Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor Part 8

Vich taste his moder's like--unt so, Off my cigair it gone glean out --Yust let it go!

Vat I caire den for anyding?

Der paper schlip out fon my hand, And all my odvairtizement stand, Mitout new changements boddering; I only d.i.n.k--I have me dis Von leedle boy to pet unt love Unt play me vit, unt hug unt kiss-- Unt dot's enough!

Der plans unt pairposes I vear Out in der vorld all fades avay; Unt vit der beeznid of der day I got me den no time to spare; Der caires of trade vas caires no more-- Dem cash accounds dey dodge me by, Unt vit my chile I roll der floor, Unt laugh unt gry!

Ah! frient! dem childens is der ones Dot got some happy times--you bet!-- Dot's vy ven I been grooved up yet I vish I vould been leedle vonce!

Unt ven dot leetle roozter tries Dem baby-tricks I used to do, My mout it vater, unt my eyes Dey vater too!

Unt all der summertime unt spring Of childhood it come back to me, So dot it vas a dream I see Ven I yust look at anyding, Unt ven dot leedle boy run by, I d.i.n.k "dot's me," fon hour to hour Schtill chasing yet dose b.u.t.terfly Fon flower to flower!

Oxpose I vas lots money vairt, Mit blenty schtone-front schtore to rent Unt mor'gages at twelf per-cent, Unt diamonds in my ruffled shairt,-- I make a'signment of all dot, Unt tairn it over mit a schmile, Obber you please--but don'd forgot I keep dot chile!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Spirits at Home

(THE FAMILY)

There was Father, and Mother, and Emmy, and Jane And Lou, and Ellen, and John and me-- And father was killed in the war, and Lou She died of consumption, and John did too, And Emmy she went with the pleurisy.

(THE SPIRITS)

Father believed in 'em all his life-- But Mother, at first, she'd shake her head-- Till after the battle of Champion Hill, When many a flag in the winder-sill Had c.r.a.pe mixed in with the white and red!

I used to doubt 'em myself till then-- But me and Mother was satisfied When Ellen she set, and Father came And rapped "G.o.d bless you!" and Mother's name, And "The flag's up here!" And we just all cried!

Used to come often after that, And talk to us--just as he used to do, Pleasantest kind! And once, for John, He said he was "lonesome but wouldn't let on-- Fear Mother would worry, and Emmy and Lou."

But Lou was the bravest girl on earth-- For all she never was hale and strong She'd have her fun! With her voice clean lost She'd laugh and joke us that when she crossed To father, _we'd_ all come taggin' along.

Died--just that way! And the raps was thick _That_ night, as they often since occur, Extry loud. And when Lou got back She said it was Father and her--and "whack!"

She tuck the table--and we knowed _her_!

John and Emmy, in five years more, Both had went.--And it seemed like fate!-- For the old home it burnt down,--but Jane And me and Ellen we built again The new house, here, on the old estate.

And a happier family I don't know Of anywheres--unless its _them_-- Father, with all his love for Lou, And her there with him, and healthy, too, And laughin', with John and little Em.

And, first we moved in the new house here, They all dropped in for a long pow-wow.

"We like your buildin', of course," Lou said,-- "But wouldn't swop with you to save your head-- For _we_ live in the ghost of the old house, now!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Healthy but out of the Race.]

In an interview which I have just had with myself, I have positively stated, and now repeat, that at neither the St. Louis nor Chicago Convention will my name be presented as a candidate.

But my health is bully.

We are upon the threshold of a most bitter and acrimonious fight. Great wisdom and foresight are needed at this hour, and the true patriot will forget himself and his own interests in his great yearning for the good of his common country and the success of his party. What we need at this time is a leader whose name will not be presented at the convention but whose health is good.

No one has a fuller or better conception of the great duties of the hour than I. How clearly to my mind are the duties of the American citizen outlined to-day! I have never seen with clearer, keener vision the great needs of my country, and my pores have never been more open. Four years ago I was in some doubt relative to certain important questions which now are clearly and satisfactorily settled in my mind. I hesitated then where now I am fully established, and my tongue was coated in the morning when I arose, whereas now I bound lightly from bed, kick out a window, climb to the roof by means of the fire-escape and there rehea.r.s.e speeches which I will make this fall in case it should be discovered at either of the conventions that my name alone can heal the rupture in the party and prevent its works from falling out.

I think my voice is better also that it was either four, eight, twelve or sixteen years ago, and it does not tire me so much to think of things to say from the tail-gate of a train as it did when I first began to refrain from presenting my name to conventions.

According to my notion, our candidate should be a plain man, a magnetic but hairless patriot, who should be suddenly thought of by a majority of the convention and nominated by acclamation. He should not be a hide-bound politician, but on the contrary he should be greatly startled, while down cellar sprouting potatoes, to learn that he has been nominated. That's the kind of man who always surprises everybody with his sagacity when an emergency arises.

In going down my cellar stairs the committee will do well to avoid stepping on a large and venomous dog who sleeps on the top stair. Or I will tie him in the barn if I can be informed when I am liable to be startled.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I have always thought that the neatest method of calling a man to public life was the one adopted some years since in the case of Cincinnatus. He was one day breaking a pair of nervous red steers in the north field. It was a hot day in July, and he was trying to summer fallow a piece of ground where the jimson weeds grew seven feet high.

The plough would not scour, and the steers had turned the yoke twice on him. Cincinnatus had hung his toga on a tamarac pole to strike a furrow by, and hadn't succeeded in getting the plough in more than twice in going across. Dressing as he did in the Roman costume of 458 B. C., the blackberry vines had scratched his ma.s.sive legs till they were a sight to behold. He had scourged Old Bright and twisted the tail of Bolly till he was sick at heart. All through the long afternoon, wearing a hot, rusty helmet with rabbit-skin ear tabs he had toiled on, when suddenly a majority of the Roman voters climbed over the fence and asked him to become dictator in place of Spurious Melius.

Putting on his toga and buckling an old hame strap around his loins he said: "Gentlemen, if you will wait till I go to the house and get some vaseline on my limbs I will do your dictating for you as low as you have ever had it done." He then left his team standing in the furrow while he served his country in an official capacity for a little over twenty-nine years, after which he went back and resumed his farming.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Though 2,300 years have since pa.s.sed away and historians have been busy with that epoch ever since, no one has yet discovered the methods by which Cincinnatus organized and executed this, the most successful "People's Movement" of which we are informed.

The great trouble with the modern boom is that it is too precocious. It knows more before it gets its clothes on than the nurse, the physician and its parents. It then dies before the sap starts in the maple forests.

My object in writing this letter is largely to tone down and keep in check any popular movement in my behalf until the weather in more settled. A season-cracked boom is a thing I despise.

I inclose my picture, however, which shows that I am so healthy that it keeps me awake nights. I go about the house singing all the time and playing pranks on my grandparents. My eye dances with ill-concealed merriment, and my conversation is just as sparkling as it can be.

I believe that during this campaign we should lay aside politics so far as possible and unite on an unknown, homely, but sparkling man. Let us lay aside all race prejudices and old party feeling and elect a magnetic chump who does not look so very well, but who feels first rate.

Towards the middle of June I shall go away to an obscure place where I cannot be reached. My mail will be forwarded to me by a gentleman who knows how I feel in relation to the wants and needs of the country.

To those who have prospered during the past twenty years let me say they owe it to the perpetuation of the principles and inst.i.tutions towards the establishment and maintenance of which I have given the best energies of my life. To those who have been unfortunate let me say frankly that they owe it to themselves.

I have never had less malaria or despondency in my system that I have this spring. My cheeks have a delicate bloom on them like a russet apple, and my step is light and elastic. In the morning I arise from my couch and, touching a concealed spring, it becomes an upright piano. I then bathe in a low divan which contains a jointed tank. I then sing until interfered with by property owners and tax-payers who reside near by. After a light breakfast of calf's liver and custard pie I go into the reception-room and wait for people to come and feel my pulse. In the afternoon I lie down on a lounge for two or three hours, wondering in what way I can endear myself to the laboring man. I then dine heartily at my club. In the evening I go to see the amateurs play "Pygmalion and Galatea." As I remain till the play is over, any one can see that I am a very robust man. After I get home I write two or three thousand words in my diary. I then insert myself into the bosom of my piano and sleep, having first removed my clothes and ironed my trousers for future reference.

In closing, let me urge one and all to renewed effort. The prospects for a speedy and unqualified victory at the polls were never more roseate.

Let us select a man upon whom we can all unite, a man who has no venom in him, a man who has successfully defied and trampled on the infamous Interstate Commerce act, a man who, though in the full flush and pride and bloom and fluff of life's meridian, still disdains to present his name to the convention.

Lines

ON HEARING A COW BAWL, IN A DEEP FIT OF DEJECTION, ON THE EVENING OF JULY 3, A. D. 18--