Rippling Rhymes | Page 6

cowherd's wife came in; she smelled the smoke, she gave a shout; she biffed him with the rolling pin, and cried: "Ods fish, you useless lout! You are not worth the dynamite 'twould take to blow you off the map! Your head is not upholstered right--you are a worthless trifling chap!"
When on his throne King Alfred sat, that woman had an inward ache; she chewed the feathers from her hat because she'd made so bad a break.
It isn't safe, my friends, to say that any man's a failure flat because he cannot shovel hay, or climb a tree, or skin a cat. The man who's awkward with a saw, who cannot hammer in a nail, may in the future practice law and fill his bins with shining kale. The ne'er-do-well who cannot cook the luscious egg his hen has laid, may yet sit down and write a book that makes the big best sellers fade. The man who blacks your boots today, and envies you your rich cigar, next year may have the right of way while touring in his private car.
It isn't safe at men to jeer however awkwardly they tread; they yet may find their proper sphere--no man's a failure till he's dead.

LIFE'S INJUSTICE
The learned man labors in his lair, and trains his telescope across a million leagues of air, among the stars to grope. He would increase the little store of knowledge we possess, and so he toils forever more, and often in distress. His whiskers and his hair are long, and in the zephyrs wave, because--alas! such things are wrong--he can't afford a shave. His trousers bag about the knees, his ancient coat's a botch; his shoes allow his feet to freeze, he bears a dollar watch. And when the grocer's store he seeks to buy a can of hash, in frigid tones the merchant speaks: "I'll have to have the cash!" And when he's dead a hundred years the people will arise, and praise the man who found new spheres cavorting through the skies. The children in the public schools will learn to bless his name, and guide their studies by his rules, and glory in his fame. And in the graveyard, where he went unhonored by the town, a big fat marble monument will hold the wise man down.
The low-brow spars a dozen rounds, before an audience, and he is loaded down with pounds, and shillings, crowns and pence. Where'er he goes the brawny Goth is lionized by all, like Caesar, when he cut a swath along the Lupercal. Promoters grovel at his feet, and offer heaps of scads, if he will condescend to meet some other bruising lads. The daily journals print his face some seven columns wide, call him the glory of the race, the nation's hope and pride. And having thus become our boast, the wonder of our age, he battles with his larynx most, and elevates the stage. In fifty years when people speak the savant's name with pride, the pug's renown you'll vainly seek--it with its owner died.
There may be consolation there for him who bravely tries to solve great problems in his lair, and make the world more wise; but when the world is really wise--may that day come eftsoons!--we'll give the men of learning pies, and give the fighters prunes.

THE POLITICIAN
I will not say that blade is black, nor yet that white is white; for rash assertions oft come back, and put us in a plight. Some people hold that black is white, and some that white is black; to me the neutral course looks right; I take the middle track. If I should say that black is white, and white is black, today, some one would mix the two tonight--tomorrow they'd be gray. In politics I wish to thrive, and swiftly forge ahead, so dare not say that I'm alive, nor swear that I am dead. You say that fishes climb the trees, that cows on wings do fly, I can't dispute such facts as these, so patent to the eye; with any man I will agree, no odds what he defends, if he will only vote for me, and boom me to his friends.

RANDOM SHOTS
I shot an arrow into the air, it fell in the distance, I knew not where, till a neighbor said that it killed his calf, and I had to pay him six and a half ($6.50). I bought some poison to slay some rats, and a neighbor swore that it killed his cats; and, rather than argue across the fence, I paid him four dollars and fifty cents ($4.50). One night I set sailing a toy balloon, and hoped it would soar till it reached the moon; but the candle fell out, on a farmer's straw, and he said I must