The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (i can read book club .txt) 📗
- Author: Marshall P. Wilder
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"When all was over, I found time to take the husky,[Pg 1195] with the damaged fin out and throw a few drinks into him. Then he told me the whole story.
"'The old man didn't think you could do the thing justice if you were wise,' says he, 'so he kept you out. This ain't the horse the fellow offered to sell him, at all. He bought it at a bazar for ten dollars, the day before I brought it around. When you went out for lunch Cap. he comes in. We done for the plug in a minute, and as Mighty Marda was all but gone, on account of his rat diet, we finished him, too. Then we wrecked the place up some, took a couple of turns about the horse with Mardo, called in Doc. Forbes, who stood in, to fix up the fictitious fracture, and then rung in the show.'
"Yes," observed Bat, thoughtfully, after a pause, "I've made up my mind that H. Wellington Sheldon is a wise plug."[Pg 1196]
THE OWL-CRITIC BY JAMES T. FIELDSThe barber was busy, and he couldn't stop;
The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
The "Daily," the "Herald," the "Post," little heeding
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
And the barber kept on shaving.
Cried the youth, with a frown,
"How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is
How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is—
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis!
I make no apology;
I've learned owl-eology.
I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And can not be blinded to any deflections
Arising from unskilful fingers that fail
To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown! Mister Brown!
Do take that bird down,
Or you'll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!"
And the barber kept on shaving.[Pg 1197]
And other night-fowls,
And I tell you
What I know to be true;
An owl can not roost
With his limbs so unloosed;
No owl in this world
Ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted,
Ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed
Into that attitude.
He can't do it, because
'Tis against all bird-laws.
Anatomy teaches,
Ornithology preaches,
An owl has a toe
That can't turn out so!
I've made the white owl my study for years,
And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!
Mr. Brown, I'm amazed
You should be so gone crazed
As to put up a bird
In that posture absurd!
To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness;
The man who stuffed him don't half know his business!"
And the barber kept on shaving.
I'm filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass
Off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem
They'd make Audubon scream,[Pg 1198]
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff.
Do take that bird down;
Have him stuffed again, Brown!"
And the barber kept on shaving.
I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that.
I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl
Than that horrid fowl,
Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about him there's not one natural feather."
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say:
"Your learning's at fault this time, anyway;
Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray.
I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good day!"
And the barber kept on shaving.
[Pg 1199] THE MOSQUITO BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
And blood-extracting bill, and filmy wing,
Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about,
In pitiless ears, fall many a plaintive thing,
And tell how little our large veins should bleed
Would we but yield them to thy bitter need.
Full angrily, men listen to thy plaint;
Thou gettest many a brush and many a curse,
For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and faint.
Even the old beggar, while he asks for food,
Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could.
Has not the honor of so proud a birth:
Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green,
The offspring of the gods, though born on earth;
For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she,
The ocean-nymph that nursed thy infancy.
And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong,
Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung,
Rose in the sky and bore thee soft along;
The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way,
And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay.[Pg 1200]
Came the deep murmur of its throng of men,
And as its grateful odors met thy sense,
They seemed the perfumes of thy native fen.
Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sight
Thy tiny song grew shriller with delight.
Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks kissed
By wanton airs, and eyes whose killing ray
Shone through the snowy veils like stars through mist;
And fresh as morn, on many a cheek and chin,
Bloomed the bright blood through the transparent skin.
What! do I hear thy slender voice complain?
Thou wailest when I talk of beauty's light,
As if it brought the memory of pain.
Thou art a wayward being—well, come near,
And pour thy tale of sorrow in mine ear.
And China Bloom at best is sorry food?
And Rowland's Kalydor, if laid on thick,
Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood?
Go! 'twas a just reward that met thy crime;
But shun the sacrilege another time.
To worship, not approach, that radiant white;
And well might sudden vengeance light on such
As dared, like thee, most impiously to bite.
Thou shouldst have gazed at distance, and admired,—
Murmured thy admiration and retired.[Pg 1201]
To bleed a brother poet, gaunt like thee?
Alas! the little blood I have is dear,
And thin will be the banquet drawn from me.
Look round: the pale-eyed sisters in my cell,
Thy old acquaintance, Song and Famine, dwell.
Enriched by generous wine and costly meat;
On well-filled skins, sleek as thy native mud,
Fix thy light pump, and press thy freckled feet.
Go to the men for whom, in ocean's halls,
The oyster breeds and the green turtle sprawls.
To fill the swelling veins for thee, and now
The ruddy cheek and now the ruddier nose
Shall tempt thee, as thou flittest round the brow;
And when the hour of sleep its quiet brings,
No angry hand shall rise to brush thy wings.
[Pg 1202] "TIDDLE-IDDLE-IDDLE-IDDLE-BUM! BUM!" BY WILBUR D. NESBIT
On concert night you'll find me there.
I'm right beside Elijah Plumb,
Who plays th' cymbals an' bass drum;
An' next to him is Henry Dunn,
Who taps the little tenor one.
I like to hear our town band play,
But, best it does, I want to say,
Is when they tell a tune's to come
With
"Tiddle-iddle-iddle-iddle-
Bum-Bum!"
Like Lily Dale an' Ragtime Coons;
Some likes a solo or duet
By Charley Green—B-flat cornet—
An' Ernest Brown—th' trombone man.
(An' they can play, er no one can);
But it's the best when Henry Dunn
Lets them there sticks just cut an' run,
An' 'Lijah says to let her hum
With
"Tiddle-iddle-iddle-iddle-
Bum-Bum!"[Pg 1203]
O' havin' that to interduce
A tune—but I know, as fer me
I'd ten times over ruther see
Elijah Plumb chaw with his chin,
A-gettin' ready to begin,
While Henry plays that roll o' his
An' makes them drumsticks fairly sizz,
Announcin' music, on th' drum,
With
"Tiddle-iddle-iddle-iddle-
Bum-Bum!"
[Pg 1204] MY FIRST CIGAR BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE
One glorious summer day,
Far o'er the hills the sinking sun
Pursued his westward way;
And in my safe seclusion
Removed from all the jar
And din of earth's confusion
I smoked my first cigar.
It was the worst cigar!
Raw, green and dank, hide-bound and rank
It was my first cigar!
Wrapped in the smoke-wreaths blue;
My eyes grew dim, my head was light,
The woodshed round me flew!
Dark night closed in around me—
Black night, without a star—
Grim death methought had found me
And spoiled my first cigar.
A six-for-five cigar!
No viler torch the air could scorch—
It was my first cigar![Pg 1205]
The reeling night was late,
My startled mother cried in fear,
"My child, what have you ate?"
I heard my father's smothered laugh,
It seemed so strange and far,
I knew he knew I knew he knew
I'd smoked my first cigar!
A give-away cigar!
I could not die—I knew not why—
It
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