Class rS37 ■ " 
 
 Book \ .' , —^ 
 
 Gopiglit]^" '' -^-^- 
 
 COFOUGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
FOR PORTS UNKNOWN 
 
For 
 Ports Unknown 
 
 by Homer McKee 
 
 y... 
 
I q ^ ^ 
 
 Copyright 1922 
 By Homer McKee 
 
 JAN 1A1Q22 
 
 ^)G!.A65352S 
 
 <Vv * \ 
 
Idealism 
 
 Come sing me a song too endearing to sing. 
 
 Come whisper a wor'd in my ear, 
 As soft as the sheen on a butterfly's wing — 
 
 Too soft for me ever to hear. 
 
 Come show me the depths of the soul that you hide. 
 
 Tell a tale too intent to be told. 
 Bring your lute and your lyre, and sit by my side 
 
 While I twang on my zither of gold. 
 
 The door to the street is bolted secure. 
 
 We're shut in from the world for awhile. 
 There are vistas atdaiting that beck and allure — 
 
 There are faces of angels that smile. 
 
 Things never to be shall grow in our boiver. 
 And the dreams and the prayers we have kiiown. 
 
 For one precious moment shall spring forth and 
 flower 
 From the seedlings of hope we have sown. 
 
 Come sing me a song too endearing to sing. 
 
 Come whisper a word in my ear. 
 As soft as the sheen on a butterfly's wing — 
 
 Too soft for me ever to hear. 
 
Preface 
 
 THERE is nothing so calculated to rob a trip of 
 its fun as thoughts of a destination. The play 
 instinct rebels against a time limit or geo- 
 graphical restraint. 
 
 It is one thing to be methodical. It is quite an- 
 other thing to be happy. 
 
 Our best thoughts are the children of our moods 
 of utter abandon. 
 
 Irresponsibility is the state of mind which all of 
 us attain when we are experiencing our most sig- 
 nificant moments. 
 
 We love to do as we please — all of us. 
 
 And for once the writer proposes to yield to this 
 instinct. 
 
 I am headed for Ports Unknown. 
 
 My craft is pleasure bent. 
 
 Will you join me? 
 
 One thing I can assure you 
 
 — We will cruise, whenever we please and wher- 
 ever we please, and occasionally, if a bay or a cove 
 delights us, we will cast anchor and enjoy it — the 
 while making whatever soundings and observations 
 that may please us. H. M. 
 
Introspection 
 
 THERE is a big, hickory log on the andirons, a 
 mellow light on the round table that holds my 
 books, and at my elbow, a pouch of tobacco 
 full of nicotine, fragrance — and dreams. 
 
 Outside, belated footsteps crinkle on the packed 
 snow and a wind drones and soughs around the 
 gables of the house. 
 
 Reason has done a good day's work and turned in 
 for the night. 
 
 Fancy, long stabled in and pent up, is finally un- 
 bridled and I look for a spell of meaningless capers 
 and careening about in utter defiance to all respecta- 
 bility and decorum. 
 
 Very well. When a man gets to a place where 
 conventionality has so beset him that he dare not 
 yield to harmless impulses he is worse than nothing. 
 
 Personally, I love to believe that the spirits and 
 fairies and gnomes which exist in the backs of our 
 heads are really more worth while than the loga- 
 rithms and diagrams and syllogisms which inhabit 
 our regions of logic. We, to my way of thinking, 
 would be a deal better off both individually and as 
 a nation if we pensioned those who play and pun- 
 ished those who work. 
 
 On the face of it that sounds like the statement of 
 
a long-haired, bomb-throwing anarchist — does it 
 not? 
 
 Nothing, however, should be judged too hastily — 
 not even the irresponsible statement of a man who 
 frankly admits that, for the nonce, he is mentally 
 drifting. 
 
 Let us dissect that haphazard observation of mine 
 to the effect that players should be encouraged and 
 workers eliminated. 
 
 First, what is work? 
 
 And after we have answered that question to our 
 satisfaction, let us determine what "play" means. 
 
 My notion of work may not conform with the 
 notions of other people. To me, anything that one 
 does not enjoy doing is work, and anything that we 
 enjoy doing is play. 
 
 On this basis I can not recall ever having worked 
 in my life. I at least try to enjoy everything I do. 
 
 — Otherwise I try to avoid doing it. 
 
 That being the case, it follows that usually what- 
 ever I do is play. 
 
 There is a chasm of difference between work and 
 love's labor. 
 
 All of us should labor, but we should seek out 
 those labors which can be approached in a spirit of 
 self-expression. There are enough enjoyable things 
 to be done to keep all of us busy — and fortunately 
 the enjoyable labors are the most profitable. 
 
 "Idealism !" you cry. 
 
— And I admit the charge — be it adverse criticism 
 or praise. 
 
 I do not believe that any man, who is not an ideal- 
 ist, has the power to make play out of labor. And 
 I know, of a certainty, that in no other way can any- 
 thing worth while be accomplished. 
 
 Whenever you find a faulty pick handle or a weak 
 law, it was made by a man who took no pride or 
 pleasure in what he was doing. 
 
 Which brings me back to my original contention 
 that people who play should be encouraged in this 
 pursuit and those who can not play — the drudges — 
 the unimaginative grinds on the tread mill of the 
 times — should be mercifully made way with. Or, 
 better still, they should be let alone so that they may 
 quietly, like the silly candle that is lit, burn them- 
 selves out and be forgotten. 
 
 What I like is a man, or a machine, or an idea 
 that has enough of that God-given thing which we 
 call initiative to create a set of conditions all its own. 
 If it lacks initiative it lacks self-power and it can 
 therefore be nothing more than a tool, an imple- 
 ment whereby merely the self-expression and joy 
 of another is attained. 
 
Alpha and Omega 
 
 JUST as I was about to reach a conclusion relative 
 to initiative and self-determination, and to 
 weave this conclusion into a neat, little thing 
 applying to the play instinct, two things suddenly 
 happened to break my train of thought. 
 
 The first was a baby's cry. 
 
 — The second the low, sonorous striking of my old 
 "Seth Thomas" in the hallway. 
 
 The first was the voice of infancy impatiently pro- 
 claiming against delay and restraint. 
 
 — The second the voice of Nemesis reminding me 
 that my balance in the bank of time is fast being 
 depleted and likely to be overdrawn at any moment. 
 
 The first was the cry of man's beginning. 
 
 — The second the plaint of an approaching end. 
 
 It is life and death continuing the grim grapple 
 in which they are eternally locked and which life 
 can never win. 
 
 I think the most interesting thing in the world is 
 a babe in arms. 
 
 Sometimes I wonder if it is truly a kindness to 
 bring them into the world. 
 
 And I have never been quite certain that children 
 owe their parents any more than parents owe their 
 children. 
 
 No child was ever asked if it cared to be born. 
 
 Being born entails an appalling responsibility. 
 
 Before a child is born it is a free vapor-being 
 
floating through the nebula of cosmos in touch and 
 in tune and a part of the great spirit of the universe. 
 
 After it is born, sordid, material things beset it 
 round about — it is a victim of pain and of sin — de- 
 sires which it must resist, or suffer, are put in its 
 heart — and laws which it must obey, or die, are im- 
 posed upon it. 
 
 What do you suppose the little consciousness, 
 which we call babyhood, must think of this world, 
 after its recent habitation of the upper strata ? How 
 do you suppose a birch sprout feels to the tender 
 skin of a child on whom the kiss of angels is not yet 
 cold? 
 
 For a calloused and beastly human being to lay 
 hands on a little, white messenger from God, is, to 
 my way of thinking, the very dregs of blasphemy. 
 
 A* J!» J* 
 
 Whenever I have punished my child I was merely 
 trying to kill, in his pain, the faults he inherited 
 from me. Was it fair? 
 
 I have never seen an idea pounded into a child by 
 brute strength which it could not have been made 
 more readily to understand through an appeal to its 
 reason, or its emotion, or its love. 
 
 The "'mpelling influence behind bodily punishment 
 is fear, and the result of it is hate. 
 
 If my child loves me as I would that he did, he 
 will obey me — because he loves me. 
 
 A» i^ A* 
 
 As a matter of fact, obedience impelled by love is 
 the only obedience worth while. 
 
In this connection I cannot bring myself to feel 
 that fear of hell's fire has done much toward effect- 
 ing obedience to the ten commandments ; to my way 
 of thinking, the promise of Elysium has done far 
 more to purge the world. Sugar catches more flies 
 and saves more souls than vinegar. One promise is 
 worth a thousand threats so far as constructive re- 
 sults go. 
 
 Occasionally the Iron hand becomes necessary, but 
 I think that even the most ardent advocates of force 
 and devotees of gunpowder will have to admit that 
 the Iron hand leads only to Verdun. At such times 
 as the world has actually stepped forward it has 
 held onto the gentle hand of the Nazarene. 
 
Now 
 
 (Christmas— 1916) 
 
 (During the Great War) 
 The solar system is agog — 
 Planets o'erride their orbits and careen 
 As they have never done before. 
 The silver of the stars is turned to red, 
 As if a 'million needles had draivn blood. 
 The golden bars of evening are no Tnore, 
 And in their stead great splotches mar the West. 
 The music of the spheres is noiv a plaint 
 Of sobbing women and the groans of men. 
 God, ivhat a time! 
 
 When tcill the hand of Galilee stretch forth again, 
 And when will His same voice be heard above 
 This maddening chaos? Speak to us! 
 Utter Thy high pre-emptment — 
 
 "PEACE— be still." 
 
The Absolute 
 
 UP STAIRS at this moment a little five-year-old 
 curly-head is sleeping. His mother has kissed 
 him and tucked him in for the night. He was 
 so "all in" from a day of play that he didn't "get 
 away" with his prayers very well — he sort of mum- 
 bled them — but he did manage to say, "bless daddy 
 and mother and Bob and Betty and grandmother 
 and all my little friends." 
 
 He is a generous little rascal. The way he scat- 
 ters his blessings around one would think he had no 
 end of them. And frankly, I don't believe that he 
 has. The world, to him, is a riot of sunshine. The 
 air is alive with the songs of birds and heavy with 
 the smell of roses. He knows nothing of misery and 
 want. His bath is ready for him each morning — 
 tempered to his skin. The white of an opalescent 
 egg is always waiting for him on its slice of hot- 
 buttered toast. The mug of milk somehow manages 
 to be always at his dimpled elbow when he gets 
 squared away for breakfast. He has no more con- 
 ception than the man in the moon of how it gets 
 there. He takes it for granted that tepid baths, and 
 poached eggs, and milk are regular things served 
 every morning to all little boys all over everywhere. 
 He accepts tender care as his natural right. He 
 supposes that parental love is universal and that 
 tucking children in is the rule to which there are no 
 exceptions. He has never heard of orphans or hag 
 mothers who eat opium. He never missed a meal in 
 
his life, and it would be impossible to explain starva- 
 tion to him. After all, why should he be told of 
 these things — he will find them all out soon enough 
 for himself? 
 
 A» A* J^ 
 
 A five-year-old curly-head is the most absolute of 
 all monarchs. He is the only crown-head who is 
 conspiracy-proof and whose wish is actually law. 
 No shift in affairs can unseat him. 
 
 God save the King. 
 
 We all fear and reverence and obey him. 
 
 If we were to violate his laws he could mete out 
 the most terrible punishment conceivable. 
 
 — he has power to leave us out of his prayers. 
 
 (J!* •S' li^ 
 
 Five years ago tonight he was a red, wrinkled, 
 squirming, squinty-eyed baby that thought every- 
 thing was made to put in his mouth. People cred- 
 ited him with being unusual. He looked like every 
 other little baby in the world to me. The only differ- 
 ence lay in the fact that he alone was mine. 
 
 I have no idea where our baby has gone. Cer- 
 tainly that little curly-head up stairs can't be he — 
 the two are so vastly different. One is our boy — the 
 other is like the memory of this morning's mist. 
 The whole thing is too mysterious for me to under- 
 stand. It is the one miracle. 
 
 Why should I even try to comprehend it? To re- 
 duce it all to formulae would ruin the effect. I 
 merely know that a little curly-head up stairs is 
 sleeping and that he has been left here in place of the 
 baby that is gone. 
 
Adam's Equity in Eden 
 
 DEALING in real estate is an old established 
 science. The idea is to get ground for less 
 than it's worth ; sell it for more than it's 
 worth; and buy an automobile with the difference. 
 Few people make money in real estate, because few 
 people know what a front foot of anything is actually 
 worth. 
 
 For instance, there was the Adam family. Mr. 
 Adam got in on the ground floor on a piece of "stuff" 
 which he felt sure was going to develop — everything 
 was moving that way, you know. It was all laid 
 out in shrubbery. There were the cutest little by- 
 paths imaginable leading through the dearest al- 
 coves and vistas of foliage. 
 
 Mrs. Adam ought to have been satisfied. She had 
 practically nothing to do. Sure, help was hard to 
 get, and on wash day she had to hang out the fig 
 leaves herself, but that oughtn't to discourage any 
 reasonable woman. Just the same she contracted 
 the back-to-the-farm-itis, and nothing would do but 
 Mr. Adam should let loose of his equity in Eden and 
 get somewhere on an interurban line "away out." 
 He tried to tell her it was a bad move. In fact, he 
 actually stood his ground in a very unmanly way. 
 Then Mrs. Adam took the matter in her own hands 
 and got her husband evicted. 
 
 Frontage on Eden avenue, now, can't be bought 
 at any price. Think how much better the Adamses 
 would have been if they had only known enough to 
 
hold on — there is a great demand these days for 
 ground that will grow ambrosia, and they could have 
 asked their own price and got it. As it is, of course, 
 they and their heirs have had to get down to brass 
 tacks and sweat like anybody else. It goes pretty 
 hard on an old exclusive family, like the Adamses, 
 to have to go to work — and drive their own cars. 
 
 Coming down is a lot less inspiring than going up. 
 They do say that Eve — that was Mrs. Adam's 
 maiden name — finally got so she sort of lost interest 
 in things. At times she became unbearable and 
 scolded something awful. She couldn't find anything 
 to please her. Every time she got into a new bunga- 
 low she began snooping around for leaks in the 
 plumbing or neighbors who pumped piano players. 
 Finally Adam simply gave up. "It's no use, old 
 lady," he would moan ; "you weren't satisfied with 
 Eden — so what chance has a fellow with a cross- 
 street lot to please you ? I might have been worth a 
 barrel of money now if you had risked my judgment 
 and stuck where we were in the first place." 
 
 "That's all right, Mr. Adam," she would retort, 
 "any woman would rather have her own way than 
 live in Paradise!" And in the vernacular, "Ain't 
 that the truth." 
 
 J* A* A* 
 
 A joke should never be dull and should always 
 have a point — but the point should never be sharp 
 enough to draw blood. 
 
Real Wealth 
 
 They say that culture consists in knowing the rela- 
 tive value of things about you. 
 
 If this be true none of us is cultured; for most 
 certainly there is not a human being alive who ac- 
 tually knows the intrinsic worth of anything. 
 
 Nothing can be valuable which is not permanent. 
 
 Nothing, material, can be permanent. 
 
 So about all which possesses real worth are the 
 constructive abstractions about us which we can not 
 see — such things as Faith, Love, Sympathy and the 
 spirit of Self -Sacrifice. 
 
 The beauty of these abstract riches lies in the fact 
 that they are all-gratifying and free. 
 
 A Man's Measure 
 
 If you want to know what a man is really worth 
 do not look him up in Bradstreets — catch him at his 
 own breakfast table. Count the children around 
 him. Notice whether they fear him or fondle him. 
 Look into his eye and see if he is concealing anything 
 from the woman who sits opposite. If he laughs 
 the laugh of a man who has kept the game clean; 
 if his babies treat him like a big brother, and if his 
 wife is still his sweetheart, there are not enough 
 figures on an adding machine to total his riches. 
 This is not piffle. Every man knows how true it is, 
 and the blacker he is, the better he knows it. 
 
My Friend 
 
 MY FRIEND is the man who at some time or 
 other has caught me with the goods on and 
 who stands for me — anyhow. 
 
 He is the chap who lets me shift for myself, when 
 I am present, but who defends me to his last drop 
 if anyone happens to turn his tongue loose — when 
 I am absent. 
 
 He is the man to whom I can intrust my latch key, 
 my signed checks and my hearth. 
 
 As a parent loves his children because of their 
 very weakness, so my friend loves me because of my 
 faults. 
 
 He alone I do not have to sell. 
 
 If the time ever comes when it is his life or mine, 
 we will each reach for the short straw. 
 
Solitude 
 
 SOMETIMES I wonder, as I sit alone night after 
 night, whether I have lost my boyhood ca- 
 pacity for enjoying people or whether people 
 have lost the capacity for enjoying me. Is my isola- 
 tion voluntary or enforced? Why, for instance, are 
 there not a couple of red-blooded pals slapping me on 
 the knee at this moment and calling me "Old Fel- 
 low" like they used to back at the University? Cer- 
 tainly there is enough tobacco here for the crowd, 
 and heaven knows there are good pipes enough, there 
 in the rack, to go 'round. Why, when I was twenty I 
 might start across the campus alone, but I could 
 never make the complete voyage without some hand 
 finding its way to my arm. 
 
 After one gets into business people quit taking 
 him by the arm — don't they? 
 
 Is it because, after one gets into the more serious 
 phases of living that he hasn't time to grow a new 
 set of real friends and the ones he used to have are 
 no longer accessible ; or is it all due to the fact that 
 after one gets to be thirty he ceases to be inter- 
 esting? 
 
 Has the infernal fight for money burned the life 
 out of me, and, in its stead, left the cinders of a man? 
 Or is it that a man is but the cinders of a boy? 
 
 Certainly this can not be true, because I know 
 for a surety that I feel more deeply and more ten- 
 
derly now than I did ten years ago. Music, if it has 
 a plaint in it, chokes me more completely than it used 
 to. The flag, if it flutters under just the right cir- 
 cumstances, makes more goose flesh up my back. I 
 think I could take cold steel for that flag with a lit- 
 tle better grace now than I could have done in the 
 old days when two shaves a week were enough. I 
 have a growing compassion for beggars and or- 
 phans, and cripples. Christmas cuts me deeper 
 every year, and the thought of an empty stocking 
 runs me through, and sends me out into the snow 
 with a tonneau full of nick-nacks and a heart full of 
 love for all the dirty-faced, little brats I can find. 
 
 No — I refuse to admit that I am hardened; and 
 yet here I am alone tonight, just as I was last night 
 and as I will probably be tomorrow night, and the 
 next and the next. 
 
 Listen. Here is the explanation : 
 
 After one has known the kind of friends we used 
 to have, any other kind falls short. It is hard, after 
 you have known Beethoven, to warm up to George 
 Cohan — much as I like George. 
 
Gorilla Blood 
 
 ONE of my old college pals went bad. 
 I believe I would rather see him just now 
 than any of the lot. 
 
 He and I, for four years, read Chaucer and Shelly 
 and Keats under the same student lamp. 
 
 Keats appealed to him most. 
 
 No one can be wholly bad who has an ear for 
 Keats. 
 
 My friend liked his poetry — straight. 
 
 I think he had more vision than any man I have 
 ever known. 
 
 He lived in super-land most of the time. 
 
 I recall one night in particular when we were 
 lounging around ad libitum. It was quite late. 
 
 "I am beginning," he ventured, "to be somewhat 
 of a fatalist. We all think we are making ourselves 
 — but we are not, any more than a bolt or a nut in 
 an automatic machine is making itself. The self- 
 made man is a myth. If I could design my own 
 future I would spend my time around Italy, looking 
 for strange, new purples; but somebody away back 
 somewhere put a touch of the Gorilla in my blood 
 and some time it is going to come out. At times I 
 feel the impulse to kill." 
 
 It happened one night in Budapest. 
 
 The police of Europe worked hard on the case, but 
 my friend was crafty, and he was not heard of till 
 
years afterward. From what I can gather he was 
 half justified in what he did. The Keats in him re- 
 belled against certain moral violations and I suppose 
 the Gorilla in him drove the steel home. I have 
 never wanted to know the details, rather contenting 
 myself with the belief that in whatever transpired 
 that night my friend was right. 
 
 You have heard of that band of devils which the 
 French call their foreign legion. My friend in the 
 early days of the war was one of them. He was 
 wounded three times ; evidently he tried to lose his 
 life every day for months ; but the contrary surgeons 
 invariably brought him back. 
 
 Presently I got a letter from him. 
 
 It wound up like this : 
 
 * * * "You know I have a drop of Gorilla in 
 me somewhere. For years I have been trying to find 
 something for the Gorilla to do. Here at Verdun 
 Gorillas are at a premium. Three days ago a squat, 
 little general pinned some kind of a badge on me. 
 He said it was for bravery. I had to laugh, for you 
 know I was never brave. My hands are still white 
 and skinny — more like a barber's or a piano player's 
 than a butcher's ; and I tremble like an unkissed girl 
 every morning when my 'bit' starts. When I once 
 get in, I forget and stab and thrust right and left 
 under the control of something fiendish which I do 
 not understand. 
 
 "The Foreign Legion is made up of such scum, 
 
but, at that, they're a pretty loyal lot, and those of 
 us who come through, I understand, are to spend 
 the rest of our days out on Main street, under the 
 bright lights. I guess they figure that we will have 
 been through Purgatory — and will therefore be 
 purged. 
 
 ''I shall have to close nov/, for my murder hours 
 are from A. M. to P. M. and my time is never my 
 own, it seems. If the Gorilla pulls me through today 
 again I may have time for a little Keats tonight. 
 
 "God, what a joke." 
 
 — And that from my white-faced friend who 
 fainted when we branded him into the "frat." 
 
 What do we know about people, anyhow? 
 
 I confess that I, for one, shall never again venture 
 an opinion. 
 
The Blind Fish 
 
 Why waste eye sight looking into blackness? 
 
 In the natural order of things half of the world 
 is always basking in sunshine, and we are violating 
 the eternal example if we devote too much time to 
 brooding over unpleasantness. 
 
 When I catch myself mourning I invariably think 
 of a blind fish I once knew. 
 
 He was a little, white corpse, floating head down 
 in a bottle of alcohol. At one time he or his father 
 or his grandfather had been brilliant with color and 
 had flashed and darted about like a shaft of re- 
 fracted sunshine. 
 
 One day he happened to submarine his way into 
 Mammoth Cave, and, since no one had ever taken the 
 trouble to chart the place, he naturally couldn't find 
 his way out again. 
 
 There he stayed — always looking on the dark side 
 of things — until in time his eyes got tired of their 
 dummy directorship and resigned. All he had left 
 of what were once perfectly good eyes were two 
 meaningless, mocking, little black specks. 
 
 I sometimes wonder if the same thing doesn't hap- 
 pen to a man's soul if he keeps on and on living in 
 darkness. 
 
 Remember, the fate of the foolish fish who lost 
 his eyes. 
 
 It will be a sad day for you if the final inspector 
 of us all, when he looks for your soul, finds only a 
 withered, non-functionary, black speck. 
 
The First Smile 
 
 Away back in prehistoric times, the first man 
 /■\ fell asleep under the branch of a rose bush. 
 A gentle wind was blowing, and, while he 
 slept, one big, fat, fragrant rose, whose weight of 
 joyousness swung it lower than the rest, happened to 
 touch his cheek. As zephyr after zephyr toyed with 
 the rose it brushed his cheek again and again. In 
 his dreams the first man fancied that an angel kissed 
 him — and he smiled. And when he smiled the soul 
 of him smiled, too. Since then the capacity for smil- 
 ing has been inherent in all of us, and those of us 
 who do not smile are wasting our richest heritage. 
 
In the Throat of a Thrush 
 
 WHAT is civilization, anyhow? 
 For what purpose have the last twenty- 
 two hundred perfectly good years been 
 spent? 
 
 After Verdun, wouldn't it be wise for us to accept 
 our childish cyphers, over the problems of the race, 
 as all wrong and simply clean the slate? 
 
 What the monks and the mothers and the masters 
 of the past toiled over day by day through dragging 
 centuries, one man with a temper despoiled in a 
 day. It took more than a decade of sweat and servi- 
 tude and prayer to produce the Cathedral of 
 Rheims. It took one shell from a ten-inch gun to 
 undo it. 
 
 Even the chastity of the blessed Virgin was not 
 spared. 
 
 What will men stop at? 
 
 What is civilization, anyhow? 
 
 For what purpose have the last twenty-two hun- 
 dred perfectly good years been spent? 
 
 A» A* A» 
 
 Outside is a sleeping garden. Six months hence 
 it will bear roses and the birds of yesterday will 
 have returned to ride its twigs as the spring breeze 
 rocks them to and fro. 
 
 There is a power mightier than destruction. 
 
 The answer to all our silly questions is found in 
 the throat of a thrush. 
 
 God is in His heaven, and however hard it may 
 be just now to believe it — all is still well. 
 
Poker vs. Poetry 
 
 IT IS to no man's credit that he can not weep and 
 laugh — because the power to weep and to laugh 
 gives humanity its only "edge" over dogs and 
 parrots and the squirrels in the park. 
 
 Ji* A* A* 
 
 Should we express or suppress our emotions? 
 
 Is a demonstrative nature a mark of weakness? 
 
 I should say that, for anyone who wishes to put 
 living into the same category with poker and stock 
 manipulation, that a soul which insists on being seen 
 and heard is a tremendous handicap. But to the 
 man not afraid or ashamed to reveal his real feel- 
 ings, an expressive soul is the greatest of all bless- 
 ings. 
 
 I dislike a stoic quite as much as I dislike the shal- 
 low, little cooking vessels that boil over almost the 
 instant a flame strikes them. 
 
 The art of soul expression depends entirely on 
 one's ability to discriminate between what he ac- 
 tually feels and the false sensations which he either 
 hopes to feel or pretends to feel. 
 
 Until one learns to distinguish between live senti- 
 ment and false sentiment, or sentimentality he has 
 not gone far on the road to self-realization. 
 
White Light 
 
 SELF-REALIZATION is the only key to self- 
 mastery. 
 A man is a complicated, tangled mass of wir- 
 ing to begin with; and all this wiring must be un- 
 laced and separated and traced to its source before 
 there can be light and power. 
 
 In some the wires never become organized. 
 
 Such men have no potency. They sputter around 
 in darkness or spasmodic brilliancy. They never get 
 anywhere. Of voltage they have a plenty to begin 
 with, but they soon lose their current and become 
 "scrap." 
 
 Given proper insulation, proper connections and 
 a basic, efficient generator — and you have serenity, 
 and power and light. 
 
 But all this requires self -study and application — 
 more than some men are willing to put forth. 
 
 The great men of all times may not have been the 
 most powerful, to begin with, but they certainly 
 were the most highly organized. They studied their 
 own possibilities — their weaknesses as well as their 
 powers Their weaknesses they insulated — so that 
 they could do no mischief. And not an ampere of 
 energy was permitted to "ground" or be wasted. As 
 a result the white light of their personalities shafted 
 down through the ages and bestowed beneficent il- 
 lumination for those whose lights had gone out. 
 
The Incubator Baby 
 
 THERE was once a fluffy little chicken who had 
 no father or mother. 
 It was an incubator baby. It was the prod- 
 uct of science. Its mother, so-called, had laid a nice 
 white egg and its father, so-called, had helped her 
 cackle. 
 
 There the responsibility had ceased. 
 
 There was a smoky old lamp to guide it through 
 the dim mystery of its embryonic development. 
 
 "Isn't it nice that we have help we can trust," said 
 the mother, casting a proud glance at the incubator. 
 "If I had to sit for three weeks in this uninteresting 
 place my feathers would get to looking a fright and 
 my disposition would be utterly ruined." 
 
 Whereupon she hurried off down Leghorn Avenue 
 to read a paper before the old hen's club on "the 
 care of the teeth" ; and father went out to wallow 
 gleefully in filth — somewhere. 
 
 ^ A* A* 
 
 Presently the little chick was hatched. 
 
 Providence showed it how to peck its way out of 
 the shell. In fact. Providence seemed to be about 
 the only one who had time for a little thing like a 
 chick. 
 
 At first there was bitter ache in the chick's heart, 
 because no one was waiting to receive it. Somehow 
 it felt that somewhere there ought to be a feathery 
 
breast to snuggle up to, but in the absence of mother 
 it managed to locate an old dirty blanket and regis- 
 tered and turned in for the night. 
 
 Gradually the chick grew a little older. 
 
 "There seems to be quite a lot to this place I have 
 gotten into," it chirped. "Perhaps I'd better snoop 
 around a bit — I may get a sensation." 
 
 The sun was warm to the little broiler's legs, and 
 just as she was about to utter a cry of wonderment 
 a dark shadow appeared. 
 
 Right here is where mother should have gotten 
 busy. 
 
 — but what could you expect of an incubator! 
 
 The vulture, who was an expert in his line, lost 
 no time in sending his talons home; and there was 
 just one little helpless cheep to utter a protest 
 against our latter-day system of artificial incubation. 
 
 Even the matron, out at the Door of Hope, re- 
 fused to be interviewed. 
 
Friend of Mine 
 
 // you only really knew, 
 
 Friend of mine, 
 What I really think of you. 
 
 Friend of mine. 
 Do you think that you tvould say. 
 In the old familiar way, 
 "Hope I see you well today, 
 
 Friend of mine?" 
 
 And if I, by some device. 
 
 Friend of mine, 
 CotUd your clever tongue entice. 
 
 Friend of mine. 
 To bespeak your inmost heart, 
 Would I laughingly remark, 
 "What a prince of men thou art. 
 
 Friend of mine?" 
 
 Thu^ you lie to keep me near. 
 
 Friend of mine, 
 And I, in my turn, have fear. 
 
 Friend of mine. 
 To let truth co7ne 'twixt us ttuain. 
 Knowing it tvould cause us pain. 
 So I lie to you again, 
 
 Friend of mine. 
 
The Job and the Man 
 
 EVERY once in a while a big red automobile 
 almost knocks you down, and your sensation 
 is a fifty per cent, mixture of fright and ad- 
 miration. You are tempted to heave a brick at the 
 fellow holding the wheel. But, no matter how demo- 
 cratic you may flatter yourself to be, you are doubly 
 inclined to feel a thrill of pride upon realizing that 
 you know the well-dressed fellow in the tonneau 
 chewing a black cigar and looking like ready money. 
 
 ''What a cinch !" you are likely to mutter. "Goes 
 to work at nine, rides behind his hired driver, and 
 makes thirty thousand a year playing on a battery of 
 push buttons. Anybody could hold his job. When- 
 ever he gets stuck he rings for a man with brains, 
 and then Old Gotrocks assumes credit for what his 
 man Friday thinks out." 
 
 Just the same, Mr. Knocker, where did Mr. Got- 
 rocks get this man Friday? The chances are that 
 he picked him up in a half-naked, semi-barbarous 
 state and fed him on the milk of sane business till 
 the savage began to take notice and learn the sign 
 language. 
 
 If Friday got on, it was because Mr. Gotrocks 
 showed the way. 
 
 Of course, Friday sneaks around behind the boss 
 and intimates to the help that if it weren't for the 
 
brains imported into the old man's office (Friday's 
 brains, you know) , there would be an insanity com- 
 mittee sitting on the case. 
 
 Such is the beautiful abstraction we call human 
 gratitude. But bear in mind one thing: If Friday 
 had as much under his hat as the boss has under his. 
 Friday would be sitting at the mahogany roll top 
 and the boss would be running the errands. Things 
 don't arrange themselves in this big organization of 
 business by chance. If old Gotrocks weighs more 
 than his man Friday, it's because he's heavier. 
 There are no fake attachments on the scales of jus- 
 tice. What you are — not what you think you are — 
 is what tips the beam. 
 
 When you see a picture of luxury, if you snoop 
 around the academy a bit farther, you'll usually find 
 a companion study, with a figure in the foreground 
 humped over scMne task or other, and the source of 
 illumination as a rule is a kerosene lamp filled with 
 midnight oil. 
 
 Equally true : when you find a picture of failure, 
 you can almost invariably trace its sequel back to 
 days of ineffective dreaming and improvident ex- 
 travagance. Before one can ride on pneumatic tires 
 over a smooth macadam road some one must first 
 break stone — and the sensation is all the more de- 
 lightful if you yourself have swung the sledge. 
 
 Your job is in exact ratio to the sum of your 
 ability plus your energy. If your job is persistently 
 
a little one, rest assured there is a small number 
 somewhere in your formula. Don't blame the boss 
 if your envelope doesn't measure up to your imagi- 
 nary worth. All salary is based on the principle of 
 commission. And remember this: the boss is enti- 
 tled to a profit on your services for the very simple 
 reason that he finances them for you. Otherwise you 
 would have to pay desk rent, and for the single little 
 incandescent by which you grind out your pay check 
 on dark days — and this expense usually constitutes 
 the diff'erence between what you are worth to the 
 boss and what you would be worth to yourself. 
 
 Another point to paste in your hat: if you are 
 actually the goods, no boss on earth can keep you 
 down; and what is equally true, not one boss in a 
 million will attempt to keep you down. 
 
 On the other hand, if you happen to have a boss 
 of the squeezing variety, and you permit yourself to 
 be squeezed ad infinitum, it's your own fault. Re- 
 member, there is only one thing in the world which 
 will calmly allow itself to be squeezed for an indefi- 
 nite time without putting up a fight, and that thing 
 is a lemon. 
 
The Mother of Us 
 
 JUST as some trees, through force of accident, 
 happen to be oak or poplar or maple, I happen to 
 be an American, There is nothing original or 
 exclusive about being an American — a hundred mil- 
 lion ball players and bankers and banana venders 
 and congressmen and section "wops" enjoy the same 
 privilege with me. 
 
 The old delusion to the effect that any one nation 
 is the greatest on earth was exploded on the bat- 
 tle fields of Europe; but I still like to beheve that 
 America is God's pet piece of real estate. I suppose 
 I am as much justified in my provincial fondness as 
 is the soft child who thinks the sun rises and sets 
 in its mother's eyes. She may be the most veritable 
 old hag in the world, but if she is "mother" — that 
 is enough, and all her ugliness is lost in the blinding 
 light of that one word. 
 
 America is my mother, and the more they berate 
 her the more blessed she appears to me. 
 
 Some say strange things about her. 
 
 Some say she sins for money, some that she 
 shrinks from duty and that she is craven and 
 cowardly. 
 
 But, nevertheless, she remains my mother and I 
 challenge the scandal mongers to hurt her. 
 
 Some of her children have done wrong. She has 
 bred some few cowards in her litter of one hundred 
 
millions — I do not stand sponsor for the whole fam- 
 ily — I only know that my mother is fair to look 
 upon, pure in her thoughts and that her eyes are 
 always upward. 
 
 A* A* A* 
 
 They used to say that our sword hands were 
 grown cramped and unfit from figuring interest and 
 writing checks. Some still say that the man in Cali- 
 fornia cares not a fig what happens to the man in 
 New York, and vice versa. Some say that Atlanta 
 would not reseyit it if Detroit were annexed by Wind- 
 sor and that Detroit would only turn over and grunt 
 if bombs were dropped on sleeping Jacksonville. 
 The progenitors of this same spawn said that Corn- 
 wallis would dictate terms to Washington and that 
 Grant was an unkempt tobacco worm. 
 
 For my own part, I have heard that the German 
 was too thick in the head to think — fancy such a 
 thing being said of a race from which sprung 
 Goethe. And I have heard that the Frenchman had 
 become a white-handed, dallying fop — and this of a 
 race that only this morning gave us Foch. The 
 Englishman, some say, has always had some one 
 else do his fighting for him. Let me ask you who 
 did the fighting for "the first hundred thousand"? 
 
 More than all else, I love the mother of our one 
 hundred million, but I also reverence her silently 
 mourning sisters, and I find that the great war's 
 aftermath is making a universal patriot of me. 
 
The great war taught us some very new things. 
 
 It taught us, for example, that Percival can 
 throw a hand grenade as cleverly as he can drive a 
 tennis ball. It taught us that Hans can take hot 
 steel as stolidly as he can drink his beer. It taught 
 us that Jean and Paul can drink the cup of death 
 with as much abandon as they ever displayed over 
 the wines of Burgundy. And it took the modest Bel- 
 gian and made him the sweetheart of us all. 
 
 The world's hate is exhausted — it is bled to the 
 death. There is no love as strong as the compassion 
 of a second generation for the orphans of its fa- 
 ther's enemies. 
 
 You and I may never see the time, but our grand- 
 children most certainly will, when the despised Ger- 
 man will meet half way the despised Englishman 
 of tomorrow and bury the bayonet in the soil over 
 which their fathers fought. 
 
 The average man is unusual. 
 
 He is brave and courageous, and when the test 
 comes he will stand hitched. 
 
 The differences of the world war were mostly dif- 
 ferences in tailoring. One wore khaki and puttees; 
 another wore the uniform of his emperor. They 
 all bled if they were stuck ; and they all died with the 
 same name on their lips. Some said ma mere and 
 some said muttey\ but it all meant mother. 
 
 In the end they will all come to realize that they 
 made one awful mistake, and out of this baptism 
 
of blood will come a purity of love, man for man, 
 such as Christ will almost envy. 
 
 Maybe the end will justify the means. 
 
 I trust that we will all be universal patriots when 
 it is over — those of us who survive ; and I trust that 
 these hands of mine and one hundred million other 
 pairs like them may have a chance to wear them- 
 selves to the quick in the restoring of that which 
 has been undone. 
 
Business vs. Monkey Business 
 
 Being the Story of Two Young Men 
 
 THERE was once a man who had two sons in 
 whom he put great store. The first was a 
 rugged fellow with a fist like a trip-hammer, 
 and the second a nice boy, with lily-white skin and 
 a hankering for the mandolin. The first was built 
 on the plan of a rifle — he never shot but one missile 
 at a time, but he knew how to get a bead and could 
 bring down the big game. Concentration was his 
 specialty. 
 
 The second was built like a shotgun — he was light 
 on the trigger, scattered shot all over the landscape, 
 made a lot of smoke, kicked a great deal about noth- 
 ing, and wasn't fit for anything but light sport. He 
 looked well in his clothes, floated along down stream 
 with the current, blazed away at any bit of plumage 
 which happened to bob up, and in the main led 
 a free and easy existence. 
 
 The first went to school. 
 
 The second, every fall, would ask his father for 
 the price of text-books, and then spend the money 
 on kelly pool. 
 
 On Saturdays the first swept out, cut calico and 
 made himself generally useful around a little, coun- 
 try store. 
 
 The other brother felt that the cut of his clothes 
 and his wide acquaintance fitted him for higher 
 
things — so he got a job mixing sodas at a place 
 where the high school girls all came in to chatter 
 and chew gum. It was a nice little drug store, and 
 the work was easy — besides one doesn't get one's 
 hands as dirty rubbing onyx as one does wrestling 
 with a drum stove and pushing a broom. 
 
 One morning the man who owned the dry goods 
 store didn't wake up — I believe they said it was 
 heart trouble. When the flowers had wilted and the 
 smell of camphor was out of the house the widow 
 and her daughter began to wonder who'd open up 
 and sweep out for them. 
 
 "Might as well let Henry 'tend to things till we 
 can find somebody," suggested the daughter; "he's 
 reliable." 
 
 "I guess you're right, Lizzie," agreed the widow — 
 and Henry got the keys. 
 
 He still has them and one or two others, including 
 a key to the house where Lizzie lives, and one to the 
 Farmers' National Bank, of which he is a director. 
 
 In the meantime we have forgotten the other 
 brother — most everybody forgot him, because there 
 was nothing about him to be remembered. He fell 
 in with a little peroxide canary, who flitted into the 
 drug store one Saturday and perched on his arm. 
 The two bought a couple of one-way tickets to Green 
 Bay from a scalper. For eight bits they got a jus- 
 tice of the peace to make the fight legal, and then 
 the principals in the main go shook hands. They 
 
had agreed to break clean, but it wasn't long till both 
 of them got to hitting in the clinches, and she finally 
 fouled him under the heart. Having led a fast life, 
 he couldn't come back. Of course, the judge gave 
 him the decision, but he couldn't eat that; and the 
 last time he appeared in public was at a dairy lunch, 
 where he was seen, humped over a one-armed chair, 
 arguing with a cold storage egg sandwich. He will 
 never be heard from and nobody is sitting up late 
 at night about it. His father did not even go to the 
 expense of running a want ad. From the moment 
 that the village doctor said it was a boy, that fel- 
 low's career spelled failure, in seventy-two point 
 black face, because — you can't make a man out of a, 
 jellyfish. 
 
An April Fool Greeting to a Friend 
 
 YOU expect greetings on Christmas and New- 
 Years — but, if you were to receive a greeting 
 on April First it would fool you. Isn't it fine 
 that with February Twenty-Second set aside for 
 Washington and July Fourth for the signers of the 
 Declaration, and so on clear around the calendar, 
 that they should think of you and of me long enough 
 to set aside a single day and call it ours? April First 
 is our day. No one can criticise us today. No mat- 
 ter what crime we may commit we can plead insan- 
 ity and make it stick. If I have wronged you and 
 you still stand for me — you can cry "April Fool!" 
 and folks will consider it a good joke. If you have 
 stuck the gaff into me and I this day cry laughingly, 
 "Isn't he a prince of good fellows?" people will con- 
 sider me a humorist and praise me for it. I love 
 this day because nothing makes a difference on April 
 First. It is the one day in the year when we dare 
 to be just fools, dare to like without reason, to for- 
 give without penance, to sacrifice without return. 
 And I am fool enough at this minute to examine 
 that list headed "MY FRIENDS" just to make sure 
 that your name is still there. 
 
The Boys 
 
 As a stub of sweet Havana, 
 
 S moulder-in g in your ashes tray, 
 Someliow makes one half remember 
 
 Fragrance of another day, 
 So the memories that linger 
 
 In the ashes of our joys 
 Conjure up departed faces 
 
 Of our old-time pals — the boys. 
 
 Faces bright and ever laughing, 
 
 Eyes that sparkle, hands that clasp 
 Bondless volumes full of meaning 
 
 In their warm impulsive grasp. 
 Though the touch of time may mar them- 
 
 Fate may claim them for her toys. 
 But to us, who used to know them. 
 
 They are still our pals — the boys. 
 
 Some have rubbed the lamp of magic. 
 
 Arid their wares have turned to gold. 
 Some have failed — but in their bosoms 
 
 Beat the same hearts as of old. 
 You and I — but what's the jmrpose 
 
 Touching here on pains arid joys? 
 Let us hope we still are numbered 
 
 With our old-time pals — the boys. 
 
 Fill your glasses, brimming, sparkling. 
 
 Raise them high and with acclaim. 
 Drink to those we erstwhile cherished. 
 
 Arid as rises name on name 
 Feel again old thrills of gladness; 
 
 Feel again fraternal joys; 
 Clink yoiir goblets with the phantoms 
 
 Of our old-time pals — the boys. 
 
 And tvhen time shall end our striving. 
 
 And the hands ive grasped are still. 
 And the mystery of hereafter 
 
 Holds us helpless in its will; 
 Who can say but out the silence 
 
 We may hear familiar noise. 
 And across the span of ages 
 
 Catch the laughter of the boys? 
 
The Game 
 
 Perk up, lad, and smile. It's ahvays the same — 
 The richer the stakes are, the fiercer the game. 
 If you dare to play high, then prepare to fall hard 
 And to lose your last cent on the turn of a card. 
 
 It's a man's game you've tackled — so play like a man. 
 Win every loose chip from the rest that you can. 
 When luck breaks your way, collect all you earn. 
 For the longer the lane is the surer the turn. 
 
 Train to cover your weakness — to hide what you 
 
 lack. 
 Learn to win from beneath and to fight on your back. 
 Take your provender, whether it comes fat or lean, 
 But whatever the end be — for God's sake KEEP 
 
 CLEAN. 
 
The Business Man's Prayer 
 
 OLORD, I acknowledge Thy existence and the 
 existence of a lot of other things less godly, 
 which I can overcome only with Thy help 
 and the help of my own backbone. I fully realize 
 that on all hands are invisible forces, which seek 
 my destruction, and that, if I am to come through 
 unscathed, I must fight every inch of the way. 
 
 Give me strength lightly to bear my burden and 
 to smile till my burden becomes a joy, for verily this 
 is the secret of all earthly gladness. 
 
 Teach me that sixty minutes make one hour, six- 
 teen ounces one pound, and one hundred cents one 
 dollar. 
 
 Help me to live so that I can lie down at night 
 with a clear conscience, without a gun under my 
 pillow, and unhaunted by the faces of those to whom 
 I have brought pain. 
 
 Grant, I beseech Thee, that I may earn my meal 
 ticket on the square, and that in the doing thereof 
 I may not stick the gaff where it does not belong. 
 
 Deafen me to the jingle of tainted money and the 
 rustle of unholy skirts. 
 
 Blind me to the faults of the other fellow, but 
 reveal to me mine own. 
 
 Guide me so that each night when I look across 
 the table at the wife, who has been to me a blessing, 
 I will have nothing to conceal. 
 
Keep me young enough to laugh with my children 
 and to lose myself in their play. 
 
 And then when there comes the smell of flowers, 
 the tread of soft steps, and the crunching of the 
 hearse's wheels in the gravel out in front of my 
 place, make the ceremony short and the epitaph 
 simple: "Here lies a man." 
 
Hope 
 
 There's many a ship sails down the bay 
 To be lost on the trackless main. 
 
 And there's many a hope goes on its way 
 That can never return again. 
 
 But many a ship comes back from sea 
 With gold from a far-off mart. 
 
 And some of my hopes will come back to me 
 Fidl of joy for an empty heart. 
 
iiiffflfiif 
 
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