Tag: Roy K. Moulton

From The Topeka State Journal, October 29, 1913. By Roy K. Moulton.

The village store has changed a pile, or so it seems to me;
It’s different in stock and style from what it used to be.
The cracker barrel’s vanished now, the prunes are gone from sight,
There’s nothing left around, I vow, to tempt your appetite.

There’s no place left for us to sit, who used to haunt that store;
Our wisdom and our native wit aren’t heard there any more.
The place is all so spick and span and certified and smart,
It’s simply broken up the clan and cracked each loafer’s heart.

I know it’s making money fast since it has changed its ways;
It never made much in the past, but those were good old days.
It was the meeting place, the hub, in that glad time of yore;
It was the forum of the club—and now it’s just a store.

From The Topeka State Journal, July 29, 1913. By Roy K. Moulton.

Let others work and lose their health
In piling up the sordid wealth,
    But that is not my wish.
Let others burn the midnight oils,
Devising ways of grabbing spoils;
    I’d rather sit and fish.

Let others solve the problems great,
Affecting the affairs of state;
    None of that on my dish.
Let others hew the nation’s path
And bear the thankless public’s wrath,
    I’d rather sit and fish.

Let others lead the strenuous life
That’s full of worry, toil and strife,
    But that’s not my ambish.
Let others wear their lives away
By living five years every day;
    I’d rather sit and fish.

From The Topeka State Journal, May 31, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 The office boy’s grandmother dies
     At least three times a week;
 The bookkeeper develops ills
     Of which he’s apt to speak.
 
 The ribbon clerk abruptly jumps
     His job at 3 p. m.
 He says his kids have got the mumps
     And he must go to them.
 
 The boss does not feel well himself,
     And thinks he needs fresh air;
 He goes out to the baseball park
     And finds his help all there.

From The Topeka State Journal, May 19, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 In eighteen hundred and twenty when Jim Purdy was nineteen,
 He wrote a comic story for a well known magazine.
 The story was accepted by the editor and when
 Jim Purdy got the news he was the happiest of men.
 He thought of course his story would within a month appear,
 But strange to say it didn’t get in print at all that year.
 Ten years he waited, then he wrote quite anxiously to learn
 The reason, and they told him that his yarn must wait its turn.
 
 He called upon the editor along in sixty-nine,
 And was informed his story was still waiting in the line.
 He asked for information as to when it might appear.
 They told him that it might perhaps, come out most any year.
 Jim Purdy waited patiently and lost his teeth and hair
 And bought each issue hoping he would find his story there.
 He talked about it all day long and dreamed of it at night;
 His great-grandchildren’s children could not understand him quite.
 
 One day the mail man brought a check. Old Jim pricked up his ears.
 ’Twas what he had been waiting for nigh on to ninety years.
 That week was sure a lucky one. The magazine came too;
 He trembled with excitement as he looked its pages through.
 His one hundred and seven years all seemed to leave him when
 He let a warwhoop out which seemed to make him young again.
 “I’ll write some more,” he cackled, as he quite forgot the past.
 “I’ve lived to see the thing in print. They’ve published it at last.”

From The Topeka State Journal, April 18, 1913.
By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 Bill Simms was quite a handy man at any sort of trick,
 Could tinker up a balky watch or fix a windmill quick.
 Could whittle fancy ornaments or doctor up a calf,
 Or shoe a horse with lightnin’ speed or run a phonograph.
 An artist too with chalk or brush quite wonderful was he.
 The only thing Bill couldn’t draw was just a salary.
 
 Bill Simms could make a dandy churn that surely did the work.
 Could build an automobile that would run without a jerk.
 Could make a set of bobsleighs that would always run as slick as grease.
 Could cut a pair of trousers that would always hold their crease.
 But one thing that Bill couldn’t make at all to save his life—
 He couldn’t make a livin’ fer himself and kids and wife.
 
 Bill Simms could play the violin and almost any horn,
 Could imitate each bird or beast that ever had been born.
 The folks kept him busy doin’ odd jobs and all sich.
 He had no time to settle down in order to get rich.
 His neighbors all asked favors and he never turned one down;
 And Bill spent his declinin’ years in livin’ on the town.

From The Topeka State Journal, April 12, 1913.
 By Roy K. Moulton.
 

 Abijah Binks was noted for his great array of wealth;
 In fact he had most everything excepting perfect health.
 Long years ago the doctors said that he was doomed to die,
 And nothing seemed to do him good, no matter what he’d try.
 He left off eating anything excepting breakfast food,
 He never tackled corn beef hash or anything so rude.
 A pancake made him turn away in horror and disgust;
 To starve himself to death to live, it seemed Abijah must.
 His liver was all out of whack, his nerves were all askew,
 Dyspepsia racked his feeble frame, no matter what he’d do.
 He tried mud baths and went abroad to take a famous cure,
 But still he kept on fading in a manner slow but sure.
 He licked up patent medicines for twenty years or more,
 Until he felt just like he was a corner druggist’s store.
 He ate so much digested food, he often used to say
 He somehow felt that he was just a walking bale of hay.
 With all his wealth, life held but naught for this old man forlorn;
 He often wished that he was dead or never had been born.
 One melancholy day he thought his own life he would take;
 His suicide should come about by eating sirloin steak.
 He ate a nice big juicy one and laid him down to die,
 But got up feeling quite refreshed, and then he tackled pie.
 The pie refused to take him off, and in a frenzied mood
 He ate a can of pork and beans and quit his breakfast food.
 For seven weeks, he tried and tried to kill himself that way;
 He kept on growing heavier and each succeeding day
 He took a dose of hardy food that was a little worse;
 But even sauerkraut and pickled tripe refused to call the hearse.
 At last he gave up in despair for he was growing fat.
 He kept on eating fiendish things and then decided that
 If he must live, he’d do it right and eat whatever he liked,
 And seven doctors gave him up and packed their kits and hiked.
 This happened many years ago, and Bige is eighty-one,
 And feels just like a frisky kid whose life has but begun.