Part 3

Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow"-- I'm Sorry, now, I Wrote it! But I can Tell you, Anyhow, I'll Kill you if you Quote it!

THE CURSE OF THE COMPETENT

BY HENRY J. FINN

My spirit hath been seared, as though the lightning's scathe had rent, In the swiftness of its wrath, through the midnight firmament, The darkly deepening clouds; and the shadows dim and murky Of destiny are on me, for my dinner's naught but--_turkey_.

The chords upon my silent lute no soft vibrations know, Save where the meanings of despair--out-breathings of my woe-- Tell of the cold and selfish world. In melancholy mood, The soul of genius chills with only--_fourteen cords of wood_.

The dreams of the deserted float around my curtained hours, And young imaginings are as the thorns bereft of flowers; A wretched outcast from mankind, my strength of heart has sank Beneath the evils of--_ten thousand dollars in the bank_.

This life to me a desert is, and kindness, as the stream That singly drops upon the waste where burning breezes teem; A banished, blasted plant, I droop, to which no freshness lends Its healing balm, for Heaven knows, I've but--_a dozen friends_.

And Sorrow round my brow has wreathed its coronal of thorns; No dewy pearl of Pleasure my sad sunken eyes adorns; Calamity has clothed my thoughts, I feel a bliss no more,-- Alas! my wardrobe now would only--_stock a clothing store_.

The joyousness of Memory from me for aye hath fled; It dwells within the dreary habitation of the dead; I breathe my midnight melodies in languor and by stealth, For Fate inflicts upon my frame--_the luxury of health_.

Envy, Neglect, and Scorn have been my hard inheritance; And a baneful curse clings to me, like the stain on innocence; My moments are as faded leaves, or roses in their blight-- I'm asked but once a day to dine--_to parties every night_.

Would that I were a silver ray upon the moonlit air, Or but one gleam that's glorified by each Peruvian's prayer! My tortured spirit turns from earth, to ease its bitter loathing; My hatred is on all things here, because--_I want for nothing_.

THE GRAMMATICAL BOY

BY BILL NYE

Sometimes a sad, homesick feeling comes over me, when I compare the prevailing style of anecdote and school literature with the old McGuffey brand, so well known thirty years ago. To-day our juvenile literature, it seems to me, is so transparent, so easy to understand, that I am not surprised to learn that the rising generation shows signs of lawlessness.

Boys to-day do not use the respectful language and large, luxuriant words that they did when Mr. McGuffey used to stand around and report their conversations for his justly celebrated school reader. It is disagreeable to think of, but it is none the less true, and for one I think we should face the facts.

I ask the careful student of school literature to compare the following selection, which I have written myself with great care, and arranged with special reference to the matter of choice and difficult words, with the flippant and commonplace terms used in the average school book of to-day.

One day as George Pillgarlic was going to his tasks, and while passing through the wood, he spied a tall man approaching in an opposite direction along the highway.

"Ah!" thought George, in a low, mellow tone of voice, "whom have we here?"

"Good morning, my fine fellow," exclaimed the stranger, pleasantly. "Do you reside in this locality?"

"Indeed I do," retorted George, cheerily, doffing his cap. "In yonder cottage, near the glen, my widowed mother and her thirteen children dwell with me."

"And is your father dead?" exclaimed the man, with a rising inflection.

"Extremely so," murmured the lad, "and, oh, sir, that is why my poor mother is a widow."

"And how did your papa die?" asked the man, as he thoughtfully stood on the other foot a while.

"Alas! sir," said George, as a large hot tear stole down his pale cheek and fell with a loud report on the warty surface of his bare foot, "he was lost at sea in a bitter gale. The good ship foundered two years ago last Christmastide, and father was foundered at the same time. No one knew of the loss of the ship and that the crew was drowned until the next spring, and it was then too late."

"And what is your age, my fine fellow?" quoth the stranger.

"If I live till next October," said the boy, in a declamatory tone of voice suitable for a Second Reader, "I will be seven years of age."

"And who provides for your mother and her large family of children?" queried the man.

"Indeed, I do, sir," replied George, in a shrill tone. "I toil, oh, so hard, sir, for we are very, very poor, and since my elder sister, Ann, was married and brought her husband home to live with us, I have to toil more assiduously than heretofore."

"And by what means do you obtain a livelihood?" exclaimed the man, in slowly measured and grammatical words.

"By digging wells, kind sir," replied George, picking up a tired ant as he spoke and stroking it on the back. "I have a good education, and so I am able to dig wells as well as a man. I do this day-times and take in washing at night. In this way I am enabled barely to maintain our family in a precarious manner; but, oh, sir, should my other sisters marry, I fear that some of my brothers-in-law would have to suffer."

"And do you not fear the deadly fire-damp?" asked the stranger in an earnest tone.

"Not by a damp sight," answered George, with a low gurgling laugh, for he was a great wag.

"You are indeed a brave lad," exclaimed the stranger, as he repressed a smile. "And do you not at times become very weary and wish for other ways of passing your time?"

"Indeed, I do, sir," said the lad. "I would fain run and romp and be gay like other boys, but I must engage in constant manual exercise, or we will have no bread to eat, and I have not seen a pie since papa perished in the moist and moaning sea."

"And what if I were to tell you that your papa did not perish at sea, but was saved from a humid grave?" asked the stranger in pleasing tones.

"Ah, sir," exclaimed George, in a genteel manner, again doffing his cap, "I am too polite to tell you what I would say, and besides, sir, you are much larger than I am."

"But, my brave lad," said the man in low musical tones, "do you not know me, Georgie? Oh, George!"

"I must say," replied George, "that you have the advantage of me. Whilst I may have met you before, I can not at this moment place you, sir."

"My son! oh, my son!" murmured the man, at the same time taking a large strawberry mark out of his valise and showing it to the lad. "Do you not recognize your parent on your father's side? When our good ship went to the bottom, all perished save me. I swam several miles through the billows, and at last, utterly exhausted, gave up all hope of life. Suddenly I stepped on something hard. It was the United States.

"And now, my brave boy," exclaimed the man with great glee, "see what I have brought for you." It was but the work of a moment to unclasp from a shawl-strap which he held in his hand and present to George's astonished gaze a large forty-cent watermelon, which until now had been concealed by the shawl-strap.

SIMPLE ENGLISH

BY RAY CLARKE ROSE

Ofttimes when I put on my gloves, I wonder if I'm sane. For when I put the right one on, The right seems to remain To be put on--that is, 'tis left; Yet if the left I don, The other one is left, and then I have the right one on. But still I have the left on right; The right one, though, is left To go right on the left right hand All right, if I am deft.

PARTINGTONIAN PATCHWORK

BY B.P. SHILLABER

VII

"Are you in favor of the prohibitive law, or the license law?" asked her opposite neighbor of the relict of P.P.; corporal of the "Bloody 'Leventh."

She carefully weighed the question, as though she were selling snuff, and answered,--

"Sometimes I think I am, and then again I think I am not."

Her neighbor was perplexed, and repeated the question, varying it a little.

"Have you seen the 'Mrs. Partington Twilight Soap'?" she asked.

"Yes," was the reply; "everybody has seen that; but why?"

"Because," said the dame, "it has two sides to it, and it is hard to choose between them. Now here are my two neighbors, contagious to me on both sides--one goes for probation, t'other for licentiousness; and I think the best thing for me is to keep nuisance."

She meant neutral, of course. The neighbor admired, and smiled, while Ike lay on the floor, with his legs in the air, trying to balance Mrs. Partington's fancy waiter on his toe.

IX

Christmas Ike was made the happy possessor of a fiddle, which he found in the morning near his stocking.

"Has he got a musical bent?" Banfield asked, of whom Mrs. Partington was buying the instrument.

"Bent, indeed!" said she; "no, he's as straight as an error."

He explained by repeating the question regarding his musical inclination.

"Yes," she replied; "he's dreadfully inclined to music since he had a drum, and I want the fiddle to see if I can't make another Pickaninny or an Old Bull of him. Jews-harps is simple, though I can't see how King David played on one of 'em, and sung his psalms at the same time; but the fiddle is best, because genius can show itself plainer on it without much noise. Some prefers a violeen; but I don't know."

The fiddle was well improved, till the horsehair all pulled out of the bow, and it was then twisted up into a fish-line.

XVI

"How limpid you walk!" said a voice behind us, as we were making a hundred and fifty horse-power effort to reach a table whereon reposed a volume of Bacon. "What is the cause of your lameness?" It was Mrs. Partington's voice that spoke, and Mrs. Partington's eyes that met the glance we returned over our left shoulder. "Gout," said we, briefly, almost surlily. "Dear me," said she; "you are highly flavored! It was only rich people and epicacs in living that had the gout in olden times." "Ah!" we growled, partly in response, and partly with an infernal twinge, "Poor soul!" she continued, with commiseration, like an anodyne, in the tones of her voice; "the best remedy I know for it is an embarkation of Roman wormwood and lobelia for the part infected, though some say a cranberry poultice is best; but I believe the cranberries is for erisipilis, and whether either of 'em is a rostrum for the gout or not, I really don't know. If it was a fraction of the arm, I could jest know what to subscribe." We looked into her eye with a determination to say something severely bitter, because we felt allopathic just then; but the kind and sympathizing look that met our own disarmed severity, and sinking into a seat with our coveted Bacon, we thanked her. It was very evident, all the while, that she, or they, stayed, that Ike was seeing how near he could come to our lame member, and not touch it. He did touch it sometimes, but those didn't count.

XX

"I've always noticed," said Mrs. Partington on New Year's Day, dropping her voice to the key that people adopt when they are disposed to be philosophical or moral; "I've always noticed that every year added to a man's life is apt to make him older, just as a man who goes a journey finds, as he jogs on, that every mile he goes brings him nearer where he is going, and farther from where he started. I am not so young as I was once, and I don't believe I shall ever be, if I live to the age of Samson, which, Heaven knows as well as I do, I don't want to, for I wouldn't be a centurion or an octagon, and survive my factories, and become idiomatic, by any means. But then there is no knowing how a thing will turn out till it takes place; and we shall come to an end some day, though we may never live to see it."

There was a smart tap on the looking-glass that hung upon the wall, followed instantly by another.

"Gracious!" said she; "what's that? I hope the glass isn't fractioned, for it is a sure sign of calamity, and mercy knows they come along full fast enough without helping 'em by breaking looking-glasses."

There was another tap, and she caught sight of a white bean that fell on the floor; and there, reflected in the glass, was the face of Ike, who was blowing beans at the mirror through a crack in the door.

XXI

"As for the Chinese question," said Mrs. Partington, reflectively, holding her spoon at "present," while the vapor of her cup of tea curled about her face, which shone through it like the moon through a mist, "it is a great pity that somebody don't answer it, though who under the canister of heaven can do it, with sich letters as they have on their tea-chists, is more than I can tell. It is really too bad, though, that some lingister doesn't try it, and not have this provoking question asked all the time, as if we were ignoramuses, and did not know Toolong from No Strong, and there never was sich a thing as the seventh commandment, which, Heaven knows, suits this case to a T, and I hope the breakers of it may escape, but I don't see how they can. The question must be answered, unless it is like a cannondrum, to be given up, which nobody of any spirit should do."

She brought the spoon down into the cup, and looked out through the windows of her soul into celestial fields, peopled with pig-tails, that were all in her eye, while Ike took a double charge of sugar for his tea, and gave an extra allowance of milk to the kitten.

THE MENAGERIE

BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY

Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut Such capers every day! I'm just about Mellow, but then--There goes the tent flap shut. Rain's in the wind. I thought so: every snout Was twitching when the keeper turned me out.

That screaming parrot makes my blood run cold. Gabriel's trump! the big bull elephant Squeals "Rain!" to the parched herd. The monkeys scold, And jabber that it's rain-water they want. (It makes me sick to see a monkey pant.)

I'll foot it home, to try and make believe I'm sober. After this I stick to beer, And drop the circus when the sane folks leave. A man's a fool to look at things too near: They look back and begin to cut up queer.

Beasts do, at any rate; especially Wild devils caged. They have the coolest way Of being something else than what you see: You pass a sleek young zebra nosing hay, A nylghau looking bored and distingué,--

And think you've seen a donkey and a bird. Not on your life! Just glance back, if you dare. The zebra chews, the nylghau hasn't stirred; But something's happened, Heaven knows what or where, To freeze your scalp and pompadour your hair.

I'm not precisely an æolian lute Hung in the wandering winds of sentiment, But drown me if the ugliest, meanest brute Grunting and fretting in that sultry tent Didn't just floor me with embarrassment!

'Twas like a thunder-clap from out the clear-- One minute they were circus beasts, some grand, Some ugly, some amusing, and some queer: Rival attractions to the hobo band, The flying jenny, and the peanut-stand.

Next minute they were old hearth-mates of mine! Lost people, eyeing me with such a stare! Patient, satiric, devilish, divine; A gaze of hopeless envy, squalid care, Hatred, and thwarted love, and dim despair.

Within my blood my ancient kindred spoke-- Grotesque and monstrous voices, heard afar Down ocean caves when behemoth awoke, Or through fern forests roared the plesiosaur Locked with the giant-bat in ghastly war.

And suddenly, as in a flash of light, I saw great Nature working out her plan; Through all her shapes, from mastodon to mite, Forever groping, testing, passing on To find at last the shape and soul of Man.

Till in the fullness of accomplished time, Comes brother Forepaugh, upon business bent, Tracks her through frozen and through torrid clime, And shows us, neatly labeled in a tent, The stages of her huge experiment;

Babbling aloud her shy and reticent hours; Dragging to light her blinking, slothful moods; Publishing fretful seasons when her powers Worked wild and sullen in her solitudes, Or when her mordant laughter shook the woods.

Here, round about me, were her vagrant births; Sick dreams she had, fierce projects she essayed; Her qualms, her fiery prides, her craze mirths; The troublings of her spirit as she strayed, Cringed, gloated, mocked, was lordly, was afraid,

On that long road she went to seek mankind; Here were the darkling coverts that she beat To find the Hider she was sent to find; Here the distracted footprints of her feet Whereby her soul's Desire she came to greet.

But why should they, her botch-work, turn about And stare disdain at me, her finished job? Why was the place one vast suspended shout Of laughter? Why did all the daylight throb With soundless guffaw and dumb-stricken sob?

Helpless I stood among those awful cages; The beasts were walking loose, and I was bagged! I, I, last product of the toiling ages, Goal of heroic feet that never lagged-- A little man in trousers, slightly jagged.

Deliver me from such another jury! The Judgment-day will be a picnic to't. Their satire was more dreadful than their fury, And worst of all was just a kind of brute Disgust, and giving up, and sinking mute.

Survival of the fittest adaptation, And all their other evolution terms, Seem to omit one small consideration, To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms Have souls: there's soul in everything that squirms.

And souls are restless, plagued, impatient things, All dream and unaccountable desire; Crawling, but pestered with the thought of wings; Spreading through every inch of earth's old mire, Mystical hanker after something higher.

Wishes _are_ horses, as I understand. I guess a wistful polyp that has strokes Of feeling faint to gallivant on land Will come to be a scandal to his folk; Legs he will sprout, in spite of threats and jokes.

And at the core of every life that crawls Or runs or flies or swims or vegetates-- Churning the mammoth's heart-blood, in the galls Of shark and tiger planting gorgeous hates, Lighting the love of eagles for their mates;

Yes, in the dim brain of the jellied fish That is and is not living--moved and stirred From the beginning a mysterious wish, A vision, a command, a fatal Word: The name of Man was uttered, and they heard.

Upward along the æons of old war They sought him: wing and shank-bone, claw and bill, Were fashioned and rejected; wide and far They roamed the twilight jungles of their will; But still they sought him, and desired him still.

Man they desired, but mind you, Perfect Man, The radiant and the loving, yet to be! I hardly wonder, when they come to scan The upshot of their strenuosity, They gazed with mixed emotions upon _me_.

Well, my advice to you is, Face the creatures, Or spot them sideways with your weather eye, Just to keep tab on their expansive features; It isn't pleasant when you're stepping high To catch a giraffe smiling on the sly.

If Nature made you graceful, don't get gay Back-to before the hippopotamus; If meek and godly, find some place to play Besides right where three mad hyenas fuss; You may hear language that we won't discuss.

If you're a sweet thing in a flower-bed hat, Or her best fellow with your tie tucked in, Don't squander love's bright springtime girding at An old chimpanzee with an Irish chin: _There may be hidden meaning in his grin_.

DOWN AROUND THE RIVER

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

Noon-time and June-time, down around the river! Have to furse with 'Lizey Ann--but lawzy! I fergive her! Drives me off the place, and says 'at all 'at she's a-wishin', Land o' gracious! time'll come I'll git enough o' fishin'! Little Dave, a-choppin' wood, never 'pears to notice; Don't know where she's hid his hat, er keerin' where his coat is,-- Specalatin', more'n like, he haint a-goin' to mind me, And guessin' where, say twelve o'clock, a feller'd likely find me.

Noon-time and June-time, down around the river! Clean out o' sight o' home, and skulkin' under kivver Of the sycamores, jack-oaks, and swamp-ash and ellum-- Idies all so jumbled up, you kin hardly tell'em!-- _Tired_, you know, but _lovin'_ it, and smilin' jest to think 'at Any sweeter tiredness you'd fairly want to _drink_ it. Tired o' fishin'--tired o' fun--line out slack and slacker-- All you want in all the world's a little more tobacker!

Hungry, but _a-hidin'_ it, er jes' a-not a-keerin':-- Kingfisher gittin' up and skootin' out o' hearin'; Snipes on the t'other side, where the County Ditch is, Wadin' up and down the aidge like they'd rolled their britches! Old turkle on the root kindo-sorto drappin' Intoo th' worter like he don't know how it happen! Worter, shade and all so mixed, don't know which you'd orter Say, th' _worter_ in the shadder--_shadder_ in the _worter_!

Somebody hollerin'--'way around the bend in Upper Fork--where yer eye kin jes' ketch the endin' Of the shiney wedge o' wake some muss-rat's a-makin' With that pesky nose o' his! Then a sniff o' bacon, Corn-bread and 'dock-greens--and little Dave a-shinnin' 'Crost the rocks and mussel-shells, a-limpin' and a-grinnin', With yer dinner fer ye, and a blessin' from the giver. Noon-time and June-time down around the river!

A MEDIEVAL DISCOVERER

BY BILL NYE

Galilei, commonly called Galileo, was born at Pisa on the 14th day of February, 1564. He was the man who discovered some of the fundamental principles governing the movements, habits, and personal peculiarities of the earth. He discovered things with marvelous fluency. Born as he was, at a time when the rotary motion of the earth was still in its infancy and astronomy was taught only in a crude way, Galileo started in to make a few discoveries and advance some theories which he loved.

He was the son of a musician and learned to play several instruments himself, but not in such a way as to arouse the jealousy of the great musicians of his day. They came and heard him play a few selections, and then they went home contented with their own music. Galileo played for several years in a band at Pisa, and people who heard him said that his manner of gazing out over the Pisan hills with a far-away look in his eye after playing a selection, while he gently up-ended his alto horn and worked the mud-valve as he poured out about a pint of moist melody that had accumulated in the flues of the instrument, was simply grand.