Uncle Walt [Walt Mason] Part 9

_Trifling Things_

The Wise Man, with some boys in tow, beheld a pin upon the ground. "My lads," he said, his face aglow, "come here and see what I have found!

'Tis but a pin, a humble pin, on which the pa.s.sing thousands tread, and some unthinking men would grin, to see me lift it from its bed. And yet, my lads, the trifles count; the drops of water make the sea; the grains of sand compose the mount, and moments make eternity. Each hour to man its chances brings, but he will gain no goodly store, if he despises little things, nor sees the pin upon his floor. I stoop and grasp this little pin; I'll keep it, maybe, seven years; it yet may let the sunshine in, and brighten up a day of tears." The Wise Man bent to reach the pin, and lost his balance, with a yell; he hit the pavement with his chin; his hat into the gutter fell; he rolled into a crate of eggs, and filled the air with dismal moans, and then a dray ran o'er his legs, and broke about a gross of bones. They took him home upon a door, and there he moans--so tough he feels: "Those dad-blamed children never more will listen to my helpful spiels!"

_Trusty Dobbin_

They doom you, Dobbin, now and then, they say your usefulness is gone; some blame fool thing designed by men has put the equine race in p.a.w.n.

They doomed you, and your hopes were low, when bicycles were all the rage; they said: "The horse will have to go--he lags superfl'ous on the stage!" They doomed you when the auto-car was given its resplendent birth. "Thus sinks the poor old horse's star--he'll have to beat it from the earth!" And now they're dooming you some more, there are so many motor things; men scorch the earth with sullen roar, or float around on hardware wings. They doom you, Dobbin, now and then, and call you has-been, and the like; but while this world is breeding men, the horse will still be on the pike. No painted thing of cogs and wheels and entrails made of noisy bra.s.s can e'er supplant a horse's heels, or make man grudge a horse his gra.s.s. No man-made trap of bars and springs can love or confidence impart, nor give the little neigh that brings emotion to the horseman's heart. O build your cars and ships and planes, and doom old Dobbin as you will! While men have souls and hearts and brains, old Dobbin shall be with us still!

_The High Prices_

At the hash-works where I board, but one topic now prevails: "How the price of grub has soared!" Drearily the landlord wails. In his old, accustomed place, he is sitting, at each meal; sad and corpse-like is his face, as he carves his ancient veal. When I ask that solemn jay, if he'll pa.s.s the b.u.t.ter 'round, "b.u.t.ter costs," I hear him say, "almost half a bone a pound." When I want a slice of duck, his expression is a sin; "this thin drake cost me a buck, and the quacks were not thrown in." Through the muddy coffee's steam, I can hear him saying now: "I desired a pint of cream, and they charged me for a cow." "Let me have some beans," I cried--I was hungry as could be; "sure!" he wearily replied; "shall I give you two, or three? Beans," he said, "long years ago, of rank cheapness were the signs; now they cost three scads a throw--and you do not get the vines." Once, at morn, I wished an egg, and the landlord had a swoon; with his head soaked in a keg, he regained his mind by noon; "once," he moaned, "an egg was cheap; times have changed, alas! since then; now the price would make you weep--and they don't throw in the hen!"

_Omar Khayyam_

Omar, of the golden pen, come, O come to us again! 'Neath thy fig-tree and thy vine, with thy bread and jug of wine, seat thyself again, and write, in the caustic vein, or light. Thou who swatted many heads, tore so many fakes to shreds, made the ancient humbugs hump, kept the wise guys on the jump--come, great Omar, from the mists, come and swat thy parodists! Come and give the rhymesters fits--all the jingling, gra.s.s-fed wits, who profane thy n.o.ble verse; come and place them in the hea.r.s.e! They who love the Khayyam strain, treasure from a master's brain, satire keen as tested steel--they who love old Omar feel that the imitative crew should receive the wages due, be rewarded for their toil with a bath in boiling oil. But the law is in the way; if the poets we should slay, we'd be pulled by the police for disturbance of the peace.

Come, then, Omar, from the shade, where thou hast too long delayed, and with sundry skillful twists, wipe out all those parodists.

_The Grouch_

It's all very well to be nursing a grouch, when everything travels awry, and you haven't the pieces-of-eight in your pouch to pay for a cranberry pie; it's all very well to use language galore, and cover your whiskers with foam; you may prance around town with a head that is sore--but it's beastly to carry it home! You may be discouraged and worn by the strife; then make all your kicks on the street, for the man who will wear out his grouch on his wife, isn't fit for a cannibal's meat; if troubles and worries are beating you down, and bringing gray hairs to your dome, 'twill do in the office to carry a frown, but it's ghoulish to carry it home! The Lord, who made sparrows and Katy H. Dids, loves the man who is stalwart and brave, who cheerily goes to his wife and his kids, though his hopes may be fit for the grave; but the Lord has no use for the twenty-cent skate, whose courage is weak as the foam; who piles up his sorrows, and shoulders the weight, and carefully carries it home!

_The Pole_

I'm glad I didn't find the Pole, up there where Arctic billows roll.

When first I heard the Pole was lost, for one brief day my wires were crossed; I said: "Methinks I'd better go across the weary wastes of snow, along the white bear's lonely track, and find the Pole, and bring it back. Thus shall I scale the heights of fame, and grow sidewhiskers on my name. I'll be a bigger man than Taft; I'll work the soft Chautauqua graft, and earn a package of long green by writing for a magazine; I'll have some medals in my trunk, and silver cups, and other junk; and kings and queens will cry, with pride, that I'm all wool and three yards wide. So let me hire some Eskimos, and hit the nice cool Arctic snows." But here my granny intervened, and said: "Those stovepipes must be cleaned; you haven't mowed the lawn this week, and it's a sight to make one shriek; there's something clogging up the flue--you ought to wash the buggy, too, and there are forty thousand ch.o.r.es, and here you stand around outdoors, and mumble like a heathen Turk"--and then, my friends, I got to work.

_Wilhelmina_

Long life to you and Holland's heir, Wilhelmina! May all your days be bright and fair, Wilhelmina! And may the babe grow wise and great, and chic and slick and up-to-date, and learn to keep her crown on straight, Wilhelmina! O bring her up with steady hand, Wilhelmina! And train her mind, to beat the band, Wilhelmina! And if you catch her chewing gum, or flirting with a rah-rah chum, then take a strap and make things hum, Wilhelmina! Don't let her fool away her time, Wilhelmina, in painting or in writing rhyme, Wilhelmina; but let her know that glory lies in knowing how to make mince pies, and stews and roasts and fancy fries, Wilhelmina. And if by worries you're perplex'd, Wilhelmina, and don't know what you should do next, Wilhelmina, then come to us for good advice--we always keep a lot on ice--we'll solve your problems in a trice, Wilhelmina.

_Wilbur Wright_

He's won success where others failed; he's built a weird machine, composed of cranks and doodads and propelled by gasoline, that circles proudly overhead, as graceful in its flight, as any eagle that cavorts along the airy height. When Wilbur and his brother bold began their march to fame, the sages of the village sneered, and said: "What is their game? Do these here loonies really think that they can make a trap of iron and bra.s.s and canvas things, and junk and other sc.r.a.p, with which to leave the solid earth, and plow the atmosphere? By jings! It isn't safe for them to be at large, that's clear." But Wilbur and his brother bold, whose courage never fails, kept on a-patching up their trap with wire and tin and nails, they built a new cafoozelum, improved the rinktyram, and tinkered up the doodlewhang until it wouldn't jam; and then one morning up they flew, and all the village seers just stood around and pawed the ground and chewed each other's ears. Good luck be with those Dayton boys--good luck in every flight! It is a pleasant rite to write that Wright is strictly right!

_The Broncho_

You haven't much sense, but I love you well, O wild-eyed broncho of mine! Your heart is hot with the heat of h.e.l.l, and a cyclone's in your spine; your folly grows with increasing age; you stand by the pasture bars, and bare your teeth in a dotard rage, and kick at the smiling stars. As homely you as the face of sin, with brands on your mottled flanks, and saddle scars on your dusky skin, and burs on your tail and shanks! and old--so old that the men are dead, who branded your neck and side; and their sons have lived and gone to bed, and turned to the wall and died. But it's you for the long, long weary trail, o'er the hills and the desert sand, by the side of the bones of the steeds that fail and perish on either hand. It's you for the steady and tireless lope, through canyon or mountain pa.s.s; to be flogged at night with a length of rope, and be fed on a bunch of gra.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_And then I float away, away, to moonlit castles in Cathay._"]

_Schubert's Serenade_

There is no tune that grips my heart, and seems to pull me all apart, like this old Serenade; it seems to breathe of distant lands, and orange groves and silver sands, and troubadour and maid. It's freighted with a gentle woe as old as all the seas that flow, as young as yesterday; as changeless as the stars above, as yearning as a woman's love for true knight far away. It seems a prayer, serene and pure; a tale of love that will endure when they who loved are dust, when earthly songs are heard no more, and bridal wreaths are withered sore, and wedding rings are rust. It's weary with a lover's care; it's wailing with a deep despair, that only lovers learn; and yet through all its sadness grope the singing messengers of hope for joys that will return. O, gentle, soothing Serenade! When I am beaten down and frayed, with all my hopes in p.a.w.n, when I've forgotten how to laugh, I wind up my old phonograph, and turn the music on! And then I float away, away, to moonlit castles in Cathay, or Araby or Spain, and underneath the glowing skies I read of love in damsels' eyes, and dream, and dream again!

_Mazeppa_

Mazeppa, strapped upon a steed, made sixty miles at frightful speed; through lowland, valley and mora.s.s, through verdant strips of garden sa.s.s, o'er mountain, brake and flowing stream, he sped, as though propelled by steam. The bear sat up to see him go, the wolves pursued, but had no show; and when at last he reached a town, his dying charger tumbled down. Mazeppa rose, without a scratch, and swiftly wrote a long dispatch, which reached the Sporting Ed. that night: "I've knocked the record flat, all right. No other fellow, anywhere, has traveled on a knee-sprung mare o'er sixty miles of right of way, while trussed up like a bale of hay. Please hire a hall; a statement write, that I will lecture every night, for twenty years--my lecture's fine--the moving picture rights are mine. If any challenger should come, and put up a substantial sum, and say that he'd be glad to ride, upon a raw-boned hea.r.s.e horse tied, for sixty miles or maybe more, for money, marbles, chalk or gore, just say my last long ride is made, until the lecture graft is played."

_Fashion's Devotee_