"Did she hoist? Well, look at me, and see if you think she hoisted. Say, I tell you now in confidence, and I don't want it repeated, but that cow raised right up and kicked me with all four feet, switched me with her tail, and hooked me with both horns, all at once; and when I got up out of the bedding in the stall, and dug my hat out of the manger, and the milking-stool out from under me, and began to maul that cow, I forgot all about the proper treatment of horned cattle. Why, she fairly galloped over me, and I never want to read your old paper again."
We tried to explain to him that the advice did not apply to brindle cows at all, but he hobbled out, the maddest man that ever asked a cow to hoist in diplomatic language.
WILLIAM F. KIRK
William F. Kirk is no longer a resident of Milwaukee, he having been called to a larger sphere of work on New York papers. But for a period of some eight or ten years he endeared himself to the readers of the Milwaukee Sentinel by his daily column. In it he had many quips which reminded one of Eugene Field in his "Sharps and Flats." But perhaps the most popular type of his work appeared in his "Norsk Nightingale" sketches, of which one is here given.
A PSALM OF LIFE
From the "NORSK NIGHTINGALE, BEING THE LYRICS OF A 'LUMBER YACK'," by William F. Kirk.
Copyright, 1905, by Small, Maynard & Co. (Inc.).
Tal me not, yu knocking fallers,
Life ban only empty dream;
Dar ban planty fun, ay tal yu,
Ef yu try Yohn Yohnson's scheme.
Yohn ban yust a section foreman,
Vorking hard vay up on Soo;
He ban yust so glad in morning
As ven all his vork ban tru.
"Vork," says Yohn, "ban vat yu mak it,
Ef yu tenk das vork ban hard,
Yu skol having planty headaches,—
Yes, yu bet yure life, old pard;
But ay alvays yerk my coat off,
Grab my shovel and my pick,
And dis yob ant seem lak hard von
Ef ay du it purty qvick."
Yohn ban foreman over fallers.
He ant have to vork, yu see;
But, yu bet, he ant no loafer,
And he yust digs in, by yee!
"Listen, Olaf," he skol tal me,
"Making living ant no trick,
And the hardest yob ban easy
Ef you only du it qvick!"