Category: The Topeka State Journal

From The Topeka State Journal, August 28, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

(A poem for every father.)

I’ve heard a lot of babies squall,
    I’ve heard ‘em east and west,
But after hearin’ of ‘em all,
    I like my kid’s yell best.

It doesn’t worry me a bit,
    For every time I hear
Him tune up to his heart’s content,
    It’s music to my ear.

Your own kid’s voice is always sweet,
    No matter what the key;
In all the world no one can sing
    So charmingly as he.

You think it’s cute when your own child
    Cuts loose with might and main;
It always is the neighbor’s kid
    That drives you half insane.

From The Topeka State Journal, April 29, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

It was near midnight’s holy hour,
    In vain we courted sleep;
The shadders was a-dancing round
    And made our nerves all creep,
When suddenly we heard a sound,
    A soft step on the stair;
We gazed into the hall, and lo,
    A burglar bold was there.

He acted perfectly at home,
    And never noticed us;
He went about his business
    Without the slightest fuss.
He must have known he was observed,
    Of that we could have vowed,
For when he took some of our stuff
    We chuckled right out loud.

When ma-in-law’s false teeth he took
    We smiled chuck full of glee.
This burglar was a kind gazabo,
    A jolly rogue was he.
And when he took Bill’s phonograph
    And dropped it in his sack,
We laughed so loud we could be heard
    To Timbuktu and back.

He carried off our coo-coo clock,
    And it ne’er more will tell
Of our arrival nightly and
    Sound our domestic knell.
And when he took our wife’s pink hat,
    We hate from tip to brim,
We felt like getting out of bed
    And shaking hands with him.

He took our parrot and we yelled
    Aloud in fiendish mirth,
And then got up and helped him pack
    For all that we were worth.
We handed him a good cigar
    And made him promise that
Whenever he came ‘round this way
    He’d burglarize our flat.

From The Topeka State Journal, April 11, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

Maggie Jones studied music and learned how to sing
And she went in quite strong for the grand opera thing.
When she visited home her reception was grand,
But her language the old folks could not understand
For she spoke with a strange, almost foreign accent
On account of her artistic temperament.

Henry Peck was the pride and the joy of his town
Till one day he leaped into a sudden renown
When he drew a cartoon which called forth glad acclaim
And secured a half-Nelson on old Mister Fame.
Then he quit work and hasn’t a single red cent,
On account of his artistic temperament.

Katie Binks made good money typewriting until
Someone told her she had fine artistic skill
And she went in for painting just three months ago
And she spent all her coin on a fine studio.
Katie’s just been ejected for missing the rent
On account of her artistic temperament.

From The Topeka State Journal, March 2, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

Old Ez Binks has always been
    Sort of saller like and ailin’;
Folks cannot remember when
    Ezra’s system was not failin’.
Folks say he enjoys poor health,
    And ain’t happy less he’s sickly;
When a new disease comes out,
    Ez grabs onto it right quickly.
He’s had every known disorder
    That the doctors have invented,
And he’s nearly crossed the border
    Five times, but was just prevented.
When Ez Binks was twenty-one
    Typhoid fever nearly took him;
He got over that and then
    Chills and fever grabbed and shook him.
Chicken pox and scarlet fever
    Came, and then appendicitis,
Measles, mumps, lumbago, grip,
    Rheumatism and tonsilitis.
Ezra now is ninety-four,
    At his fate he still is railin’;
He has not improved a bit
    And his health is still failin’,
But he will keep right on livin’,
    Chronic sick folks have that way;
And it looks as though they’d have to
    Shoot old Ez on judgment day.

From The Topeka State Journal, February 28, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

Last night as I lay sleeping,
    I had a dream so fair;
Methought I owned a hundred banks,
    With money everywhere.
My home was on Fifth Avenue,
    My servants all content;
It never strained my purse a bit
    To pay for clothes or rent.

I owned all sorts of motor cars,
    A nifty yacht and plane;
I rode where’er I pleased on earth
    And o’er the bounding main,
And in the midst of all my joy
    I got an awful shock;
My banks were closed by order of
    My old alarum clock.

From The Topeka State Journal, February 23, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

Of all the fossels in our town,
    Si Haskins was the boss.
He said the autymobile never
    Would replace the hoss.
He always used to sneer and snort
    Whenever one went by,
And when he’d see one busted down,
    He’d laugh until he’d cry.
He said the owners all were fools
    To go and spend their dough
For them gol ding contrivances
    That never seemed to go.
Them devil wagons got his goat,
    He’d never fall for one.
Of all the gol-dum foolishness,
    Gas wagons took the bun.

One day a nephew died and left
    An old one-lung machine
A-standing out in old Si’s barn.
    Si got some gasoline
And poured it in the gosh durned thing
    To see if it would start.
He cranked her up and thought he’d try
    To drive the old gas cart.
He drove it down the road all right,
    Forgettin’ all his care,
And rode around till almost night
    And visited everywhere.
Next morning bright and early he
    Was poundin’ down the street.
He scared the hosses right and left
    And knocked folks off their feet.

A week from then he bought a car.
    It was of high hoss power.
He didn’t take time off to eat,
    But drove it every hour.
He raced with everybody who
    Showed up within a mile
He said you might as well be dead
    As not to be in style.
His whiskers blew out in the breeze,
    As down the road he flew.
He said: “I’ll show those gol ding boobs
    A fancy trick or tew.”
He spent all of his waking hours
    In showing them new tricks.
Four cylinders became too tame,
    And so he bought a six.

He’s been arrested nineteen times
    For speedin’, so they say.
He got his whiskers all shaved off,
    For they got in his way.
He talks of touring cars all day
    And dreams of them at night,
And nowadays whene’er he sees
    A piece of horseflesh pass
He sort of chuckles, sneering like,
    And hollers out: “No class.”

From The Topeka State Journal, February 21, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

I’d like to be a diplomat and live in foreign climes,
For diplomats are made much of and have some glorious times.
A diplomat is always sought by potentates and kings.
They hang him full of medals and a number of such things.

A diplomat is one who can make black look just like white.
He talks about a wrong until you really think it’s right.
His language is so polished that it slips off from his tongue
So readily that you believe the song that he has sung.

He calls a man a liar, but his way gives no offense.
He makes the other party think hard names are compliments.
He is a master in the art of gentle subterfuge;
He has a nerve colossal and vocabulary huge.

But still I know that I will never be a diplomat,
I’m too much of a roughneck. I’m very sure of that.
For I have tried it many times and can’t, to save my life,
Fake up an explanation that will even fool my wife.

From The Topeka State Journal, February 16, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

Ezry Haskins was a feller
With a disposition meller;
Never graspin’, never greedy,
Always helped the poor and needy.
Ezry made an honest million
And he might have made a billion
If he hadn’t always parted
In a manner open-hearted
With such liberal wads of boodle.
Never got it in his noodle
That Dame Fortune’s always fickle,
And he should save every nickel.
When ’twas too late to repent it,
Ezry found that he had spent it—
All that he’d accumulated.
Carriage to the poorhouse waited,
Ezry passed to life eternal
And the home town’s weekly journal
Hardly gave him any mention,
He attracted no attention.
It was just a “Village Jottin,”
Poor old Ezry was forgotten.

Hiram Haskins, Ezry’s brother,
Seemed like he was of another
Breed of cattle—and he looked it,
If there was a cent, he hooked it.
He was miserly and graspin’,
And his voice was hard and raspin’.
He was always with the bidders
On the mortgages of widders.
He grew most amazin’ wealthy,
In a manner sharp and stealthy,
Even when so rich he couldn’t
Count his piles of gold he wouldn’t
Give a nickel to the needy,
He was that tarnation greedy.
But the folks all catered to him,
And gave him all honors due him,
And his funeral was glorious,
Like an emperor victorious,
And the paper had a column
Of a notice sad and solemn,
And the whole town joined in grieving
O’er the old man who was leaving.

We don’t know what happened to ‘em
When they both got what was due ‘em,
But we bet old Hi is wishin’
Fer a change in his condition—
Wishin’ the eternal graces
Would let him and Ez trade places.