Tag: Walt Mason

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.

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.

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.

From the Evening Star, August 8, 1913. By Walt Mason.

When a man grows old and his feet are cold, and his heart is much the same, then he oft looks back on his winding track, with something of grief and shame. “If we could again,” sigh the ancient men, “but travel that sunlit ground, we would shun the breaks and the dire mistakes which in our past lives abound.” The old men sit by the wall and twit themselves with the things they’ve done, but it’s no avail, for they’re tired and frail, and their race is nearly run. The old men say, when the young that way are passing in joyous throngs, “Oh, youth beware of the gin and snare,” and the answer is heedless songs. For the young are bold and the pilgrims old are dotards, they lightly say; they themselves must learn of the lights that burn to lead them in swamps astray. And the counsel sage of the man of age is idle as gusts of air; he talks in vain of the farers slain in the swamps of the great despair. For the youth must break his own path and make his camp where he thinks it best; he must dree his weird till his silvered beard lies hoar on his withered breast.

From the Evening Star, August 2, 1913. By Walt Mason.

The years shouldn’t count when we’re stating our age, for some men are young when they’re gray, and others are old ere they’ve journeyed a stage in this world and its wonderful way. I know an old graybeard who ought to be dead if years laid a man by the heels; he cheerfully sings as he stands on his head, “A man’s just as old as he feels.” The years do not age us so badly, in truth; it’s worry that makes the blood cold; the man who is blessed with the spirit of youth is young when a hundred years old. The graybeard I wot of, he laughs and he yells and dances Virginia reels, and always and ever his roundelay swells, “A man’s just as old as he feels.” No man should admit that his days are near told, or talk of the past with a sob; no man should admit that he’s growing too old to eat summer corn from the cob. The graybeard I speak of, he’s slicker than grease, he cheers up the world with his spiels; he says (and his words suggest comfort and peace), “A man’s just as old as he feels.” I know a young man who is thirty or less, in years, but he’s old as the hills; he goes around looking for grief and distress, and talks by the day of his ills. The graybeard, God bless him, is younger than that! He ne’er at the wailing place kneels; he chortles, while kicking a hole through his hat, “A man’s just as old as he feels!”

From the Evening Star, July 12, 1913. By Walt Mason.

We all must have our evil days—that is the earthly plan; and when you’re treading rocky ways be patient as you can. For if, in brooding o’er your ills, you spend the dragging time, and if you count the weary hills you know you yet must climb, you’re pretty sure to overlook the good things on your way; the bank of flowers, the singing brook, the meadow sweet with hay. You hear the ravens croak and squawk as you pursue the trail; but if you listen as you walk, you’ll hear the nightingale. The brambles have your garments torn and multiplied your woes; but if you look, near every thorn you’ll doubtless find a rose. The clouds are banking in the west, you see the lightning’s gleam, but there’s an inn where pilgrims rest beside the fire and dream. “The night is closing cold and damp, and I am lost,” you moan; but in some window there’s a lamp that burns for you alone. And if we’re wise we all can sense the joy beyond the care; there always is a recompense for every grief we bear. So when a rough and dreary road and frowning sky we scan, let’s stand up straight beneath our load—be patient as we can!

From the Evening Star, July 7, 1913. By Walt Mason.

The country’s full of wholesome air, undoped, uncolored, undefiled; it’s blowing round us everywhere, enough for woman, man and child. And yet we box ourselves up tight the whole year round in dusty rooms; and sickness gets the foolish wight who in this way stale air consumes. And then he blows his wad for pills, and things you shake before you take, and tells long tales about his ills, describing every grievous ache. Fresh air preventive is and cure of half the ills beneath our hats, within the reach of people poor, as well as that of plutocrats. And that’s the reason why, no doubt, the fresh air cure-all doesn’t win; it’s why we keep the pure air out, and try to keep the stale air in. We can’t have faith in any dope that doesn’t cost like old Sam Hill; and so we anchor faith and hope to plaster, potion and to pill. We’ll buy the old expensive drugs until some faker sees ’twill pay to sell fresh air in gallon jugs, and then we’ll buy it every day. And, while the smiling faker thrives, in testimonials we’ll declare that fresh air saved our fading lives when all the docs were in despair. So let us wait for that glad day when fresh air’s bottled in New York; we’ll want it when we have to pay a plunk a throw, and pull a cork.

From the Evening Star, July 5, 1913. By Walt Mason.

If you build a line of railway over hills and barren lands, giving lucrative employment to about a million hands; if you cause a score of cities by your right of way to rise, where there formerly was nothing but some rattlesnakes and flies; if, when bringing kale to others you acquire a little kale, then you’ve surely robbed the peepul, and you ought to be in jail. If by planning and by toiling you have won some wealth and fame, it will make no odds how squarely you have played your little game; your success is proof sufficient that you are a public foe; you’re a soulless malefactor, to the dump you ought to go; it’s a crime for you to prosper where so many others fail; you have surely robbed the peepul and you ought to be in jail. Be a chronic politician, deal in superheated air; roast the banks and money barons—there is always safety there; but to sound the note of business is a crime so mean and base that the fellow guilty of it ought to go and hide his face; change the builder’s song triumphant for the politician’s wail, or we’ll think you’ve robbed the peepul, and we’ll pack you off to jail.

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

Hush my child, cut out the yelling! It will do no good, by durn; for I fear there is no telling when your mother will return. Father’s here to rock the cradle and to sing a dulcet note; father’s here, sweet child, to ladle paregoric down your throat. In your couch of wood and wattle, take your rest, my little sweet, drinking cow’s milk from a bottle, while your mother, on the street, tells about the Women’s Battle for their Sacred Rights, by jing; here’s your little wooden rattle, here’s your silver teething ring. Ah, this imitation nursing brings to baby’s face a frown, while your mother’s nobly cursing laws that keep the women down. Milk from can and milk from bottle, and the milk the druggists make, seem to paralyze your throttle and to make your tummy ache; but, my child, your mother’s doing work too long undone, alas! She is storming round and shooing poor male critters off the grass. With her woman suffrage rabies she is frothing at the snoot, and she can’t take care of babies—that’s for dad, the poor galoot. So, my dear, be bright and chipper; sing and smile as fine as silk; father’s here to poor a dipper of the predigested milk.

From the Evening Star, June 24, 1913. By Walt Mason.

A little word is but a sound, a sawed-off chunk of wind; we scatter little words around from here to farthest Ind. They are such inexpensive things we don’t economize, and so the world we live in rings with foolish words and wise. A little word costs just a breath, the shortest breath you drew; yet it may wound some heart to death—some heart that’s good and true. And it may wreck some man’s renown, or stain a woman’s fame, and bring bright castles tumbling down into the muck of shame. Your little words, like poisoned darts, may crooked fly, or straight, and carry into loving hearts the venom of dire hate. Be not so lavish with the breath that forms the words of woe, the words that bear the chill of death and lay true friendships low. A word is but a slice of air that’s fashioned by your tongue; so never let it bring despair or grief to old or young. But give to it the note of love and it will surely seem the symbol of the life above, and of an angel’s dream.