It's all very well to be nursing a grouch, when everything travels awry, and you haven't the pieces-of-eight in your pouch to pay for a cranberry pie; it's all very well to use language galore, and cover your whiskers with foam; you may prance around town with a head that is sore—but it's beastly to carry it home! You may be discouraged and worn by the strife; then make all your kicks on the street, for the man who will wear out his grouch on his wife, isn't fit for a cannibal's meat; if troubles and worries are beating you down, and bringing gray hairs to your dome, 'twill do in the office to carry a frown, but it's ghoulish to carry it home! The Lord, who made sparrows and Katy H. Dids, loves the man who is stalwart and brave, who cheerily goes to his wife and his kids, though his hopes may be fit for the grave; but the Lord has no use for the twenty-cent skate, whose courage is weak as the foam; who piles up his sorrows, and shoulders the weight, and carefully carries it home!
The Pole
I'm glad I didn't find the Pole, up there where Arctic billows roll. When first I heard the Pole was lost, for one brief day my wires were crossed; I said: "Methinks I'd better go across the weary wastes of snow, along the white bear's lonely track, and find the Pole, and bring it back. Thus shall I scale the heights of fame, and grow sidewhiskers on my name. I'll be a bigger man than Taft; I'll work the soft Chautauqua graft, and earn a package of long green by writing for a magazine; I'll have some medals in my trunk, and silver cups, and other junk; and kings and queens will cry, with pride, that I'm all wool and three yards wide. So let me hire some Eskimos, and hit the nice cool Arctic snows." But here my granny intervened, and said: "Those stovepipes must be cleaned; you haven't mowed the lawn this week, and it's a sight to make one shriek; there's something clogging up the flue—you ought to wash the buggy, too, and there are forty thousand chores, and here you stand around outdoors, and mumble like a heathen Turk"—and then, my friends, I got to work.
Wilhelmina
Long life to you and Holland's heir, Wilhelmina! May all your days be bright and fair, Wilhelmina! And may the babe grow wise and great, and chic and slick and up-to-date, and learn to keep her crown on straight, Wilhelmina! O bring her up with steady hand, Wilhelmina! And train her mind, to beat the band, Wilhelmina! And if you catch her chewing gum, or flirting with a rah-rah chum, then take a strap and make things hum, Wilhelmina! Don't let her fool away her time, Wilhelmina, in painting or in writing rhyme, Wilhelmina; but let her know that glory lies in knowing how to make mince pies, and stews and roasts and fancy fries, Wilhelmina. And if by worries you're perplex'd, Wilhelmina, and don't know what you should do next, Wilhelmina, then come to us for good advice—we always keep a lot on ice—we'll solve your problems in a trice, Wilhelmina.