Uncle Walt [Walt Mason] Part 12

_The Depot Loafers_

The railway station in our town is seedy, commonplace and plain; yet scores of people rustle down and gather there to meet each train. The waiting room is bleak and bare, a place of never-ending din; yet fifty loafers gather there each day to see the train come in. The station agent's life is sad; the loafers made it grim and gray; they drive the poor man nearly mad, for they are always in the way. The pa.s.sengers can only sob as they their townward way begin, for they must struggle through the mob that's there to see the train come in. The men who have their work to do are hindered in a hundred ways; in vain they weep and cry out "Shoo!" they can't disperse the loafing jays. These loafers always are the same; they toil not, neither do they spin; they have no other end or aim, than just to see the train come in. I've traveled east, I've traveled west, and every station in the land appears to have its loaferfest, its lazy, idle, useless band; I know the station loafer well; he has red stubble on his chin; he has an ancient, fishlike smell; he lives to see the train come in. Oh, Osler, get your chloroform, and fill your gla.s.s syringe again, and come and try to make things warm for those who bother busy men! For loafers, standing in the way, when standing is a yellow sin! For those who gather, day by day, to see a one-horse train come in!

_The Foolish Husband_

He toiled and sweated half his life to hang rich garments on his wife.

"I haven't time to cut a dash," he said, "but I will blow the cash to let those swelled-up neighbors know that I have got the cash to blow."

And so his good wife wore her furs, and dress parade was always hers; she had her gems from near and far, and glittered like an auto-car; she had a new and wondrous gown for every "function" in the town; her life seemed sunny, gay and glad, this wife who was her husband's ad. One night, his day of labor o'er, he found her weeping at the door, and when he asked her to explain, she stopped a while the briny rain, and cried: "This life my spirit f.a.gs! I'm tired of wearing flossy rags! I'm tired of chasing through the town, a dummy in a costly gown! I'd rather wear a burlap sack, or leather flynet on my back--and have you with me as of yore--than all the sables in the store! And if you really love your wife, you'll get back to the simple life. Don't try to gather all the dough that's minted in this world below; just earn enough to pay the freight, and let us live in simple state, in some neat shanty far away from pomp and fuss and vain display--some hut among the c.o.c.kleburs, remote from jewelry and furs!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Boys (durn'em!) will be boys!_"]

_Hallowe'en_

Tonight the boys will take the town, and doubtless turn it upside down; they'll sport around with joyous zest, and knock the landscape galley west; and when the morning comes I'll see my buggy in an apple tree; the sidewalk piled upon the lawn, the hens with all their feathers gone; I'll hear my trusty milkcow yell down at the bottom of the well, while Dobbin stands upon the roof and waves for help a frantic hoof. Last year the boys wrought while I slept, and in the morn I screamed and wept, when looking at the work they'd done, I said: "Next year I'll get a gun, and watch for these michievous souls, and shoot the darlings full of holes." But granny heard me, and she said: "While water's cheap, go soak your head; you once were young yourself, by George! and people voted you a scourge; you played so many fiendish tricks, you filled so many hats with bricks, that terror came to every one when you went forth to have some fun. The village pastor used to say: 'When that young rascal comes my way, I always beat a swift retreat--I'd rather have the p.r.i.c.kly heat!'" And so I haven't bought a gun; and so the boys may have their fun; and if the morning should disclose the chimney filled with garden hose, the watchdog painted green and brown, the henhouse standing upside down, I'll make no melancholy noise, but say: "Boys (durn 'em!) will be boys!"

_Rienzi to the Romans_

He stood erect, and having seen that artists for some magazine had sketched him in his proper pose, he cleared his throat, and blew his nose, and said: "Hi, Romans, you are slaves! You've not the price to buy your shaves! The good old sun's still on the turf, and his last beam falls on a serf! Great Scott, my friends, is freedom dead? O whence and whither do we tread? I view the future with alarm! We tremble 'neath the tyrant's arm, and ye may tremble, sons of Rome, until the muley cows come home, but you will still be in the hole, unless some fiery, dauntless soul, like me, shall lead you from the wreck, and soak the tyrant in the neck! And here I stand to cut the ice! I'm ready for the sacrifice! I'll save you, if a Roman can! As candidate for councilman, I ask your votes, and if I win I'll swat the tyrant on the chin. I'll represent the fourteenth ward, and represent it good and hard, and drive the grafters from their place, and kick the tyrant in the face!

Corruption in our Rome will die, if you'll support your Uncle Ri!"

_The Sorrel Colt_

A sorrel colt, one pleasant day, ran round and round a stack of hay, and kicked its heels, and pawed the land, and reared and jumped to beat the band. The older horses stood around and swallowed fodder by the pound, and gave no notice to the kid that gaily round the haystack slid. I loafed along and murmured, then: "If horses were as mean as men, some old gray workhorse, stiff and sour, would jaw that colt for half an hour; methinks I hear that workhorse say: 'You think you're mighty smooth and gay, and you are fresh and sporty now, but when they hitch you to the plow, and strap a harness on your back, and work you till your innards crack, and kick you when you want to balk, and slug you with a chunk of rock, and cover you with nasty sores, and leave you freezing out of doors--O, then you won't kick up your heels! You'll know, then, how a workhorse feels!' But horses have no croaking voice, to chill the colt that would rejoice; no graybeard plug will leave its feed to make the heart of childhood bleed; no dismal prophecies are heard, no moral homilies absurd, where horses stand and eat their hay, and so the colts may run and play!"

_Plutocrat and Poet_

Good old opulent John D.! He would look with scorn on me; I consider I'm in luck, when I have an extra buck; buying ice or buying coal always keeps me in the hole, and when I have paid the rent I am left without a cent. Yet I'm always gay and snug, happy as a tumblebug, having still the best of times, grinding out my blame fool rhymes! Old John D., on t'other hand, frets away to beat the band; he is burdened with his care--though he isn't with his hair--and his health is going back, and his liver's out of whack, and his conscience has grown numb, and his wishbone's out of plumb, and he's trembling all the day lest a plunk may get away. Better be a cornfed bard, writing lyrics by the yard, with an appet.i.te so gay it won't balk at prairie hay, than to have a mighty pile, and forget the way to smile!

_Mail Order Clothes_

I bought me a suit of the Sears-buck brand, they said it was tailored and sewed by hand; they said it was woven of finest wool, and couldn't be torn by an angry bull; they said it was fine, and would surely last, till Gabriel tooteth the final blast. It was ten cents cheaper than suits I'd bought, from local dealers, who seemed quite hot, and shed a bucket of briny tears, when I bought my clothes of the Sawbuck Rears. I wore that suit when the day was damp, and it shrunk to the size of a postage stamp; the coat split up and the vest split down and I scared the horses all over town, for the b.u.t.tons popped and the seams they tore, and the stiches gave, with a sullen roar. And I gave that suit to a maiden small, who found it handy to dress her doll.

_Evening_

Life's little day is fading fast; upon the mountain's brow the sinking sun is gleaming red; the shadows lengthen now; the twilight hush comes on apace, and soon the evening star will light us to those chambers dim where dreamless sleepers are. And when the curfew bell is rung, that calls us all to rest, and we have left all worldly things, at Azrael's behest, O may some truthful mourner rise, and say of you or me: "Gee whiz! I'm sorry that he's dead! He was a honey bee! Whate'er his job he did his best; he put on all his steam, in every stunt he had to do he was a four-horse team. He thought that man was placed on earth to help his fellowguys; he never wore a frosty face, and balked at weeping eyes; the hard luck pilgrim always got a handout at his door, and any friend could help himself to all he had in store; he tried to make his humble home the gayest sort of camp, till Death, the king of bogies, came and slugged him in the lamp. I don't believe a squarer guy existed in the land, and Death was surely off his base when this galoot was canned!"

_They All Come Back_

The stars will come back to the azure vault when the clouds are all blown away; and the sun will come back when the night is done, and give us another day; the cows will come back from the meadows lush, and the birds to their trysting tree, but the money I paid to a mining shark will never come back to me! The leaves will come back to the naked boughs, and the flowers to the frosty brae; the spring will come back like a blooming bride, and the breezes that blow in May; and the joy will come back to the stricken heart, and laughter and hope and glee, but the money I blew for some mining stock will never come back to me!

_The Cussing Habit_

The jackal is a beastly beast; and when it hankers for a feast, it has no use for nice fresh meat; the all-fired fool would rather eat some animal that died last year; and so the jackal, far and near, is shunned by self-respecting brutes, and slugged with rocks, and bricks, and boots. And men whose language is decayed, who make profanity a trade, are like the jackal of the wild, that hunts around for things defiled.

In all your rounds you'll never find a healthy, clean and gentle mind possessed by any son of wrath whose language needs a Turkish bath. On great occasions there's excuse for turning ring-tailed cuss-words loose; the Father of his Country swore at Monmouth, and then cussed some more; that patient soul, the Man of Uz, with boils so thick he couldn't buzz, ripped off some language rich and brown, until old Bildad called him down. Great men, beneath some awful stroke let loose remarks that fairly smoke, and we forgive them as we write the story of their deeds of might. But little men, who swear, and swear, and thus pollute our common air, are foul and foolish as the frogs that trumpet in their native bogs.

_John Bull_

John Bull looks forth upon the main, and heaves a sigh, as though in pain; he wipes away the tears and cries, in sorrow: "Blawst my blooming eyes! There's fungus growing on my realm! I need a hustler at the helm!

These once progressive British isles are left behind a million miles; it was a blamed Italian chap that made that wireless message trap; a Frenchman made the whole world blink by flying safely o'er the drink; a Dutchman built a big balloon, in which he'll journey to the moon; and now I'm told, lud bless my soul, a Yankee's gone and found the Pole!

Have Britons lost their steam and vim? Are we no longer in the swim? Are we content to tag behind, and trust in fate, and go it blind? Is this our England lying dead, with candles at her feet and head? Has Genius torn her robe and died, and have we naught to brace our pride?" A voice comes sighing o'er the land--a voice John Bull can understand; a female voice that's bright and gay, and in his ears it seems to say: "Cheer up!

The G.o.ds are with you yet--you always have the suffragette!"

_An Oversight_