From The Birmingham Age Herald, October 11, 1913.
“We’ll worry along, somehow,”
He said when misfortunes came,
And the courage that welled from his dauntless heart
Fed hope’s undying flame.
“We’ll worry along, somehow,”
His face still wore a smile,
Though the road that he traveled was strewn with thorns
For many a weary mile.
From the Rock Island Argus, October 10, 1913. By Henry Howland.
The papers scold my pa; they say
Bad things about him every day,
And often ma begins to cry
When she looks at the paper—then
I kind of get to wishin’ I
Could lick a few newspaper men.
Pa doesn’t care; he says no man
That tries to do the best he can
To get ahead and help along
Has any right to think they’ll not
Hurrah about it when he’s wrong
Or prod him in his sorest spot.
I don’t blame ma for feelin’ sad
Because they say my pa is bad;
He’s always good to her and me,
And when her eyes were wet, one day,
He kissed us both and said that he
Had joys they couldn’t take away.
One time they had his picture so
He looked like old Nick down below—
I wish the papers all would please
Just print nice things about my pa
To make him always glad, for he’s
The dearest pa I ever saw.
From the Evening Star, October 9, 1913.
His feeble form was bent with years; his eyes were dull and dim;
The inroads of advancing age had made a wreck of him.
He slowly hobbled to the box, while forty thousand men
In pity murmured, “Poor old guy; he’ll never pitch again.
Tell John McGraw to take him out—John oughta have a heart!
A broken-down old chap like that should never even start.
We want to beat a live one, so’s we’ll know we’ve earned the game.
To knock about that doddering wreck is just a crying shame.”
Old Matty shuffled to the box and stroked his wrinkled brow;
The dank wind swept through his thin locks with many a mournful sough.
He clicked his loose and scanty teeth, he flexed his palsied arm,
And smiled a space at Connie Mack to show he meant no harm.
One pleading glance at John McGraw he cast, as if to say,
“Why must you show me up in this humiliating way?”
He read no pity in that face, no mercy, no compassion,
So he proceeded to blow up in this distressing fashion:
A spiral ball he wound around the end of Baker’s bat,
And when that Titan savagely upon his digits spat,
And swung to drive the pellet toward the cloud-bespangled blue,
The umpire in a thin, small voice observed these words: “Strike two!”
To crib a classic, one more ball: “Ah, somewhere, children shout,
But here in Phil delight is nil—great Baker has struck out!”
For nine long rounds he let ‘em hit, provided they would drop ‘em
Around in those localities where sundry G’ints could stop ‘em.
For nine long rounds, when dawned the hope that some one’d make a run,
He added just a pinch of dope and fanned ‘em, one by one.
Sometimes they’d whiff; sometimes they’d bunt; again he’d let ‘em clout;
But ere they cantered forth from third he passed and put ‘em out.
And even weakened Quakertown repressed its thirst for rage
And owned that he’d done fairly well, considering his age.
Now, in the books which we have read we oft have noted that
One thing is true beyond dispute—a pitcher cannot bat.
And so when our poor senile friend, nine innings being o’er,
Stepped to the rubber in the tenth we shuddered to the core.
“McGraw should spare him this,” we wailed, “he’s kept alive somehow,
He’s even fluffed E. Collins twice, so why disgrace him now?”
But ere this tense and troubled trial of thought had well begun
He slugged a sizzling single and brought in the winning run!
Poor, senile, broken-down old man! We knew he couldn’t last!
His part should be to sit and mourn the misty, vanished past.
To pile in shrill and trembling tones about that ancient day
When he and Anson used to teach the youngsters how to play.
We thought he’d sit upon the bench and watch with rheumy eye
The game, and tell us of the curves he pitched in times gone by.
But now our eyes turn forward, and we wonder with a thrill
If in the fall of ’33 we’ll see him winning still!
From the Omaha Daily Bee, October 8, 1913.
Go, little song,
Your message bringing
To hearts that long
Have known no singing;
To hearts that hold
No glad tomorrows;
To hearts grown old
With cares and sorrows.
Sing but a lay
Of woodside rambles;
Of autumn day
And berry brambles.
Of gain and pelf
Make men forgetful;
Of thought of self
And worries fretful.
Take back the heart
To babbling fountains—
From street and mart
To storied mountains.
Of rainbow’s end
And golden treasure
A message send,
Perchance of pleasure;
Of country sights
And village steeples;
Of fairy sprites
And elfin peoples;
Of woodland rill
And dancing shadows;
Of daffodil
And sun-shot meadows.
Make young again
The heart that hardens;
Sing of the rain
And old-time gardens.
Go, little song,
For joy intended;
Return ere long,
Your mission ended.
From the Evening Star, October 7, 1913. By Philander Johnson.
There’s a great continued story that has filled us with suspense.
We haven’t read it, but we feel its interest immense.
We’re furnished with reliable advices, day by day,
If the heroine is happy or the villain is at bay.
The maid who does our general work is Miss Miranda Stubbs.
She cooks; she minds the telephone; she dusts; sometimes she scrubs.
And when that weekly story comes, with words of joy or gloom,
She folds it to her bosom and she hurries to her room.
Miranda’s face informed us by its smiling all serene
That Gwendolyn, the Village Rose, had stepped upon the scene,
And brave young men from far and near, so handsome and so neat,
Were struggling for a chance to lay their fortunes at her feet.
The sighing of Miranda told us that the choice was made.
A frown revealed objections that the father stern arrayed.
A week of great anxiety compelled us to suppose
That fate was most unkind to Gwendolyn, the Village Rose.
The villain from the city plunged Miranda in despair.
She shuddered till she spilt the tea and broke the chinaware.
Then fits of sobbing told us that the hero was in jail,
Accused of crime all falsely, with no one to go his bail.
We try to lead our simple lives. It isn’t any use.
We wonder what effect the next installment will produce.
The atmosphere of grief or joy that we are living in
Depends upon the love-lorn and fictitious Gwendolyn!
From The Tacoma Times, October 6, 1913. By Berton Braley.
She firmly declared that the man she should marry
Must wholly conform to a certain ideal.
He mustn’t be homely, like Tom, Dick and Harry,
But handsome and noble, with muscles like steel;
He must have an intellect masterly, splendid,
Ambition and power and honor and fame,
With knowledge and humor delightfully blended—
And other requirements too many to name.
She married a chap who was dull as you find ‘em,
And homely besides, as an unpainted fence;
The wise ones had long ago left him behind ‘em;
His lack of ambition was something intense;
His humor was minus and, as for his knowledge,
He hadn’t enough to come in when it rains;
His father had wanted to send him to college,
But found—to his grief—that he hadn’t the brains.
Yet she doesn’t think she has been inconsistent;
She truly believes he is all that she thought;
She clothes him with charms that are quite non-existent
And dreams him the wonderful man that she sought;
We notice her choice and we chuckle and chortle
And wonder how such a poor dub could appeal,
But she takes that commonplace, every-day mortal
And firmly believes she has found her ideal!
From The Sun, October 5, 1913.
Chaucer calls her an angel who truth and grace imparts.
Shakespeare says her looks are books, academies and arts.
Tom Moore says she is fickle, Byron calls her fiend,
Swinburne hails her eyes as veils, wherein her soul lies screened.
Know well these bards! Then doubt, who can,
She is the mirror of the man.
From the Rock Island Argus, October 4, 1913. By Henry Howland.
We dream of peace and we plan for peace,
For peace we pray when we kneel at night,
And not for a day do we ever cease
To watch for a fair excuse to fight;
We agree that war is a thing to dread,
Its cause a crime and its cost a shame,
But we place a wreath on the captain’s head,
And we grant the conqueror deathless fame.
We speak of the useless waste of blood,
Of the bitter woe and the sinful strife,
But we mount our guns by the roaring flood
And devise new schemes for destroying life.
Our envoys linger in foreign lands
Inspiring trust and allaying hate,
But our ships are manned, and with ready hands
We grasp our weapons and watch and wait.
We hear the sighs of the ones who bear
The terrible cost of armament—
Who toil and give but who never share
The glory for which their years are spent;
We shudder when innocent blood is shed,
War is the world’s most ghastly shame;
But we twine a wreath for the captain’s head,
And we grant the conqueror deathless fame.
From the Omaha Daily Bee, October 3, 1913. By Bayoll ne Trele.
This life is full of ups and downs,
Just like a teeter-totter;
Seems like one minute we’re the fly,
The next we are the swatter;
One minute we’re the under dog,
The next the dog that’s got ‘im;
One day we ride on top our woes,
The next we’re at the bottom.
One day we scale the mountain top,
The next we’re in the valley;
Today our house fronts on the street,
Tomorrow on the alley;
Sometimes we are “some punkins”
To whom the public caters;
And then, first thing we know, we find
We’re mighty “small pertaters!”
This life’s as full of ups and downs
As a roller-coaster ride is;
Or a Ferris wheel; now we’re high in air,
Now down where the under side is;
And sometimes in a swing we swing so high
That up in the clouds we’re hidden;
And again we descend to the sordid earth
And into the dust have slidden.
If life could be expressed in sound
As a musical composition,
We’d find that without its ups and downs
That ’twas scarcely worth the rendition;
And so let us blend our ups and downs
Into melodies sweet and true,
For if uncontrolled those ups and downs
Might make rag-time out of you.
From the Rock Island Argus, October 2, 1913. By Henry Howland.
He never told his love; she met him at the door
And told him that he ne’er had looked so well before;
She said she was so glad he had been pleased to call,
And, talking, took his hat and hung it in the hall.
She’d thought of him all day, she hastened to declare;
She led him to a nook and sat beside him there;
She deftly smoothed his tie and tucked one corner in,
And with her little hand she softly touched his chin.
She told him she was sure he’d some day make his mark;
The nook in which they sat was all their own, and dark;
He found her in his arms and vowing to be true;
He never told his love—she made it needless to.