From The Cairo Bulletin, August 21, 1913.
Mother has gone to the mountains,
Sister has gone to the sea;
Father works on in the office
For mother and sister and me.
I’m to stay six weeks at grandpa’s,
Far from the town and the noise;
Here I have oceans of pleasure
With Uncle John’s two little boys.
Last night I heard grandpa complaining,
He said with a pitiful sigh
That he couldn’t help envying father;
Since then I’ve been wondering why.
From the Omaha Daily Bee, August 20, 1913. By H. C. Bunner.
It was an old, old, old, old lady,
And a boy that was half-past three;
And the way that they played together
Was beautiful to see.
She couldn’t go running and jumping,
And the boy, no more could he,
For he was a thin little fellow,
With a thin little twisted knee.
They sat in the yellow sunlight,
Out under the maple tree,
And the game that they played I’ll tell you,
Just as it was told to me.
It was Hide-and-Go-Seek they were playing,
Though you’d never have known it to be—
With an old, old, old, old lady
And the boy with the twisted knee.
The boy would bend his face down
On his one little sound right knee,
And he’d guess where she was hiding,
In guesses One, Two, Three!
“You are in the china closet!”
He would cry and laugh with glee—
It wasn’t the china closet,
But still he had Two and Three.
“You are in papa’s big bedroom,
In the chest with the queer old key!”
And she said, “You are warm and warmer,
But you’re not quite right,” said she.
“It can’t be the little cupboard
Where mamma’s things used to be,
So it must be the clothespress, gran’ma!”
And he found her with his Three.
Then she covered her face with her fingers,
That were wrinkled and white and wee,
And she guessed where the boy was hiding,
With a One and a Two and a Three.
From the Omaha Daily Bee, August 19, 1913. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
VIRTUE.
Oh, wanton one, oh, wicked one, how was it that you came
Down from the paths of purity to walk the streets of shame?
And wherefore was that precious wealth God gave to you in trust,
Flung broadcast for the feet of men to trample in the dust?
VICE.
Oh, prudent one, oh, spotless one, now listen well to me.
The ways that lead to where I tread these paths of sin were three.
And God, and good folks all combined to make them fair to see.
VIRTUE.
Oh, wicked one, blasphemous one, now how could that thing be?
VICE.
The first was Nature’s lovely road, whereon my life was hurled.
I felt the stirring in my blood, which permeates the world.
I thrilled like willows in the spring, when sap begins to flow,
It was young passion in my veins, but how was I to know?
The second was the silent road, where modest mothers dwell
And hide from eager, curious minds the truth they ought to tell.
That misnamed road, called “Innocence,” should bear the sign “To Hell.”
With song and dance in ignorance I walked that road and fell.
VIRTUE.
Oh, fallen one, unhappy one, but why not rise and go
Back to the ways you left behind, and leave your sins below,
Nor linger in this vale of sin, since now you see, and know?
VICE.
The third road was the fair highway, trod by the good and great.
I cried aloud to that vast crowd, and told my hapless fate.
They hurried all through door and wall and shut Convention’s gate;
I beat it with my bleeding hands; they must have heard me knock;
They must have heard wild sob and word, yet no one turned the lock.
Oh, it is very desolate on Virtue’s path to stand,
And see the good folks flocking by, withholding look, and hand.
And so with hungry heart and soul, and weary brain and feet,
I left that highway whence you came, and sought the sinful street.
Oh, prudent one, oh, spotless one, when good folks speak of me,
Go tell them of the roads I came; the roadways fair, and three.
From The Seattle Star, August 18, 1913. By Berton Braley.
Dear lady of my heart’s desire,
I love your lithe and slender grace,
Your rhythmic ease I much admire,
I like the dancing steps you pace;
Your every move is my delight,
So dainty and so brisk and free
You are a most entrancing sight—
Oh, won’t you trot through life with me?
With love the fiddler for the dance
And hearts as merry as a rhyme
We’ll turkey trot a glad romance
In syncopated two-step time,
Though care should tread upon our toes
And rough and bumpy be the floor,
We’d laugh at troubles such as those
And gayly turkey trot some more!
Come then, my love, and be my wife
And take the fate that fortune sends;
We’ll tango pleasantly through life
And one-step till the music ends;
We’ll buy a rag-time gramophone
With syncopated melody,
If you will only be my own
And turkey-trot through life with me!
From the Omaha Daily Bee, August 17, 1913. By Bayoll ne Trele.
Perfection is not found in man—
Then make the best of what men are;
The stunted daisy do not ban;
Its face doth not the landscape mar;
When eager hands have robbed the fields
Of what shows fairest to the eye
The stunted flowers remain to bless
The vision of some passerby.
Perfection is the aim of all,
But since we’re made of mortal clay
Before we reach it, down we fall
Yet let not this our hearts dismay;
Some trees tower tall ‘twixt earth and sky
And proudly guard the great highway,
But more blest is the scraggly oak,
Beneath whose boughs the children play.
And while ‘mongst humans some attain
To dizzy heights above their fellows,
Some humbler laborers still remain
In vales which radiant sunlight mellows;
And while successes crown them not
Tho’ in men’s eyes they seem deficient
Their work may better stand the test
When God shall judge with love omniscient.
From The Birmingham Age Herald, August 16, 1913. By Berton Braley.
Here we are, gentlemen; here’s the whole gang of us,
Pretty near through with the job we are on;
Size up our work—it will give you hang of us—
South to Balboa and north to Colon.
Yes, the canal is our letter of reference;
Look at Culebra and glance at Gatun;
What can we do for you—got any preference,
Wireless to Saturn or bridge to the moon?
Don’t send us back to a life that is flat again,
We who have shattered a continent’s spine;
Office work—Lord, but we couldn’t do that again!
Haven’t you something that’s more in our line?
Got any river they say isn’t crossable?
Got any mountains that can’t be cut through?
We specialize in the wholly impossible,
Doing things “nobody ever could do!”
Take a good look at the whole husky crew of us,
Engineers, doctors, and steam-shovel men;
Taken together you’ll find quite a few of us
Soon to be ready for trouble again.
Bronzed by the tropical sun that is blistery,
Chuckful of energy, vigor and tang,
Trained by a task that’s the biggest in history,
Who has a job for the Panama gang?
From the Rock Island Argus, August 15, 1913. By Henry Howland.
Those rascals thrive while honest men must toil for slender gains,
Though brass may take the fair rewards that should be won by brains,
Though judges chosen to apply and to defend the laws
Exert their cunning in the task of finding little flaws,
Keep on, oh ye that honestly pursue the upward way,
Wrong never yet has managed to escape its judgment day.
Belshazzar’s palace lies in dust and Carthage is no more,
The aristocracy of France repaid in full with gore;
A Stuart’s head fell from the block, no Stuart wears a crown;
The walls that Infamy erect are sure to crumble down.
They may sometimes loom very high, their outlines may be grand,
But always underneath them there is only shifting sand.
Though rascals, laughing at the law, walk out through prison gates,
Though Justice is led far astray by cunning advocates,
Though judges serve the rascal’s ends and scorn the public’s right,
Though foul Corruption’s slimy trails are everywhere in sight,
The wrongs will have their ending in the old, old-fashioned way;
Keep on, hope on, oh ye that serve to haste the judgment day.
From The Birmingham Age Herald, August 14, 1913. By Eugene Field.
Sweetheart, be my sweetheart
When birds are on the wing,
When bee and bud and babbling flood
Bespeak the birth of spring;
Come sweetheart, be my sweetheart
And wear this posy ring.
Sweetheart, be my sweetheart
In the golden summer glow
Of the earth aflush with the gracious blush
Which the ripening fields foreshow;
Dear sweetheart, be my sweetheart
As into the noon we go.
Sweetheart, be my sweetheart
When falls the bounteous year,
When the fruit and wine of tree and vine
Give us their harvest cheer;
O sweetheart, be my sweetheart,
For winter, it draweth near.
Sweetheart, be my sweetheart
When the year is white and old,
When the fire of youth is spent, forsooth,
And the hand of age is cold;
Yet, sweetheart, be my sweetheart
‘Till the year of our love be told.
From the Rock Island Argus, August 13, 1913. By Henry Howland.
He is not a man whom the world will praise,
For he daily walks in the lowly ways;
His clothes are poor and his earnings small,
And the great know naught of his worth at all;
His beard is gray and his form is bowed,
His name is strange to the rich and proud.
Down in the dismal places where
Contagion lurks in the murky air,
Where the people are sick and lame and blind,
Where many are weary and few are kind,
He kneels with those who have need of cheer,
Imparting hope and dispelling fear.
Those who sit where the light is dim
Have learned to eagerly welcome him;
His clothes are poor, but within his eyes
The gleam of faith that is deathless lies;
And little ones lisp the Savior’s name
Where scoffers grumbled before he came.
He has taught the wronged that there still is good,
That there still is kindness and brotherhood;
He has called men back from their shamefulness,
He has brought them love who were pitiless;
He has knelt with those who had blindly strayed,
And made them hopeful and unafraid.
His beard is gray and his form is bowed,
His name is strange to the rich and proud;
He is not a man whom the world will praise,
For his light is shed in the darkened ways;
The lips of the fallen have soiled his hand—
But the Lord will probably understand.
From The Detroit Times, August 12, 1913. By Minna Irving.
We heard with equanimity
That coal was soaring high,
We bore it when the price of meat
Went kiting to the sky;
When eggs and butter followed suit
We stood it like a sport.
But lo, the worst has come at last—
The peanut crop is short.
When sailing Coney Island-ward
Across the ocean swells,
No longer can we leave a wake
Of bobbing empty shells.
And when to circuses and such
We merrily resort,
We cannot feed the elephant—
The peanut crop is short.
Oh, what is Summer time without
The tuber of delight?
We ought to bust the peanut trust,
We ought to make a fight;
We ought to put our woe in print,
We ought to go to court,
We ought to take the war-path when
The peanut crop is short.