We're making laws, with lots of noise, to keep from harm our precious boys. The curfew bell booms out at eight, and warns the lads to pull their freight for home and bed and balmy sleep, while wary cops their vigils keep. The cheap toy pistol's down and out; we won't have things like that about; and boys who'd hear the pistol's toot must sit and watch their parents shoot. The cigarette at last is canned; the children of this happy land can buy such coffin-nails no more, which sometimes makes the darlings sore. Each year new laws and statutes brings, to shield them from corrupting things. It's strange that we should overlook the screaming blood-and-thunder book, the wild and wooly, red-hot yarn, that Johnnie reads behind the barn. The tales of bandits who have slain a cord of men, and robbed a train; of thieves who break away from jail, with punk detectives on their trail; of long haired scouts and men of wrath who nothing fear—except a bath. Such yarns as these our Johnnie reads; they brace him up for bloody deeds; and when he can he takes the trail, and ends his bright career in jail. So, while we're swatting evil things, and putting little boys on wings, let's swat the book that leaves a stain upon the reader's soul and brain.
The Traveler
He had journeyed, sore and weary, over deserts wide and dreary; through the snows of far Sibery he had dragged his frozen form; he had searched the site of Eden, been through Kansas, wild and bleedin'; in the far-off hills of Sweden he had faced the winter storm. In the vain pursuit of glory, hoping he would live in story, he had hoofed it to Empory, from Toronto on the lake; he had heard land agents rattle through the suburbs of Seattle, he had seen the Creek of Battle, where they live on sawdust cake. Fate was kind, and just to prove her he had journeyed to Vancouver, where the emigrant and mover pitch their tents upon the street; he had roamed the broad Savannah, he had voted in Montana; hunting with the mighty Bwana, Afric's jungles knew his feet. He had sung the boomer's ditty down in Oklahoma City, thinking it a blooming pity that the town had such a name; he had mined in cold Alaska, farmed with Bryan in Nebraska, and was never known to ask a least advantage in the game. To his native town returning, all reporters there were yearning to receive a statement burning, from this calm intrepid soul; not of fights or sieges gory was the hero's simple story; "I have but one claim to glory—I have never found the Pole!"
Saturday Night
Saturday night, and the week's work done, and the Old Man home with a bunch of mon'! You see him sit on the cottage porch, and he puffs away at a five-cent torch, while the good wife sings at her evening chores, and the children gambol around outdoors. The Old Man sits on his work-day hat, and he doesn't envy the plutocrat; his debts are paid and he owns his place, and he'll look a king in the blooming face; his hands are hard with the brick and loam, but his heart is soft with the love of home! Saturday night, and it's time for bed! And the kids come in with a buoyant tread; and they hush their noise at the mother's look, as she slowly opens a heavy book, and reads the tale of the stormy sea, and the voice that quieted Galilee. Then away to bed and the calm repose that only honesty ever knows. Saturday night, and the world is still, and it's only the erring who finds things ill; there is sweet content and a sweeter rest, where a good heart beats in a brave man's breast.