The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) by Marshall P. Wilder (short books to read .TXT) 📗

PECK

It happened one morning that Little Bopeep,
While watching her frolicsome, mischievous sheep
Out in the meadow, fell fast asleep.

By her wind-blown tresses and rose-leaf pout,
And her dimpling smile, you'd have guessed, no doubt,
'Twas love, love, love she was dreaming about.

As she lay there asleep, came little Boy Blue,
Right over the stile where the daisies grew;
Entranced by the picture, he stopped in the dew.

So wildly bewitching that beautiful morn
Was Little Bopeep that he dropped his horn
And thought no more of the cows in the corn.

Our sorrows are many, our pleasures are few;
O moment propitious! What could a man do?
He kissed the wee lassie, that Little Boy Blue!

At the smack the woolies stood all in a row,
And whispered each other, "We're clearly de trop;
Such conduct is perfectly shocking—let's go!"
[Pg 2016]

"FESTINA LENTE" BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE

Blessings on thee, little man,
Hasten slowly as you can;
Loiter nimbly on your tramp
With the ten-cent speedy stamp.
Thou art "boss"; the business man
Postals writes for thee to scan;
And the man who writes, "With speed,"
Gets it—in his mind—indeed.

Lo, the man who penned the note
Wasted ten cents when he wrote;
And the maid for it will wait
At the window, by the gate,
In the doorway, down the street,
List'ning for thy footsteps fleet.
But her cheek will flush and pale,
Till it comes next day by mail,
With thine own indorsement neat—
"No such number on the street."
Oh, if words could but destroy,
Thou wouldst perish, truthful boy!

Oh, for boyhood's easy way—
Messenger who sleeps all day,
Or, from rise to set of sun,
[Pg 2017]Reads "The Terror" on the run.

For your sport, the band goes by;
For your perch, the lamp post high;
For your pleasure, on the street
Dogs are fighting, drums are beat;
For your sake, the boyish fray,
Organ grinder, run-away;
Trucks for your convenience are;
For your ease, the bob-tail car;
Every time and everywhere
You're not wanted, you are there.
Dawdling, whistling, loit'ring scamp,
Seest thou this ten-cent stamp?
Stay thou not for book or toy—
Vamos! Fly! Skedaddle, boy!
[Pg 2018]

THE GENIAL IDIOT DISCUSSES LEAP YEAR BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

"If I were a woman," said the Idiot, "I think that unless I had an affidavit from the man, sworn to before a notary and duly signed and sealed, stating that he did the proposing, I should decline to marry, or announce my engagement to be married in Leap Year. It is one of the drawbacks which the special privilege of Leap Year confers upon women that it puts them under suspicion of having done the courting if the thing comes out during the year."

"Don't you worry about that," laughed Mrs. Pedagog. "You can go through this country with a fine tooth comb and I'll wager you you won't find a woman anywhere who avails herself of the privilege who wouldn't have done the same thing in any old year if she wanted to. Of all the funny old superstitions, the quaintest of the lot is that Leap Year proposal business."

"How you talk," cried the Idiot. "Such iconoclasm. I had always supposed that Leap Year was a sort of matrimonial safety valve for old maids, and here in a trice you overthrow all the cherished notions of a lifetime. Why, Mrs. Pedagog, I know men who take to the woods every Leap Year just to escape the possibilities."

"Courageous souls," said the landlady. "Facing the unknown perils of the forest, rather than manfully meeting a proposal of marriage."

"It is hard to say no to a woman," said the Idiot. "I'd[Pg 2019] hate like time to have one of 'em come to me and ask me to be hers. Just imagine it. Some dainty little damsel of a soulful nature, with deep blue eyes, and golden curls, and pearly teeth, and cherry lips, a cheek like the soft and ripening peach and a smile that would bewitch even a Saint Anthony, getting down on her knees and saying, 'O Idiot—dearest Idiot—be mine—I love you, devotedly, tenderly, all through the Roget's Thesaurusly, and have from the moment I first saw you. With you to share it my lot in life will be heaven itself. Without you a Saharan waste of Arctic frigidity. Wilt thou?' I think I'd wilt. I couldn't bring myself to say 'No, Ethelinda, I can not be yours because my heart is set on a strengthful damsel with raven locks and eyes of coal, with lips a shade less cherry than thine, and a cheek more like the apple than the peach, who can go out on the links and play golf with me. But if you ever need a brother in your business I am the floor-walker that will direct you to the bargain-counter where you'll find the latest thing in brothers at cost.' I'd simply cave in on the instant and say, 'All right, Ethelinda, call a cab and we'll trot around to the Little Church Around the Corner and tie the knot; that is, my love, if you think you can support me in the style to which I am accustomed."

Mr. Brief laughed. "I wouldn't bother if I were you, Mr. Idiot," said he. "Women don't tie up very strongly to Idiots."

"Oh don't they," retorted the Idiot. "Well, do you know I had a sort of notion that they did. The men that some of the nice girls I have known in my day have tied up to have somehow or other given me the impression that a woman has a special leaning toward Idiots. There was my old sweetheart, Sallie Wiggins, for instance—that wasn't her real name, of course, but she was[Pg 2020] one of the finest girls that ever attended a bargain sale. She had a mind far above the ordinary. She could read Schopenhauer at sight; understand Browning in a minute; her soul was as big as her heart and her heart was two and a half sizes larger than the universe. She was so strong-minded that although she could write poetry she wouldn't, and in the last year of her single blessedness she was the Queen-pin among the girls of her set. What she said was law, and emancipation of her sex was her only vice. Well, what do you think happened to Sallie Wiggins? After refusing every fine man in town, including myself,—I must say I only asked her five times; no telling what a sixth would have brought forth—she succumbed to the blandishments of the first sapheaded young Lochinvar that came out of the west, married him, and is now the smiling mother of nine children, does all the family sewing, makes her own parlor bric-a-brac out of the discarded utensils of the kitchen, dresses herself on ninety dollars a decade, and is happy."

"But if she loved him—" began the Lawyer.

"Impossible," said the Idiot. "She pitied him. She knew that if she didn't marry him, and take charge of him, another woman would, and that the chances were ten to one that the other woman wouldn't do the thing right and that Saphead's life would be ruined forever."

"But you say she is happy," persisted the Lawyer.

"Certainly she is," said the Idiot. "Because her life is an eternal sacrifice to Saphead's needs, and if there is a luxury in this mundane sphere that woman essentially craves it is the luxury of sacrifice. There is something fanatic about it. Sallie Wiggins voluntarily turned her back on seven men that I know of, one of whom is a Governor of his state; two of whom are now in Congress; one of whom is a judge of a state court; two of[Pg 2021] whom have become millionaire merchants; and the seventh of whom is to-day, probably, the most brilliant ornament of the penitentiary. Everyone of 'em turned down for Saphead, a man who parted his hair in the middle, couldn't earn seven dollars a century on his wits, is destined to remain hopelessly nothing, keeps her busy sewing buttons on his clothes, and to save his life couldn't tell the difference between Matthew Arnold and an automobile, and yet you tell me that women don't care for idiots."

"Miss Wiggins—or Mrs. Saphead, to be more precise," said Mr. Brief, "is only one instance."

"Well—there was Margaret Perkins—same town—same experience," said the Idiot. "Lovely girl—sought after by everybody—proposed to her myself five times—President of the Mental Culture Society of Baggville—graduate of Smythe—woman-member of Board of Education—Director of Young Girls' Institute—danced like a dream—had a sense of humor—laughed at my jokes—and married—what?"

"Well, what?" demanded the Lawyer.

"Prof. Omega Nit Zero, teacher of Cingalese in the University of Oklawaha, founded by a millionaire from Geneseo, New Jersey, who owned a hotel on the Oklawaha River that didn't pay, and hoped to brace up a bad investment by the establishment in the vicinity of a centre of culture. Prof. Zero receives ten dollars a week, and with his wife and three pupils constitutes the whole faculty, board of trustees, janitor, and student body of the University," said the Idiot. "Mrs. Zero dresses on nothing a year; cares for her five children on the same basis, and is happy. They are the principal patrons of the Oklawaha Hotel."

"Well—if she is happy?" said the Bibliomaniac.[Pg 2022] "What business is it of anybody else? I think if Prof. Zero makes her happy he's the right kind of a man."

"You couldn't make Zero the right kind of a man," said the Idiot. "He isn't built that way. He wears men's clothes and he has sweet manners, and a dulcet voice, and the learning of the serpent; but when it comes to manhood he has the initiative of the turtle, lacking the cash value of the terrapin, or the turtle's mock brother; he wears a beard, but it is the beard of the bearded lady who up-to-date appears to be a useless appanage of the strenuous life; and when you try to get at his Americanism, if he has any, he flies off into stilted periods having to do with the superior virtues of the Cingalese. And Margaret Perkins that was hangs on his utterances as though he were a very archangel."

"Good," ejaculated Mr. Brief. "I am glad to hear that she is happy."

"So am I," said the Idiot. "But such happiness."

"Well, what's it all got to do with Leap Year, anyhow?" asked the Bibliomaniac.

"Nothing at all, except that it proves that girls aren't fitted really to choose their own husbands, and that therefore the special privilege conferred upon them by the recurrence of Leap Year should be rescinded by law," said the Idiot. "That privilege, owing to woman's incapacity to choose correctly, and man's weakness in the use of negatives, is a standing menace to the future happiness of the people."

"Hoity-toity," cried Mrs. Pedagog. "What a proposition. Tell me, Mr. Idiot, if a woman is not capable of selecting her own husband, who on earth is? Man himself—that embodiment of all the wisdom and all the sagacity of the ages?"

"I didn't say so," said the Idiot. "And I don't really[Pg 2023] think so," he added. "The whole institution of getting engaged to be married should be regulated by the public authorities. Every county should have its Matrimonial Bureau, whose duty it should be to pair off all the eligible candidates in the matrimonial market, and in pairing them off it should be done on a basis of mutual fitness. Bachelors and old maids should be legislated out of existence, and nobody should be allowed to marry a second time until everybody else had been provided for. It is perfectly scandalous to me to read in the newspapers that a prominent widow in a certain