If old Jim Riley came to town, to read a bundle of his rhyme, I guess you couldn't hold me down—I'd want to hear him every time. I wouldn't heed the tempest's shriek; I'd walk ten miles and not complain, to hear Jim Hoosier Riley speak. But I would not go round a block to see a statesman saw the air, to hear a hired spellbinder talk, like a faker at the county fair. For statesmen are as thick as fleas, and poets, they are far between; one song that lingers on the breeze is worth a million yawps, I ween. If John McCutcheon came to town, to make some pictures on the wall, I'd tear the whole blamed doorway down to be the first one in the hall; you couldn't keep me in my bed if I was dying there of croup; the push would find me at the head of the procession, with a whoop. But I won't push my fat old frame across a dozen yards of bricks, to list to men whose only fame is based on pull and politics.
The Penny Saved
It is wise to save the pennies when the pennies come your way, for you're more than apt to need them when arrives the rainy day; and when Famine comes a-whooping with the cross-bones on her vest, then the fellow with the bundle has the edge on all the rest. I admire the man who's saving, if he doesn't save too hard, if he doesn't think a dollar bigger than the courthouse yard; and I like to see him salting down the riches that he's struck, if he always has a quarter for the guy that's out of luck. When the winter comes upon us, yelling like a baseball fan, then it's nice to have some boodle in an old tomato can; when there's sickness in the wigwam, and we have to call the doc, then it's nice to have a package hidden in the eight-day clock; when Old Age, the hoary rascal, comes a-butting in at last, then it's nice to have some rubles that you cornered in the past; and the man who saves the pennies is a dandy and a duck—if he always has a quarter for the guy that's out of luck.
Home Life
Now the nights are growing longer, and the frost is in the air, and it's nice to hug the fireside in your trusty rocking chair, with the good wife there beside you, feeding cookies to the cat, while the energetic children play the dickens with your hat. O, it's nice to look around you, and to feel that you're a king, that your coming home at evening makes your joyous subjects sing! So you read some twenty chapters of old Gibbon's dope on Rome, and you know what human bliss is in your humble little home! There is really nothing better in the way of earthly bliss, than to toddle home at evening, and to get a welcome kiss, and to know the kids who greet you at the pea-green garden gate, have been wailing, broken-hearted, that you were two minutes late! There is nothing much more soothing than a loving woman's smile, when she sees your bow-legs climbing o'er the bargain counter stile! If you don't appreciate it, then the bats are in your dome, for the greatest king a-living is the monarch of a home!