Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) by Nye and Riley (read book .TXT) ๐
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- Author: Nye and Riley
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"Yes; but look at the glory of sending from the farm the future President, the future Senator and the future member of Congress."
"That looks well on paper, but what does it really amount to? Soon as a farmer boy gits in a place like that he forgets the soil that produced him and holds his head as high as a holly-hock. He bellers for protection to everybody but the farmer, and while he sails round in a highty-tighty room with a fire in it night and day, his father on the farm has to kindle his own fire in the morning with elm slivvers, and he has to wear his own son's lawn-tennis suit next to him or[Pg 160] freeze to death, and he has to milk in an old gray shawl that has held that member of Congress when he was a baby, by gorry! and the old lady has to sojourn through the winter in the flannel that was wore at the riggatter before he went to Congress.
"So I say, and I think that Congress agrees with me. Damn a farmer, anyhow!"
He then went away.
[Pg 161]
Ezra HouseCome listen, good people, while a story I do tell,
Of the sad fate of one which I knew so passing well;
He enlisted at McCordsville, to battle in the south,
And protect his country's union; his name was Ezra House.
He was a young school-teacher, and educated high
In regards to Ray's arithmetic, and also Alegbra.
He give good satisfaction, but at his country's call
He dropped his position, his Alegbra and all.
"It's Oh, I'm going to leave you, kind scholars," he saidโ
For he wrote a composition the last day and read;
And it brought many tears in the eyes of the school,
To say nothing of his sweet-heart he was going to leave so soon.
"I have many recollections to take with me away,
Of the merry transpirations in the school-room so gay;
And of all that's past and gone I will never regret
I went to serve my country at the first of the outset!"
He was a good penman, and the lines that he wrote
On that sad occasion was too fine for me to quote,โ
For I was there and heard it, and I ever will recall
It brought the happy tears to the eyes of us all.
[Pg 162]
And when he left, his sweetheart she fainted away,
And said she could never forget the sad day
When her lover so noble, and gallant and gay,
[Pg 163]Said "Fare you well, my true love!" and went marching away.
He hadn't gone for more than two months
When the sad news comeโ"he was in a skirmish once,
And a cruel rebel ball had wounded him full sore
In the region of the chin, through the canteen he wore."
But his health recruited up, and his wounds they got well;
But while he was in battle at Bull Run or Malvern Hill,
The news come again, so sorrowful to hearโ
"A sliver from a bombshell cut off his right ear."
But he stuck to the boys, and it's often he would write,
That "he wasn't afraid for his country to fight."
But oh, had he returned on a furlough, I believe
He would not, to-day, have such cause to grieve.
For in another battleโthe name I never heardโ
He was guarding the wagons when an accident occurred,โ
A comrade, who was under the influence of drink,
Shot him with a musket through the right cheek, I think.
But his dear life was spared, but it hadn't been for long
Till a cruel rebel colonel came riding along,
And struck him with his sword, as many do suppose,
[Pg 164]For his cap-rim was cut off, and also his nose.
But Providence, who watches o'er the noble and the brave,
Snatched him once more from the jaws of the grave;
And just a little while before the close of the war,
He sent his picture home to his girl away so far.
And she fell into decline, and she wrote in reply,
"She had seen his face again and was ready to die";
And she wanted him to promise, when she was in her tomb,
He would only visit that by the light of the moon.
But he never returned at the close of the war,
And the boys that got back said he hadn't the heart;
But he got a position in a powder-mill, and said
He hoped to meet the doom that his country denied.
[Pg 165]
PERSONALโWill the young woman who edited the gravy department and corrected proof at our pie foundry for two days and then jumped the game on the evening that we were to have our clergyman to dine with us, please come back, or write to 32 Park Row, saying where she left the crackers and cheese?
Come back, Wilhelmina, and be our little sunbeam once more. Come back and cluster around our hearthstone at so much per cluster.
If you think best we will quit having company at the house, especially people who do not belong to your set.
We will also strive, oh, so hard, to make it pleasanter for you in every way. If we had known four or five[Pg 166] years ago that children were offensive to you, it would have been different. But it is too late now. All we can do is to shut them up in a barn and feed them through a knot-hole. If they shriek loud enough to give pain to your throbbing brow, let no one know and we will overcome any false sentiment we may feel towards them and send them to the Tombs.
Since you went away we can see how wicked and selfish we were and how little we considered your comfort. We miss your glad smile, also your Tennessee marble cake and your slat pie. We have learned a valuable lesson since you went away, and it is that the blame should not have rested on one alone. It should have been divided equally, leaving me to bear half of it and my wife the other half.
Where we erred was in dividing up the blame on the basis of tenderloin steak or peach cobbler, compelling you to bear half of it yourself. That will not work, Wilhelmina. Blame and preserves do not divide on the same basis. We are now in favor of what may be called a sliding scale. We think you will like this better.
We also made a grave mistake in the matter of nights out. While young, I formed the wicked and pernicious habit of having nights out myself. I panted for the night air and would go a long distance and stay out a long time to get enough of it for a mess and then bring it home in a paper bag, but I can see now that it is time for me to remain indoors and give young people like yourself a chance, Wilhelmina.
So, if I can do anything evenings while you are out that will assist you, such as stoning raisins or neighboring windows, command me. I am no cook, of[Pg 167] course, but I can peel apples or grind coffee or hold your head for you when you need sympathy. I could also soon learn to do the plain cooking, I think, and friends who come to see us after this have agreed to bring their dinners.
There is no reason why harmony should not be restored among us and the old sunlight come back to our roof tree.
Another thing I wish to write before I close this humiliating personal. I wish to take back any harsh and bitter words about your singing. I said that you sang like a shingle-mill, but I was mad when I said it, and I wronged you. I was maddened by hunger and you told me that mush and milk was the proper thing for a brain worker, and you refused to give me any dope on my dumpling. Goaded to madness by this I said that you sang like a shingle-mill, but it was not my better, higher nature that spoke. It was my grosser and more gastric nature that asserted itself, and I now desire to take it back. You do not sing like a shingle-mill; at least so much as to mislead a practiced ear.
Your voice has more volume, and when your upper register is closed, is mellower than any shingle-mill I ever heard.
Come back, Wilhelmina. We need you every hour.
After you went away we tried to set the bread as we had seen you do it, but it was not a success. The next day it come off the nest with a litter of small, sallow rolls which would easily resist the action of acids.
If you cannot come back will you please write and tell me how you are getting along and how you contrive to insert air-holes into home-made bread?[Pg 168]
A HINT of SPRING.'Twas but a hint of Springโfor still
The atmosphere was sharp and chillโ
Save where the genial sunshine smote
The shoulders of my overcoat,
And o'er the snow beneath my feet
Laid spectral fences down the street.
My shadow even seemed to be
Elate with some new buoyancy,
And bowed and bobbed in my advance
With trippingest extravagance,
And when a bird sang out somewhere,
[Pg 169]It seemed to wheel with me, and stare.
Above I heard a rasping stirโ
And on the roof the carpenter
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