INAUGURATION DAY, 1913
Now Washington is swarming with men of sterling worth, all bent upon reforming the heaven and the earth; they come from far Savannah, they come from Texarkana, and points in Indiana, with loud yet seemly mirth. They're come from far Alaska, where show is heaped on snow; they've journeyed from Nebraska where commoners do grow; the famed, the wise, the witty, the timid, and the gritty have come from Kansas City and also Broken Bow. Their battle shout is thrilling as they go marching by, and every man is willing at once to bleed and die; to guarantee this nation a fine Administration he'd take a situation or kill himself with pie. The editors of journals are marching in the throng; and old and war-worn colonels are teetering along; and friends of Andrew Jackson and Jefferson, now waxin' a trifle old, are taxin' their dusty throats with song. No wonder Woodrow Wilson, as this great crowd appears, his silken kerchief spills on some proud and grateful tears; the ranks of colonels face him—such loyalty must brace him, and from dejection chase him in future pregnant years. No office need go begging before this mighty host; he need not go a-legging for masters of the post; he has to do no pleading; they bring the help he's needing; of dying and of bleeding they make a modest boast. And so he views the strangers from Maryland and Maine, the tall, bewhiskered grangers who till the Western plain; the men from desks and foyers, the sheepmen and the sawyers, the lumberjacks and lawyers, all come to ease the strain; he views the dusty millers from Minnesota land; the shining social pillars from Boston's sacred strand; the men of hill and valley around his standard rally (and on the snaps keep tally), each with a helping hand. "My fears are in the distance," is Woodrow's grateful song; "what foe can make resistance against this mighty throng? So let us, lawyer, farmer, ex-plute, and social charmer, gird on our snow-white armor, and paralyze each wrong!"
PRAYER OF THE HEATHEN
Before a wooden idol two heathen knelt and prayed; it was their day of bridal, the savage and the maid. "We two have come together, to journey through the years, in calm and stormy weather, in sunshine and in tears. O idol most exalted, protect us on our way, and may our feet be halted from going far astray. This maid," the bridegroom muttered, "is fresh from Nature's hands; her boudoir is not cluttered with strings and pins and bands; she does not paint her features, or wear rings on her paws; she's one of Nature's creatures, and lives by Nature's laws. Her foot, she does not force it into a misfit shoe; nor does she wear a corset to squeeze her frame in two. That frame has got upon it no clothes she does not need; she wears no bughouse bonnet that makes man's bosom bleed. This maid, this weaker vessel, has movements swift and free, and she can run and wrestle, and she can climb a tree. And it she shows a yearning to emulate the whites, our good old customs spurning, pursuing vain delights, O idol stern and oaken, take thou thy sceptre dread, and may the same be broken upon her silly head."
"This bridegroom," said the maiden, "untutored is and rude, but still he is not laden with habits vain and lewd. I hope to see him trundle each evening to his kraal, and not blow in his bundle for long cold pints of ale. With my consent he'll never get next the slot machine, or use his best endeavor to burn up gasoline. No tailor hath arrayed him, no valet hath defaced! He stands as Nature made him, broad-chested, slim of waist! And he can swim the Niger, or rob a lion's lair, or whip a full-grown tiger at Reno or elsewhere! And if he would abandon our simple heathen ways, and learn to place his hand on some foolish white men's craze, O idol, in your dudgeon, obey his bride's behest! Take up your big spiked bludgeon, and swat him galley-west!"
THEORY AND PRACTICE
In public I talk of Milton and give him ecstatic praise, and say that I love to ponder for hours o'er his living lays; I speak of his noble epic, that jewel which proudly shines, and quote from his splendid sonnets (I know maybe twenty lines); but when I am home John Milton is left on the bookcase shelf; he's rather too dull for reading—you know how it is yourself; to lighten the weight of sorrow that over my spirit hangs, I dig up the works of Irwin or Nesbit or Kendrick Bangs.