The Book of Humorous Verse
Chapter 105 : Thar is my ole gal, 'n' the kids, 'n' the rest o' my live-sto

Thar is my ole gal, 'n' the kids, 'n' the rest o' my live-stock; Thar my Remington hangs, and thar there's a griddle-cake br'ilin'-- For the two of us, pard--and thar, I allow, the heavens Smile more friendly-like than on any other locality.

Stranger, nowhere else I don't take no satisfaction.

Gimme my ranch, 'n' them friendly old Shanghai chickens-- I brung the original pair f'm the States in eighteen-'n'-fifty-- Gimme me them and the feelin' of solid domestic comfort.

Yer parding, young man-- But this landscape a kind Er flickers--I 'low 'twuz the po'try-- I thought that my eyes hed gone blind.

Take that pop from my belt!

Hi, thar!--gimme yer han'-- Or I'll kill myself--Lizzie--she's left me-- Gone off with a purtier man!

Thar, I'll quit--the ole gal An' the kids--run away!

I be derned! Howsomever, come in, pard-- The griddle-cake's thar, anyway.

IV

(_As Austin Dobson might have translated it from Horace, if it had ever occurred to Horace to write it._)

RONDEAU

At home alone, O Nomades, Although Maecenas' marble frieze Stand not between you and the sky Nor Persian luxury supply Its rosy surfeit, find ye ease.

Tempt not the far aegean breeze; With home-made wine and books that please, To duns and bores the door deny, At home, alone.

Strange joys may lure. Your deities Smile here alone. Oh, give me these: Low eaves, where birds familiar fly, And peace of mind, and, fluttering by, My Lydia's graceful draperies, At home, alone.

V

(_As it might have been constructed in 1744, Oliver Goldsmith, at 19, writing the first stanza, and Alexander Pope, at 52, the second._)

Home! at the word, what blissful visions rise, Lift us from earth, and draw us toward the skies; 'Mid mirag'd towers, or meretricious joys, Although we roam, one thought the mind employs: Or lowly hut, good friend, or loftiest dome, Earth knows no spot so holy as our Home.

There, where affection warms the father's breast, There is the spot of heav'n most surely blest.

Howe'er we search, though wandering with the wind Through frigid Zembla, or the heats of Ind, Not elsewhere may we seek, nor elsewhere know, The light of heaven upon our dark below.

When from our dearest hope and haven reft, Delight nor dazzles, nor is luxury left, We long, obedient to our nature's law, To see again our hovel thatched with straw: See birds that know our avenaceous store Stoop to our hand, and thence repleted soar: But, of all hopes the wanderer's soul that share, His pristine peace of mind's his final prayer.

VI

(_As Walt Whitman might have written all around it._)

I

You over there, young man with the guide-book, red-bound, covered flexibly with red linen, Come here, I want to talk with you; I, Walt, the Manhattanese, citizen of these States, call you.

Yes, and the courier, too, smirking, smug-mouthed, with oil'd hair; a garlicky look about him generally; him, too, I take in, just as I would a coyote or a king, or a toad-stool, or a ham-sandwich, or anything, or anybody else in the world.

Where are you going?

You want to see Paris, to eat truffles, to have a good time; in Vienna, London, Florence, Monaco, to have a good time; you want to see Venice.

Come with me. I will give you a good time; I will give you all the Venice you want, and most of the Paris.

I, Walt, I call to you. I am all on deck! Come and loafe with me! Let me tote you around by your elbow and show you things.

You listen to my ophicleide!

Home!

Home, I celebrate. I elevate my fog-whistle, inspir'd by the thought of home.

Come in!--take a front seat; the jostle of the crowd not minding; there is room enough for all of you.

This is my exhibition--it is the greatest show on earth--there is no charge for admission.

All you have to pay me is to take in my romanza.

II

1. The brown-stone house; the father coming home worried from a bad day's business; the wife meets him in the marble pav'd vestibule; she throws her arms about him; she presses him close to her; she looks him full in the face with affectionate eyes; the frown from his brow disappearing.

Darling, she says, Johnny has fallen down and cut his head; the cook is going away, and the boiler leaks.

2. The mechanic's dark little third-story room, seen in a flash from the Elevated Railway train; the sewing-machine in a corner; the small cook-stove; the whole family eating cabbage around a kerosene lamp; of the clatter and roar and groaning wail of the Elevated train unconscious; of the smell of the cabbage unconscious.

Me, pa.s.sant, in the train, of the cabbage not quite so unconscious.

3. The French Flat; the small rooms, all right-angles, un-individual; the narrow halls; the gaudy, cheap decorations everywhere.

The janitor and the cook exchanging compliments up and down the elevator-shaft; the refusal to send up more coal, the solid splash of the water upon his head, the language he sends up the shaft, the triumphant laughter of the cook, to her kitchen retiring.

4. The widow's small house in the suburbs of the city; the widow's boy coming home from his first day down town; he is flushed with happiness and pride; he is no longer a school-boy, he is earning money; he takes on the airs of a man and talks learnedly of business.

5. The room in the third-cla.s.s boarding-house; the mean little hard-coal fire, the slovenly Irish servant-girl making it, the ashes on the hearth, the faded furniture, the private provender hid away in the closet, the dreary backyard out the window; the young girl at the gla.s.s, with her mouth full of hairpins, doing up her hair to go downstairs and flirt with the young fellows in the parlor.

6. The kitchen of the old farm-house; the young convict just returned from prison--it was his first offense, and the judges were lenient on him.

He is taking his first meal out of prison; he has been received back, kiss'd, encourag'd to start again; his lungs, his nostrils expand with the big breaths of free air; with shame, with wonderment, with a trembling joy, his heart too, expanding.

The old mother busies herself about the table; she has ready for him the dishes he us'd to like; the father sits with his back to them, reading the newspaper, the newspaper shaking and rustling much; the children hang wondering around the prodigal--they have been caution'd: Do not ask where our Jim has been; only say you are glad to see him.

The elder daughter is there, palefac'd, quiet; her young man went back on her four years ago; his folks would not let him marry a convict's sister. She sits by the window, sewing on the children's clothes, the clothes not only patching up; her hunger for children of her own invisibly patching up.

The brother looks up; he catches her eye, he fearful, apologetic; she smiles back at him, not reproachfully smiling, with loving pretence of hope smiling--it is too much for him; he buries his face in the folds of the mother's black gown.

7. The best room of the house, on the Sabbath only open'd; the smell of horse-hair furniture and mahogany varnish; the ornaments on the what-not in the corner; the wax fruit, dusty, sunken, sagged in, consumptive-looking, under a gla.s.s globe, the sealing-wax imitation of coral; the cigar boxes with sh.e.l.ls plastered over, the perforated card-board motto.

The kitchen; the housewife sprinkling the clothes for the fine ironing to-morrow--it is the Third-day night, and the plain things are ready iron'd, now in cupboards, in drawers stowed away.

The wife waiting for the husband--he is at the tavern, jovial, carousing; she, alone in the kitchen sprinkling clothes--the little red wood clock with peaked top, with pendulum wagging behind a pane of gayly painted gla.s.s, strikes twelve.

The sound of the husband's voice on the still night air--he is singing: "We won't go home until morning!"--the wife arising, toward the wood-shed hastily going, stealthily entering, the voice all the time coming nearer, inebriate, chantant.

The husband pa.s.sing the door of the wood-shed; the club over his head, now with his head in contact; the sudden cessation of the song; the benediction of peace over the domestic foyer temporarily resting.

I sing the soothing influences of home.

You, young man, thoughtlessly wandering, with courier, with guide-book wandering, You hearken to the melody of my steam-calliope Yawp!

_H. C. Bunner._