Rippling Rhymes | Page 4

is a cheerful spot, so
open a bottle now! From brimming glasses we'll blow the foam till the
midnight hour arrives, when we'll gayly journey the long way home
and merrily beat our wives. We earn our dimes like the horse or ox, we

toil like the fabled steer, and then we journey a dozen blocks to blow in
the dimes for beer. While the women work at the washing tub to add to
our scanty hoard, we happily meet at the poor man's club, where never
a soul is bored. We recklessly squander our minted brawn, and the
clubhouse owner thrives; and we'll homeward go at the break of dawn
and joyously beat our wives.

WORDS AND DEEDS
A fire broke out in Bildad's shack and burned it to the ground; and
Bildad, with his roofless pack, sent up a doleful sound. And I, who
lived the next door west, hard by the county jail, went over there and
beat my breast, and helped poor Bildad wail. Around the ruined home I
stepped, and viewed the shaking walls, and people say the way I wept
would beat Niagara Falls. Then words of sympathy I dealt to Bildad
and his wife; such kindly words, I've always felt, nerve people for the
strife. If I can kill with words your fears, or argue grief away, or drown
your woe by shedding tears, call on me any day. I have a sympathetic
heart that bleeds for others' aches, and I will ease your pain and smart
unless the language breaks. And so to Bildad and his mate I made a
helpful talk, with vital truths that elevate and break disasters' shock; I
pointed out that stricken men should not yield to the worst, but from the
wreckage rise again like flame from torch reversed.
Then Johnson interrupted me as I was growing hoarse. A rude,
offensive person he, a tactless man and coarse.
He said to Bildad, "Well, old pard! You are burned out I see! You can't
keep house here in your yard, so come and live with me!"
The neighbors who had gathered round applauded Johnson then,
declaring that at last they'd found the kindliest of men; not one
appreciative voice for me, who furnished tears, who made the sad
man's heart rejoice, and drove way his fears!

A DAY OF REST
I'm glad there is a day of rest, one day in every seven, when worldly
cares cannot molest, and we may dream of heaven. The week day labor
that we do, is highly necessary, but if our tasks were never through, if
they should never vary, we'd soon be covered o'er with mold, from
bridle-bits to breeching; so let the Sabbath bells be tolled, and let us
hear the preaching!

USE YOUR HEAD
If a man would be a winner, whether he's a clerk or tinner, whether he's
a butcher, banker, or a dealer in rye bread, he must show his brains are
bully, he must understand it fully that a man can't be an Eli if he doesn't
use his head.
There was old man Hiram Horner, once located on the corner, where he
sold his prunes and codfish and dried apples by the pound; he was
always mighty busy; it would fairly make you dizzy just to watch old
Uncle Hiram as he chased himself around. He got down when day was
breaking, always ready to be raking in the pennies of the people if they
chanced to come that way; he was evermore on duty till the midnight
whistles, tooty, sent him home, where he'd be fussing to begin another
day. Yet old Hiram soon was busted, and you'll see him now, disgusted,
whacking mules in worthy effort to attain his daily bread; he was
diligent, deserving, from good morals never swerving but he lost his
grip in business for he didn't use his head. He was always overloaded
with a lot of junk corroded, he was always short of goodlets that the
people seem to need; he would trust the dead beat faker till he'd bad
bills by the acre, and he's now at daily labor, with his whiskers gone to
seed.
There is Theodore P. Tally in his store across the alley; you will see he
takes it easy, not a button does he shed; you can hear the wheels
revolving in his brow while he's resolving to get rich by drawing
largely on the contents of his head.

It is well to use your fingers blithely while the daylight lingers, it is
well to use your trilbys with a firm and active tread; it is good to rustle
daily, doing all your duties gaily, but in all your divers doings, never
fail to use your head.

THE GLOOMY FAN
O the gloomy