Newspaper History

Category: Evening Star

  • The Direct Appeal

    From the Evening Star, January 19, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

    We told Erastus Pinkley ‘bout de future punishment;
    About de heat he’d find unless he changed de way he went,
    But ‘Rastus works outdoors all day, a-drivin’ of a cart,
    An’ we simply couldn’t make him take de hot-wave talk to heart.

    An’ den we told him dat de place whur sinners has to go
    Is whur you’s nearly freezin’ while you has to shovel snow,
    Where icicles is handed out insted o’ coal an’ wood—
    An’ we notice now dat ‘Rastus is a-tryin’ to be good.

  • Scenic Embellishments

    From the Evening Star, December 5, 1913. By Philander Johnson.

    We’ve had some street improvements down to Pohick on the Crick.
    They filled the roadway up with pipes and covered it with brick.
    They finished it on Thursday and the thoroughfare looked fine.
    On Saturday they had a gang of working men in line
    Who said they had discovered that the pipes were all in wrong.
    They’d have to look ‘em over, though the job would not take long.
    When they had got one end of Main Street finished up with care
    The other end was marked for renovation and repair.

    Oh, the town is full of lanterns when the evening shadows fall.
    It looks as if preparing for a large and splendid ball.
    And where by day you used to drive along without a fear,
    You find the road blocked up by picks and shovels, far and near.
    A chasm runs along like a small canyon from the west.
    The dirt is piled in jagged lines to make a mountain crest.
    To drive a wagon has become a neat and risky trick—
    But we’re full of brand-new scenery at Pohick on the Crick.

  • Lines to the Cook

    From the Evening Star, November 29, 1913. By Philander Johnson.

    Oh, say not so! Oh, say not so!
        Wound not a weary heart!
    Do not regard us as your foe
        And say that we must part.
    Oh, modify that angry look
        While we express regret.
    You are a most accomplished cook
        And cooks are hard to get.

    Oh, speak not thus! Oh, speak not thus!
        Pray set that suit case down!
    If you’ll consent to cook for us,
        No one shall chide or frown.
    Our casual comments we shall quit.
        No fault we’ll find with you,
    For as a cook you are a hit
        And cooks are very few.

  • The Hard Work

    From the Evening Star, November 19, 1913. By Walt Mason.

    Sometimes I get sore and ranty o’er the work I have to do, and I rip around the shanty till the atmosphere is blue. “Why,” I ask the cat, “in thunder should a fellow toil and slave? All this skirmishing for plunder merely brings him to the grave. You are wise, old cat, in dreaming, dreaming of your feline joys, while the human chumps are screaming for some prize not worth the noise; you are wise, you derned old tabby, dreaming as the minutes scoot, while men wear their tempers shabby chasing after Dead Sea fruit.” Then I walk three blocks or seven, just to soothe my nerves a few, and encounter ten or ‘leven men who have no work to do. Men as good as I or better, who are nathless down and out, shackled by misfortune’s fetter, all their hopes gone up the spout. Men whose poverty is shrieking, men of evil luck the sport; men who spend the long days seeking work, just work, of any sort. Then I go back to my shanty in a chastened frame of mind, having seen worse hell than Dante, and resume the pleasant grind.

  • The Man Who Had No Chance

    From the Evening Star, November 2, 1913. By S. E. Kiser.

    I used to fret because I thought
        My chances were so few;
    It seemed to me that there was not
        Much left for me to do;
    The splendid things had all been done—
        At least I thought they had—
    I craved a chance, and finding none,
        Considered matters bad.

    I used to list myself with those
        Who had been born too late;
    I had no reason to suppose
        I might be rich or great;
    No chance at all remained for me—
        At least, it seemed so then—
    To win renown or worthily
        Rise o’er my fellow men.

    The great things had been done before
        I came upon the scene;
    There was no chance for me to score,
        My fate was poor and mean;
    I often hopelessly complained
        As I reviewed the case,
    Because no chance for me remained
        To serve the human race.

    And now, as I look back I find
        Myself despondent still;
    I am distressed in heart and mind,
        I claim no happy thrill;
    Condemned to shiver in the cold,
        I cannot now resist
    Sad memories as I behold
        The chances I have missed.

  • Time Scoots

    From the Evening Star, October 27, 1913. By Walt Mason.

    Yesterday, it seems, we shivered, in the bleak December blast; and I’ve just this hour diskivered that the year is going fast! Soon again, yes, ere we know it, wintry blasts again will freeze painter, plumber, printer, poet and such citizens as these. Soon again we’ll hear men yawping in the bleak and cheerless dawn: “Go and do your Christmas shopping ere the final rush is on.” How the years go whizzing by us! When man thinks how fast they’ve walked, his remarks are scarcely pious, and the women folks are shocked. Yesterday, or day before it, I was young and full of pride; I’d achieve—I grimly swore it—mighty things before I died. And I’ve just been around the edges of the things I meant to do, just got started with my wedges on the trees I meant to hew; and already I am waxing old and withered, tired and lame, and I feel my grip relaxing, and I’ve sort o’ lost my aim. Man imagines he is youthful till he wakes some winter day, and the morning, cold and truthful, tells him he is old and gray. He has aged with all his neighbors, winter makes him understand; and he goes back to his labors with a tired and heavy hand.

  • Uncle’s Finish

    From the Evening Star, October 15, 1913. By Philander Johnson.

    My Uncle Jim has done ‘most everything there is to do.
    He says life’s not worth livin’ when there isn’t something new
    To hold a man’s attention. He has tamed a buckin’ hoss
    And drove in trottin’ races without grumblin’ at the loss.
    He has taken railroad journeys an’ he’s viewed the buildin’s high;
    He’s lost a stack of poker chips an’ never blinked an eye.
    But his latest fad’s the queerest that has ever come to him.
    He’s writin’ poetry! Jes’ think of that fur Uncle Jim!

    He writes about the stable an’ the haystack an’ the cows
    An’ comes as near profanity as the police allows.
    He jiggles an’ he joggles till he gets ‘round to a rhyme
    An’ don’t keer what he says, so long as he is keepin’ time!
    We used to think he’d mebbe be a man of useful mold,
    A blacksmith or a congressman or else a farm-hand bold.
    But now we think his chances for great things are mighty slim.
    He’s writin’ poems; an’ that’ll be ‘bout all from Uncle Jim.

  • Old Matty Still a Winner

    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!

  • The Continued Story

    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!

  • The Impossible

    From the Evening Star, September 25, 1913. By Walt Mason.

    My well had sort o’ lost its grip, the water smelled like paint; and every time I took a sip it nearly made me faint. I asked Jim Wax to fix the same, and offered him the mon (repairing cisterns is his game); he said, “It can’t be done.” He had a hundred reasons why repairs could not be made; and while three hours were dragging by those reasons he displayed.  A gorgeous web of sophistry and argument he spun, all ending with the stern decree: “It simply can’t be done.” And then Bill Bulger bowled along; I stopped him at my gate, and told him that my well was wrong, and would he make it straight? Bill Bulger squinted down the well, and asked when it was built, and said it had an ancient smell that made his whiskers wilt. “Your blamed old well needs cleaning out,” he said, with genial laugh; “I reckon it will cost about two dollars and a half.” “Go to it, then, my friend,” said I, “and you shall have the mon; I’m glad you do not tell me why the derned job can’t be done.” Bill Bulger always has a job, he earns the shining dimes; and I have never heard him sob a bit about hard times. Around Jim Wax dark troubles lurk, he’s the afflicted one; he’s always up against some work that simply can’t be done.