Rippling Rhymes Part 6

OLD AND NEW

New songs are made in long array; we learn and sing them,--for a day, and then they fade and die away. But when the long, sad day is through, refres.h.i.+ng as the evening dew, are those old songs our fathers knew. New books, in rich and gorgeous dress, are coming hourly from the press, and charm by all their lovliness. But when from bench or desk we roam, to find the resting place at home, we read the old, old treasured tome. New friends are made at every reach of our long road to Styx's beach; new friends of warm and pleasant speech. But when life's sun is in the West, and feet are tired and hearts oppressed, the old time friend seems always best.

THE HANDY EDITOR

When a man has got a grievance that is keeping him awake, some old moldy, tiresome trouble that has made his innards ache, then he comes a-callyhooting to the printing-office door, for he wants to share his trouble with the humble editore.

When a man has got a hobby that has put him on the b.u.m, then the people flee a-shrieking when they chance to see him come; but he knows one weary mortal who must suffer and endure, so he comes to share his theories with the lowly editure.

When a man has got a story that with age was stiff and stark when old Father Noah told it to the people in the ark, then he comes, a-bubbling over, to the Weekly Bugle's lair, for he wants to share his gladness with the soulful editaire.

O, he's always freely giving of the things that make us tired, and he's often pretty stingy with the things that are desired; he might bring a ray of sunlight to a life that's sad and drear, if he'd give the absent treatment to the heartsick editeer.

THE SLEEPER WAKES

Perhaps you've heard of old Tom Tinkle, who went to sleep like Rip Van Winkle, and slept for thirty years; he woke the other day, and gazing around him on the sights amazing, his soul was filled with fears.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Sleeper Wakes]

"What world is this?" he asked, in terror; "what life, of which I'm now a sharer? What globe do we infest? Oh, is it Saturn, Mars or Venus?

How many planets are between us and good old Mother Earth? What mighty bird is that a-soaring--I seem to hear its pinions roaring, it scoots along so fast? Old Earth, with all her varied features, had no such big, outlandish creatures around, from first to last."

"It is an airs.h.i.+p, Thomas Tinkle," I answered him; "a modern wrinkle, just one of many score which were by scientists invented to make the people more contented since you began to snore."

I told him of the wireless system and other wonders--he had missed 'em, since he was sound asleep; of submarines which sink and travel serenely o'er the mud and gravel beneath the raging deep.

"You can't convince me," said the waker, "that 'tis the earth--you are a faker, and deal in fairy tales; no man could soar away up yonder, like some blamed albatross or condor on metal wings or sails. And as for sending long dispatches from Buffalo clear down to Natchez, the same not being wired, if that's done here it's not the planet whereon I lived when mortals ran it; your stories make me tired. But what are these rip-snorting wagons? We must be in the land of dragons! I never saw the like! So riotously are they scooting, so wildly are they callyhooting they fairly burn the pike!"

I told him they were merely autos whose drivers lived up to their mottoes that speed laws are in vain; and other miracles amazing with delicate and pointed phrasing I started to explain. I told of triumphs most astounding, of things which should be quite confounding to resurrected men; but in the middle of my soaring I heard old Thomas Tinkle snoring--he'd gone to sleep again.

IN HORSELAND

A well-fed horse drove into town, behind a span of ancient men, whose knees were sore from falling down and striving to get up again; their poor old ribs were bare of meat, and they had sores upon their necks; there wasn't, on the village street, a tougher looking pair of wrecks.

And so they shambled up the street, a spectre harnessed with a ghost; the horse descended from his seat, and left them standing by a post.

And there they stood through half the night, and shook and s.h.i.+vered in the tugs, the while their master, in delight, was shaking dice with other plugs. And there they died, of grief and cold--no more they'll haul the heavy plow; their master said, when he was told: "They cost blamed little, anyhow!"

INAUGURATION DAY, 1913

Now Was.h.i.+ngton is swarming with men of sterling worth, all bent upon reforming the heaven and the earth; they come from far Savannah, they come from Texarkana, and points in Indiana, with loud yet seemly mirth.

They're come from far Alaska, where show is heaped on snow; they've journeyed from Nebraska where commoners do grow; the famed, the wise, the witty, the timid, and the gritty have come from Kansas City and also Broken Bow. Their battle shout is thrilling as they go marching by, and every man is willing at once to bleed and die; to guarantee this nation a fine Administration he'd take a situation or kill himself with pie. The editors of journals are marching in the throng; and old and war-worn colonels are teetering along; and friends of Andrew Jackson and Jefferson, now waxin' a trifle old, are taxin' their dusty throats with song. No wonder Woodrow Wilson, as this great crowd appears, his silken kerchief spills on some proud and grateful tears; the ranks of colonels face him--such loyalty must brace him, and from dejection chase him in future pregnant years. No office need go begging before this mighty host; he need not go a-legging for masters of the post; he has to do no pleading; they bring the help he's needing; of dying and of bleeding they make a modest boast. And so he views the strangers from Maryland and Maine, the tall, bewhiskered grangers who till the Western plain; the men from desks and foyers, the sheepmen and the sawyers, the lumberjacks and lawyers, all come to ease the strain; he views the dusty millers from Minnesota land; the s.h.i.+ning social pillars from Boston's sacred strand; the men of hill and valley around his standard rally (and on the snaps keep tally), each with a helping hand. "My fears are in the distance," is Woodrow's grateful song; "what foe can make resistance against this mighty throng? So let us, lawyer, farmer, ex-plute, and social charmer, gird on our snow-white armor, and paralyze each wrong!"

PRAYER OF THE HEATHEN

Before a wooden idol two heathen knelt and prayed; it was their day of bridal, the savage and the maid. "We two have come together, to journey through the years, in calm and stormy weather, in suns.h.i.+ne and in tears. O idol most exalted, protect us on our way, and may our feet be halted from going far astray. This maid," the bridegroom muttered, "is fresh from Nature's hands; her boudoir is not cluttered with strings and pins and bands; she does not paint her features, or wear rings on her paws; she's one of Nature's creatures, and lives by Nature's laws. Her foot, she does not force it into a misfit shoe; nor does she wear a corset to squeeze her frame in two. That frame has got upon it no clothes she does not need; she wears no bughouse bonnet that makes man's bosom bleed. This maid, this weaker vessel, has movements swift and free, and she can run and wrestle, and she can climb a tree.

And it she shows a yearning to emulate the whites, our good old customs spurning, pursuing vain delights, O idol stern and oaken, take thou thy sceptre dread, and may the same be broken upon her silly head."

"This bridegroom," said the maiden, "untutored is and rude, but still he is not laden with habits vain and lewd. I hope to see him trundle each evening to his kraal, and not blow in his bundle for long cold pints of ale. With my consent he'll never get next the slot machine, or use his best endeavor to burn up gasoline. No tailor hath arrayed him, no valet hath defaced! He stands as Nature made him, broad-chested, slim of waist! And he can swim the Niger, or rob a lion's lair, or whip a full-grown tiger at Reno or elsewhere! And if he would abandon our simple heathen ways, and learn to place his hand on some foolish white men's craze, O idol, in your dudgeon, obey his bride's behest! Take up your big spiked bludgeon, and swat him galley-west!"

THEORY AND PRACTICE

In public I talk of Milton and give him ecstatic praise, and say that I love to ponder for hours o'er his living lays; I speak of his n.o.ble epic, that jewel which proudly s.h.i.+nes, and quote from his splendid sonnets (I know maybe twenty lines); but when I am home John Milton is left on the bookcase shelf; he's rather too dull for reading--you know how it is yourself; to lighten the weight of sorrow that over my spirit hangs, I dig up the works of Irwin or Nesbit or Kendrick Bangs.

I talk much of Thomas Hardy when I'm with the cultured crowd, and say that few modern writers so richly have been endowed; I speak of his subtle treatment of life and its grim distress, and quote from "The Trumpet Major" or spiel a few lines from "Tess." But when I am in my chamber, where no one can see me read, remote from the highbrow people and all that the highbrows need, I never have known a longing to reach for the Hardy tomes; I put in a joyous evening with Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

I talk a good deal of Wagner in parlor and drawing room, and speak of the gorgeous fabrics he wove on his wondrous loom, the fabrics of sound and beauty, the wonderful scroll of tone, and say that this mighty genius remains in a cla.s.s alone. I whistle "The Pilgrims' Chorus," and chortle of "Lohengrin," and say that all other music is merely a venial sin. But when at my own piano Susannah sits down to play, I beg her to cut out Wagner and shoo all his noise away. "I'm weary and worn and beaten; my spirits," I say, "are low; so give us some helpful music--a few bars of Jungle Joe!"

FOOL AND SAGE

The fool and his money are parted, not long did they stay in cahoots; but the fool is the cheeriest-hearted and gladdest of human galoots.

His neighbor is better and wiser, six figures might tell what he's worth; but O how folks wish the old miser would fall off the edge of the earth!

THEN AND NOW

In olden times the gifted bard found life a pathway rough and hard.

Starvation often was his goad, and some dark garret his abode, and there, when nights were long and chill, he sadly plied his creaking quill. He wrote of shepherds and their crooks, of verdant vales and babbling brooks, displaying artfully his lore--while bailiffs threatened at the door. And having wrought his best, he took with trembling hands his little book to lay before some haughty lord, and cringe around for a reward. Some times, perchance, he got a purse; anon he only drew a curse; and often in a prison yard the weary, debt-inc.u.mbered bard was herded with the squalid throng, and d.a.m.ned the s.h.i.+ning peaks of song.

The world moves on. The bard today finds life a soft and easy way. If he elects to cut his hair he has the price and some to spare. Attired in purple, he goes by with hard boiled s.h.i.+rt and scrambled tie, and you can hear his bullion clank as he goes prancing to the bank. He writes no tame, insipid books of dairy maids or shepherds' crooks, of singing birds or burbling streams, or any other worn-out themes. Anon he touches up his lyre to boost a patent rubber tire, or sings a n.o.ble song that thrills concerning someone's beeswax pills. His lyre's a wonder to behold; its frame is pearl, its strings are gold. His sheetiron laurels never fade; the grocer's glad to get his trade.

While he can make the muses sweat he'll never go to jail for debt.

He calmly puts his harp away, when he has toiled a 10-hour day, and softly sighs: "There's nothing wrong with this old graft of deathless song!"