thereafter. But 
 there are two poets among us that I want to go 
 on living forever, since each of them in his own 
 rhymstering sphere, knows the wondrous trick 
 of finding always the right word for the right 
 place. These two, between them, sweeten our 
 day for us with the sugar of philosophy, salt it 
 with the savors of wisdom and human under- 
 standing, and richen it with the music of their 
 art. One of them is James Whitcomb Riley. 
 The other is Walt Mason — and both of them are 
 the poets of the plain people. 
 
 %h::^.(^ 
 
 p. S. — Mind you, as I said before, I've never 
 seen Walt Mason — only his picture. 
 
o n t e n t s 
 
 The Welcome Man 17 
 
 Confidence 18 
 
 Forget It 19 
 
 Conscience 20 
 
 The Old Prayer 21 
 
 Aifectation 22 
 
 Hatred 23 
 
 The Has Beens 24 
 
 The Missus 25 
 
 Pretty Good Schemes 26 
 
 Keeping Things Neat 27 
 
 The Long Road 28 
 
 The Penny Sav^d 29 
 
 Humility 30 
 
 The Veiled Future 31 
 
 'Little Pilgrims 33 
 
 Better Than Boodle 34 
 
 Put It on Ice 35 
 
 Bad Cooking 36 
 
 The Universal Help 37 
 
 The Conqueror 38 
 
 Politeness 39 
 
 Progressive Doctoring 40 
 
 Methuselah 41 
 
 Unappreciated 42 
 
 The Grouch 43 
 
 The Hand Out "... 44 
 
 The Optimist 45 
 
 Good Credit 46 
 
 Little Things 47 
 
 Selfishness 48 
 
 The Old Virtues 49 
 
 Eating Too Much 50 
 
 The Speech Makers 51 
 
 A Few Remarks 52 
 
 Your Own Town 53 
 
 Illustration 54 
 
 A Glance at History 55 
 
 Longfellow 56 
 
 Home and Mother 57 
 
 In Politics 58 
 
 The Human Head 59 
 
Content S — Continued 
 
 The Famous Four 60 
 
 Little Sunbeam 61 
 
 A Rainy Night 62 
 
 The Flag 63 
 
 Little Girl 64 
 
 Beryl's Boudoir 65 
 
 Post Mortem Honors 67 
 
 After a While 68 
 
 The Landlady 69 
 
 Knowledge by Mail 70 
 
 Duke and Plumber 71 
 
 Human Hands 72 
 
 The Lost Pipe 73 
 
 Thanksgiving 74 
 
 Twilight Reveries 75 
 
 King and Kid 76 
 
 Useless Griefs 77 
 
 The Little Green Tents 78 
 
 Letting It Along 79 
 
 End of the Road 80 
 
 The Dying Fisherman 81 
 
 The Venerable Excuse 82 
 
 The Smart Children 83 
 
 The Journey 85 
 
 Times Have Changed 86 
 
 My Little Dog 87 
 
 Silver Threads 88 
 
 Tired Man's Sleep 89 
 
 To-morrow 90 
 
 Toothache 9^ 
 
 Auf Wiedersehen 92 
 
 After the Game 93 
 
 Nero's Fiddle 94 
 
 The Real Terror 95 
 
 The Talksmiths 96 
 
 Woman's Progress 97 
 
 The Magic Mirror 99 
 
 The Misfit Face . 100 
 
 A Dog Story 101 
 
 The Pitcher , 102 
 
 Lions and Ants 103 
 
 The Nameless Dead 104 
 
Content S — Continued 
 
 Ambition io5 
 
 Night's Illusions io6 
 
 Before and After 107 
 
 The Poet Balks ic3 
 
 Governed Too Much 109 
 
 Success in Life ^^^ 
 
 Home Life i" 
 
 Eagles and Hens 112 
 
 Weary Old Age "3 
 
 Lullaby "4 
 
 The Schoolmarm ^^5 
 
 The Sunday Paper "6 
 
 Gay Parents ^^7 
 
 Dad 118 
 
 John Bunyan 119 
 
 A Near Anthem 121 
 
 The Nation's Hope 122 
 
 The Important Man 123 
 
 Toddling Home 124 
 
 Trifling Things 125 
 
 Trusty Dobbin 126 
 
 The High Prices 127 
 
 Omar Khayyam 128 
 
 Knowledge Is Power 129 
 
 Physical Culture 131 
 
 Football 132 
 
 The Broncho 133 
 
 Schubert's Serenade '35 
 
 Health Food 136 
 
 Fashion's Devotee ^37 
 
 Christmas 138 
 
 The Tightwad i39 
 
 Blue Blood 140 
 
 The Cave Man 141 
 
 The Eyes of Lincoln 142 
 
 In Indiana ^43 
 
 The Better Land i44 
 
 The June Bride HS 
 
 At the Theatre H^ 
 
 Club Day Dirge ^47 
 
 Washington ^49 
 
 Hours and Pomes ^5° 
 
Content S — Continued 
 
 The Pie Eaters 151 
 
 Poor Father 152 
 
 He Who Forgets 153 
 
 The Umpire '. i54 
 
 Sherlock Holmes 155 
 
 The Sanctuary 156 
 
 The Newspaper Graveyard 157 
 
 My Lady's Hair 158 
 
 The Sick Minstrel i59 
 
 The Beggar 160 
 
 Looking Forward 161 
 
 The Depot Loafers 162 
 
 The Foolish Husband 163 
 
 Hallowe'en 165 
 
 Rienzi to the Romans 166 
 
 The Sorrel Colt 167 
 
 The Sexton's Inn 168 
 
 Mail Order Clothes 169 
 
 Evening 170 
 
 They All Come Back 171 
 
 The Cussing Habit 172 
 
 John Bull 173 
 
 An Oversight 174 
 
 The Traveler 175 
 
 Saturday Night 176 
 
 Lady Nicotine 177 
 
 Up-to-Date Serenade 179 
 
 The Consumer i8o 
 
 Advice to a Damsel 181 
 
 A New Year Vow 182 
 
 The Stricken Toiler 183 
 
 The Lawbooks 184 
 
 Sleuths of Fiction 185 
 
 The Idle Question 186 
 
 The Philanthropist 187 
 
 Other Days 188 
 
 The Passing Year 189 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 THERE'S a man In the world who is 
 never turned down, wherever he 
 chances to stray; he gets the glad 
 hand in the populous town, or out where the 
 farmers make hay; he's greeted with pleas- 
 ure on deserts of sand, and deep in the 
 aisles of the woods ; wherever he goes there's 
 the welcoming hand — he's The Man Who 
 Delivers the Goods. The failures of life 
 sit around and complain; the gods haven't 
 treated them white; they've lost their um- 
 brellas whenever there's rain, and they 
 haven't their lanterns at night; men tire of 
 the failures who fill with their sighs the air 
 of their own neighborhoods; there's one 
 who is greeted with love-lighted eyes — he's 
 The Man Who Delivers the Goods. One 
 fellow is lazy, and watches the clock, and 
 waits for the whistle to blow; and one has 
 a hammer, with which he will knock, and 
 one tells a story of woe; and one, if re- 
 quested to travel a mile, will measure the 
 perches and roods; but one does his stunt 
 with a whistle or smile — he's The Man 
 Who Delivers the Goods, One man is 
 afraid that he'll labor too hard — the world 
 isn't yearning for such; and one man is al- 
 ways alert, on his guard, lest he put in a 
 minute too much; and one has a grouch or 
 a temper that's bad, and one is a creature 
 of moods; so it's hey for the joyous and 
 rollicking lad — for the One Who Delivers 
 the Goods! 
 
 The 
 
 Welcome 
 
 Man 
 
 [17] 
 
Confidence 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 [i8] 
 
 I KNOW a man who hunts for snakes, 
 and kills them for their grease. He 
 says 'twill cure rheumatic aches, and 
 make your anguish cease. The doctors say 
 that serpent oil no sort of virtue owns; it 
 will not cure the pains that coil around your 
 joints and bones. But this old gun who 
 kills the snakes has never had a doubt; he 
 says all other cures are fakes, when reptile 
 oil's about. He is so everlasting sure that 
 what he says is true, that even skeptics buy 
 his "cure," to see what it will do. And so 
 it keeps him toiling hard, the keen demand 
 to meet, and he has bought with buUsnake 
 lard a home in Easy street. If you believe 
 in what you sell, have faith in what you say, 
 in that same avenue you'll dwell, upon a fu- 
 ture day. If one is not supremely sure that 
 what he has for sale makes all competitors 
 look poor, his eloquence will fail. A man 
 can sell me setting hens, or swarms of bum- 
 ble bees, or double action fountain pens, or 
 cures for housemaids' knees, if he's con- 
 vinced that what he sells beats everything 
 around; that sort of salesman's wearing 
 bells, wherever he is found. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 IF you detest this vale of tears, forget 
 it! If you've a whine for victims' 
 ears, forget it; the folks who toddle 
 to and fro and do their duties as they go 
 don't care about your tale of woe — forget 
 it. You think your mission is to teach? 
 Forget it. You'd like a chance to make a 
 speech? Forget it. Too many men like 
 you have sinned by giving us less work 
 than wind; if you to noise your faith have 
 pinned, forget it. You say the laws are all 
 unjust? Forget it. They grind the poor 
 man's face to dust? Forget it. The poor 
 man who neglects his jaw to do a stunt with 
 axe or saw will have no trouble with the 
 law — forget it. You say your neighbors 
 are unkind? Forget it. They prosecute 
 and rob you blind? Forget it. For folks 
 are pretty much the same; the man who 
 roars is most to blame; they'll treat you as 
 you play the game; forget it. You have 
 some gossip to relate? Forget it. A scan- 
 dal never pays the freight — forget it. A 
 hundred bosoms have been wrung by evil 
 stories you have sprung; if you've another 
 on your tongue, forget it. 
 
 Forget It 
 
 .[19]. 
 
Conscience 
 
 [20] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 1 BELIEVE a fellow's conscience is a 
 pretty faithful guide; if he follows 
 where 'twould lead him, he won't 
 stray so very wide. When I'm hustling for 
 a living in the city's busy mart, I'm so full 
 of schemes resplendent that the voice down 
 in my heart doesn't have a chance to warn 
 me and I do some doubtful trick, going to 
 my shack at evening feeling sure that I'm a 
 brick. When a man has nailed some 
 roubles in a smooth and quiet way, he is full 
 of triumph and he hands himself a large 
 bouquet. I have often felt exalted by my 
 conquest of the plunk, till I shed my gaudy 
 raiment, and lie down upon my bunk. 
 Then my good old conscience prods me, in 
 the silence and the dark, and it shows me 
 that my doings are the doings of a shark. 
 "It is better," says my conscience, holding 
 down the judgment seat, "it is better to be 
 honest, and barefooted walk the street, than 
 to count a pile of dollars won by trickery or 
 fraud ; till you've squared your evil-doing I 
 shall never cease to prod." So my con- 
 science sits in judgment through the watches 
 of the night, and in following its hunches I 
 am sure I'm doing right. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 WHEN the evening shadows fall, 
 oftentimes do I recall other even- 
 ings, far away, when, aweary of my 
 play, I would climb on granny's knee (long 
 since gone to sleep has she), clasp my hands 
 and bow my head, while the simple lines I 
 said, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray 
 the Lord my soul to keep." Journeyed 
 long have I since then, in this sad, gray 
 world of men; I have seen with aching 
 heart, comrades to their rest depart; friends 
 have left me, one by one, for the shores be- 
 yond the sun. Still the Youth enraptured 
 sings, and the world with gladness rings, 
 but the faces I have known all are gone, and 
 I'm alone. All alone, amid the throng, I, 
 who've lived and journeyed long. Loneli- 
 ness and sighs and tears are the wages of the 
 years. Who would dread the journey's 
 end, when he lives without a friend? Now 
 the sun of life sinks low; in a little while 
 I'll go where my friends and comrades wait 
 for me by the jasper gate. Though the wayjl 
 
 be cold and stark, I shall murmur, in the 
 •dark, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray 
 the Lord my soul to keep." 
 
 The Old 
 Prayer 
 
 [21] 
 
Affectation 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 [22] 
 
 THE men of simple manners please; 
 they boast not of their pedigrees, or 
 look profound, or put on side, or get 
 swelled up with futile pride. The wise 
 man's every action states, "I'm just like other 
 mortal skates; I'm here a while to toil and 
 spin, and try to get my harvest in, and when 
 I leave this vale of groans, like Tom and 
 Dick, I'll make dry bones." It gives me 
 stitches in the side to see a man swelled up 
 with pride, assuming divers foolish airs, and 
 who, in every act, declares, "The clay I'm 
 made of is so fine, there wasn't any more 
 like mine. When I was formed, one fate- 
 ful day, the Maker threw the mold away, 
 and said, 'Improvements now shall cease — 
 I have produced the masterpiece!'" 
 When your importance seems so steep that 
 all the rest of us look cheap, laugh at your- 
 self a while, my friend, and let your affec- 
 tation end. Sit down in silence and review 
 the foolish things you say and do, and real- 
 ize, with many a jar, how blamed ridiculous 
 you are! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 I HATE a lot of men, I wist; I'd camp 
 upon their frames, but when I try to 
 make a list, I can't recall their names. 
 I should resent the evil flings from this or 
 that old scout, but there are far more pleas- 
 ant things that I can think about. Old 
 Weatherwax has done me ill, here in my 
 native town, and every day he tries to kill 
 my twenty-cent renown ; I've heard the evil 
 things he's said, and yet I don't repine; and 
 if I tried to punch his head, he'd surely land 
 on mine. Vain is the effort to defend one's 
 fame from such attacks; I'd rather gossip 
 with a friend than scrap with Weatherwax. 
 I do not care what people say, words leave 
 no smarts or stings ; and every passing, sunny 
 day is full of pleasant things. Why should 
 I miss the sight of birds, as to the South they 
 go, to stand around and bandy words with 
 some long-winded foe?^ Why should I har- 
 bor thoughts of hate, when there are au- 
 thors near, with healthy stories to relate, 
 and pomes that soothe and cheer? Why 
 should I hold a vengeful mind, when it is 
 best to laugh, when I can sit around and 
 grind chunes from my phonograph? 
 
 Hatred 
 
 [23] 
 
The 
 Has-Beens 
 
 P24] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 1READ the papers every day, and oft 
 encounter tales which show there's 
 hope for every jay who in life's battle 
 fails. I've just been reading of a gent who 
 joined the has-been ranks, at fifty years 
 without a cent, or credit at the banks. But 
 undismayed he buckled down, refusing to 
 be beat, and captured fortune and renown; 
 he's now in Easy street. Men say that fel- 
 lows down and out ne'er leave the rocky 
 track, but facts will show, beyond a doubt, 
 that has-beens do come back. I know, for 
 I who write this rhyme, when forty-odd 
 years old, was down and out, without a 
 dime, my whiskers full of mold. By black 
 disaster I was trounced until it jarred my 
 spine; I was a failure so pronounced I 
 didn't need a sign. And after I had soaked 
 my coat, I said (at forty-three), ''I'll see if 
 I can catch the goat that has escaped from 
 me." I labored hard; I strained my dome, 
 to do my daily grind, until in triumph I 
 came home, my billy-goat behind. And 
 any man who still has health may with the 
 winners stack, and have a chance at fame 
 and wealth — for has-beens do come back. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 BE kind to the missus, who spends the 
 long days in making your home worth 
 the while, be free with encourage- 
 ment, gratitude, praise, and hand her a cor- 
 pulent smile. You go to your home from 
 your job in the mart, and talk of the bur- 
 dens you've borne, the cares that are rack- 
 ing your galvanized heart, the ills that are 
 making you mourn. Sweet sympathy 
 comes from the lips of your wife, and love 
 is aglow on her face; the burdens and cares 
 of her own weary life have nothing to do 
 with the case. Suppose you forget your 
 own troubles and woes, and think of the 
 woes of the frau, whose cheeks long ago 
 lost the bloom of the rose, while wrinkles 
 increased on her brow. Suppose you re- 
 member the work she has done, the endless 
 routine of the years, the toil from the rising 
 to setting of sun, and always with work in 
 arrears. Suppose you remember when she 
 was a maid, and you were a love-smitten 
 boy; you painted the future in opulent 
 shade, and promised her comfort and joy. 
 The missus will toil till she drops in her 
 tracks, and goes to the rest up above, ignor- 
 ing the pain and the strain and the tax, and 
 all she's expecting is love. 
 
 The Missus 
 
 [25] 
 
Pretty 
 
 Good 
 
 Schemes 
 
 [26] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 IT'S a pretty good scheme to be cheery, 
 and sing as you follow the road, for a 
 good many pilgrims are weary, and 
 hopelessly carry the load ; their hearts from 
 the journey are breaking, and a rod seems 
 to them like a mile; and it may be the noise 
 you are making will hearten them up for 
 a while. It's a pretty good scheme in your 
 joking, to cut out the jest that's unkind, for 
 the barbed kind of fun you are poking, 
 some fellow may carry in mind; and a good 
 many hearts have been broken, a good 
 many hearts fond and true, by words that 
 were carelessly spoken by alecky fellows 
 like you. It's a pretty good scheme to be 
 doing some choring around while you can; 
 for the gods with their gifts are pursuing 
 the earnest industrious man; and those 
 gods, in their own El Dorado, are laying 
 up wrath for the one who loafs all the day 
 in the shadow, while others toil, out in the 
 sun. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 YOU plant a rosebush by your door, and 
 morning glories three or four; you 
 mow the lawn when whiskers green 
 upon its countenance are seen; you take the 
 dead cats to the dump, and fix the fence and 
 paint the pump, and trim the figtree and the 
 vine, and make the doorknob fairly shine. 
 And neighbors who have gone to seed, 
 whose lots are grown to grass and weed, 
 will soon or late observe your game, and 
 feel a burning sense of shame. They'll say, 
 "That fellow's place, so neat, is quite the 
 smoothest on the street; it makes ours look 
 like also-rans, so we'll adopt that smarty's 
 plans, and prove to him that other jays can 
 well deserve the public praise." I've seen 
 a neighborhood that lay all ragged, gone to 
 brush and hay, brace up and bloom to beat 
 the band because some pilgrim, tools in 
 hand, cleaned up his lawn and pruned his 
 trees, and bought some flowers and bumble- 
 bees. Thus good examples spur the souls 
 of men who've crawled into their holes, 
 content to let the whole world slide, the tail 
 connected with the hide. 
 
 Keeping 
 Things Neat 
 
 [27] 
 
The Long 
 Road 
 
 [28] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THAT roads are long to Easy street, is 
 true — all winners preach it; and if 
 you move on sluggish feet, it's doubt- 
 ful if you'll reach it. I see some lads who 
 work for hire their leaden trilbys dragging; 
 the smallest effort makes them tire, and all 
 they know is lagging. They face their 
 work with dismal croaks, and grumblings 
 stale and wheezy; they'll never bask be- 
 neath the oaks that line the street called 
 Easy. The road is long to Easy street, too 
 rough for any telling, and one must tireless 
 be and fleet who there would have his 
 dwelling. Oh, watch the men who there 
 abide, the men who dance and gambol, and 
 you will see upon each hide the scar of stone 
 and bramble. They met disaster with a 
 smile, their mien was bold and breezy, they 
 vaulted over fence and stile, and reached the 
 street called Easy. The sluggard who is so 
 afraid that he too hard will labor, will loaf 
 and languish in the shade and cuss his win- 
 ning neighbor; and each misfortune over- 
 whelms this man with spirit cheesey; he'll 
 never rest beneath the elms that line the 
 street called Easy. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 IT IS WISE to save the pennies when 
 the pennies come your way, for you're 
 more than apt to need them when ar- 
 rives the rainy day; and when Famine 
 comes a-whooping with the cross-bones on 
 her vest, then the fellow with the bundle 
 has the edge on all the rest. I admire the 
 man who's saving, if he doesn't save too 
 hard, if he doesn't think a dollar bigger 
 than the courthouse yard; and I like to see 
 him salting down the riches that he's struck, 
 if he always has a quarter for the guy that's 
 out of luck. When the winter comes upon 
 us, yelling like a baseball fan, then it's nice 
 to have some boodle in an old tomato can; 
 when there's sickness in the wigwam, and 
 we have to call the doc, then it's nice to have 
 a package hidden in the eight-day clock; 
 when Old Age, the hoary rascal, comes a- 
 butting in at last, then it's nice to have some 
 rubles that you cornered in the past; and 
 the man who saves the pennies is a dandy 
 and a duck — if he always has a quarter for 
 the guy that's out of luck. 
 
 The Penny 
 Saved 
 
 [29] 
 
Humility 
 
 [30] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 DON'T let your head swell up too 
 greatly; don't let your stride be too 
 blamed stately. For, though you 
 rank with high class peaches, some other 
 pebbles line the beaches. If into fame you 
 think you're butting, be modest still, and do 
 no strutting; whatever line of work you fol- 
 low, some other chaps can beat you hollow. 
 Perhaps you're writing fine romances, 
 whose sale to figures huge advances; but 
 when the pride within you quickens, re- 
 member Bulwer, Scott and Dickens; their 
 fame will live till worlds grew hoary, and 
 perished is your jimcrow glory. Perhaps 
 you're painting classy pictures, which have 
 received more praise than strictures, and 
 you bulge out your chest and chortle, and 
 think you're surely an immortal. But all 
 your works are mere disasters, compared 
 with chromos by the masters. Whatever 
 graft you are pursuing, whatever fancy 
 stunt you're doing, it is becoming to be 
 modest, for when your fame is at its broad- 
 est, it still looks cheap to men surrounding, 
 beside great names, down ages sounding. 
 No human being should envelope himself 
 with majesty, and swell up, as though he 
 had a halo o'er him — for greater men have 
 gone before him. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 WE know not what a day shall bring, 
 what brand of weal or woe; so let 
 us smile and let us sing, and trip 
 fantastic toe. We may feel sure tomor- 
 row's sun will hide, the whole day long; 
 and when all things are said and done, our 
 guesses will be wrong. We may insist that 
 dark green grief tomorrow's brow will 
 wear; and yet the dawn may bring relief 
 from all the woes we bear. No man should 
 look ahead and say, "Tomorrow is a frost, 
 so I shall wail around today, and weep, and 
 blame the cost." And so, as I have often 
 said, in dirges fierce but brief, it's foolish- 
 ment to look ahead for further stores of 
 grief. It's vain to rend our beards and say, 
 "Tomorrow's charged with fate"; far bet- 
 ter to enjoy today, before it pulls its freight. 
 This day is ours, this cheerful morn ; all yes- 
 terdays are dead; all other days are yet un- 
 born, the stretch of days ahead. This day 
 is ours, the dear, sweet thing, until it ambles 
 by; so let us dance and let us sing, and throw 
 our hats on high. 
 
 The Veiled 
 Future 
 
 DO 
 
"We are ijueary little pilgrims, straying in 
 a nuorld of gloom. " 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 WE ARE weary little pilgrims, stray- 
 ing in a world of gloom; just be- 
 hind us is the cradle, just before us 
 is the tomb ; there is nothing much to guide 
 us, or the proper path to mark, as we toddle 
 on our journey, little pilgrims in the dark. 
 And we jostle, and we struggle, in our 
 feeble, futile wrath, always striving, always 
 reaching to push others from the path ; and 
 the wrangling and the jangling of our peev- 
 ish voices rise, to the seraphim that watch us 
 through the starholes in the skies ; and they 
 say: "The foolish pilgrims! Watch them 
 as they push and shove! They might have 
 a pleasant ramble, if their hearts were full 
 of love, if they'd help and cheer each other 
 from the hour that they embark — but 
 they're only blind and erring little pilgrims 
 in the dark!" 
 
 Little 
 Pilgrims 
 
 [.iz\ 
 
Better 
 
 Than 
 
 Boodle 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 [34] 
 
 IF YOU help a busted pilgrim, who's 
 been out of luck a while, if you stake 
 him with a dollar and a stogie and a 
 smile, and you see his haggard features light 
 up with a glow of joy, and you hear him 
 try to murmur that you are a bully boy, 
 then you'll get a lot of pleasure from the 
 life you're leading here; there are better 
 things than boodle in this little whirling 
 sphere. If you write a friendly letter to 
 some fellow far away, who's so weary and 
 so homesick that his hair is turning gray, 
 he will feel a whole lot better, and the cheer- 
 up smile will come, and he'll sail into his 
 duties in a way to make things hum; then 
 you've done a thing to help you when St. 
 Peter calls your name; there are better 
 things than boodle in this little human 
 game. If you see a man a-struggling to 
 regain some ground he's lost, some one 
 who's been up against it, knocked about 
 and tempest tossed, and you turn around 
 and help him to his place with other men, 
 crying shame upon the knockers who would 
 drag him down again, then you've shown 
 that you're a critter of a princely strain of 
 blood; there are better things than boodle 
 on this little ball of mud. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 WHEN YOU have written a letter 
 red hot, roasting some chap in his 
 tenderest spot — some one who's 
 done you an underhand trick, some one 
 who's wounded your pride to the quick; 
 try to remember that writing abuse does 
 no more good than the hiss of a goose; this 
 is the meaning of all of your sass : "You are 
 a villain — and I am an ass." Take up your 
 letter and read it through thrice; put it on 
 ice awhile, put it on ice! Maybe your wife 
 isn't much of a cook; maybe she'd rather 
 sit down with a book, than to go fussing 
 around making pies, doughnuts and cakes 
 and things good to your eyes; you are pre- 
 paring a withering speech, you are prepar- 
 ing to rear up and preach, telling your wife 
 of the beautiful things cooked by your 
 granny before she had wings; telling your 
 wife that her duty's to stuff things in your 
 tummy till it has enough. When you went 
 courting that hausfrau of yours, swearing 
 you'd love her while nature endures, did 
 you get down on your knee-bones and rave: 
 ''Dearest, I'm needing a drudge and a 
 slave! Come to my cottage and sweep, 
 cook and scrub! Clean up the dishes and 
 sweat at the tub!" Can the reproaches 
 you're planning to make; go to a baker 
 when spoiling for cake. Cut out the ser- 
 mon you think is so nice — put it on ice 
 awhile, put it on ice! 
 
 Put It 
 On Ice 
 
 [35] 
 
Bad 
 
 Cooking 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 WHAT is it roughens true love's 
 course, and makes men cuss till 
 they are hoarse, and leads to quar- 
 rels and divorce? Bad cooking. What is 
 it ruins love's young dream, and queers the 
 matrimonial team, and makes the married 
 life a scream? Bad cooking. What is it 
 comes when women prance to euchre party 
 and to dance, and leave the home at every 
 chance? Bad cooking. What follows 
 when the girls grow smart, and say they're 
 wedded to their Art, and learn some Ibsen 
 junk by heart? Bad cooking. What hap- 
 pens when they play the harp as well as 
 some imported sharp, instead of frying Ger- 
 man carp? Bad cooking. What is it fills 
 untimely graves, out where the boneyard 
 bluegrass waves, with victims of the kitchen 
 knaves? Bad cooking. What is it drives 
 the boys from home, in glaring, noisy dens 
 to roam, and from cold steins to blow the 
 foam? Bad cooking. Why are the people 
 taking pills, and medicine in flowing rills, 
 and always paying doctors' bills? Bad 
 cooking. 
 
 [36] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 MY cow's gone dry, my hens won't lay, 
 my horse has got the croup ; the hot 
 winds spoiled my budding hay, and 
 I am in the soup. And while my life is sad 
 and sore, and earthly joys are few, I'll 
 write a note to Theodore; he'll tell me 
 what to do. I wasn't home when Fortune 
 called, my feet had strayed afar; I fear 
 that I am going bald, and I have got ca- 
 tarrh. The wolf is howling at my door, 
 I've naught to smoke or chew; but I shall 
 write to Theodore — he'll tell me what to 
 do. My Sunday suit is old and sere, I'm 
 wearing last year's lids; my aunt is coming 
 for a year, to visit, with her kids. They 
 will not trust me at the store, and I am 
 feeling blue, so I shall write to Theodore — 
 he'll tell me what to do. When we are 
 weary and distraught, from worldly strife 
 and care, and we're denied the balm we. 
 sought, and given black despair, ah, then, 
 my friends, there is one chore devolves on 
 me and you ; we'll simply write to Theo- 
 dore — he'll tell us what to do. 
 
 The 
 
 Universal 
 
 Help 
 
 hJ^ 
 
The 
 Conqueror 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 WHO is this man of stately mien, 
 who gains applause where'er he 
 wends, who makes a hit in every 
 scene, who has all people for his friends? 
 The rich and poor, the high and low, behold 
 his coming with glad smiles, the women say 
 he is a jo, the merchant princes lift their 
 tiles. He is no soldier, who in vain a mil- 
 lion quarts of blood has shed; he has not 
 cluttered up the plain with ricks and wind- 
 rows of his dead. He is no statesman who 
 has held a senate breathless while he spieled, 
 and he has never whooped and yelled 
 throughout the broad Chautauqua field. 
 He is no author, who has made a book with 
 fire in every line, that made Gene Stratton 
 Porter fade, and H. Bell Wright take in his 
 sign. Who is this man of lordly air, whom 
 all the people thus applaud, and greet with 
 fervor everywhere, whenever he may walk 
 abroad? Why does he cut such scads of 
 ice? What has he done that is sublime? 
 He is the man who has the price — the man 
 who pays his bills on time. 
 
 [38] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 IN MY YOUTH I knew an aleck who 
 was most exceeding smart, and his flip- 
 pant way of talking often broke the 
 hearer's heart. He was working for a gro- 
 cer in a little corner store, taking down the 
 wooden shutters, sweeping up the greasy 
 floor, and he always answered pertly, and 
 he had a sassy eye, and the people often 
 asked him if he wouldn't kindly die. Oh, 
 the festive years skedaddled, and the chil- 
 dren of that day, now are bent beneath life's 
 burdens, and their hair is turning gray; and 
 the flippant one is toiling in the same old 
 corner store, taking down the ancient shut- 
 ters, sweeping up the greasy floor. In the 
 same old sleepy village lived a springald 
 so polite that to hear him answer questions 
 was a genuine delight; he was working in a 
 foundry where they dealt in eggs and cheese, 
 and the work was hard and tiresome, but he 
 always tried to please. And today he's boss 
 of thousands, and his salary's sky high — 
 and his manner's just as pleasant as it was 
 in days gone by. It's an idle, trifling story, 
 and you doubtless think it flat, but its moral 
 might be pasted with some profit in your 
 hat. 
 
 Politeness 
 
 [39] 
 
Progressive 
 Doctoring 
 
 I 
 
 TOOK some dope, to make my head 
 quit aching; it did the trick, but set 
 my stomach wrong; and that old or- 
 gan, all the bylaws breaking, just raised 
 high jinks, and bucked the whole day long. 
 I took some dope to get my stomach work- 
 ing as in the days when it had fair renown; 
 the dope did that, but set my muscles jerk- 
 ing, until it took three men to hold me 
 down. I took some dope to make my mus- 
 cles steady; they soon calmed down, and 
 started cutting hay; but then my liver acted 
 up, already, and threw a fit, and spoiled my 
 happy day. I took some dope to quell my 
 liver's riot — some bitter stuff, disguised 
 with cherry jam; no sooner was that liver 
 lulled to quiet, than shooting pains whizzed 
 through my diaphragm. I took some dope 
 — but why prolong the anguish? I'm tak- 
 ing dope, for this disease and that; there's 
 something new each day to make me lan- 
 guish, one day a boil, the next an aching 
 slat. Pursuing health, all kinds of pills I 
 swallow, the more I take, the more I have 
 to buy; each pill demands another pill to 
 follow — hand me the bitters, for I'm getting 
 dry. 
 
 [40] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 METHUSELAH, that grand old gent, 
 saw centuries pass by; the genera- 
 tions came and went, and he refused 
 to die. No doubt among the ancient ranks 
 the faddists drew their breath, and he was 
 told by health board cranks just how to 
 sidestep death. I seem to see them at his 
 side, and hear them give advice. "Eat pre- 
 digested hay," they cried, "that has been 
 kept on ice. Sleep out of doors, in rain or 
 gale, or you'll be on the blink; boil all the 
 air that you inhale, and fry the things you 
 drink. Eat less than half of what you wish, 
 put sawdust in your bread; if you are fond 
 of beef or fish, eat liverwurst instead." 
 The faddists sprung their spiels and died; 
 Methuselah shed tears, but would not take 
 them as a guide — and lived nine hundred 
 years. His voice across the distance calls a 
 cheering word to me : "I ate ice cream and 
 codfish balls, and was from sickness free. 
 I filled myself with scrambled eggs, and 
 steaks from slaughtered steers, and pranced 
 around on active legs for near a thousand 
 
 years. 
 
 Methuselah 
 
 [41] 
 
Unappreci- 
 ated 
 
 [42] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE young man labors hard at home, 
 and writes a story or a pome, and, 
 hoping to receive long green, he 
 sends it to a magazine, or maybe to some 
 daily sheet, which wants hot stuff that's 
 keen and sweet. Then back it comes, by 
 early mail, and how that writer makes his 
 wail! The editors are all combined to bar 
 that great and fertile mind! Or else they 
 didn't read his stufif, but calmly set it down 
 as guff, and shipped it back with his own 
 stamps — what wonder tears are in his 
 lamps? I used to talk that way myself, 
 when viewing bundles on the shelf of tales 
 and other gems of thought, which editors 
 returned as rot. But, friend, the editors 
 were right! The editors are mostly white, 
 and if they see in man or dame a symptom 
 of the genius flame, they do not douse the 
 glowing spark with bitter sneer or cold re- 
 mark, but try to fan it to a blaze, and nour- 
 ish it with smile and praise. (These meta- 
 phors, of course, are mixed, but when I've 
 time I'll have them fixed.) The editors, 
 all o'er this sphere, are looking, looking, 
 year by year, to find the writers who can 
 write, and finding one brings keen delight. 
 So, if you cannot sell your junk, it is because 
 the junk is punk. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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! 
 
 The 
 Grouch 
 
 [43] 
 
The Hand 
 Out 
 
 [44] 
 
 Walt Mas on 
 
 THE most of us are working hard to 
 stock the cupboard shelves, to pur- 
 chase coal and lime and lard, to 
 clothe and feed ourselves. We plug along 
 the best we can, and always strive to keep a 
 quarter for the fellow-man who has no 
 place to sleep. The boys are always need- 
 ing shoes, the girls for dresses call, and so 
 we strain our weary thews, to raise the 
 wherewithal. Down to our tasks we're al- 
 ways bent, to meet each pressing need, and 
 have a quarter for the gent who has no place 
 to feed. We turn no beggar from the door, 
 however hard we're pressed; we think, 
 "Ere many years are o'er, like him we may 
 be dressed ; like him we may be unemployed, 
 and look as tough as he, and have a dull and 
 aching void where fodder ought to be. 
 Like him we may be glad to sleep in some 
 abandoned well ; the cost of living is so steep 
 who can our fate foretell? And when we 
 for a handout plead, for hungry kids and 
 f rau, may people help us in our need, as we 
 help others now." 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 WE'RE ALWAYS glad when he 
 drops in — the pilgrim with the 
 cheerful grin, who won't admit 
 that grief and sin, are in possession; there 
 are so many here below, who coax their 
 briny tears to flow, and talk forevermore 
 of woe, with no digression! The man who 
 takes the cheerful view has friends to burn, 
 and then a few; they like to hear his glad 
 halloo, and loud ki-yoodle; they like to 
 hear him blithely swear that things are 
 right side up with care; they like to hear 
 upon the air, his cock-a-doodle. The Long 
 Felt Want he amply fills; he is a tonic for 
 the ills that can't be reached with liver pills, 
 or porous plasters; he helps to make the 
 desert bloom; he plants the grouches in the 
 tomb ; he's here to dissipate the gloom of 
 life's disasters! 
 
 The 
 Optimist 
 
 [45] 
 
Good Credit 
 
 [46] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE finest thing a man can have is 
 credit at the store; it is a balsam and 
 a salve for every mortal sore. The 
 customer who pays his debts when due, has 
 shining fame; "he is the best of all good 
 bets," the merchants all exclaim. And 
 when misfortune dogs his heels, as it will 
 visit men, and he is shy of plunks and 
 wheels, of kopecks, dough and yen, the mer- 
 chants say, "Buy what you will, and we will 
 gladly wait, till you are fixed to pay the 
 bill — we know that you are straight." The 
 man who doesn't promptly pay the mer- 
 chants what he owes, on the appointed set- 
 tling day, all kinds of trouble knows. And 
 when misfortune takes his trail, and hands 
 him sundry knocks, and he is shy of dust 
 and kale, of rhino, scads and rocks, the mer- 
 chants say, "We cannot sell to gents like you 
 on time, for when you're prospering quite 
 well, you won't cough up a dime." Poor 
 credit all your virtues queers, and gives a 
 punk renown, and, though you live a hun- 
 dred years, you'll never live it down. 
 
LITTLE DROPS of water poured into 
 the milk, give the milkman's daugh- 
 ters lovely gowns of silk. Little grains 
 of sugar, mingled with the sand, make the 
 grocer's assets swell to beat the band. Lit- 
 tle bowls of custard, humble though they 
 seem, help enrich the fellow selling pure 
 ice cream. Little rocks and boulders, little 
 chunks of slate, make the coal man's for- 
 tune something fierce and great. Little 
 ads, well written, printed nice and neat, 
 give the joyful merchants homes on Easy 
 Street. 
 
 Little 
 Things 
 
 [47] 
 
Selfishness 
 
 [48] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 JIM KICKSHAW has a touring car, 
 in which he journeys near and far. 
 There's room for seven in the same, and 
 Jim might bring to many a dame who sel- 
 dom has a chance to ride, pure happiness 
 ten cubits wide. But Jim would rather 
 ride alone, than take some poor old gent or 
 crone. He'd take a banker or some skate 
 who's made a pile in real estate; he'd load 
 his car with damsels fair, and still insist 
 there's room to spare. He'd gladly take a 
 joyous crew, to whom such rides are noth- 
 ing new. But there are men with spavined 
 limbs, and poor old dames with worn-out 
 glims; and crippled kids who sit and sigh, 
 as gorgeous cars go whizzing by; and moth- 
 ers, tired until their hearts just yearn for 
 rides in choo-choo carts; and maiden aunts 
 who'd trade their hair for three long breaths 
 of country air. But these will never ride 
 with Jim; they're poor, and don't appeal to 
 him; the men don't wear their whiskers 
 straight, the women's hats are out of date, 
 the kids have seedy pinafores, from rolling 
 round on unwashed floors. There's nothing 
 in it, anyway; you haul the poor for half a 
 day, and all you get for it is thanks; they 
 have no assets in the banks. 
 
 I 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 THE old-fashioned virtues are not out 
 of date; they'll never relapse to aban- 
 doned estate. The records will show 
 you that honesty pays, as much as it did in 
 the halcyon days. And industry brings 
 reputation and scads, the same as it did in 
 the times of our dads. Sobriety helps us to 
 lay up a wad, the larder to fill when the 
 wolf is abroad. The silver-tongued speak- 
 ers are jaunting around, and filling the air 
 with a riot of sound, instructing the people 
 just how they should vote, if they would be 
 sure of retaining their goat; they're talking 
 of creeds and of isms and things, and noth- 
 ing of value the spell-binder brings. The 
 world would be better if speakers would 
 boom the old-fashioned virtues, and keep 
 them in bloom, and say to the people, "Don't 
 worry, don't fret, be honest and sober and 
 keep out of debt." Oh, that is the counsel 
 the plain people need; it's better than plati- 
 tudes going to seed. The old-fashioned 
 virtues much sustenance give; when they 
 are adhered to, they teach us to live; and 
 when we are ready to murmur goodby, they 
 show us how sportsmanlike delegates die. 
 
 The Old 
 Virtues 
 
 [49] 
 
Eating Too 
 Much 
 
 [50] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 1EAT too much, the doctor tells me; 
 with arguments like this he quells me, 
 when I inform him that his potions, 
 of which I've swallowed endless oceans, 
 don't cure my shingles, mumps or tetter, or 
 make me feel the least bit better. "There'd 
 be less sickness, grief and wailing, there'd 
 be less suffering and ailing," j;he doc says, 
 pausing in his carving, "if men would leave 
 the table starving. Oh, let your meals be 
 slim and meager; quit eating while you still 
 are eager for more roast beef and spuds and 
 gravy, and beans — the kidney kind or navy. 
 Oh, leave the table while you're hollow, 
 and while you still desire to swallow the bill 
 of fare from A to Izzard, from soup right 
 down to chicken gizzard. Then you'll be 
 cured of your diseases, as laundered dog re- 
 lieved of fleas is." Thus do the wise and 
 learned physicians attack the modern-day 
 conditions. We cure ourselves, by means 
 distressing, and pay the doctor for his guess- 
 ing. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 JIM JIMPSON stutters when he talks; 
 his tongue or else his larynx balks; it 
 takes a long and painful while for him 
 to cross a verbal stile; his face goes through 
 contortions weird, and froth is blown all 
 o'er his beard. And yet Jim Jimpson 
 doesn't mind ; he seems to think that he will 
 find spellbinding wreaths within his reach 
 — he's always glad to make a speech. Hob 
 Hoskin's education's bad; he sidestepped 
 school when but a lad, and now he keeps the 
 language bent; he says, "I seen," and "I 
 have went." When he orates, poor Gram- 
 mar groans, and has an ache in all its bones, 
 and cultured people rend their hair, and 
 beat their breasts and weep and swear. Yet 
 Hoskin thinks he is a peach at reeling off a 
 witty speech. It seems as though all misfit 
 gents, who cannot talk for thirteen cents, 
 who torture people when they spiel, and 
 make of language an ordeal, are sure they 
 wear, with graceful ease, the mantle of 
 Demosthenes. 
 
 The Speech 
 Makers 
 
 [SI] 
 
A Few 
 Remarks 
 
 [52] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 1 GAILY sought the picnic ground, 
 where children sported in the shade; 
 with them I frolicked round and round, 
 and drank with them red lemonade; and 
 life seemed very full and sweet, as joyous 
 as the song of larks, until a guy got on his 
 feet, and said he'd make a few remarks. 
 I journeyed to the county fair, to view the 
 products of the farm; I marveled at the 
 pumpkins there, and carrots longer than 
 your arm; and happiness was over all, there 
 was no sign of care that carks, until a man, 
 with lots of gall, got up to make a few re- 
 marks. Oh, I was born for joy and glee, 
 to sing as blithely as the birds! My life, 
 that should so sunny be, is darkened by a 
 cloud of words; and when my prospects 
 seem most fair, and trouble for its bourne 
 embarks, some Windy Jim is always there, 
 to rise and make a few remarks. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 I SING in the gloaming a dirge that is 
 weird, while sparrows are combing 
 the chaff from my beard. The theme 
 of my ditty is tinhorn and snide — I'm roast- 
 ing the city wherein I abide. Because I 
 would slumber while others sawed wood, I 
 am a back number, I haven't made good. 
 An object of pity, I stand by the pump, and 
 swear that the city has gone to the dump. 
 "It's dead and decaying, a man has no 
 show," I always am saying, as sadly I go, to 
 scout for a handout from some kitchen 
 wench; for I am a fanned-out — I'm back on 
 the bench. But here in this city, which sees 
 my distress, the chaps who are gritty have 
 made a success. They say it's a daisy, a 
 town full of vim, but men who are lazy can't 
 get in the swim. Life's trodden me under 
 until I am lame, and sometimes I wonder if 
 I am to blame. If fellows less witty, less 
 gifted than I, can thrive in this city, and 
 fatten on pie, then why am I busted and 
 down at the heel, and asking disgusted hired 
 girls for a meal? The answer has terror 
 and awe in my sight — that I am the error; 
 the town is all right I 
 
 Your Own 
 Town 
 
 [53] 
 
"/ to stuing the shining axe, you to take a 
 feiv snvift nvhacks. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 CHARLES THE FIRST, with stately 
 walk, made the journey to the block. 
 As he paced the street along, silence 
 fell upon the throng; from that throng 
 there burst a sigh, for a king was come to 
 die! Charles upon the scafifold stood, in 
 his veins no craven blood; calm, serene, he 
 viewed the crowd, while the headsman said, 
 aloud: "Cheer up, Charlie! Smile and 
 sing! Death's a most delightful thing! I 
 will cure your hacking cough, when I chop 
 your headpiece ofif ! Headache, toothache — 
 they're a bore! You will never have them 
 more! Cheer up, Charlie, dance and yell! 
 Here's the axe, and all is well! I, though 
 but a humble dub, represent the Sunshine 
 Club, and our motto is worth while: 'Do 
 Not Worry — Sing and Smile!' Therefore 
 let us both be gay, as we do our stunt to- 
 day; I to swing the shining axe, you to take 
 a few swift whacks. Lumpty-doodle, lump- 
 ty-ding, do not worry, smile and sing!" 
 
 A Glance 
 at History 
 
 [5S] 
 
Longfellow 
 
 [56] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 SINGER of the kindly song, minstrel 
 of the gentle lay, when the night is 
 dark and long, and beset with thorns 
 the way — in the poignant hour of pain, in 
 this weary worldly war, there is comfort in 
 thy strain, courage in "Excelsior." When 
 the city bends us down, with its weight of 
 bricks and tiles, lead us, poet, from the 
 town, to the fragrant forest aisles, where 
 the hemlocks ever moan, like old Druids 
 clad in green, as they sighed, when all 
 alone, wandered sad Evangeline. Writer 
 of the cleanly page, teacher of the golden 
 truth; still I love thee in my age, as I 
 loved thee in my youth. In some breasts 
 a fiercer fire flamed, than ever thou hast 
 known; but no mortal minstrel's lyre ever 
 gave a purer tone. Singer of the kindly 
 song, minstrel of the gentle lay, time is 
 swift and art is long, and thy fame will 
 last alway. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 iiXXTHAT IS Home Without a 
 YY Mother?" There s the motto on 
 the wall, hanging in a place ob- 
 trusive, where it may be seen by all; and 
 the question's never answered — we can't 
 know what home would be, if its gentle 
 guardian angel in her place no more we'd 
 see. Mother washes all the dishes and she's 
 sweeping up the floors, while the girls are 
 in the parlor doing Paderewski chores; 
 mother's breaking up some kindling at the 
 woodpile by the gate, while the boys are 
 in the garden with their shovels, digging 
 bait; mother's on her knees a-scrubbing, 
 where the careless footprints are, while the 
 father sits in comfort, toiling at a bad cigar. 
 Mother sits with weary fingers, and with 
 bent and aching head, sewing, darning, for 
 the children while they're all asleep in bed; 
 mother's up before the sunrise, up to labor 
 and to moil, thinking ever of the others, in 
 the weary round of toil. What is home 
 without a mother? That we'll never realize 
 till the light of life has faded from the kind 
 and patient eyes; when the implements of 
 labor fall unheeded from her hand, and the 
 loving voice is silent — then, at last, we'll 
 understand. 
 
 Home and 
 
 Mother 
 
 [57] 
 
In 
 
 Politics 
 
 [58] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 IS DAYS were joyous and serene, his 
 life was pure, his record clean ; folks 
 named their children after him, and 
 
 he was in the social swim; ambitious lads 
 would say: "I plan to be just such a 
 worthy man!" But in the fullness of his 
 years, the tempter whispered in his ears, 
 and begged that he would make the race 
 for county judge, or some such place. And 
 so he yielded to his fate, and came forth 
 as a candidate. The night before election 
 day they found him lying, cold and gray, 
 the deadest man in all the land, this mes- 
 sage in his icy hand: "The papers that op- 
 posed my race have brought me into deep 
 disgrace; I find that I'm a fiend unloosed; 
 I robbed a widow's chicken roost, and stole 
 an orphan's Easter egg, and swiped a sol- 
 dier's wooden leg.] I bilked a heathen of 
 his joss, and later kidnapped Charlie Ross;' 
 T learn, with something like alarm, that I 
 designed the Gunness farm, and also, with 
 excessive grief, that Black Hand cohorts 
 call me chief./ I thought myself a decent 
 man, whose record all the world might 
 scan; but now, alas, too late! I see that all 
 the depths of infamy have soiled me with 
 their reeking shame, and so it's time to quit 
 the game." 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 THE GREATEST gift the gods be- 
 stowed on mortal was his dome of 
 thought; it sometimes seems a useless 
 load, when one is tired, and worn and hot; 
 it sometimes seems a trifling thing, less use- 
 ful than one's lungs or slats; a mere ex- 
 cuse, it seems, to bring us duns from men 
 who deal in hats. Some men appreciate 
 their heads, and use them wisely every day, 
 and every passing minute sheds new 
 splendor on their upward way; while some 
 regard their heads as junk, mere idle knobs 
 upon their necks; such men are nearly al- 
 ways sunk in failure, and are gloomy 
 wrecks. I know a clerk who's served his 
 time in one old store for twenty-years; he's 
 marked his fellows climb, and climb — and 
 marked with jealousy and tears; he's 
 labored there since he was young; he'll la- 
 bor there till he is dead; he never rose -a 
 single rung, because he never used his head. 
 I know a poorhouse in the vale, where fifty- 
 seven paupers stay; they paw the air and 
 weep and wail, and cuss each other all the 
 day; and there they'll loll while life en- 
 dures, and there they'll die in pauper beds; 
 their chances were as good as yours — but 
 then they never used their heads. O human 
 head! Majestic box I O wondrous can, 
 from labels free! If man is craving fame 
 or rocks, he'll ^et them if he uses thee! 
 
 The 
 
 Human 
 
 Head 
 
 [59] 
 
The 
 
 Famous 
 
 Four 
 
 [60] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 JOHN AND PETER, and Robert and 
 Paul, what in the world has become 
 of them all? How are they stacking, 
 and where are they gone — Paul and Robert 
 and Peter and John? Paul was a poet, and 
 labored and wrought over his harp, and he 
 kept its strings hot; haunting and sad was 
 his music, though sweet — bards can't be 
 glad when they've nothing to eat. Peter 
 made pictures and painted them well; 
 'twasn't his fault that they never would sell ; 
 'twasn't his fault that he took a brief ride 
 out to the poorhouse, where later he died. 
 Robert taught school till he died of old age ; 
 hard were his labors and scanty his wage; 
 we laid him to rest in a grave on the hill; 
 the county was called on to settle the bill. 
 John was a pitcher, whose curves were im- 
 mense; he was the pet of the bleachers, and 
 hence he was the owner of riches untold; 
 diamonds and rubies and sapphires and 
 gold. John and Peter and Robert and 
 Paul! Through the long years we've kept 
 cases on all! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 SHE WAS sweet and soft and clinging, 
 and he always found her singing, when 
 he came home from his labors as the 
 night was closing in; she was languishing 
 and slender, and her eyes were deep and 
 tender, and he simply couldn't tell her that 
 her coffee was a sin. Golden hair her head 
 was crowning; she was fond of quoting 
 Browning, and she knew a hundred legends 
 of the olden, golden time; and her heart 
 was full of yearning for the Rosicrucian 
 learning, and he simply couldn't tell her 
 that the beefsteak was a crime. She was 
 posted on Pendennis, and she knew the 
 songs of Venice, and he listened to her 
 prattle with an effort to look pleased; and 
 she liked the wit of Weller — and he simply 
 couldn't tell her that the eggs he had for 
 breakfast had been laid by hens diseased. 
 So she filled his home with beauty, and she 
 did her wifely duty, did it as she under- 
 stood it, and her conscience didn't hurt, 
 when dyspepsia boldly sought him, and the 
 sexton came and got him, and his tortured 
 frame was buried 'neath a wagon-load of 
 dirt. O, those marriageable misses, think- 
 ing life all love and kisses, mist and moon- 
 shine, glint and glamour, Stardust borrowed 
 from the skies! Man's a gross and sordid 
 lummix — men are largely made of stom- 
 achs, and the songs of all the sirens will not 
 take the place of pies! 
 
 Little 
 Sunbeam 
 
 [6i] 
 
A Rainy 
 Night 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 I HEAR the plashing of the rain upon 
 the roof, upon the pane, it murmurs 
 at the door; it patters forth a futile 
 boast; it whispers like a timid ghost; it 
 streams upon the floor. And as I sit me 
 here alone, and listen to its monotone, 
 strange fancies come and go ; I seem to see, 
 distinct and plain dim faces drawn upon 
 the pane, of friends I used to know. Soft 
 voices whisper in the rain, and friends I 
 ne'er shall see again, are crying bitterly; the 
 raindrops seem to be their tears, and o'er 
 the misty void of years, they're calling, call- 
 ing me. O shadows from a starless shore, 
 begone, and torture me no more, and leave 
 me here alone! I fear the voices in the 
 rain, the voices vibrant with their pain — 
 I fear the spectres that complain, in weary 
 monotone! But still they chide me at the 
 door, and whisper there for evermore, and 
 murmur in their woe; I hear them in the 
 tempest's swell, I hear them sigh, I hear 
 them yell: "Where is that old green 
 umberell, you swiped two years ago?" 
 
 [62] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 BRIGHT-HUED and beautiful, it 
 floats upon the summer air; and every 
 thread of it denotes the love that's 
 woven there; the love of veterans whose 
 tread has sounded on the fields of red; and 
 women old, who mourn their dead, but 
 mourn without despair. Bright-hued and 
 beautiful, it courts caresses of the breeze; 
 and, straining at its staff it sports, in flaunt- 
 ing ecstasies; and other flags, that once were 
 gay, long, long ago were laid away, and 
 many men, whose heads are gray, are think- 
 ing now of these. Serene and beautiful it 
 waves, the flag our fathers knew; in Free- 
 dom's sunny air it laves, and gains a brighter 
 hue; and may it still the symbol be of all 
 that makes a nation free; still may we 
 cherish Liberty, and to our God be true. 
 
 The 
 Flag 
 
 [63] 
 
Little 
 Girl 
 
 [64] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 LITTLE GIRL, so glad and jolly, 
 playing with your home-made dolly, 
 built of rags and straw, fill the sunny 
 air with laughter, heedless of the sorrow 
 after — that is childhood's law! Let no sad 
 and sordid vision cheat you of the joy 
 Elysian that to youth belongs; let no proph- 
 ecy of sorrow scheduled for a sad tomor- 
 row still your joyous songs! Soon enough 
 will come the worry, and the labors, and the 
 hurry, soon you'll cook and scrub ; soon with 
 milliners and drapers you will fuss, and 
 read long papers, at the Culture Club. 
 Lithe your form, but soon you'll force it 
 in a torture-chamber corset that will make 
 you bawl ; and those little feet, that twinkle, 
 you will squeeze, until they wrinkle, into 
 shoes too small. And those sunny locks so 
 tangled will be tortured and kedangled into 
 waves and curls; and you'll buy complexion 
 powder, and your bonnets will be louder 
 than the other girl's. Little girl, with home- 
 made dolly, cut out woe and melancholy, 
 jump and sing and play! Fill the rippling 
 air with laughter! Tears and corns will 
 follow after! This is childhood's day! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 s 
 
 HE IS a vain and foolish lass; she 
 stands before her looking-glass, and 
 fusses with her pins and rats, and 
 tries on half a dozen hats, and fixes doodads 
 in her hair, and tints her cheeks, already 
 fair. And when she's fooled three hours 
 away, and she appears, in glad array, she 
 isn't half as nice and neat, she isn't half as 
 slick and sweet as she appeared, four hours 
 ago, when she was wearing calico. If she 
 would take the time she fools away with 
 paints and curling tools, and read some 
 books, of prose or rhyme, she'd get some 
 value for her time. She pads her head out- 
 side with rats, machine made hair and 
 monster hats; and gladness might with her 
 abide, if she would pad her head inside. 
 For beauty is a transient thing; the hurried 
 years are on the wing; the dazzling maiden 
 of today will soon be haggard, worn and 
 gray; and in life's winter, when she sits be- 
 side her lonely hearth and knits, it will not 
 lessen her despair, to think of rats she used 
 to wear. But if her mind is stored with 
 gold from books the sages wrote of old, with 
 ancient lore or modern song, the days will 
 not seem drear and long; life's twilight will 
 be calm and fair, and loneliness will not be 
 there. 
 
 BeryVs 
 Boudoir 
 
 [6s] 
 
'Honors do not count for much luith 
 people underground " 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 WHEN you are dead, my weary 
 friend — and some day you must 
 die — the crowds will stand along 
 the curb to see the hearse go by; and at the 
 church the folks will stand and raise a 
 mournful din, and pile a lot of roses on the 
 box that you are in. And people then will 
 shake their heads and say it is a shame, that 
 such a honeybird as you should have to 
 quit the game; and when beneath the sod 
 you rest in your mail order gown, you'll 
 have a big fat monument that's sure to hold 
 you down. But little will it all avail, for 
 you'll be sleeping sound, and honors do not 
 count for much with people underground. 
 You'd rather have some kindness while you 
 tread this vale of tears, than have your dust 
 lamented o'er for fifty million years. 
 
 Post- 
 
 Morfem 
 
 Honors 
 
 [67] 
 
After 
 A While 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE mother, tired, with aching head, 
 from sweeping floors and baking 
 bread, called to her daughter: "Su- 
 san, dear, I wish you'd help a little here." 
 Fair Susan, in the parlor dim, was playing 
 o'er a tender hymn; methinks it was "The 
 Maiden's Prayer" — a melody beyond com- 
 pare. She cried, while playing on, in style: 
 "I'll help you in a little while." Her 
 lover blew in unawares — a fine young man 
 with princely airs. His heart was free 
 from sordid stains; his head was full of 
 high-class brains; most any girl would give 
 her eyes to gather in so big a prize. He 
 heard the mother's weary cry; he heard the 
 damsel's flip reply. His bosom swelled 
 with noble ire! His tawny eyes flashed 
 streaks of fire! He cried: "Miss Susan 
 Sarah Brown, it's up to me to turn you 
 down! While groundhogs live and comets 
 shine, you'll be no blushing bride of mine! 
 The healthy girl who doesn't jump, and on 
 her system get a hump, when mother calls, 
 I do not want; so get thee hence! Aroint! 
 Avaunt! I'll hunt me up a damsel fair who 
 passes up 'The Maiden's Prayer' when she 
 has got a chance to chase the troubles from 
 her mother's face!" 
 
 [68] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 I RUN a hash bazaar, just up the street; 
 there all my boarders are yelling for 
 meat; boarders carniverous, boarders 
 herbiverous; Allah deliver us! just watch 
 them eat! Boarders are ravenous, all the 
 world o'er; "feed till you spavin us," thus 
 they implore; boarders are gluttonous, 
 roastbeef and muttonous; "come and un- 
 button us, so we'll eat more!" Little they 
 pay me for chicken and rice; yet they way- 
 lay me for dainties of price; "bring us 
 canary birds" — these are their very words, 
 bawling like hairy Kurds — "bring them on 
 ice!" I give them tea and toast, jelly and 
 jam, some kind of stew or roast, codfish or 
 ham; their words are Chaucerous: "Dame 
 Cup-and-Saucerous, bring us rhinoceros, 
 boiled with a yam!" I run a boarding 
 booth, as I have said; there Age and Smil- 
 ing Youth, raise the Old Ned; maybe the 
 clamoring, knocking and hammering bunch 
 will be stammering, when I am dead! 
 
 The 
 Landlady 
 
 [69] 
 
Knowledge 
 By Mail 
 
 [70] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 WHEN I was young and fresh and 
 ruddy, and full of snap and vim, 
 my parents used to make me study 
 until my head would swim. I sat upon the 
 schoolhouse bleachers, with pencil, book 
 and slate, while sundry bald and weary 
 teachers drilled knowledge through my 
 pate. For some quick method I was yearn- 
 ing, some easy path to tread; "there is no 
 royal road to learning," the bald old teach- 
 ers said; "stick closely to the printed pages, 
 all idleness eschew, and then, perhaps, in 
 future ages, you'll know a thing or two." 
 And when I left the school and college, to 
 climb life's toilsome hill, I found my little 
 store of knowledge would barely fill the 
 bill. But nowadays the world moves 
 quicker than in the long ago; old-fashioned 
 methods make us snicker, they were so 
 crude and slow. By sending seven wooden 
 dollars to Messrs. Freaks and Freaks, they'll 
 make our children finished scholars, and do 
 it in three weeks. So let us close the schools 
 and leave 'em to ruin and decay, and take 
 the books and maps and heave 'em a mil- 
 lion miles away; for now the kids take eru- 
 dition in three-grain capsule form; the 
 teacher loses the position that he so long 
 kept warm. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 SAMANTHA Arabella Luke has gone 
 abroad and caught a duke — a noble- 
 man of gilded ease, who has a standard 
 blood disease. She'll build again his state- 
 ly halls, and pay for papering the walls; 
 she'll straighten up his park and grounds, 
 and buy him nags to ride to hounds; she'll 
 tear the checks from out her book, to pay 
 the butler and the cook, whose wages have 
 been in arrears for maybe twenty-seven 
 years. In fifty ways she'll spend the scads, 
 the good old rocks that were her dad's; and 
 all the nobles in the land will greet her with 
 the arctic hand, and snub her in her hus- 
 band's lair, and pass her up with stony stare. 
 And ere a year has run its course, the duke 
 will hustle for divorce, and Arabella's tears 
 will drop upon the marble floors, kerflop! 
 Samantha's cousin, Mary Ann, has hooked 
 up with the plumber man, a gent of in- 
 dustry and peace, whose face is often black 
 with grease. They dwell together in a cot 
 surrounded by a garden plot, and there she 
 raises beans and tripe, while he is fixing 
 valve and pipe. He takes his money, like a 
 man, and hands it o'er to Mary Ann, and 
 she is salting down his wage where it will 
 help them in old age. O reader, who has 
 made a fluke? Samantha with her pallid 
 duke, or fat and sassy Mary Ann, who 
 gathered in the plumber man? 
 
 Duke and 
 Plumber 
 
 [71] 
 
Human 
 Hajids 
 
 [72] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THERE'S the man whose hand is 
 clammy as a fish that lately died, and 
 to grasp it sends a shudder percolat- 
 ing through your hide, and you feel its cold 
 impression in your muscles and your glands, 
 and you wish he'd wear an oven on his 
 blamed antarctic hands. There's the man 
 with hands so horny that they feel like 
 chunks of slate, and when he is shaking 
 with you, you can feel them grind and grate ; 
 and he nearly breaks your fingers, and you 
 mutter through your hat: "I would run 
 them through a smelter if my hands were 
 hard as that!" There's the man whose 
 hands are always pawing, pawing while he 
 talks; they are fussing with your whiskers, 
 they are reaching for your socks; they are 
 patting on your bosom, they are clawing on 
 your arm, and you'd like to meet their own- 
 er on the Mrs. Gunness farm. There's the 
 man whose hands are always sliding down 
 into his jeans, to relieve some broken pil- 
 grims of their miseries and pains; and such 
 hands, that in their giving, never falter, 
 never tire, in the golden time a-coming will 
 be twanging at a lyre! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 UPON THE joyous New Year's day I 
 threw my briar pipe away. I said, 
 with conscious rectitude: "The 
 smoking habit's base and lewd; it taints the 
 breath and soils the teeth, and often stains 
 the chin beneath; the smoker's tongue is 
 badly seared, and he has clinkers in his 
 beard; of nicotine he is so full no self-re- 
 specting cannibuU would eat him raw, well 
 done or rare; and e'en his neckties and his 
 hair, his hat, his breath, and trouserloons, 
 suggest plug-cut and cuspitoons. And so I 
 throw my pipe away, upon this gladsome 
 New Year's day; my friends no more will 
 have to choke and wheeze in my tobacco 
 smoke." Since then the days drag slowly 
 on; it seems as though ten years have gone; 
 I walk the floor the long night through, 
 and, jealous, watch the kitchen flue — for it 
 can smoke and hold carouse, and not bust 
 forty-seven vows; the cookstove makes my 
 vitals gripe, for it can use its trusty pipe. 
 Thus far I've kept the vow I swore, but do 
 not tempt me any more; don't talk of cab- 
 bage on the place, or flaunt alfalfa in my 
 face I 
 
 The Lost 
 Pipe 
 
 [73] 
 
Thanks- 
 giving 
 
 [74] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THIS ONE DAY let us forget all the 
 little things that fret, all the little 
 griefs and cares which are bringing 
 us gray hairs; let's forget the evil thought, 
 and the ill that others wrought; thinking 
 only of the hand that has led us through a 
 land smiling with a richer store than fair 
 Canaan knew of yore. Let's forget to jeer 
 and rail at the men who fight and fail; let's 
 forget to criticise motes within our neigh- 
 bors' eyes; thinking only of the hand that 
 has led us through a land where the toiler 
 gets reward; where no grasping overlord 
 harries men with lash or chain, robbing 
 them of brawn and brain. Let's forget 
 malicious things; better is the heart that 
 sings than the one that harbors hate, which 
 is aye a killing weight. Let's forget the 
 scowling brow; it's the time for gladness 
 now! It's the time for well-stuffed birds, 
 kindly smiles and cheerful words; it's a 
 time to try to rise somewhat nearer to the 
 skies, thinking only of a hand that will 
 lead us to a land in the distances above, 
 where the countersign is love. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 AT THAT HOUR supremely quiet, 
 when the dusk and darkness blend, 
 and the sordid strife and riot of the 
 day are at an end; when the bawling and 
 the screaming of the mart have died away, 
 then I like to lie a-dreaming of my castles 
 in Cathay. I would roam in flowery spaces 
 watered by the fabled streams, 1 would 
 travel starry spaces on the winged feet of 
 dreams; I would float across the ages to a 
 more heroic time, when inspired were all 
 ages, and the warriors sublime. At that 
 hour supremely pleasing, dreams are all 
 knocked galley west, by the phonograph 
 that's wheezing: "Birdie, Dear, I Love 
 You Best." 
 
 Twilight 
 Reveries 
 
 [75] 
 
King 
 and Kid 
 
 [76] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE KING sat up on his jeweled 
 throne, and he heaved a sigh that was 
 like a groan, for his crown was hard, 
 and it bruised his head, and his scepter 
 weighed like a pig of lead; the ladies 
 smirked as they came to beg; the knights 
 were pulling the royal leg. The king ex- 
 claimed: "If I had my wish, I would cut 
 this out, and I'd go and fish. For what is 
 pomp to a weary soul that yearns and yearns 
 for the fishing hole; the throne's a bore and 
 the crown a gawd, and I'd swap the lot for 
 a bamboo rod, and a can of worms and a 
 piece of string — but there's no such luck for 
 a poor old king!" And a boy who passed 
 by the palace high, to fish for trout in the 
 streamlet nigh, looked up in awe at the 
 massive walls, and caught a glimpse of the 
 marble halls, and he said to himself: "Oh, 
 huUy chee! Wisht I was the king, and 
 the king was me! To reign all day with 
 your crown on straight is a whole lot bet- 
 ter'n diggin' bait, and fishin' round when 
 the fish won't bite, and gettin' licked for 
 your luck at night!" 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 A HUNDRED years ago and more, 
 men wrung their hands, and walked 
 the floor, and worried over this or 
 that, and thought their cares would squash 
 them flat. Where are those worried beings 
 now? The bearded goat and festive cow 
 eat grass above their mouldered bones, and 
 jay birds call, in strident tones. And where 
 the ills they worried o'er? Forgotten all, 
 for ever more. Gone all the sorrow and 
 the woe, that lived a hundred years ago! 
 The grief that makes you scream today, 
 like other griefs, will pass away; and when 
 you've cashed your little string, and jay 
 birds o'er your bosom sing, the stranger 
 pausing there to view the marble works that 
 cover you, will think upon the uselessness 
 of human worry and distress. So let the 
 worry business slide; live while you live, 
 and when you've died, the folks will say, 
 around your bier: "He made a hit while 
 he was here!" 
 
 Useless 
 Griefs 
 
 l77l 
 
The Little 
 GreeJt 
 Tents 
 
 [78] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE LITTLE green tents where the 
 soldiers sleep, and the sunbeams play 
 and the women weep, are covered 
 with flowers today; and between the tents 
 walk the weary few, who were young and 
 stalwart in 'sixty-two, when they went to the 
 war away. The little green tents are built 
 of sod, and they are not long, and they are 
 not broad, but the soldiers have lots of 
 room; and the sod is part of the land they 
 saved, when the flag of the enemy darkly 
 waved, the symbol of dole and doom. The 
 little green tent is a thing divine; the little 
 green tent is a country's shrine, where 
 patriots kneel and pray; and the brave men 
 left, so old, so few, were young and stal- 
 wart in 'sixty-two, when they went to the 
 war away! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 HE USED to take a flowing bowl per- 
 haps three times a day; he needed it 
 to brace his nerves, or drive the 
 blues away, but as for chaps who drank 
 too much, they simply made him tired; "a 
 drink," he said, "when feeling tough, is 
 much to be desired; some men will never 
 quit the game while they can raise a bone, 
 but I can drink the old red booze, or let 
 the stufif alone." He toddled on the down- 
 ward path, and seedy grew his clothes, and 
 like a beacon in the night flamed forth his 
 bulbous nose; he lived on slaw and sweitzer 
 cheese, the free lunch brand of fruits, and 
 when he sought his downy couch he always 
 wore his boots; "some day I'll cut it out," 
 he said; "my will is still my own, and I can 
 hit the old red booze, or let the stuff alone." 
 One night a prison surgeon sat by this poor 
 pilgrim's side, and told him that his time 
 had come to cross the great divide. "I've 
 known you since you were a lad," the stern 
 physician said, "and I have watched you as 
 you tried to paint the whole world red, and 
 if you wish, I'll have engraved upon your 
 churchyard stone: 'He, dying, proved that 
 he could let the old red booze alone.' " 
 
 Letting It 
 Alone 
 
 [79] 
 
End of 
 The Road 
 
 [80] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 SOME DAY this heart will cease to 
 beat; some day these worn and weary 
 feet will tread the road no more ; some 
 day this hand will drop the pen, and never 
 never write again those rhymes which are 
 a bore. And sometimes, when the stars 
 swing low, and mystic breezes come and go, 
 with music in their breath, I think of Des- 
 tiny and Fate, and try to calmly contem- 
 plate this bogie men call Death. Such 
 thinking does not raise my hair; my cheer- 
 ful heart declines to scare or thump against 
 my vest; for Death, when all is said and 
 done, is but the dusk, at set of sun, the in- 
 terval of rest. But lines of sorrow mark my 
 brow when I consider that my frau, when 
 I have ceased to wink, will have to face a 
 crowd of gents who're selling cheap tin 
 monuments, and headstones made of zinc. 
 And crayon portrait sharks will come, and 
 make the house with language hum, and 
 ply their deadly game; they will enlarge 
 my photograph, attach a hand-made 
 epitaph, and put it in a frame. They'll hang 
 that horror on the wall, and then, when 
 neighbors come to call, they'll view my 
 crayon head, and wipe sad tears from either 
 eye, and lean against the chairs, and cry: 
 "How fortunate he's dead!" 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 ONCE A fisherman was dying in his 
 humble, lowly cot, and the pastor sat 
 beside him saying things that hit the 
 spot, so that all his futile terrors left the 
 dying sinner's heart, and he said: "The 
 journey's lonely, but I'm ready for the 
 start. There is just one little matter that 
 is fretting me," he sighed, "and perhaps I'd 
 better tell it ere I cross the Great Divide. I 
 have got a string of stories that I've told 
 from day to day; stories of the fish I've cap- 
 tured, and the ones that got away, and I fear 
 that when I tell them they are apt to stretch 
 a mile; and I wonder when I'm wafted to 
 that land that's free from guile, if they'll 
 let me tell my stories if I try to tell them 
 straight, or will angels lose their tempers 
 then, and chase me through the gate?" 
 Then the pastor sat and pondered, for the 
 question vexed him sore ; never such a weird 
 conundrum had been sprung on him be- 
 fore. Yet the courage of conviction moved 
 him soon to a reply, and he wished to fill 
 the fisher with fair visions of the sky : "You 
 can doubtless tell fish stories," said the 
 clergyman, aloud, "but I'd stretch them 
 very little if old Jonah's in the crowd." 
 
 The Dying 
 Fisherman 
 
 [8i] 
 
The 
 
 Venerable 
 Excuse 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 Y 
 
 [82] 
 
 OU SAY your grandma's dead, my 
 lad, and you, bowed down with woe, 
 to see her laid beneath the mold be- 
 lieve you ought to go; and so you ask a 
 half day off, and you may have that same; 
 alas, that grannies always die when there's 
 a baseball game! Last spring, if I remem- 
 ber right, three grandmas died for you, and 
 you bewailed the passing, then, of souls so 
 warm and true ; and then another grandma 
 died — a tall and stately dame ; the day they 
 buried her there was a fourteen-inning 
 game. And when the balmy breeze of June 
 among the willows sighed, another grand- 
 ma closed her eyes and crossed the Great 
 Divide; they laid her gently to her rest be- 
 side the churchyard wall, the day we 
 lammed the stuffing from the Rubes from 
 Minnepaul. Go forth, my son, and mourn 
 your dead, and shed the scalding tear, and 
 lay a simple wreath upon your eighteenth 
 grandma's bier; while you perform this 
 solemn task I'll to the grandstand go, and 
 watch our pennant-winning team make 
 soupbones of the foe. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 THE OTHER night I took a walk, 
 and called on Jinx, across the block. 
 The home of Jinx was full of boys 
 and girls and forty kinds of noise. Dad 
 Jinx was good, and kind, and straight; he 
 let the children go their gait; he never 
 spoke a sentence cross, he never showed that 
 he was boss, and so his home, as neighbors 
 know, was like the Ringling wild beast 
 show. We tried to talk about the crops; 
 the children raised their fiendish yawps; 
 they hunted up a Thomas cat, and placed 
 it in my stovepipe hat; they jarred me with 
 a carpet tack, and poured ice water down 
 my back; my long coat tails they set afire, 
 and this aroused my slumb'ring ire. I rose, 
 majestic in my wrath, and through those 
 children mowed a path, I smote them sore- 
 ly, hip and thigh, and piled them in the 
 woodshed nigh; I threw their father in the 
 well, and fired his cottage, with a yell. 
 Some rigid moralists, I hear, have said my 
 course was too severe, but their rebukes 
 can not affright — my conscience tells me I 
 was right. 
 
 The Smart 
 Children 
 
 [83] 
 
*A little restinfr in the shadoiu, a struggle to the height, a futile 
 search for El Dorado, and then lue say good night." 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 A LITTLE work, a little sweating, a 
 few brief, flying years; a little joy, a 
 little fretting, some smiles and then 
 some tears; a little resting in the shadow, 
 a struggle to the height, a futile search for 
 El Dorado, and then we say Good Night. 
 Some moiling in the strife and clangor, 
 some years of doubt and debt, some words 
 we spoke in foolish anger that we would 
 fain forget; some cheery words we said un- 
 thinking, that made a sad heart light; the 
 banquet, with its feast and drinking — and 
 then we say Good Night. Some question- 
 ing of creeds and theories, and judgment of 
 the dead, while God, who never sleeps or 
 wearies, is watching overhead; some little 
 laughing and some sighing, some sorrow, 
 some delight; a little music for the dying, 
 and then we say Good Night. 
 
 The 
 Journey 
 
 [8s] 
 
Times 
 
 Have 
 
 Changed 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 [86] 
 
 THE MAIDEN lingered in her bower, 
 within her father's stately tower — it 
 was four hundred years ago — her 
 lover came, o'er cliff and scar, and twanged 
 the strings of his guitar, and sang his love 
 songs, soft and low. He said her breath was 
 like the breeze that wandered over flowery 
 leas, her cheeks were lovely as the rose; her 
 eyes were stars, from heaven torn, and she 
 was guiltless of a corn upon her sweet 
 angelic toes. For hours and hours his songs 
 were sung, until a puncture spoiled a lung, 
 and then of course he had to quit; but 
 Arabella from her room would shoot a smile 
 that lit the gloom, and gave him a connip- 
 tion fit. Then homeward would the lover 
 hie, as happy as an August fly upon a bald 
 man's shining head; and Arabella's heart 
 would swell with happiness too great to tell ; 
 ah me, those good old times are dead! Just 
 let a modern lover scheme to win the damsel 
 of his dream by punching tunes from his 
 guitar! In silver tones she'd jeer and scoff; 
 she'd call to him: "Come off! come off! 
 where is your blooming motor car? 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 MY LITTLE DOG DOT is a sassy 
 pup, and I scold him in savage 
 tones, for he keeps the garden all 
 littered up with feathers and rags and bones. 
 He drags dead cats for a half a mile, and 
 sometimes a long-dead hen; and when I 
 have carted away the pile, he builds it all 
 up again. He howls for hours at the beam- 
 ing moon, and thinks it a Melba chore; and 
 neighbors who list to his throbbing tune, 
 rear up in the air and roar. And often I 
 hand down this stern decree: "This critter 
 will have to die." And he puts his paws on 
 my old fat knee, and turns up a loving eye; 
 and he wags his tail, and he seems to say: 
 "You're almost too fat to walk, and your 
 knees are sprung and your whiskers gray, 
 and your picture would stop a clock; some 
 other doggies might turn you down — some 
 dogs that are proud and grand, but you are 
 the best old boss in town ; I love you to beat 
 the band!" And he bats his eye and he 
 wags his tail, conveying: this kindly thought; 
 and I'd rather live out my days in jail, than 
 injure that derned dog Dot! 
 
 My Little 
 Dog 
 
 [87] 
 
Silver 
 Threads 
 
 [88] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 SING A SONG of long ago, now the 
 weary day is done, and the breeze is 
 sighing low dirges for the vanished 
 sun; sing a song of other days, ere our 
 hearts were tired and old; sing the sweetest 
 of old lays: "Silver Threads Among the 
 Gold." We who feebly hold the track in 
 the gloaming of life's day, love the songs 
 that take us back to life's springtime, far 
 away, when our hope had airy wing, and 
 our hearts were strong and bold, and at eve 
 we used to sing "Silver Threads Among the 
 Gold." Then our hair no silver knew, and 
 these eyes, that shrunken seem, were the 
 brightest brown or blue, and old age was 
 but a dream ; but the years have taken flight, 
 and life's evening bells are tolled; so, my 
 children, sing tonight, "Silver Threads 
 Among the Gold." 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 NOW THE LONG, long day is fad- 
 ing, and the hush of dusk is here, and 
 the stars begin parading, each one in 
 its distant sphere; and the city's strident 
 voices dwindle to a gentle hum, and the 
 heart of man rejoices that the hour of rest 
 has come. Thrown away is labor's fetter, 
 when the day has reached its close; nothing 
 in the world is better than a weary man's 
 repose. Nothing in the world is sweeter 
 than the sleep the toiler finds, while the 
 ravening moskeeter fusses at the window 
 blinds. Nothing 'neath the moon can wake 
 him, short of cannon cracker's roar; if you'd 
 rouse him you must shake him till you 
 dump him on the floor. Idle people seek 
 their couches, seek their beds to toss and 
 weep, for a demon on them crouches, driv- 
 ing from their eyes the sleep. And the 
 weary hours they number, and they cry, in 
 tones distraught: "For a little wad of slum- 
 ber, I would give a house and lot!" When 
 the long, long day is dying, and you watch 
 the twinkling stars, knowing that you'll soon 
 be lying, sleeping like a train of cars, be, 
 then, thankful, without measure; be as 
 thankful as you can; you have nailed as 
 great a treasure as the gods have given 
 man! 
 
 Tired 
 
 Mans 
 
 Sleep 
 
 [89] 
 
Tomorrow 
 
 [90] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 ^npoi 
 
 OMORROW," said the languid man, 
 ''11 have my life insured, I guess; 
 know it is the safest plan, to save 
 my children from distress." And when the 
 morrow came around, they placed him gent- 
 ly in a box; at break of morning he was 
 found as dead as Julius Caesar's ox. His 
 widow now is scrubbing floors, and washing 
 shirts, and splitting wood, and doing fifty 
 other chores, that she may rear her wail- 
 ing brood. "Tomorrow," said the careless 
 jay, "I'll take an hour, and make my will ; 
 and then if I should pass away, the wife 
 and kids will know no ill." The morrow 
 came, serene and nice, the weather mild, 
 with signs of rain; the careless jay was 
 placed on ice, embalming fluid in his brain. 
 Alas, alas, poor careless jay! The lawyers 
 got his pile of cash; his wife is toiling night 
 and day, to keep the kids in clothes and hash. 
 Tomorrow is the ambushed walk avoided by 
 the circumspect. Tomorrow is the fatal 
 rock on which a million ships are wrecked. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 NOW MY WEARY heart is break- 
 ing, for my left hand tooth is ach- 
 ing, with a harsh, persistent rumble 
 that is keeping folks awake; hollowed out 
 by long erosion, it, with spasm and explo- 
 sion, seems resolved to show the public how 
 a dog-gone tooth can ache. Now it's quiver- 
 ing or quaking; now it's doing fancy ach- 
 ing, then it shoots some Roman candles 
 which go whizzing through my brain; now 
 it does some lofty tumbling, then again it's 
 merely grumbling; and anon it's showing 
 samples of spring novelties in pain. All 
 the time my woe increases; I have kicked a 
 chair to pieces, but it didn't seem to soothe 
 me or to bring my soul relief; I have 
 stormed around the shanty till my wife and 
 maiden auntie said they'd pull their freight 
 and leave me full enjoyment of my grief. I 
 have made myself so pleasant that I'm quar- 
 antined at present, and the neighbors say 
 they'll shoot me if I venture from my door; 
 now a voice cries : "If thou'd wentest in the 
 first place, to a dentist — " it is strange that 
 inspiration never came to me before I 
 
 Toothache 
 
 [91] 
 
Auf Wie- 
 dersehen 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 ''TJVAREWELL," I said,to the friend I 
 ri loved, and my eyes were filled with 
 -^ tears; "I know you'll come to my 
 heart again, in a few brief, hurried years!" 
 Ah, many come up the garden path, and 
 knock at my cottage door, but the friend I 
 loved when my heart was young, comes back 
 to that heart no more. "Farewelll" I cried 
 to the gentle bird, whose music had filled 
 the dawn; "you fly away, but you'll sing 
 again, when the winter's snows are gone." 
 Ah, the bright birds sway on the apple- 
 boughs, and sing as they sang before; but 
 the bird I loved, with the golden voice, 
 shall sing to my heart no more! "Fare- 
 well!" I said to the Thomas Cat, I threw in 
 the gurgling creek, all weighted down with 
 a smoothing iron, and a hundredweight of 
 brick. "You'll not come back, if I know 
 myself, from the silent, sunless shore!" 
 Then I journeyed home, and that blamed 
 old cat was there by the kitchen door! 
 
 [92] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 WHEN I CASH in, and this poor 
 race is run, my chores performed, 
 and all my errands done, I know 
 that folks who mock my efforts here, will 
 weeping bend above my lowly bier, and 
 bring large garlands, worth three bucks a 
 throw, and paw the ground in ecstasy of 
 woe. And friends will wear crape bow- 
 knots on their tiles, while I look down (or 
 up) a million miles, and wonder why those 
 people never knew how smooth I was until 
 my spirit flew. When I cash in I will not 
 care a yen for all the praise that's heaped 
 upon me then; serene and silent, in my 
 handsome box, I shall not heed the lauda- 
 tory talks, and all the pomp and all the vain 
 display, will just be pomp and feathers 
 thrown away. So tell me now, while I am 
 on the earth, your estimate of my surprising 
 worth; O tell mc what a looloo-bird I am, 
 and fill me full of taffy and of jam! 
 
 After The 
 Game 
 
 [93] 
 
Nero's 
 Fiddle 
 
 [94] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 WE HAVE often roasted Nero that 
 he played the violin, while his na- 
 tive 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 extin- 
 guished had he fussed around instead? 
 Would the fire insurance folks have loos- 
 ened 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 fid- 
 dles, plays a tune from end to end, for it 
 never pays to worry over things you cannot 
 mend. It is good to ofifer battle when catas- 
 trophes advance, it is well to keep on scrap- 
 ping 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." 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 sor- 
 rowful, 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 haunt- 
 ing dread that when I come to die, the 
 papers of the town will tell how some in- 
 surance guy, paid up the money that was 
 due to weeping kin of mine, before the fu- 
 neral 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! 
 
 The Real 
 Terror 
 
 [95] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 The 
 Talksmiths 
 
 IN THE HOUR of stress, when the out- 
 look'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 judg- 
 ment day, when the talksmith climbs on the 
 old world's wreck, and talks till he burns 
 away! 
 
 [96] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 IT IS WOMAN'S firm ambition to at- 
 tain 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 Black- 
 stone 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 de- 
 ride them, if they turn from pies and cookies 
 to their Ibsen books again? 
 
 Woman 's 
 Progress 
 
 [97] 
 
*'I saiv the form of a cringing bum all crumpled 
 and soaked ivith gin. " 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 won- 
 dered, and looked some more. My own re- 
 flection did not appear, but there where it 
 should have been, I saw the form of a cring- 
 ing 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 bet- 
 ter 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 gonel" 
 
 The Magic 
 Mirror 
 
 [99] 
 
The Misfit 
 Face 
 
 [lOO 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 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!" 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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-flush- 
 er'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. 
 
 A Dog 
 
 Story 
 
 [lOl] 
 
The 
 Pitcher 
 
 1 
 
 [102] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 I'D LIKE to be a Pitcher, and on the 
 Diamond stand, a cap upon my Fore- 
 head, 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 Con- 
 tortions would mark my Every Throw, and 
 all the Fans would Murmur: "Oh, Girls, 
 ain't he a Jo?" And when I left the Dia- 
 mond, 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 
 Stuflf!" I'd like to be a Pitcher, while I 
 Remain Below; by day to Gather Garlands, 
 by night to Count the Dough. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 ONCE A HUNTER met a lion near 
 the hungry critter's lair, and the 
 way that lion mauled him was de- 
 cidedly 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 un- 
 fit 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 wor- 
 ries with their poisoned stings and smarts, 
 put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, 
 and break our hearts. 
 
 Lions and 
 Ants 
 
 [103] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 The 
 
 Nameless 
 
 Dead 
 
 [104] 
 
 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 w^armth 
 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! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 WHEN I HEAR a noble singer reel- 
 ing 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 pro- 
 duce some masterpieces that would make 
 old Rubens pine, and 1 talk about Perspec- 
 tive 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 pre- 
 pare 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 bear- 
 ing, and the literary style, then I'm asked 
 to write a pamphlet booming some one's 
 castor lie! 
 
 Ambition 
 
 [105] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 Night's 
 Illusions 
 
 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 ob- 
 trusive and intense; but morning finds you 
 full of woe; you'd sell yourself for twen- 
 ty 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. 
 
 [IC^] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 ca- 
 reer; 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 mut- 
 tered, 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!" 
 
 Before and 
 After 
 
 i[i07] 
 
The Poet 
 Balks 
 
 [io8] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 F OLD JIM RILEY came to town, 
 to read a bundle of his rhyme, I guess 
 you couldn't hold me down — I'd want 
 to hear him every time. I wouldn't heed 
 the tempest's shriek; I'd walk ten miles and 
 not complain, to hear Jim Hoosier Riley 
 speak. But I would not go round a block 
 to see a statesman saw the air, to hear a 
 hired spellbinder talk, like a faker at the 
 county fair. For statesmen are as thick as 
 fleas, and poets, they are far between; one 
 song that lingers on the breeze is worth a 
 million yawps, I ween. If John Mc- 
 Cutcheon came to town, to make some pic- 
 tures on the wall, I'd tear the whole blamed 
 doorway down to be the first one in the 
 hall; you couldn't keep me in my bed if I 
 was dying there of croup ; the push would 
 find me at the head of the procession, with 
 a whoop. But I won't push my fat old 
 frame across a dozen yards of bricks, to list 
 to men whose only fame is based on pull 
 and politics. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 Fm 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 jrmp; 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, em- 
 bellished my lot, at the edge ot town, and 
 the peelers nabbed me and ran me in, be- 
 cause 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 
 foiid of robins and bumblebees, and I'm al- 
 ways glad when I'm out of jail. 
 
 Governed 
 Too Much 
 
 [109] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 Success In 
 Life 
 
 THE HERO of this simple tale was 
 born of parents beastly poor; they 
 toiled and wrought without avail to 
 scrape a living from the moor. Our hero 
 early made resolve that he would strive for 
 greater heights; "let others in these ruts 
 revolve, and carry on their puny fights; to 
 gather wealth, to live in state, is all that 
 makes this life worth while; and when I'm 
 grown I'll pull my freight, and try to raise 
 a mighty pile." His dreams came true, in 
 every way, as visions came, in days of old ; 
 he took no time for rest or play, but gath- 
 ered in fat, yellow gold. By steady steps 
 our hero rose, to heights of usefulness and 
 fame; he put the kibosh on his foes, and 
 held the ace in every game. He laughed 
 at figtrees and at vines, and all domestic, 
 trifling things; he owned some railways and 
 some mines, and was among the copper 
 kings. But why detail his glories so? Why 
 should we try to count his dimes? It is 
 enough for us to know he's been indicted 
 twenty times. 
 
 [no] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 NOW THE NIGHTS are growing 
 longer, and the frost is in the air, and 
 it's nice to hug the fireside in your 
 trusty rocking chair, with the good wife 
 there beside you, feeding cookies to the cat, 
 while the energetic children play the dick- 
 ens with your hat. O, it's nice to look 
 around you, and to feel that you're a king, 
 that your coming home at evening makes 
 your joyous subjects sing! So you read some 
 twenty chapters of old Gibbon's dope on 
 Rome, and you know what human bliss is 
 in your humble little home I There is really 
 nothing better in the way of earthly bliss, 
 than to toddle home at evening, and to get a 
 welcome kiss, and to know the kids who 
 greet you at the pea-green garden gate, have 
 been wailing, broken-hearted, that you were 
 two minutes late! There is nothing much 
 more soothing than a loving woman's smile, 
 when she sees your bow-legs climbing o'er 
 the bargain counter stile! If you don't ap- 
 preciate it, then the bats are in your dome, 
 for the greatest king a-living is the monarch 
 of a home! 
 
 Home 
 Life 
 
 [III] 
 
Ragles 
 and Hens 
 
 [112] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE EAGLE ought to have a place 
 among the false alarms; we place its 
 picture on our coins, and on our coat 
 of arms; but what did eagles ever do but 
 frolic in the sun? They'd be in jail for 
 larceny if justice should be done. They 
 are not half so good to eat as mallard duck 
 or grouse; they'd surely cause a panic in a 
 section boarding house; and never in this 
 weary world was farmer seen to go, to trade 
 a pail of eagle eggs for nails or calico. The 
 humble hen, on t'other hand, still helps the 
 world along; she lifts the farmer's mort- 
 gage as she trills her morning song; she 
 yields the fragrant omelet, and when re- 
 duced to pie, she makes the boarder feel 
 that he at last is fit to die. The eagle does 
 not stir the souls of earnest, thoughtful men ; 
 and so let's take him from the shield and 
 substitute the hen. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 IT WAS a bent and ancient man who 
 toiled with spade and pick, and down 
 his haggard features ran the sweat- 
 drops, rolling thick. An-d, 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 1 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 wuth 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!" 
 
 Weary 
 Old Age 
 
 [113] 
 
Ltullaby 
 
 [114] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 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 con- 
 tains some Paris green; it has killed a 
 frightful number, and will kill a legion 
 more; sleep, my darling, sleep and slum- 
 ber, while your daddy walks the floor! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 tri- 
 umph 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 con- 
 gressmen, 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. 
 
 The 
 
 School- 
 marm 
 
 [IIS] 
 
The 
 
 Sunday 
 
 Paper 
 
 [ii6] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 I SPENT five cents for the Sunday 
 "Dart," and hauled it home in a two- 
 wheeled cart; I piled the sections upon 
 the floor, till they reached as high as the 
 kitchen door; I hung the chromos upon the 
 wall, though there wasn't room to hang 
 them all, and the yard was littered some ten 
 feet deep with "comic sections" that made 
 me weep; and there were sections of pink 
 and green, a woman's section and magazine, 
 and sheets of music the which if played 
 would quickly make an audience fade; and 
 there were patterns for women's gowns and 
 also for gentlemen's hand-me-downs; and 
 a false mustache and a rubber doll, and a 
 deck of cards and a parasol. Now men are 
 busy with dray and cart, a-hauling away 
 the Sunday "Dart." 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 THE CHILDREN of our neighbor- 
 hood 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 
 ofif their rags and went to bed. Ah, seldom 
 then were children seen, with furrowed 
 brow and sombre mien, distraught by gali- 
 vanting 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! 
 
 Gay 
 Parents 
 
 ["7] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 Dad I ^AD IS growing old and weary and 
 I f 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 hun- 
 dred 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. 
 
 [ii8] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 jar- 
 ring 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 dis- 
 mal den he sat, with paper, ink and pen, 
 and wrote the book that people hold as be- 
 ing worth its weight in gold. The job was 
 hard; in cells beneath, they heard the grind- 
 ing of his teeth; whene'er he wrote a sen- 
 tence 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! 
 
 John 
 Bunyan 
 
 ["9] 
 
'My country, hear my ivord! you are a 
 humming bird, also a peach!" 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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, shirt- 
 ing to hide his slats, empty his till. All 
 through the week I work, like an unlaun- 
 dered 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! 
 
 A Near 
 Anthem 
 
 [121] 
 
The 
 
 ISJation 's 
 Hope 
 
 [122] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE NATION'S sliding down the 
 path that leads to Ruin's lair, and 
 all of Ruin's dogs of wrath will 
 chew its vitals there; each day we deeper 
 plunge in grief; we'll soon have reached 
 the worst; why don't we turn, then, for re- 
 lief, to William Randolph Hurst? It seems 
 we haven't any sense, that we these ills en- 
 dure; he's told us oft, in confidence, that 
 he alone is pure; he is the bulwark of our 
 hope — our last shield and our first; then 
 let's rely upon the dope of William Ran- 
 dolph Hurst. He offers us the helping 
 hand, he fain would be our guide; and still 
 we wreck this blooming land, and let all 
 virtue slide; of all that is the country's best 
 we're making wienerwurst; O let us lean 
 upon the breast of William Randolph 
 Hurst! He stands and waits, serene, sub- 
 lime, he beckons and he sings! He wears 
 a halo all the time, and he is growing wings! 
 So let us quit the course that harms, for- 
 sake the things accurst, and rest, like chil- 
 dren, in the arms of William Randolph 
 Hurst! 
 
Walt Mason, when a reporter on the Atchison Globe, 
 1885 — "In life's early bloom when my bosom was 
 young" 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 sub- 
 lime; 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 monu- 
 ment 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." 
 
 The 
 
 Important 
 
 Man 
 
 [123] 
 
Toddling 
 Home 
 
 [124] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 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 sink- 
 ing 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 heav- 
 en's tome, we'll seek our couch, and say 
 good night when we have toddled home. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 unthink- 
 ing 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 up- 
 on 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 disrrial 
 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!" 
 
 Trifling 
 Things 
 
 [125] 
 
Trusty 
 Dobbin 
 
 [126] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 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 
 superfi'ous on the stage!" They doomed 
 you when the auto-car was given its re- 
 splendent 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 con- 
 fidence 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 Dob- 
 bin shall be with us still 1 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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!" 
 
 The High 
 Prices 
 
 [127] 
 
Omar 
 Khayyam 
 
 [128] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 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 rhyme- 
 sters 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 mas- 
 ter's brain, satire keen as tested steel — they 
 who love old Omar feel that the imitative 
 crew should receive the wages due, be re- 
 warded 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. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 ONE DAY a farmer found a bone; he 
 thought at first it was a stone, and 
 threw it at a passing snake ere he 
 discovered his mistake. But when he knew 
 it was a bone, and not a diamond or a stone, 
 he took it to an ancient sage, who said: 
 "In prehistoric age, this was the shin-bone 
 of a Thor-dineriomegantosaur-megopium- 
 permastodon-letheriumsohelpmejohn." The 
 farmer cried: "Dad bing my eyes! Was 
 ever man so wondrous wise? He gazes on 
 a piece of bone, that I supposed to be a 
 stone, and, with a confidence sublime, he 
 looks across the void of time, and gives 
 this fossil bone a name, the fragment of 
 some creature's frame! To have such 
 knowledge, sir, as thine, I'd give those fer- 
 tile farms of mine." "Don't envy me," the 
 sage replied, and shook his weary head, and 
 sighed, "Your life to me seems full and 
 sweet — you always have enough to eat!'* 
 
 Knowledge 
 is Power 
 
 [129] 
 
"O, it may be all right for a ivoman so old, 
 to leap 'er the table and chairs. ' ' 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 MY GRANDMOTHER suffered and 
 languished in pain, till she read in 
 a magazine ad, that a woman should 
 put on a sweater and train, and help the 
 Delsartean fad. And now when I go to 
 my midday repast, no meal is made ready 
 for me; my grandmother's climbing a forty- 
 foot mast or shinning up into a tree. The 
 house has a stairway that she will not use 
 she always slides down on the rail; she's 
 spoiled all the floors with her spiked sprint- 
 ing shoes, and she laughs when I put up a 
 wail. O, it may be all right for a woman 
 so old, to leap o'er the table and chairs, 
 while I try to fill up on the grub that is 
 cold, with the dishes all piled on the stairs. 
 Today I protested with many a tear, made 
 a moan like a maundering dunce; and she 
 kicked all the lights from the brass chan- 
 delier, and turned forty handsprings at 
 once. I told her I never could prosper and 
 thrive, on victuals unfit for a man; she 
 offered to throw me three falls out of five, 
 Graeco-Roman or catch-as-catch-can. 
 
 Physical 
 Culture 
 
 [131] 
 
Football 
 
 [132] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE GAME was ended, and the noise, 
 at last had died away, and now they 
 gathered up the boys where they in 
 pieces lay. And one was hammered in the 
 ground by many a jolt and jar; some frag- 
 ments never have been found, they flew 
 away so far. They found a stack of tawny 
 hair, some fourteen cubits high; it was the 
 half-back, lying there, where he had 
 crawled to die. They placed the pieces on 
 a door, and from the crimson field, that 
 hero then they gently bore, like soldier on 
 his shield. The surgeon toiled the livelong 
 night above the gory wreck; he got the 
 ribs adjusted right, the wishbone and the 
 neck. He soldered on the ears and toes, 
 and got the spine in place, and fixed a gutta- 
 percha nose upon the mangled face. And 
 then he washed his hands and said: "I'm 
 glad that task is done!" The half-back 
 raised his fractured head, and cried: "I 
 call this fun!" 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 smil- 
 ing 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. 
 
 The 
 Broncho 
 
 inz'] 
 
"And then I float anuay, anvay, to moonlit 
 castles in Cathay. " 
 
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 w^oe as old as all 
 the seas that flow, as young as yesterday; 
 as changeless as the stars above, as yearn- 
 ing 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 with- 
 ered 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 sing- 
 ing 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 phono- 
 graph, 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! 
 
 Schubert's 
 Serenade 
 
 [135] 
 
Health 
 Food 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE DOCTOR is sure that my health 
 is poor, he says that I waste away; so 
 bring me a can of the shredded bran, 
 and a bale of the toasted hay; O feed me 
 on rice and denatured ice, and the oats that 
 the horses chew, and a peck of slaw and a 
 load of straw and a turnip and squash or 
 two. The doctor cries that it won't be wise 
 to eat of the things I like; if I make a break 
 at a sirloin steak, my stomach is sure to 
 strike; I dare not reach for the luscious 
 peach, or stab at the lemon pie; if I make a 
 pass at the stew, alas! I'm sure to curl up 
 and die. If a thing looks good, it must be 
 eschewed, if bad, I may eat it down; so 
 bring me a jar of the rich pine tar from 
 the Health Food works up town; and bring 
 me a bag of your basic slag, and a sack of 
 your bolted prunes, and a bowl of slop from 
 the doctor's shop, and ladle it in with 
 spoons! I will have to feed on the jim- 
 son weed, and the grass that the cows may 
 leave, for the doctor's sure that my health is 
 poor, and I know that he'd not deceive. 
 
 [■36] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 an- 
 swered, 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 rea- 
 sons?" she answered, in a huff; "I want a 
 separation, and that should be enough; I 
 want the rare distinction a court of justice 
 lends ; Fm 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?" 
 
 Fashion *s 
 Devotee 
 
 [137] 
 
Christmas 
 
 [138] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS bells again ring 
 out a message sweet and clear; and 
 harmony is round about, and happi- 
 ness is near; so let us all sing, once again, 
 as on an elder day: "God rest you, merry 
 gentlemen, let nothing you dismay!" For- 
 get the office and the mart, the week-day 
 hook and crook, and loosen up your with- 
 ered heart, as well as pocketbook; forget 
 the ledger and the pen, and watch the chil- 
 dren 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! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 Tight- 
 wad's estimation; the summer breeze, be- 
 cause 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. Me- 
 thinks 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! 
 
 The 
 Tightwad 
 
 [139] 
 
 \ 
 
Blue Blood 
 
 [140] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 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. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 Sun- 
 day 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 spoil- 
 ing the pie or tea. 
 
 The Cave 
 Man 
 
 [14'] 
 
'The Eyes 
 of Lincoln 
 
 [142] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 AD EYES, that were patient and ten- 
 der, sad eyes, that were steadfast and 
 true, and warm with the unchanging 
 splendor of courage no ills could subdue! 
 Eyes dark with the dread of the morrow, 
 and woe for the day that was gone, the 
 sleepless companions of sorrow, the watch- 
 ers that witnessed the dawn. Eyes tired 
 from the clamor and goading, and dim 
 from the stress of the years, and hollowed 
 by pain and foreboding, and strained by re- 
 pression of tears. Sad eyes that were wea- 
 ried and blighted, by visions of sieges and 
 wars, now watch o'er a country united from 
 the luminous slopes of the stars! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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, con- 
 cerning 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 writ- 
 ers named; poor Indiana's truest glory is 
 missed — she ought to be ashamed. 
 
 In 
 
 Indiana 
 
 [143] 
 
The Better 
 Land 
 
 [144] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THERE IS a better world, they say, 
 where tears and woe are done away; 
 there shining hosts in fields sublime 
 are playing baseball all the time, and there 
 (where no one ever sins) the home team 
 nearly always wins. Upon that bright and 
 sunny shore, we'll never need to sorrow 
 more; no umpires on the field are slain, no 
 games are called because of rain. So let 
 us live that we may fly, on snowy pinions, 
 when we die, to where the pitcher never 
 falls, or gives a man first base on balls; 
 where goose-eggs don't adorn the score, and 
 shortstops fumble never more. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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 sum- 
 mer skies, and a glory in them lies, bor- 
 rowed 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 
 )'^ou'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! 
 
 The 'June 
 Bride 
 
 [145] 
 
At The 
 Theatre 
 
 [146] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 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, home- 
 ward 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. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 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. 
 
 Club Day 
 Dirge 
 
 [•47] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 LIKE SOME lone mountain in the 
 starry night, lifting its head snow- 
 capped, severely white, into the si- 
 lence of the upper air, serene, remote, and 
 always changeless there! Firm as that 
 mountain in the day of dread, when Free- 
 dom wept, and pointed to her dead; grim 
 as that mountain to the ruthless foe, wast- 
 ing 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 sum- 
 mit glow, firm as its rocks and stainless as 
 its snow! 
 
 Washington 
 
 [149] 
 
Hours and 
 Ponies 
 
 [150] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 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 long- 
 ing is in vain. Lasso, then, the hour that's 
 w^ith 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. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 A SPORT in New Jersey, whose name 
 is mislaid, has issued a challenge, 
 serene, undismayed. He claims he 
 can shovel more pies in his hold than any 
 man living, and puts up the gold to back 
 up his challenge, so here is a chance for pie 
 eating experts their fame to advance. Now 
 here is a sport that I like to indorse; a man 
 can eat pies and not work like a horse; no 
 heart-breaking training for wearisome 
 weeks; no sparring or wrestling with sub- 
 sidized freaks; no rubbing or grooming or 
 skipping the rope, no toning your nerves 
 with some horse doctor's dope; no bones 
 dislocated, or face pounded sore, no wear- 
 ing gum boots in a whirlpool of gore. The 
 pie eater's training no anguish implies; he 
 starves till his stomach is howling for pies; 
 he loosens his belt to the uttermost hole, 
 and says to the umpire: "All right! Let 
 her roll !" There's gold for the winner,'and 
 honor and fame, and even the loser's ahead 
 of the game. 
 
 The Pie 
 
 Raters 
 
 [iSi] 
 
Poor 
 Father 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 [152] 
 
 CHILDREN, HUSH! for father's 
 resting; he is sitting, tired and sore, 
 with his feet upon the table and his 
 hat upon the floor. He is wearied and ex- 
 hausted by the labors of the day; he has 
 talked about the tariff since the dawn was 
 cold and gray; he has lost eight games of 
 checkers, for his luck today was mean, and 
 that luck was still against him when he 
 bucked the slot machine; so his nerves are 
 under tension, and his brow is dark with 
 care, and the burdens laid upon him seem 
 too great for him to bear. Stop the clock, 
 for it annoys him; throttle that canary bird; 
 take the baby to the cellar, where its howl- 
 ing won't be heard ; you must speak in whis- 
 pers, children, for your father's tired and 
 sore, and he seems to think the ceiling is 
 some kind of cuspidor. Oh, he's broken 
 down and beaten by the long and busy day; | 
 he's been sitting in the feedstore on a bale 
 of prairie hay, telling how the hungry graft- j 
 ers have the country by the throat, how the 
 tariff on dried apples robs the poor man 
 of his coat, how this nasty polar rumpus 
 might be settled once for all — and his feet 
 are on the table, and his back's against the 
 wall; let him find his home a quiet and a 
 heart-consoling nest, for the father's worn 
 and weary, and his spirit longs for rest. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 THE MERCHANT said, in caustic 
 tones: "James Henry Charles Au- 
 gustus Jones, please get your pay and 
 leave the store; I will not need you any 
 more. Important chores you seem to shun ; 
 you're always leaving work undone; and 
 when I ask the reason why, you heave a sad 
 and soulful sigh, and idly scratch your dome 
 of thought, and feebly say: "Oh, I forgot!" 
 James Henry Charles Augustus Jones, this 
 world's a poor resort for drones, for men 
 with heads so badly set that their long suit 
 is to forget. No man will ever write his 
 name upon the shining wall of fame, or 
 soar aloft on glowing wings because he 
 can't remember things. I've noticed that 
 such chaps as you remember when your pay 
 is due; and when the noontime whistles 
 throb, your memory is on the job; and when 
 a holiday's at hand, your recollection isn't 
 canned. The failures on life's busy way, 
 the paupers, friendless, wan and gray, 
 throughout their bootless days, like you, for- 
 got the things they ought to do. So take 
 your coat, and draw your bones, James 
 Henry Charles Augustus Jones!" 
 
 He Who 
 
 Forgets 
 
 [153] 
 
The 
 Umpire 
 
 [154] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 WHEN the home team loses a well 
 fought game, it causes a lot of woe, 
 but nothing is ever gained, my 
 friends, by laying the umpire low; far bet- 
 ter to let him fade away, and die of his 
 soul's remorse, than to muss the diamond 
 with his remains, or sit on his pulseless 
 corpse. When I was younger I always 
 slew the umpire whose work was bum, and 
 now when I go to my downy couch, the 
 ghosts of the umpires come, and moan and 
 gibber around my bed and rattle their flesh- 
 less bones, and call me names of the rank- 
 est kind, in their deep, sepulchral tones. I 
 always found, when an umpire died, and 
 rode in the village hearse, that the fellow 
 who came to take his place was sure to be 
 ten times worse. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 THE GREAT Detective had returned; 
 he'd been some years away, and I sup- 
 posed that he was dead, and sleeping 
 'neath the clay. Ah, ne'er shall I forget 
 the joy it gave me thus to greet the king 
 of all detectives in my rooms in Baker 
 street! "I notice, Watson," Sherlock said, 
 with smile serene and wide, "that since I 
 left you, months ago, you've found your- 
 self a bride." I had not spoken of the fact, 
 so how did Sherlock know? I tumbled 
 from my rockingchair, his knowledge 
 jarred me so. "It's easy, Watson," said the 
 sleuth; "deduction makes it plain; you ate 
 an egg for breakfast and your chin still 
 wears the stain; you haven't shaved for half 
 a week — the stubble's growing blue — your 
 pants are baggy at the knees, your necktie's 
 on askew; your vest is buttoned crooked 
 and your shirt is out of plumb; your hat 
 has been in contact with a wad of chevying 
 gum. You were something of a dandy in 
 the good old days of yore — pass the dope, 
 my dearest Watson; what's the use of say- 
 ing more?" 
 
 Sherlock 
 Holmes 
 
 [iSS] 
 
The 
 Satictuary 
 
 [156] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 I DO NOT LIKE the man who searches 
 his mind for caustic things to say, about 
 the preachers and the churches; he 
 grows more common every day. The cynic 
 is a scurvy tutor, whose head and creed are 
 made of wood; he puts up little gods of 
 pewter, and says that they "are just as 
 good." He thinks that triumphs he is win- 
 ning, and he emits a joyous laugh, if he can 
 knock the underpinning from Faith, that is 
 our rod and staff. He is a poor and tawdry 
 victor, who would o'er dead religions walk; 
 the church still lives, though fools have 
 kicked her, since first she builded on a rock. 
 I hear the mellow church bells ringing a 
 welcome to that calm retreat; I hear the 
 choir's sweet voices singing an anthem, rev- 
 erent and sweet. And well I know the 
 gentle pastor is pointing out the path to 
 wend, and urging men to let the Master be 
 evermore their guide and friend. And he, 
 like all good men, is reaching for better, 
 and for higher things; and so the message 
 of his preaching — unlike the cynic's — com- 
 fort brings. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 BENEATH the stones they sweetly 
 sleep, the humble toilers of the press, 
 no more to sorrow or to weep, no 
 more to labor in distress. Here lies a youth 
 upon whose tomb the tear of pity often 
 drops; we had to send him to his doom, be- 
 cause he wrote of "bumper crops." Here 
 sleeps the golden years away the fairest of 
 the human tribe; we slew him at the break 
 of day, because he called himself *'ye 
 scribe." Beneath that yew another sleeps, 
 who did his work with smiling lips; we 
 had to put him out for keeps when he re- 
 ferred to "flying trips." And one, the 
 noblest of them all, is resting on the wind- 
 swept hill; in writing up a game of ball, 
 he spoke of one who "hit the pill." Hard 
 by the wall, where roses bloom, and breezes 
 sway the clinging vines, that youth is sleep- 
 ing in his tomb, who used the phrase, "along 
 these lines." Today the sexton wields his 
 spade, and digs a grave both deep and wide, 
 where soon the stripling will be laid, who 
 wrote about "the blushing bride."' 
 
 The 
 
 Newspaper 
 
 Graveyard 
 
 [157] 
 
My Lady's 
 Hair 
 
 [158] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 SHE WALKS in beauty like the night, 
 as some romantic singer said; her eyes 
 give forth a starry light, her lips are 
 of a cherry red; across the floor she seems 
 to float; she seems to me beyond compare, 
 a being perfect — till I note the way that 
 she's done up her hair. She must have 
 toiled a half a day to build that large, un- 
 vs^ieldy mass; she must have used a bale of 
 hay, and strips of tin, and wire of brass; 
 her sisters must have helped to braid, her 
 mother wrought and tinkered there, and 
 butler, cook and chambermaid, all helped 
 to wrestle with her hair. And after all the 
 grinding toil, and all the braiding and the 
 fuss, the one effect is just to spoil her beauty, 
 and make people cuss. She walks in beauty 
 like the night where nights are most serene- 
 ly fair; but, J. H. Caesar! she's a sight, 
 when she's got on her Sunday hair! 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 1 CANNOT sing today, my dear, about 
 your locks of gold, for my fat head is 
 feeling queer since I have caught a 
 cold; and when a bard is feeling off, and 
 full of pills and care, and has to sit around 
 and cough, he sours on golden hair. I can- 
 not sing today, dear heart, about your coral 
 lips; the doctor's coming in his cart; he's 
 making daily trips; he makes me sit in 
 scalding steam, with blankets loaded down, 
 and people say they hear me scream half 
 way across the town; he makes me swal- 
 low slippery elm and ink and moldy paste, 
 and blithely hunts throughout the realm for 
 things witii bitter taste. I cannot sing to- 
 day, my love, about your swanlike neck, for 
 I am sitting by the stove, a grim and ghastly 
 wreck. And many poultices anoint the sum- 
 mit of my head; I've coughed my ribs all 
 out of joint, and I am largely dead; and so 
 the mention of a harp just makes my blood 
 run cold; some other blooming poet sharp 
 must sing your locks of gold! Some other 
 troubadour, my sweet, must sing to you in- 
 stead, for I have earache in my feet and 
 chilblains in my head! 
 
 The Sick 
 Minstrel 
 
 [■59] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 The 
 Beggar 
 
 HE HAD a little organ there, the 
 which I watched him grind; and 
 oft he cried, as in despair: "Please 
 help me — I am blind I" I muttered, as his 
 music rose: "He plays in frightful luck!" 
 And then I went down in my clothes, and 
 gave him half a buck. A friend came rush- 
 ing up just then, and said: "You make me 
 ache! You are the easiest of men — that beg- 
 gar is a fake! The fraud has money salted 
 down^more than you'll ever earn ; he owns 
 a business block in town, and he has farms 
 to burn." I answered: "Though the beggar 
 own a bankroll large and fat, I don't re- 
 gret the half a bone I threw into his hat. 
 I see a man who looks as though the world 
 had used him bad; it sets my jaded heart 
 aglow to give him half a scad. And though 
 that beggar man may be the worst old fraud 
 about, that makes no sort of odds to me; 
 that isn't my lookout. I'll stake Tom, 
 Harry, Dick or Jack, whene'er he comes 
 my way; my conscience pats me on the 
 back, and says that I'm O. K. But if a 
 busted pilgrim came to work me, in dis- 
 tress, and I inquired his age and name, his 
 pastor's street address, and asked to see the 
 documents to prove he told no lies, before 
 I loosened up ten cents, my conscience 
 would arise and prod me till I couldn't 
 sleep, or eat a grown man's meal; and so 
 the beggar man may keep that section of a 
 wheel." 
 
 [i6o] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 I LIKE to think that when I'm dead, 
 my restless soul unchained, the things 
 that worry my fat head will then all 
 be explained. This fact a lot of sorrow 
 brings, throughout this weary land; there 
 are so many, many things, we do not under- 
 stand! Oh, why is Virtue oft oppressed, 
 and scourged and beaten down, while Vice, 
 with gems of East and West, is flaunting 
 through the town? And why is childhood's 
 face with tears of sorrow often stained? 
 When I have reached the shining spheres, 
 these things will be explained. Why does 
 the poor man go to jail, because he steals a 
 trout, while wealthy men who steal a whale 
 quite easily stay out? Why does affliction 
 dog the man who earns two bones a day, 
 who, though he try the best he can, can't 
 drive the wolf away? Why does the weary 
 woman sew, to earn a pauper's gain, while 
 scores of gaudy spendthrifts blow their 
 wealth for dry champagne? Why do we 
 send the shining buck to heathen in Cathay, 
 while in the squalid alley's muck white feet 
 have gone astray? Such questions, in a mot- 
 ley crowd, at my poor mind have strained; 
 but when I sit upon a cloud, these things 
 will be explained. 
 
 Looking 
 Forward 
 
 [i6i] 
 
ne Depot 
 Loafers 
 
 [162] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE RAILWAY station in our town 
 is seedy, commonplace and plain; 
 yet scores of people rustle down and 
 gather there to meet each train. The wait- 
 ing room is bleak and bare, a place of never- 
 ending din; yet fifty loafers gather there 
 each day to see the train come in. The sta- 
 tion agent's life is sad; the loafers made it 
 grim and gray; they drive the poor man 
 nearly mad, for they are always in the way. 
 The passengers can only sob as they their 
 townward way begin, for they must strug- 
 gle through the mob that's there to see the 
 train come in. The men who have their 
 work to do are hindered in a hundred ways; 
 in vain they weep and cry out "Shoo!" they 
 can't disperse the loafing jays. These loaf- 
 ers always are the same ; they toil not, neith- 
 er do they spin; they have no other end or 
 aim, than just to see the train come in. 
 I've traveled east, I've traveled west, 
 and every station in the land appears to 
 have its loaferfest, its lazy, idle, useless 
 band; I know the station loafer well; 
 he has red stubble on his chin; he has an 
 ancient, fishlike smell; he lives to see 
 the train come in. Oh, Osier, get your 
 chloroform, and fill your glass syringe 
 again, and come and try to make things 
 warm for those who bother busy men! For 
 loafers, standing in the way, when standing 
 is a yellow sin! For those who gather, day 
 by day, to see a one-horse train come in I 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 HE TOILED and sweated half his life 
 to hang rich garments on his wife. 
 "I haven't time to cut a dash," he 
 said, "but I will blow the cash to let those 
 swelled-up neighbors know that I have got 
 the cash to blow." And so his good wife 
 wore her furs, and dress parade was always 
 hers; she had her gems from near and far, 
 and glittered like an auto-car; she had a 
 new and wondrous gown for every "func- 
 tion" in the town; her life seemed sunny, 
 gay and glad, this wife who was her hus- 
 band's ad. One night, his day of labor 
 o'er, he found her weeping at the door, and 
 when he asked her to explain, she stopped a 
 while the briny rain, and cried: "This life 
 my spirit fags! I'm tired of wearing flossy 
 rags I I'm tired of chasing through the 
 town, a dummy in a costly gown! I'd 
 rather wear a burlap sack, or leather flynet 
 on my back — and have you with me as of 
 yore — than all the sables in the store! And 
 if you really love your wife, you'll get back 
 to the simple life. Don't try to gather all 
 the dough that's minted in this world be- 
 low; just earn enough to pay the freight, 
 and let us live in simple state, in some neat 
 shanty far away from pomp and fuss and 
 vain display — some hut among the cockle- 
 burs, remote from jewelry and furs!" 
 
 The Foolish 
 Husband 
 
 [163] 
 
'Boys (Jum'em!) luill be boys!" 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 TONIGHT the boys will take the town, 
 and doubtless turn it upside down; 
 they'll sport around with joyous zest, 
 and knock the landscape galley west; and 
 when the morning comes I'll see my buggy 
 in an apple tree; the sidewalk piled upon 
 the lawn, the hens with all their feathers 
 gone ; I'll hear my trusty milkcow yell down 
 at the bottom of the well, while Dobbin 
 stands upon the roof and waves for help a 
 frantic hoof. Last year the boys wrought 
 while I slept, and in the morn I screamed 
 and wept, when looking at the work they'd 
 done, I said : "Next year I'll get a gun, and 
 watch for these michievous souls, and shoot 
 the darlings full of holes." But granny 
 heard me, and she said: "While water's 
 cheap, go soak your head; you once were 
 young yourself, by George! and people 
 voted you a scourge; you played so many 
 fiendish tricks, you filled so many hats with 
 bricks, that terror came to every one when 
 you weilt forth to have some fun. The 
 village pastor used to say: 'When that 
 young rascal comes my way, I always beat 
 a swift retreat — I'd rather have the prickly 
 heat!'" And so I haven't bought a gun; 
 and so the boys may have their fun; and if 
 the morning should disclose the chimney 
 filled with garden hose, the watchdog 
 painted green and brown, the henhouse 
 standing upside down, I'll make no melan- 
 choly noise, but say: "Boys (durn 'em!) 
 will be boys!" 
 
 Hallowe*en 
 
 [i6s] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 Rienzt 
 
 to the 
 
 Romans 
 
 HE STOOD ERECT, and having seen 
 that artists for some magazine had 
 sketched him in his proper pose, he 
 cleared his throat, and blew his nose, and 
 said: "Hi, Romans, you are slaves! You've 
 not the price to buy your shaves! The good 
 old sun's still on the turf, and his last beam 
 falls on a serf! Great Scott, my friends, is 
 freedom dead? O w^hence and whither do 
 we tread? I view the future with alarm! 
 We tremble 'neath the tyrant's arm, and 
 ye may tremble, sons of Rome, until the 
 muley cows come home, but you will still 
 be in the hole, unless some fiery, dauntless 
 soul, like me, shall lead you from the wreck, 
 and soak the tyrant in the neck! And here 
 I stand to cut the ice! I'm ready for the 
 sacrifice! I'll save you, if a Roman can! 
 As candidate for councilman, I ask your 
 votes, and if I win I'll swat the tyrant on 
 the chin. I'll represent the fourteenth 
 ward, and represent it good and hard, and 
 drive the grafters from their place, and 
 kick the tryant in the face! Corruption in 
 our Rome will die, if you'll support your 
 Uncle Ril" 
 
 [i66] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 land, 
 band. 
 
 A SORREL COLT, one pleasant day, 
 ran round and round a stack of hay, 
 and kicked its heels, and pawed the 
 and reared and jumped to beat the 
 The older horses stood around and 
 swallowed fodder by the pound, and gave 
 no notice to the kid that gaily round the 
 haystack slid. I loafed along and mur- 
 mured, then: "If horses were as mean as 
 men, some old gray workhorse, stifif and 
 sour, would jaw that colt for half an hour; 
 methinks I hear that workhorse say: 'You 
 think you're mighty smooth and gay, and 
 you are fresh and sporty now, but when 
 they hitch you to the plow, and strap a har- 
 ness on your back, and work you till your 
 innards crack, and kick you when you want 
 to balk, and slug you with a chunk of rock, 
 and cover you with nasty sores, and leave 
 you freezing out of doors — O, then you 
 won't kick up your heels! You'll know, 
 then, how a workhorse feels!' But horses 
 have no croaking voice, to chill the colt that 
 would rejoice ; no graybeard plug will leave 
 its feed to make the heart of childhood 
 bleed; no dismal prophecies are heard, no 
 moral homilies absurd, where horses stand 
 and eat their hay, and so the colts may run 
 and play!" 
 
 The Sorrel 
 Colt 
 
 [167] 
 
The 
 
 Sexton '/ 
 Inn 
 
 [i68] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 ONLY A LITTLE longer, and the 
 journey is done, my friend 1 Only 
 a little further, and the road will 
 have an endl The shadows begin to length- 
 en, the evening soon will close, and it's ho 
 for the Inn of the Sexton, the inn where 
 we'll all repose. The inn has no Bridal 
 Chamber, no suites for the famed or great; 
 the guests, when they go to slumber, are all 
 of the same estate; the chambers are small 
 and narrow, the couches are hard and cold, 
 and the grinning, fleshless landlord is not to 
 be bribed with gold. A sheet for the proud 
 and haughty, a sheet for the beggar guest; 
 a sheet for the blooming maiden — a sheet 
 \oT us all, and rest! No bells at the dawn 
 of morning, no rap at the chamber door, 
 but silence is there, and slumber, for ever 
 and ever more. Then ho for the Inn of the 
 Sexton, the inn where we all must sleep, 
 when our hands are done with their toiling, 
 and our eyes have ceased to wcepl 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 1 BOUGHT me a suit of the Sears- 
 buck brand, they said it was tailored 
 and sewed by hand; they said it was 
 woven of finest wool, and couldn't be torn 
 by an angry bull ; they said it was fine, and 
 would surely last, till Gabriel tooteth the 
 final blast. It was ten cents cheaper than 
 suits I'd bought, from local dealers, who 
 seemed quite hot, and shed a bucket of 
 briny tears, when I bought my clothes of 
 the Sawbuck Rears. I wore that suit when 
 the day was damp, and it shrunk to the size 
 of a postage stamp; the coat split up and 
 the vest split down and I scared the horses 
 all over town, for the buttons popped and 
 the seams they tore, and the stiches gave, 
 with a sullen roar. And I gave that suit 
 to a maiden small, who found it handy to 
 dress her doll. 
 
 Mail 
 
 Order 
 
 Clothes 
 
 [169] 
 
Rvening 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 [170] 
 
 IFE'S LITTLE DAY is fading fast; 
 upon the mountain's brow the sink- 
 ing sun is gleaming red; the shadows 
 lengthen now; the twilight hush comes on 
 apace, and soon the evening star will light 
 us to those chambers dim where dreamless 
 sleepers are. And when the curfew bell is 
 rung, that calls us all to rest, and we have 
 left all worldly things, at Azrael's behest, 
 
 may some truthful mourner rise, and say 
 of you or me: "Gee whiz! I'm sorry that 
 he's dead! He was a honey bee! Whate'er 
 his job he did his best; he put on all his 
 steam, in every stunt he had to do he was a 
 four-horse team. He thought that man was 
 placed on earth to help his fellowguys; he 
 never wore a frosty face, and balked at 
 weeping eyes; the hard luck pilgrim always 
 got a handout at his door, and any friend 
 could help himself to all he had in store; 
 he tried to make his humble home the gay- 
 est sort of camp, till Death, the king of 
 bogies, came and slugged him in the lamp. 
 
 1 don't believe a squarer guy existed in the 
 land, and Death was surely off his base when 
 this galoot was canned!" 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 THE STARS will come back to the 
 azure vault when the clouds are all 
 blown away; and the sun will come 
 back when the night is done, and give us 
 another day; the cows will come back from 
 the meadows lush, and the birds to their 
 trysting tree, but the money I paid to a 
 mining shark will never come back to me! 
 The leaves will come back to the naked 
 boughs, and the flowers to the frosty brae; 
 the spring will come back like a blooming 
 bride, and the breezes that blow in May; 
 and the joy will come back to the stricken 
 heart, and laughter and hope and glee, but 
 the money I blew for some mining stock 
 will never come back to me! 
 
 They All 
 Come Back 
 
 [171] 
 
The 
 
 Cussing 
 
 Habit 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 [172] 
 
 THE JACKAL is a beastly beast; and 
 when it hankers for a feast, it has no 
 use for nice fresh meat; the all-fired 
 fool would rather eat some animal that died 
 last year; and so the jackal, far and near, is 
 shunned by self-respecting brutes, and 
 slugged with rocks, and bricks, and boots. 
 And men whose language is decayed, who 
 make profanity a trade, are like the jackal 
 of the wild, that hunts around for things 
 defiled. In all your rounds you'll never 
 find a healthy, clean and gentle mind pos- 
 sessed by any son of wrath whose language 
 needs a Turkish bath. On great occasions 
 there's excuse for turning ring-tailed cuss- 
 words loose; the Father of his Country 
 swore at Monmouth, and then cussed some 
 more; that patient soul, the Man of Uz, 
 with boils so thick he couldn't buzz, ripped 
 off some language rich and brown, until old 
 Bildad called him down. Great men, be- 
 neath some awful stroke let loose remarks 
 that fairly smoke, and we forgive them as 
 we write the story of their deeds of might. 
 But little men, who swear, and swear, and 
 thus pollute our common air, are foul and 
 foolish as the frogs that trumpet in their 
 native bogs. 
 
JOHN BULL looks forth upon the 
 main, and heaves a sigh, as though in 
 pain; he wipes away the tears and 
 cries, in sorrow: "Blawst my blooming 
 eyes! There's fungus growing on my 
 realm! I need a hustler at the helm! 
 These once progressive British isles are left 
 behind a million miles; it was a blamed 
 Italian chap that made that wireless mes- 
 sage trap; a Frenchman made the whole 
 world blink by flying safely o'er the drink; 
 a Dutchman built a big balloon, in which 
 he'll journey to the moon; and now I'm 
 told, lud bless my soul, a Yankee's gone 
 and found the Pole! Have Britons lost 
 their steam and vim? Are we no longer 
 in the swim? Are we content to tag be- 
 hind, and trust in fate, and go it blind? 
 Is this our England lying dead, with candles 
 at her feet and head? Has Genius torn 
 her robe and died, and have we naught to 
 brace our pride?" A voice comes sighing 
 o'er the land — a voice John Bull can un- 
 derstand; a female voice that's bright and 
 gay, and in his ears it seems to say: "Cheer 
 up! The gods are with you yet — ^you al- 
 ways have the suffragette 1" 
 
 John Bull 
 
 [173] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 An 
 Oversight 
 
 WE'RE MAKING laws, with lots 
 of noise, to keep from harm our 
 precious boys. The curfew bell 
 booms out at eight, and warns the lads to 
 pull their freight for home and bed and 
 balmy sleep, while wary cops their vigils 
 keep. The cheap toy pistol's down and out; 
 we won't have things like that about; and 
 boys who'd hear the pistol's toot must sit 
 and watch their parents shoot. The cigar- 
 ette at last is canned; the children of this 
 happy land can buy such coffin-nails no 
 more, which sometimes makes the darlings 
 sore. Each year new laws and statutes 
 brings, to shield them from corrupting 
 things. It's strange that we should over- 
 look the screaming blood-and-thunder book, 
 the wild and wooly, red-hot yarn, that 
 Johnnie reads behind the barn. The tales 
 of bandits who have slain a cord of men, 
 and robbed a train; of thieves who break 
 away from jail, with punk detectives on 
 their trail; of long haired scouts and men 
 of wrath who nothing fear — except a bath. 
 Such yarns as these our Johnnie reads; they 
 brace him up for bloody deeds; and when 
 he can he takes the trail, and ends his bright 
 career in jail. So, while we're swatting 
 evil things, and putting little boys on wings, 
 let's swat the book that leaves a stain upon 
 the reader's soul and brain. 
 
 [174] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 HE HAD journeyed, sore and weary, 
 over deserts wide and dreary; 
 through the snows of far Sibery ihe 
 had dragged his frozen form; he had 
 searched the site of Eden, been through 
 Kansas, wild and bleedin'; in the far-off 
 hills of Sweden he had faced the winter 
 storm. In the vain pursuit of glory, hoping 
 he would live in story, he had hoofed it to 
 Empory, from Toronto on the lake; he had 
 heard land agents rattle through the 
 suburbs of Seattle, he had seen the Creek 
 of Battle, where they live on sawdust cake. 
 Fate was kind, and just to prove her he had 
 journeyed to Vancouver, where the emi- 
 grant and mover pitch their tents upon the 
 street; he had roamed the broad Savannah, 
 he had voted in Montana; hunting with 
 the mighty Bwana, Afric's jungles knew 
 his feet. He had sung the boomer's ditty 
 down in Oklahoma City, thinking it a 
 blooming pity that the town had such a 
 name; he had mined in cold Alaska, farmed 
 with Bryan in Nebraska, and was never 
 known to ask a least advantage in the game. 
 To his native town returning, all reporters 
 there were yearning to receive a statement 
 burning, from this calm intrepid soul; not 
 of fights or sieges gory was the hero's sim- 
 ple story; "I have but one claim to glory — 
 I have never found the Pole I'* 
 
 The 
 Traveler 
 
 [175] 
 
Saturday 
 Night 
 
 [176] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 SATURDAY NIGHT, and the week's 
 work done, and the Old Man home 
 with a bunch of mon'! You see him 
 sit on the cottage porch, and he puffs away 
 at a five-cent torch, while the good wife 
 sings at her evening chores, and the chil- 
 dren gambol around outdoors. The Old 
 Man sits on his work-day hat, and he 
 doesn't envy the plutocrat; his debts are 
 paid and he owns his place,, and he'll look 
 a king in the blooming face;, his hands are 
 hard with the brick and loam, but his heart 
 is soft with the love of home! Saturday 
 night, and it's time for bed! And the kids 
 come in with a buoyant tread; and they 
 hush their noise at the mother's look, as she 
 slowly opens a heavy book, and reads the 
 tale of the stormy sea, and the voice that 
 quieted Galilee. Then away to bed and 
 the calm repose that only honesty ever 
 knows. Saturday night, and the world is 
 still, and it's only the erring who finds 
 things ill; there is sweet content and a 
 sweeter rest, where a good heart beats in a 
 brave man's breast. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 SMOKING is a filthy habit, and a big, 
 fat, black cigar advertises that you're 
 straying from the Higher Life afar. 
 I have walked in summer meadows where 
 the sunbeams flashed and broke, and I never 
 saw the horses or the sheep or cattle smoke; 
 I have watched the birds, with wonder, 
 when the world with dew was wet, and I 
 never saw a robin puffing at a cigarette; I 
 have fished in many rivers when the sucker 
 crop was ripe, and I never saw a catfish 
 pulling at a briar pipe. Man's the only liv- 
 ing creature that parades this vale of tears, 
 like a blooming traction engine, blowing 
 smoke from mouth and ears. If Dame 
 Nature had intended, when she first in- 
 vented man, that he'd smoke, she would 
 have built him on a widely diff'rent plan; 
 she'd have fixed him with a damper and a 
 stovepipe and a grate; he'd have had a 
 smoke consumer that was strictly up-to-date. 
 Therefore, let the erring mortal put his 
 noisome pipe in soak — he can always get a 
 new one if he feels he needs a smoke. 
 
 Lady 
 Nicotine 
 
 {."^lll 
 
*'0 come, my Iwe, from ytur boixur in haste, ht us trim 
 9ur sails for the ether ivaste, aivay, aiuayV 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 OCOME, my love, for the world's at 
 rest, and the sun's asleep in the cur- 
 tained West, and the night breeze 
 sighs from between the stars, and my air- 
 ship waits by your window bars! We'll 
 sail the sea of the waveless wind, we'll 
 leave the earth and its dross behind, and 
 watch its lights from the cloudy heights — 
 O come, my love, on this best of nights! 
 O come, my love, from your bower in 
 haste, let us trim our sails for the ether 
 waste, away, away, where the weary moan 
 of the workday world is never known; 
 where the only track is the track of wings 
 that the skylark leaves when it soars and 
 sings ! So come, my love ere the night is 
 old, and the stars have paled, and the dawn 
 is cold ; the ship can't wait for its precious 
 freight, for it's costing a dollar a minute, 
 straight. 
 
 Up'tO'Date 
 Serenade 
 
 [179] 
 
The 
 Consumer 
 
 [1 80] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THEY WILL tinker with the tariff 
 till the rivers are gone dry, they will 
 wrestle with the subject night and 
 day; they'll be piling up the language when 
 the snow begins to fly, they'll be fiddling in 
 the same old weary way. O the grand old 
 windy wonders who adorn the senate floor, 
 till the windup of the world will be on 
 deck; and there's just one thing that's cer- 
 tain, that is sure for ever more; the consum- 
 er always gets it in the neck. There is talk 
 of hides and leather, and there's talk of 
 nails and glue, there are weary wads of 
 twaddle on cement; and the man from Bun- 
 combe Corners stands and toots his loud ba- 
 zoo, till his language in the ceiling makes 
 a dent; no one in this martyred country 
 knows how long this will endure, and there 
 isn't any way the flood to check; and there's 
 just one thing about it that is reasonably 
 sure; the consumer always gets it in the 
 neck. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 WHEN A DAMSEL has a steady 
 who's a pretty decent man, and 
 who shows a disposition to perform 
 the best he can ; who is shy of sinful habits, 
 and whose bosom holds no guile, and who 
 labors in the vineyard with a gay and cheer- 
 ful smile, then she shouldn't make him 
 promise that he'll do a seraph stunt, when 
 they've stood up at the altar with the 
 preacher-man in front; and she shouldn't 
 spring a lecture when he comes around to 
 court, for a man is only human, and his 
 wings are pretty short. When a maiden has 
 a lover who is surely making good, who is 
 winning admiration, who is sawing lots of 
 wood, then she shouldn't make him promise 
 that he'll be an angel boy when the wed- 
 ding ceremony ushers in a life of joy; she 
 should murmur: "He's a daisy, and we'll 
 take things as they come; for a man is only 
 human, and his halo's on the bum." 
 
 Advice To 
 A Damsel 
 
 [i8i] 
 
A New 
 Year Vow 
 
 [182] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 I DON'T go much on gilded vows, for 
 I have made them in the past, and they 
 are with the bow-wow-wows — they 
 were too all-fired good to last. And so I'll 
 make one vow today: I'll simply try to do 
 my best; that vow should help me on my 
 way, for it embraces all the rest. I'll take 
 the middle of the road, and always do the 
 best I can, and pack along my little load, 
 and try to be a manly man. A man may end 
 his journey here too poor to buy a decent 
 shroud, and planted be without a tear of 
 mourning from the worldly crowd; but 
 when he's in the judgment scale, he'll come 
 triumphant from the test; no man has failed, 
 no man can fail, who always, always does 
 his best. And though my pathway be ob- 
 scure, and void of honor and applause, and 
 though the lean wolf of the moor to my 
 cheap doorway nearer draws, I'll keep a 
 stout heart in my breast, and follow up this 
 simple plan; I'll always do my very best, 
 and try to be a manly man. 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 HE LABORED on the railway track; 
 his task would break a horse's back; 
 he tugged at things that weighed a 
 ton, and all the time the summer sun 
 blazed down and cooked him where he 
 toiled, and still he worked, though fried 
 and broiled. I grieved for this poor section 
 man, who drank warm water from a can, 
 and ate rye bread and greenish cheese, and 
 had big blisters on his knees. "Ods fish!" 
 quoth I, "when day is dead, methinks you 
 straightway go to bed, too labor-worn to 
 heave a sigh, as wounded soldiers go to die." 
 "That's where you're off," the toiler said; 
 "I'm in no rush to go to bed; you must be 
 talking in a trance — tonight I'm going to a 
 dance!" "Gadzooks!" thought I, "and eke 
 ods blood! My tears have streamed, a 
 briny flood, because of all the cares and 
 woes the horny-handed toiler knows! And 
 it would seem, from what I learn, that he 
 has fun, and some to burn. Gadzooks 
 again! It secmeth plain, that weeping in 
 this world is vain!" 
 
 The Stricken 
 Toiler 
 
 [183] 
 
The 
 Lawbooks 
 
 [184] 
 
 Walt Mason 
 
 THE LAWS are numerous as flies up- 
 on a summer day; at making laws 
 the statesmen wise still pound and 
 pound away. No man on earth could recol- 
 lect a list of all the laws; I tried it once — 
 my mind is wrecked, and now you know the 
 cause. Some gents who are in prison yet 
 proclaim with angry shout that they are so 
 with laws beset, they really can't stay out. 
 "A man can't walk around a block," I heard 
 a sad man wail, "but what the cops will 
 round him flock, and chuck him into jail." 
 I heard the butcher man repine, and weep, 
 and rail at fate, because he had to pay a 
 fine for being short on weight. I heard the 
 corner grocer snort, and use some language 
 sour, because they yanked him into court for 
 selling moldy flour. The milkman bottled 
 half the creek, and sold it on his route; he 
 said: "The law just makes me sick," when 
 friends had bailed him out. The laws are 
 numerous as scales upon a fish, no doubt; 
 and so some people are in jails, and simply 
 can't stay out; but all the time and every- 
 where one great truth stands out clear : The 
 man who acts upon the square, has nothing 
 much to fear. 
 
I'M WEARY now of Sherlock Holmes, 
 and all the imitative crew; I'm tired 
 of triumphs built upon a collar button, 
 as a clew. The sleuth is always tall and 
 thin, with nervous hands and hawk-like 
 face; he scours the slums or moves around 
 in marble halls, with equal grace; he al- 
 ways takes some kind of dope or plays the 
 flute or violin, and when he's billed for 
 active work he glues false whiskers on his 
 chin. He always has a Watson near, a tire- 
 some chump, who sits and broods, the while 
 the selling-plater sleuth reels off a string of 
 platitudes. Detective yarns are all so stale! 
 The plot is evermore the same; we always 
 have the murdered man, with knives or bul- 
 lets in his frame; the pantry window is un- 
 locked; the safe's been opened with a file; 
 suspicion shifts until it rests on every man 
 within a mile; the local peelers blunder 
 round, and ball things up in frightful shape, 
 and then the Great Detective comes, with 
 lens and rule and meas'ring tape; he crawls 
 around upon the floor, examines all the 
 water mains, and tastes the ashes in the 
 stove, and sticks his nose into the drains, 
 and then he says the problem's solved; 
 forthwith he spends two weeks or more in 
 showing Watson and the world how easy 
 'tis to be a bore I 
 
 Sleuths of 
 Fiction 
 
 [185] 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 The Idle 
 Question 
 
 I'M TIRED of the bootless questions 
 that rise in my vagrant mind; I gaze 
 at the stars and wonder how many may 
 be behind; a myriad worlds are whirling, 
 concealed by the nearer spheres; and there 
 they have coursed their orbits a million mil- 
 lion years. I gaze at the spangled spaces, 
 the bed of a billion stars, from the luminous 
 veil of Venus, to the militant glare of Mars, 
 and wonder, when all is ended, as ended all 
 things must be, if the Captain will then re- 
 member a poor little soul like me. I'm tired 
 of the endless questions that come, and will 
 not begone, when I face to the East and wit- 
 ness the miracle of the dawn; the march of 
 the shining coursers o'er forest and sea and 
 land; the splendor of gorgeous colors ap- 
 plied by the Captain's hand; the parting of 
 crimson curtains afar in the azure steep ; the 
 hush of a world-wide wonder, when even 
 the zephyrs sleep. And I look on the birth 
 of morning as millions have gazed before, 
 and question the wave that questions the 
 rocks and the sandy shore. "When all of 
 these things are ended, as ended these things 
 must be, will the Captain of all remember 
 a poor little soul like me?'* 
 
 [i86] 
 
^ 
 
 c 
 
 a 
 
 E 
 
 £ 
 
 o 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 TEN MILLION bones," said good 
 John Dee, "will reach the Sunny 
 South from me; this hookworm 
 scourge, that ruins men, and lays a country 
 waste again, must be suppressed at any cost 
 — those broken men must not be lost! To 
 make them feel like men once more, to 
 drive gaunt Famine from their door, to 
 make them like strong Saxons live, ten mil- 
 lion bones I'll freely give. The victims of 
 the hookworm scourge, the toilers at the 
 loom and forge, the humble yeoman at his 
 plow, may see some ray of comfort now! I 
 shudder when I read the tales of ruin in 
 those Southern vales; too tired to do the 
 simplest chores, men lounge all day about 
 their doors, and when the sun's low in the 
 West, the whole caboodle go to rest. And 
 thus these tillers of the soil burn mighty 
 little of my oil. When this outrageous 
 worm decamps, they'll trim the wicks and 
 light the lamps, and read the books they 
 have in stock, and all sit up till one o'clock. 
 The hookworm's acted very mean in shut- 
 ting off the kerosene, and so I'll send a good 
 big roll, to put the blamed thing in the 
 hole." 
 
 ThePhilatp' 
 thropist 
 
 [187] 
 
Other Days 
 
 [i88] 
 
 Walt Maso n 
 
 BACKWARD, turn backward, oh time, 
 in thy flight, feed me on gruel again, 
 just for tonight; I am so wearied of 
 restaurant steaks, vitrified doughnuts and 
 vulcanized cakes, oysters that sleep in a 
 watery bath, butter as strong as Goliath of 
 Gath; weary of paying for what I can't eat, 
 chewing up rubber and calling it meat. 
 Backward, turn backward, for weary I am! 
 Give me a whack at my grandmother's jam ; 
 let me drink milk that has never been skim- 
 med, let me eat butter whose hair has been 
 trimmed; let me but once have an old- 
 fashioned pie, then I'll be willing to curl 
 up and die; I have been eating iron filings 
 for years — is it a wonder I'm melting in 
 tears? 
 
Walt Mason 
 
 THE YEAR'S growing ashen, and 
 weary and gray; full soon he will 
 cash in, and mosey away. A while 
 yet he'll totter along to his grave; he's 
 marked for the slaughter, and nothing can 
 save. The year that is leaving seems 
 weighted with woe; and Nature is griev- 
 ing because he must go. The forests are 
 sighing and moaning all day; the night 
 winds are crying, upon their sad way; the 
 gray clouds are taking a threatening shape ; 
 the dead grass is shaking like billows of 
 crape. Dame Nature is tender, and dirges 
 she'll croon, regretting the splendor and 
 glory of June; she knows that tomorrow 
 the old year will sleep ; she knows that the 
 sorrow of parting is deep. In this world, 
 O never can friends with us stay! Some 
 loved one forever is going away! And that 
 is the story of people and years; a morn- 
 ing of glory, an evening of tears; an hour 
 of caressing, a call at the dawn, a prayer 
 and a blessing, and then they are gone. 
 
 The 
 
 Passing 
 
 Year 
 
 [189] 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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