Rippling Rhymes | Page 4

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 fan is a mournful man, and he fills my soul with sorrow; he watched the play with a frown today, and he'll scowl at the game tomorrow. He ambles in when the games begin, a soul by the gods forgotten; and he eyes the play in his morbid way, and he yells out "punk!" and "rotten!" No player yet, be he colt or vet, won praise from this critic gloomy; he'll sit and scowl like a poisoned owl, and his eyes