Category: Bisbee Daily Review

From the Bisbee Daily Review, June 29, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 When statesmen go to Washington
     They are brimful of reform.
 They are for the common people
     And they rant and rave and storm.
 
 Diagnosing the conditions
     They set forth the people’s ills,
 And they load the good old hopper
     With their remedial bills.
 
 For two weeks in January
     They kick up an awful dust,
 And they blow until you’re fearful
     That they’re really going to bust.
 
 Then they quiet down serenely
     And no longer tear their hair.
 And the folks in February
     Wonder if they are still there.
 
 Then the statesmen are forgotten
     Till, along in June we learn
 That the legislative body
     Is getting ready to adjourn.
 
 It is easy to make speeches
     And of grave reforms to shout,
 But it’s somewhat different when it
     Comes to carryin’ ‘em out.
 
 Promises are stock in trade with
     Statesmen who are seeking fame,
 But old Ultimate Consumer
     Keeps on digging just the same.

From the Bisbee Daily Review, February 11, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 I remember, I remember the day that I quit school
     I got a nice diploma for minding every rule.
 I was the wisest mortal who ever left the place
     There was no person like me in all the human race.
 I had old Homer faded and Solomon as well
     The real reach of my knowledge would take too long to tell.
 And I was downright sorry. It really seemed a shame
     That I should have to go out and teach the world its game.
 For I was tenderhearted and couldn’t bear to see
     The looks of jealous anger when people heard of me.
 
 The teacher, to assure me, was kind enough to say
     The other folks would manage to get along some way.
 I couldn’t quite believe him. You see that was before
     I’d taken my first toddle outside the college door.
 Then I set forth to conquer the poor old easy world
     With wind and weather charming and every sail unfurled.
 ’Twas several long years ago, how many I forget
     But still I don’t mind ownin’ the world ain’t conquered yet.
 I remember, I remember the day that I quit school;
     Since then I have been learnin’ how not to be a fool.

From the Bisbee Daily Review, January 28, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 My father says the paper somehow ain’t got up just right.
 He finds a lot of fault with it when he reads it at night.
 He says there ain’t a gol dum thing in it worth while to read,
 And that it doesn’t print the kind of stuff the people need.
 He tosses it aside and says it’s strictly “on the bum”—
 But you ought to hear the holler when the paper doesn’t come.
 
 He reads about the weddin’s and he snorts like all git out.
 He reads the social doin’s with a most derisive shout.
 He says they make the papers for the wimmen folks alone.
 He’ll read about the parties and he’ll fume and fret and groan;
 He says of information it does not contain a crumb
 But you ought to hear him holler when the paper doesn’t come.
 
 He’s always first to grab it and he reads it plumb clear through.
 He doesn’t miss an item or a want ad—that is true.
 He says, “They don’t know what we want, them durn newspaper guys;
 I’m goin’ to take a day some time and go and put ‘em wise.
 It sometimes seems as though they must be deaf and blind and dumb”—
 But you ought to hear him holler when the paper doesn’t come.

From the Bisbee Daily Review, January 25, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 Old Ez Jones don’t chaw tobacker, for he quit on New year’s day,
 And he’s grouchy as a grizzly with an achin’ tooth, they say.
 Henry Perkins, he quit smokin’ and he feels so tarnal mean
 That he’s tried to start a scrap with every feller he has seen.
 So old Ez and Hank they chanced to meet one day in Tibbitt’s store,
 And we saw a scrap the like of which we’d never seen before,
 For they broke up all the furniture and knocked the stovepipes down
 And they’ve both been laid up ever since and livin’ on the town.
 
 Abner Hanks has quit hard cider and he is so all fired cross
 That his wife has thrashed him seven times to show him who is boss.
 Amos Higgins cut out swearin’ and gives his feelings vent
 He has booted all the cats and dogs wherever he has went.
 Deacon Stubbs has sued Hi Maskins and Hi has sued the Deac
 On their old time line fence squabble and their families don’t speak.
 Both have swore off takin’ snuff and both are out for war,
 But they neither of ‘em seem to know just what they’re lawin’ for.
 
 Old Squire Hibbard has been busy tryin’ suits and fixin’ bail,
 And there’s sixteen cases waiting and there’s twenty men in jail.
 Never seen such scand-lus doin’s in this little village, quite.
 Seems like everybody’s peevish and is looking for a fight.
 Some is nervous, some is gloomy, some is desperit and so
 It doesn’t seem like the same old town we allus used to know.
 But I guess she will get righted and congenial when the men
 Who have all been swearin’ off start in to swearin’ on again.

From the Bisbee Daily Review, January 23, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 The homeliest man I ever seen was Ebenezer Brown.
 He was a sort of a laughing stock for folks here in our town.
 The jokers all told Eben that his face would stop a clock.
 If he looked at a pan of milk, it turned sour from the shock.
 The gals all turned poor Eben down. They didn’t like his style.
 The pretty fellers had him beat by many a long mile.
 
 So Eb got mad and went away and stayed for quite a while,
 And managed to accumulate a neat and nifty pile.
 The pretty fellers stayed around and flirted with the girls
 And took ‘em to the huskin’s and the other social whirls.
 Not one of ‘em was doin’ much but livin’ with their folks,
 And settin’ in the grocery store and crackin’ funny jokes.
 
 One day Eb came back to town up on a private car.
 He had a diamond shirt stud that would twinkle like a star.
 He didn’t care for money and he blowed it right and left.
 He had a bank roll that a feller couldn’t hardly heft.
 He set the old folks up for life and told in modest style
 About the way he’d gone away and gathered in his pile.
 
 Eb was just as homely as he ever was before,
 Perhaps a little more so than he was in days of yore.
 But still it dawned upon the pretty fellers mighty quick
 That Eb would simply go among the girls and take his pick.
 He took a good long time to choose did Ebenezer Brown,
 And then he wed the prettiest gal in all the gol ding town.

From the Bisbee Daily Review, October 2, 1912.
By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 Some folks prefer the fancy grub they serve at swell cafes,
 And cookin’ by a foreign chef is really quite a craze.
 The bill of fare, in fancy French, they like to take in hand
 To demonstrate that they can make the waiter understand.
 They order up a high toned meal that may be very fine,
 But when it comes to eatin’ good, I want no French in mine.
 I like the good old-fashioned meal, not like the kind you buy.
 It ends up with a great big slice of mother’s pumpkin pie.
 
 We always start in with the soup that is so lickin’ good,
 That everyone is helped again—that’s always understood.
 And then we have a husky roast and fixin’s family style,
 With sweet potatoes, hubbard squash, and father’s bound to pile
 Enough on every feller’s plate to last him for a week,
 And we all eat till we can hardly think or breathe or speak.
 But e’en at that we have to save some space, for bye and bye
 The climax of the meal must come, in mother’s pumpkin pie.
 
 They talk about the joys of wealth and how to live in style,
 But I am glad that I must live the old way for a while;
 There’s no dyspepsia in the house when mother’s on the job,
 No indigestion, dizzy spells or gout araisin’ hob,
 The meals are always served just right in winter, spring and fall.
 I like the whole year’s bill of fare, but one thing best of all—
 When I am through with earthly things and take my place on high,
 It won’t seem just like heaven without mother’s pumpkin pie.

From the Bisbee Daily Review, September 13, 1912.
By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 They’re urgin’ weary city men to go back to the soil,
 To tinker up their shattered nerves by good old honest toil.
 They say it does a feller good to live close to the ground
 With not a high-toned French cafe for fifty miles around.
 That may sound fine and dandy when a feller is town-bred,
 And doesn’t know a spring tooth harrow from a foldin’ bed,
 But to us fellers on the farm who’ve been agin’ the game
 All of our lives, that sage advice sounds purty doggone tame.
 
 It ain’t so gol dum dandy and it ain’t so gol dum fine
 To hop out of the hay at four instid of eight or nine.
 It ain’t so ‘tarnal cheerful to do three hours’ work before
 The farmer’s wife yells: “Breakfast” from the old farm kitchen door.
 It ain’t no sort of easy snap to work right through till night,
 And do back-breaking stunts as long as there is any light.
 They say it is a rest-cure and it possibly may be,
 But as a rest it never yet has quite appealed to me.
 
 The poets write quite purty of the everlastin’ hills,
 The wooded glens and lowin’ kine and little babbling rills.
 Of course, it is the only life that’s healthful right along,
 But still it ain’t what you would always call a glad sweet song.
 There’s plenty of the other thing, the hard, heartrendin’ toil
 And I guess that them city guys who go back to the soil
 Would about one good hot day with sun a-beatin’ down,
 And then they’d pack their grips and gladly yell, “Back to the Town.”