The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (read novels website TXT) 📖
- Author: Marshall P. Wilder
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He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown,
And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town.
To say another is an ass—at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent.
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
In a warfare with the remnants of a palæozoic age;
And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,
Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.
For I live at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James;
And I've told, in simple language, what I know about the row
That broke up our society upon the Stanislow.
[Pg 1080] LOST CHORDS BY EUGENE FIELD
Came sweeping through the lattice wide,
I sat me down at organ side
And poured my soul upon the keys.
That from my half unconscious touch,
There swept a passing chord of such
Sweet harmony, it seemed divine.
The sweetest words I ever heard,
Then like a truant forest bird,
It soared from me to heaven away.
I sought the spot where erst had stood
A cord—a cord of hick'ry wood,
Piled up against the back yard fence.
Four dollars earned by sweat of brow,
Where was the cord of hick'ry now?
The thieves had gobbled it away!
Of treasures which were once our own,
Yet now, like childhood dreams are flown,
Those cords that are forever lost.
[Pg 1081] THOUGHTS FER THE DISCURAGED FARMER BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the bees,
And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board and on the sly,
Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin' and stagger as they fly.
The flicker on the fence-rail 'pears to jest spit on his wings
And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he sings;
And the hoss-fly is a-whettin'-up his forelegs fer biz,
And the off-mare is a-switchin' all of her tale they is.
Oh, theyr bound to git theyr brekfast, and theyr not a-carin' how;
So they quarrel in the furries, and they quarrel on the wing—
But theyr peaceabler in pot-pies than any other thing:
And it's when I git my shotgun drawed up in stiddy rest,
She's as full of tribbelation as a yeller-jacket's nest;
And a few shots before dinner, when the sun's a-shinin' right,
Seems to kindo'-sorto' sharpen up a feller's appetite![Pg 1082]
And the clouds of the wet spell is all cleared away,
And the woods is all the greener, and the grass is greener still;
It may rain again to-morry, but I don't think it will.
Some says the crops is ruined, and the corn's drownded out,
And propha-sy the wheat will be a failure, without doubt;
But the kind Providence that has never failed us yet,
Will be on hands onc't more at the 'leventh hour, I bet!
Through the waves of the wind and the blue of the sky?
Does the quail set up and whissel in a disappinted way,
Er hang his head in silunce, and sorrow all the day?
Is the chipmuck's health a-failin'?—Does he walk, er does he run?
Don't the buzzards ooze around up thare jest like they've allus done?
Is they anything the matter with the rooster's lungs er voice?
Ort a mortul be complanin' when dumb animals rejoice?
The June is here this mornin', and the sun is shining hot.
Oh! let us fill our harts up with the glory of the day,
And banish ev'ry doubt and care and sorrow fur away!
Whatever be our station, with Providence fer guide,
Sich fine circumstances ort to make us satisfied;
Fer the world is full of roses, and the roses full of dew,
And the dew is full of heavenly love that drips fer me and you.
[Pg 1083] THE MODERN FARMER[2] BY JACK APPLETON
He works his crops by letters-patent now:
Steam drives the reaper (which is union-made),
As in the spring it pushed the auto-plough;
A patent milker manages each cow;
Electric currents guide the garden spade,
And cattle, poultry, pigs through "process" wade
To quick perfection—Science shows them how.
But while machinery plants and reaps, he rests
Upon his porch, and listens to the quail
That pipe far off in yonder hand-made vale,
With muscles flabby and with strength gone stale,
Until, in desperation, he invests
In "Muscle-Building Motions Taught by Mail"!
[Pg 1084]
THE APOSTASY OF WILLIAM DODGE BY STANLEY WATERLOOBilly Dodge rose from a seat near the door, and gave the two ladies chairs. Kate looked at him and smiled. The voice of the speaker seemed far away as she thought of the boy and his enthusiasms. Of all the earnest and sincere converts in the Lakeside House none could compare with Master William Dodge, the only son of the mistress of the place. He might be only eleven years old, he might be the most freckled boy in the block, but he had received new light, and he had his convictions. He had listened, and he had learned. He had learned that if you "hold a thought" and carry it around with you on a piece of paper, and read it from time to time throughout the day, it will bring you strength and give you victory in all the affairs of life. He thought the matter over much, for he had great need. He wanted help.
Of Master William Dodge, known as Billy, it may be said that in school he had ordinarily more fights on his hands than any other boy of his age and size, and it may be said, also, that as a rule, where the chances were anywhere near even, he came out "on top." But doggedly brave as the little freckled villain was, he had down in the bottom of his heart an appreciation that some day Jim McMasters might lick him. Jim McMasters was a boy only some six months older than Billy, of North of Ireland blood—than which there is none better—a lank, scrawny, reddish-haired youngster, freckled almost as[Pg 1085] profusely as Billy. Three times had they met in noble battle, and three times had Billy been the conqueror, but somehow the spirit of young McMasters did not seem particularly broken, nor did he become a serf. Billy felt that the air was full of portent, and he didn't like it.
It was just at this time that to Billy came the conviction that by "holding the thought" he would have what he called "the bulge on Jim," and having the energy of his convictions, he promptly set to the work of getting up texts which he could carry around in his pocket and which would make him just invincible. He talked cautiously with Mandy Make as to good watch-words, in no way revealing his designs, and from her secured certain texts which she had herself unconsciously memorized from many hearings of Jowler preachers. They were:
"Fight the good fight."
"Never give up."
"He never fails who dies in a good cause."
"Never say die."
For a time Billy was content with these quotations, written in a school-boy hand upon brown paper, and carried in his left-hand trousers pocket, but later he discovered that most of the scientists in the house who "held a thought" themselves prepared their own little bit of manuscript to be carried and read during the day, and that the text was made to apply to their special needs. Billy, after much meditation, concluded this was the thing for him, and with great travail he composed and wrote out the new texts which he should carry constantly and which should be his bulwark. Here they are:
"Ketch hold prompt and hang on."
[Pg 1086]"Strike from the shoulder."
"A kick for a blow, always bestow."
"When you get a good thing, keep it—keep it."
"When you get a black cat, skin it to the tail."
Only a week later one William Dodge and one Jim McMasters again met in more or less mortal combat, and one William Dodge, repeating the shorter of his texts as he fought, was again the victor.
"Gimme Christian Science!" he said to himself, as he put on his coat after the fray was over.
Billy Dodge was fast drifting, although unconsciously, toward a crisis in his religious and worldly experiences. At school, during the last term, and so far in the summer vacation, his scheme of fortifying his physical powers with mental stimulants in the form of warlike "thoughts" had worked well. His chief rival for the honors of war, an energetic youngster, whose name, Jim McMasters, proclaimed his Irish ancestry, he had soundly thrashed more than once since adopting his new tactics. So far Billy had found that to hold the thought, "Ketch hold prompt and hang on," while he acted vigorously upon that stirring sentiment, meant victory, and he had more than once tried the efficacy of, "Strike from the shoulder," under adverse conditions and with success.
It was during this summer of anxiety to the more important personages of this story that Billy Dodge was called upon to prove the practical value of his belief in the supremacy of mind over matter, and although Billy emerged from the trial none the worse for his experience, it effected a radical change in his views.
Jim McMasters returned one summer's day from a short camping excursion in the Michigan woods. He had been the only boy in a party of young men, and during[Pg 1087] their spare hours, as the members of the fishing party were lying around camp, they had instructed Jim in a few of the first principles of the noble science of self-defense. This unselfish action on the part of his elders was brought about by Jim's bitter complaints of Billy's treatment of himself in a fair fight, and by his dire thirst for vengeance.
And so Jim McMasters came back to the city a dangerous opponent, and he looked it. Even Billy, secure in the prestige of former victories, and armed with hidden weapons—namely, the "thoughts" he so tenaciously held—felt some misgivings when he saw Jim and noted his easy, swaggering mien.
"I've got to lick him again," thought Billy, "and I've got to be good and ready for him this time. I must get a set of thoughts well learned and hold 'em, or I'll be lammed out of my life."
The youngsters met
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