TIRED father to his home returns, all jaded by the stress and fray, to have the rest for which he yearns throughout the long and toilsome day. His supper’s ready on the board, as good a meal as e’er was sprung, a meal no worker could afford in olden times, when we were young. He looks around with frowning brow, and sighs, “Ah, what a lot of junk! This butter never knew a cow, the coffee is extremely punk. You know I like potatoes boiled, and so, of course, you dish them fried; this poor old beefsteak has been broiled until it’s tough as walrus hide. It beats me, Susan, where you find such doughnuts, which resemble rock; these biscuits you no doubt designed to act as weights for yonder clock. You couldn’t fracture with a club the kind of sponge cake that you dish; alas, for dear old mother’s grub throughout my days I vainly wish.” Then Susan, burdened with her cares, worn out, discouraged, sad and weak, sits down beneath the cellar stairs, and weeps in German, French, and Greek. Alas, the poor, unhappy soul, whose maiden dreams are all a wreck! She ought to take a ten-foot pole and prod her husband in the neck.
COTTER’S SATURDAY NIGHT
NEW VERSION
THE labor of the week is o’er, the stress and toil titanic, and to his humble cottage door returns the tired mechanic. He hangs his weather-beaten tile and coat upon a rafter; the housewife greets him with a smile, the bairns with joyous laughter. The supper is a merry meal, and when they’ve had their vittles, the mother plies her spinning wheel, while father smokes and whittles. But now the kids, a joyous crowd, must cease to romp and caper, for father starts to read aloud the helpful daily paper:
“A cancer on the neck or knees once meant complete disaster; but Dr. Chowder guarantees to cure it with a plaster. He doesn’t use an ax or spade, or blast it out with powder; don’t let your coming be delayed—rely on Dr. Chowder!”
Outdoors there is a rising gale, a fitful rain is falling; they hear the east winds sadly wail like lonely phantoms calling. But all is peace and joy within, and eyes with gladness glisten, and father, with a happy grin, reads on, and bids them listen:
“If you have pimples on your nose or bunions on your shoulder, if you have ringbones on your toes—ere you’re a minute older call up the druggist on the phone and have him send a basket of Faker’s pills, for they alone will save you from a casket.”
The clock ticks on the cottage wall, and marks the minutes’ speeding; the firelight dances in the hall, on dad, where he sits reading. Oh, quiet, homely scene of bliss, the nation’s pride and glory! And in a million homes like this, dad reads the precious story:
“Oh, countless are the grievous ills, afflicting human critters, but we have always Bunkum’s Pills, and Skookum’s Hogwash Bitters. Have you the symptoms of the gout along your muscles playing? And are your whiskers falling out, and are your teeth decaying? Have you no appetite for greens, and do you balk at fritters? We’ll tell you, reader, what it means—you need some Hogwash Bitters!”