JOY COMETH
I SAT and sighed, with downcast head, my heart consumed with sorrow, and then my Aunt Jemima said: “I’m going home tomorrow!” I’d feared that she would never leave, her stay would be eternal, and that’s what made me pine and grieve, and say, “The luck’s infernal!” I thought my dark and gloomy skies no sunshine e’er would borrow, then Aunt Jemima ups and cries, “I’m going home tomorrow!” Thus oft the kindly gods confound the kickist and the carkist, and joy comes cantering around just when things seem the darkest. We all have aunts who come and stay until their welcome’s shabby, who eat our vittles day by day, until the purse is flabby; and when we think they’ll never go, or let us know what peace is, they up and dissipate our woe by packing their valises. The darkest hour’s before the dawn, and when your grief’s intensest, it is a sign ’twill soon be gone, not only hence, but hencest.
LIVING TOO LONG
I WOULD not care to live, my dears, much more than seven hundred years, if I should last that long; for I would tire of things in time, and life at last would seem a crime, and I a public wrong. Old Gaffer Goodworth, whom you know, was born a hundred years ago, and states the fact with mirth; he’s rather proud that he has hung around so long while old and young were falling off the earth. But when his boastful fit is gone, a sadness comes his face upon, that speaks of utter woe; he sits and broods and dreams again of vanished days, of long dead men, his friends of long ago. There is no loneliness so dread as that of one who mourns his dead in white and wintry age, who, when the lights extinguished are, the other players scattered far, still lingers on the stage. There is no solitude so deep as that of him whose friends, asleep, shall visit him no more; shall never ask, “How do you stack,” or slap him gaily on the back, as in the days of yore. I do not wish to draw my breath until the papers say that Death has passed me up for keeps; when I am tired I want to die and in my cosy casket lie as one who calmly sleeps. When I am tired of dross and gold, when I am tired of heat and cold, and happiness has waned, I want to show the neighbor folk how gracefully a man can croak when he’s correctly trained.
FRIEND BULLSNAKE
THESE sunny days bring forth the snakes from holes in quarries, cliffs and brakes. The gentle bullsnake, mild and meek, sets forth his proper prey to seek; of all good snakes he is the best, with high ambitions in his breast; he is the farmer’s truest friend, because he daily puts an end to mice and other beasts which prey upon that farmer’s crops and hay. He is most happy when he feasts on gophers and such measly beasts; and, being six or eight feet high, when stood on end, you can’t deny that forty bullsnakes on a farm are bound to do the vermin harm. The bullsnake never hurts a thing; he doesn’t bite, he doesn’t sting, or wrap you in his slimy folds, and squeeze you till he busts all holds. As harmless as a bale of hay, he does his useful work all day, and when at night he goes to rest, he’s killed off many a wretched pest. And yet the farmers always take a chance to kill this grand old snake. They’ll chase three miles or more to end the labors of their truest friend. They’ll hobble forth from beds of pain to hack a bullsnake’s form in twain, and leave him mangled, torn and raw—which shows there ought to be a law.