Parodies of the works of English & American authors, vol. V

by Unknown

Colonel John Hay.

JIM BLUDSO.

Wal, no! I can’t tell whar he lives,

Because he don’t live, you see;

Leastways, he’s got out of the habit

Of livin’ like you and me.

Whar have you been for the last three years

That you haven’t heard folks tell

How Jemmy Bludso passed-in his checks,

The night of the Prairie Belle?

He weren’t no saint—them engineers

Is all pretty much alike—

One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill,

And another one here in Pike.

A keerless man in his talk was Jim.

And an awkward man in a row—

But he never flunked, and he never lied;

I reckon he never knowed how.

And this was all the religion he had—

To treat his engines well;

Never be passed on the river;

To mind the pilot’s bell;

And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire,

A thousand times he swore,

He’d hold her nozzle agin the bank

Till the last soul got ashore.

All boats have their day on the Mississip,

And her day come at last.

The Movastar was a better boat,

But the Belle she wouldn’t be passed;

And so come tearin’ along that night,—

The oldest craft on the line,

With a nigger squat on her safety valve,

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire burst out as she clared the bar,

And burnt a hole in the night,

And quick as a flash she turned, and made

To that willer-bank on the right.

There was runnin’ and cursin,’ but Jim yelled out

Over all the infernal roar,

“I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank

Till the last galoot’s ashore.”

Through the hot black breath of the burnin’ boat

Jim Bludso’s voice was heard,

And they all had trust in his cussedness,

And knowed he would keep his word.

And, sure’s you’re born, they all got off

Afore the smokestacks fell,—

And Bludso’s ghost went up alone

In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

He weren’t no saint—but at jedgment

I’d run my chance with Jim,

’Longside of some pious gentlemen

That wouldn’t shook hands with him.

He’d seen his duty, a dead-sure thing—

And went for it thar and then:

And Christ ain’t a going to be too hard

On a man that died for men.

John Hay.

---

The Bloomin’ Flower of Rorty Gulch.

It war Bob war the Bloomin Flower,

They know’d him on Poker Flat;

He’d gouged a few down Gilgal way,

But no one complained o’ that.

He scored his stiffs[126] on the heft of his knife—

Forty I’ve heern ’em say;

It might have been more—Bob kept his accounts

In a loosish sorter way.

Bob warn’t a angel ter look at,

And the Bible it warn’t his book;

He swore the most oaths that war swor’d in the camp,

Or blarmedly I am mistook;

But he warn’t a outen-out bad ’un,

And he’d got a heart you could touch;

And he never draw’d iron[127] on boy, or man,

As didn’t pervoke him much.

And you can’t say fair as drinking

War counted among his sins;

For at nary a sittin’ would he put down

More nor fifteen whisky skins.

But one day we was drinkin’ and jawin’,

Round Haggarty’s bar, and I fear

That Haggarty riled him, bein’ so slow,

So he jist sliced off Haggarty’s ear.

Then Haggarty went for him savage,

Instead of a-holding his jor;

And Bob went for his ’leven-inch knife,

And scatter’d Hag’s scraps on the floor.

One of Hag’s friends then drew upon Bob,

And shot Joe Harris instead;

And I take it the bar floor got at last

’Bout knee-deep in red.

But when the fun was over in there.

Bob ran a-muck in the street;

And he speared and potted each derned cuss

As he chanced to meet.

And quiet folks shut up their doors—

They thought it safer, you see—

All but a man with his wife and child,

That was settin’ down to tea.

Into their parlour rushed Bloomin’ Bob,

To that father and mother’s surprise;

Jobb’d his bowie through one, and took

The tother between the eyes.

Then he clutched the innocent slumb’rin’ babe,

Jist meanin’ to knock out its brains;

But at that moment there reach’d his ear

Some long-forgotten strains.

*  *  *  *  *

Some soft and touching music this,

Music solemn and sweet,

Played by a common organ-man

Down at the end of the street.

And it went straight home to the digger’s heart,

And he did not squelch the child,

But lay it down in its little cot,

And rocked the same—and smiled!

Talk soft! They say the angels

That night smole down on Bob;

And a sorter radiant halo

Gleamed brightly round his nob.

I can’t swear to all this for certain,

And it do seem a queerish start;

But I won’t set by and hear none o’ you say

Bob hadn’t a tender heart!

This admirable parody was written by Mr. Charles H. Ross, Editor of Judy. In the first volume of this Collection it was erroneously styled a parody of Bret Harte.

——:o:——

THE MYSTERY OF GILGAL.

The darkest, strangest mystery

I ever read, or heern, or see,

Is ’long of a drink at Taggart’s Hall—

Tom Taggart’s, of Gilgal.

I’ve heern the tale a thousand ways,

But never could git through the maze

That hangs around that queer day’s doin’s:

But I’ll tell the yarn to you-uns.

Tom Taggart stood behind his bar;

The time was fall, the skies was far;

The neighbours round the counter drawed,

And ca’mly drinked and jawed.

At last come Colonel Blood, of Pike,

And old Jedge Phinn, permiscus—like;

And each, as he meandered in,

Remarked “A whiskey-skin.”

Tom mixed the beverage full and far,

And slammed it, smoking on the bar,

Some says three fingers, some says two,—

I’ll leave the choice to you.

Phinn to the drink put forth his hand;

Blood drawed his knife, with accent bland,

“I ax yer parding, Mister Phinn—

Jest drap that whiskey skin.”

No man hlgh-toneder could be found

Than old Jedge Phinn the country round.

Says he, “Young man, the tribe of Phinns

Knows their own whisky-skins!”

He went for his ’leven-inch bowie knife:—

“I tries to foller a Christian life;

But I’ll drap a slice of liver or two

My bloomin’ shrub with you.”

They carved in a way that all admired,—

Tell Blood drawed iron at last, and fired.

It took Seth Bludso ’twixt the eyes,

Which caused him great surprise.

Then coats went off, and all went in;

Shots and bad language swelled the din;

The short, sharp bark of Derringers,

Like bull-pups, cheered the furse.

They piled the stiffs outside the door,

They made, I reckon, a cord or more.

Girls went that winter, as a rule,

Alone to spellin’ school.

I’ve sarched in vain, from Dan to Beer-

Sheba, to make this mystery clear;

But I end with hit as I did begin,—

Who got the Whisky-skin?

John Hay.

---

Big Bill.

There’s them that eats till they’re bustin’,

And them that drinks till they’re blind,

And them that snuffin’ and spooney,

But the best of all to my mind,

(And I’ve been around in my time, boys,

And cavorted with any you like),

Was Big Bill, that lived in the slashes,

We called him Big Bill o’ Pike.

If he put his hand to his bowie

Or scratched the scruff of his neck,

You could only tell by waitin’

To see if you bled a peck:

And the way he fired ’twas lovely!

Nobody knowed which was dead,

Till Big Bill grinned, and the stiff’un

Tumbled over onto his head!

At school he killed his master;

Courtin’, he killed seven more:

And the hearse was alway a-waitin’

A little ways from his door.

There wasn’t much growth in the country,

As the census returns will show,

But we had Big Bill we was proud of,

And that was enough to grow.

And now Big Bill is an angel,—

Damn me, it makes me cry!

Jist when he was rampin’ the roughest,

The poor fellow had to die.

A thievin’ and sneakin’ Yankee

Got the start on our blessed Bill,

And there’s no one to do our killin’

And nobody left to kill!

From Diversions of the Echo Club, by Bayard Taylor.