The Old Soldiers Story Part 9

Rumble, tumble, growl, and grate!

Skip, and trip, and gravitate!

Lunge, and plunge, and thrash the planks With your blameless, shameless shanks: In excruciating pain, Stand upon your head again, And, uncoiling kink by kink, Kick the roof out of the rink!

In derisive bursts of mirth, Drop ka-whop and jar the earth!

Jolt your lungs down in your socks, Oh! tempestuous equinox Of dismembered legs and arms!

Strew your ways with wild alarms; Fameward skoot and ricochet On your glittering vertebrae!

WRITTEN IN BUNNER'S "AIRS FROM ARCADY"

O ever gracious Airs from Arcady!

What lack is there of any jocund thing In glancing wit or glad imagining Capricious fancy may not find in thee?-- The laugh of Momus, tempered daintily To lull the ear and lure its listening; The whistled syllables the birds of spring Flaunt ever at our guessings what they be; The wood, the seash.o.r.e, and the clanging town; The pets of fas.h.i.+on, and the ways of such; The _robe de chambre_, and the russet gown; The lordling's carriage, and the pilgrim's crutch-- From hale old Chaucer's wholesomeness, clean down To our artistic Dobson's deftest touch!

IN THE AFTERNOON

You in the hammock; and I, near by, Was trying to read, and to swing you, too; And the green of the sward was so kind to the eye, And the shade of the maples so cool and blue, That often I looked from the book to you To say as much, with a sigh.

You in the hammock. The book we'd brought From the parlor--to read in the open air,-- Something of love and of Launcelot And Guinevere, I believe, was there-- But the afternoon, it was far more fair Than the poem was, I thought.

You in the hammock; and on and on I droned and droned through the rhythmic stuff-- But, with always a half of my vision gone Over the top of the page--enough To caressingly gaze at you, swathed in the fluff Of your hair and your odorous "lawn."

You in the hammock--and that was a year-- Fully a year ago, I guess-- And what do we care for their Guinevere And her Launcelot and their lordliness!-- You in the hammock still, and--Yes-- Kiss me again, my dear!

AT MADAME MANICURE'S

Daintiest of Manicures!

What a cunning hand is yours; And how awkward, rude and great Mine, as you manipulate!

Wonderfully cool and calm Are the touches of your palm To my fingers, as they rest In their rosy, cosey nest, While your own, with deftest skill, Dance and caper as they will,-- Armed with instruments that seem Gathered from some fairy dream-- Tiny spears, and simitars Such as pixy armorers Might have made for jocund fays To parade on holidays, And flash round in dewy dells, Lopping down the lily-bells; Or in tilting, o'er the leas, At the clumsy b.u.mblebees, Splintering their stings, perchance, As the knights in old romance Snapped the spears of foes that fought In the jousts at Camelot!

Smiling? Dainty Manicure?-- 'Twould delight me, but that you're Simply smiling, as I see, At my nails and not at me!

Haply this is why they glow And light up and twinkle so!

A CALLER FROM BOONE

BENJ. F. JOHNSON VISITS THE EDITOR

It was a dim and chill and loveless afternoon in the late fall of eighty-three when I first saw the genial subject of this hasty sketch.

From time to time the daily paper on which I worked had been receiving, among the general literary driftage of amateur essayists, poets and sketch-writers, some conceits in verse that struck the editorial head as decidedly novel; and, as they were evidently the production of an unlettered man, and an _old_ man, and a farmer at that, they were usually spared the waste-basket, and preserved--not for publication, but to pa.s.s from hand to hand among the members of the staff as simply quaint and mirth-provoking specimens of the verdancy of both the venerable author and the Muse inspiring him. Letters as quaint as were the poems invariably accompanied them, and the oddity of these, in fact, had first called attention to the verses. I well remember the general merriment of the office when the first of the old man's letters was read aloud, and I recall, too, some of his comments on his own verse, verbatim. In one place he said: "I make no doubt you will find some purty _sad_ spots in my poetry, considerin'; but I hope you will bear in mind that I am a great sufferer with rheumatizum, and have been, off and on, sence the cold New Year's. In the main, however," he continued, "I allus aim to write in a cheerful, comfortin' sperit, so's ef the stuff hangs fire, and don't do no good, it hain't a-goin' to do no harm,--and them's my honest views on poetry."

In another letter, evidently suspecting his poem had not appeared in print because of its dejected tone, he said: "The poetry I herewith send was wrote off on the finest Autumn day I ever laid eyes on! I never felt better in my life. The morning air was as invigoratin' as bitters with tanzy in it, and the folks at breakfast said they never saw such a' appet.i.te on mortal man before. Then I lit out for the barn, and after feedin', I come back and tuck my pen and ink out on the porch, and jest cut loose. I writ and writ till my fingers was that cramped I couldn't hardly let go of the penholder. And the poem I send you is the upshot of it all. Ef you don't find it cheerful enough fer your columns, I'll have to knock under, that's all!" And that poem, as I recall it, certainly was cheerful enough for publication, only the "copy" was almost undecipherable, and the ink, too, so pale and vague, it was thought best to reserve the verses, for the time, at least, and later on revise, copy, punctuate, and then print it sometime, as much for the joke of it as anything. But it was still delayed, neglected, and in a week's time almost entirely forgotten.

And so it was, upon this chill and sombre afternoon I speak of that an event occurred which most pleasantly reminded me of both the poem with the "sad spots" in it, and the "cheerful" one, "writ out on the porch"

that glorious autumn day that poured its glory through the old man's letter to us.

Outside and in the sanctum the gloom was too oppressive to permit an elevated tendency of either thought or spirit. I could do nothing but sit listless and inert. Paper and pencil were before me, but I could not write--I could not even think coherently, and was on the point of rising and rus.h.i.+ng out into the streets for a wild walk, when there came a hesitating knock at the door.

"Come in!" I snarled, grabbing up my pencil and a.s.suming a frightfully industrious air: "Come in!" I almost savagely repeated, "Come in! And shut the door behind you!" and I dropped my lids, bent my gaze fixedly upon the blank pages before me and began scrawling some disconnected nothings with no head or tail or anything.

"Sir; howdy," said a low and pleasant voice. And at once, in spite of my perverse resolve, I looked up. I someway felt rebuked.

The speaker was very slowly, noiselessly closing the door. I could hardly face him when he turned around. An old man, of sixty-five, at least, but with a face and an eye of the most cheery and wholesome expression I had ever seen in either youth or age. Over his broad bronzed forehead and white hair he wore a low-crowned, wide-brimmed black felt hat, somewhat rusted now, and with the band grease-crusted, and the binding frayed at intervals, and sagging from the threads that held it on. An old-styled frock coat of black, dull brown in streaks, and quite s.h.i.+ny about the collar and lapels. A waistcoat of no describable material or pattern, and a clean white s.h.i.+rt and collar of one piece, with a black string-tie and double bow, which would have been entirely concealed beneath the long white beard but for its having worked around to one side of the neck. The front outline of the face was cleanly shaven, and the beard, growing simply from the under chin and throat, lent the old pioneer the rather singular appearance of having hair all over him with this luxurious growth pulled out above his collar for mere sample.

I arose and asked the old man to sit down, handing him a chair decorously.

"No--no," he said--"I'm much obleeged. I hain't come in to bother you no more'n I can he'p. All I wanted was to know ef you got my poetry all right. You know I take yer paper," he went on, in an explanatory way, "and seein' you printed poetry in it once-in-a-while, I sent you some of mine--neighbors kindo' advised me to," he added apologetically, "and so I sent you some--two or three times I sent you some, but I hain't never seed hide-ner-hair of it in your paper, and as I wus in town to-day, anyhow, I jest thought I'd kindo' drap in and git it back, ef you ain't goin' to print it--'cause I allus save up most the things I write, aimin' sometime to git 'em all struck off in pamphlet-form, to kindo' distribit round 'mongst the neighbors, don't you know."

Already I had begun to suspect my visitor's ident.i.ty, and was mechanically opening the drawer of our poetical department.

"How was your poetry signed?" I asked.

"Signed by my own name," he answered proudly,--"signed by my own name,--Johnson--Benjamin F. Johnson, of Boone County--this state."

"And is this one of them, Mr. Johnson?" I asked, unfolding a clumsily-folded ma.n.u.script, and closely scrutinizing the verse.

"How does she read?" said the old man eagerly, and searching in the meantime for his spectacles. "How does she read?--Then I can tell you!"

"It reads," said I, studiously conning the old man's bold but bad chirography, and tilting my chair back indolently,--"it reads like this--the first verse does,"--and I very gravely read:--

"Oh! the old swimmin'-hole!"

"Stop! Stop!" said the old man excitedly--"Stop right there! That's my poetry, but that's not the way to read it by a long shot! Give it to me!" and he almost s.n.a.t.c.hed it from my hand. "Poetry like this ain't no poetry at all, 'less you read it _natchurl_ and _in jes the same sperit 'at it's writ in_, don't you understand. It's a' old man a-talkin', rickollect, and a-feelin' kindo' sad, and yit kindo' sorto'

good, too, and I opine he wouldn't got that off with a face on him like a' undertaker, and a voice as solemn as a cow-bell after dark!

He'd say it more like this."--And the old man adjusted his spectacles and read:--

"THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE"

"Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! whare the crick so still and deep Looked like a baby-river that was laying half asleep, And the gurgle of the worter round the drift jest below Sounded like the laugh of something we onc't ust to know Before we could remember anything but the eyes Of the angels lookin' out as we left Paradise; But the merry days of youth is beyond our controle, And it's hard to part ferever with the old swimmin'-hole."

I clapped my hands in genuine applause. "Read on!" I said,--"Read on!

Read all of it!"

The old man's face was radiant as he continued:--

"Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! In the happy days of yore, When I ust to lean above it on the old sickamore, Oh! it showed me a face in its warm sunny tide That gazed back at me so gay and glorified, It made me love myself, as I leaped to caress My shadder smilin' up at me with sich tenderness.

But them days is past and gone, and old Time's tuck his toll From the old man come back to the old swimmin'-hole.