The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) by Marshall P. Wilder (read full novel txt) 📕

good enough, if Aunt Huldy hadn't a-recommended me, I don't believe. My little girl ain't never a-goin' to get to walk no more wires."[Pg 1601] ONE OF THE PALLS BY DOANE ROBINSON

I were a pall to the burrying,
Joe's finally out of the way,
Nothing 'special ailing of him,
Just old age and gen'ral decay.
Hope to the Lord that I'll never be
Old and decrepit and useless as he.
Cuss to his family the last five year—
Monstrous expensive with keep so dear—
'Sides all the fuss and worrying.
Terrible trial to get so old;
Cur'us a man will continue to hold
So on to life, when it's easy to see
His chances for living, tho' dreadfully slim,
Are better than his family are lotting for him.
Joe was that kind of a hanger on;
Hadn't no sense of the time to quit;
Stunted discretion and stall-fed grit
Helped him unbuckle many a cinch,
Where a sensible man would have died in the pinch.
Kind of tickled to have him gone;
Bested for once and laid away,
Got him down where he's bound to stay;
I were a pall to his burrying.

Knowed him for more than sixty year back—
[Pg 1602]Used to be somewhat older than him
Fought him one night to a husking bee;
Licked him in manner uncommon complete;
Every one said 'twas a beautiful fight;
Joe he wa'n't satisfied with it that way,
Kept dinging along, and when he got through
The worst looking critter that you ever see
Were stretched on a bed rigged up in the hay—
They carted me home the following day.
Got me a sweetheart purty and trim,
Told me that I was a heap likelier than Joe;
Mittened him twict; he kept on the track,
Followed her round every place she would go;
Offered to lick him; says she, "It's a treat,
Let's watch and find out what the poor critter will do."
Watched him, believing the thing was all right—
That identical girl is Joe's widow to-night.
Run to be justice, then Joe he run, too;
Knowed I was pop'lar and he hadn't a friend,
So there wa'n't no use of my hurrying.
The 'lection came off, we counted the votes;
I hadn't enough; Joe had them to lend.
Now all the way through I had been taking notes
Of his disagreeable way,
And it tickles me now to be able to say
He's bested for good in the end;
Got him down where he's bound to stay;
I were a pall to his burrying.
[Pg 1603]

THE V-A-S-E BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE

From the madding crowd they stand apart,
The maidens four and the Work of Art;

And none might tell from sight alone
In which had Culture ripest grown—

The Gotham Million fair to see,
The Philadelphia Pedigree,

The Boston Mind of azure hue,
Or the soulful Soul from Kalamazoo—

For all loved Art in a seemly way,
With an earnest soul and a capital A.

Long they worshipped; but no one broke
The sacred stillness, until upspoke

The Western one from the nameless place,
Who, blushing, said: "What a lovely vase!"

Over three faces a sad smile flew,
And they edged away from Kalamazoo.

But Gotham's haughty soul was stirred
[Pg 1604]To crush the stranger with one small word.

Deftly hiding reproof in praise,
She cries: "'T is, indeed, a lovely vaze!"

But brief her unworthy triumph when
The lofty one from the house of Penn,

With the consciousness of two grandpapas,
Exclaims: "It is quite a lovely vahs!"

And glances round with an anxious thrill,
Awaiting the word of Beacon Hill.

But the Boston maid smiles courteouslee
And gently murmurs: "Oh, pardon me!

"I did not catch your remark, because
I was so entranced with that charming vaws!"

Dies erit prœgelida
Sinistra quum Bostonia.
[Pg 1605]

EVE'S DAUGHTER BY EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

I waited in the little sunny room:
The cool breeze waved the window-lace, at play,
The white rose on the porch was all in bloom,
And out upon the bay
I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come.
"Such an old friend,—she would not make me stay
While she bound up her hair." I turned, and lo,
Danaë in her shower! and fit to slay
All a man's hoarded prudence at a blow:
Gold hair that streamed away
As round some nymph a sunlit fountain's flow.
"She would not make me wait!"—but well I know
She took a good half-hour to loose and lay
Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so!
[Pg 1606]

THE DULUTH SPEECH BY J. PROCTOR KNOTT

The House having under consideration the joint resolution (S. R. No. 11), extending the time to construct a railroad from the St. Croix river or lake to the west end of Lake Superior and to Bayfield—

Mr. Knott said:—

Mr. Speaker: If I could be actuated by any conceivable inducement to betray the sacred trust reposed in me by those to whose generous confidence I am indebted for the honor of a seat on this floor; if I could be influenced by any possible consideration to become instrumental in giving away, in violation of their known wishes, any portion of their interest in the public domain for the mere promotion of any railroad enterprise whatever, I should certainly feel a strong inclination to give this measure my most earnest and hearty support; for I am assured that its success would materially enhance the pecuniary prosperity of some of the most valued friends I have on earth,—friends for whose accommodation I would be willing to make almost any sacrifice not involving my personal honor or my fidelity as the trustee of an express trust. And that fact of itself would be sufficient to countervail almost any objection I might entertain to the passage of this bill not inspired by an imperative and inexorable sense of public duty.

But, independent of the seductive influences of private friendship, to which I admit I am, perhaps, as susceptible[Pg 1607] as any of the gentlemen I see around me, the intrinsic merits of the measure itself are of such an extraordinary character as to commend it most strongly to the favorable consideration of every member of this House, myself not excepted, notwithstanding my constituents, in whose behalf alone I am acting here, would not be benefited by its passage one particle more than they would be by a project to cultivate an orange grove on the bleakest summit of Greenland's icy mountains. (Laughter.)

Now, sir, as to those great trunk lines of railway, spanning the continent from ocean to ocean, I confess my mind has never been fully made up. It is true they may afford some trifling advantages to local traffic, and they may even in time become the channels of a more extended commerce. Yet I have never been thoroughly satisfied either of the necessity or expediency of projects promising such meagre results to the great body of our people. But with regard to the transcendent merits of the gigantic enterprise contemplated in this bill I never entertained the shadow of a doubt. (Laughter.)

Years ago, when I first heard that there was somewhere in the vast terra incognita, somewhere in the bleak regions of the great Northwest, a stream of water known to the nomadic inhabitants of the neighborhood as the river St. Croix, I became satisfied that the construction of a railroad from that raging torrent to some point in the civilized world was essential to the happiness and prosperity of the American people, if not absolutely indispensable to the perpetuity of republican institutions on this continent. (Great laughter.) I felt instinctively that the boundless resources of that prolific region of sand and pine shrubbery would never be fully developed without a railroad constructed and equipped at the expense of the Government, and perhaps not then. (Laughter.) I had[Pg 1608] an abiding presentiment that, some day or other, the people of this whole country, irrespective of party affiliations, regardless of sectional prejudices, and "without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," would rise in their majesty, and demand an outlet for the enormous agricultural productions of those vast and fertile pine barrens, drained in the rainy season by the surging waters of the turbid St. Croix. (Great laughter.)

These impressions, derived simply and solely from the "eternal fitness of things," were not only strengthened by the interesting and eloquent debate on this bill, to which I listened with so much pleasure the other day, but intensified, if possible, as I read over this morning the lively colloquy which took place on that occasion, as I find it reported in last Friday's "Globe." I will ask the indulgence of the House while I read a few short passages, which are sufficient, in my judgment, to place the merits of the great enterprise contemplated in the measure now under discussion beyond all possible controversy.

The honorable gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Wilson), who, I believe, is managing this bill, in speaking of the character of the country through which this railroad is to pass, says this:—

"We want to have the timber brought to us as cheaply as possible. Now, if you tie up the lands in this way, so that no title can be obtained to them,—for no settler will go on these lands, for he can not make a living,—you deprive us of the benefit of that timber."

Now, sir, I would not have it by any means inferred from this that the gentleman from Minnesota would insinuate that the people out in his section desire this timber merely for the purpose of fencing up their farms, so that their stock may not wander off and die of starvation[Pg 1609] among the bleak hills of the St. Croix. (Laughter.) I read it for no such purpose, sir, and make no such comment on it myself. In corroboration of this statement of the gentleman from Minnesota, I find this testimony given by the honorable gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Washburn). Speaking of these same lands, he says:

"Under the bill, as amended by my friend from Minnesota, nine tenths of the land is open to actual settlers at $2.50 per acre; the remaining one tenth is pine-timbered land, that is not fit for settlement, and never will be settled upon; but the timber will be cut off. I admit that it is the most valuable portion of the grant, for most of the grant is not valuable. It is quite valueless; and if you put in this amendment of the gentleman from Indiana, you may as well just kill the bill, for no man and no company will take the grant and build the road."

I simply pause here to ask some gentleman better versed in the science of mathematics than I am to tell me, if the timbered lands are in fact the most valuable portion of that section of country, and they would be entirely valueless without the timber that is on them, what the remainder