PENN-YAN BILL
I
In gallus old Kentucky, where the grass is very blue,
Where the liquor is the smoothest and the girls are fair and true,
Where the crop of he-gawd gentlemen is full of heart and sand,
And the stock of four-time winners is the finest in the land;
Where the democratic party in bourbon hardihood
For more than half a century unterrified has stood,
Where nod the black-eyed Susans to the prattle of the rill —
There – there befell the wooing of Penn-Yan Bill.
II
Down yonder in the cottage that is nestling in the shade
Of the walnut trees that seem to love that quiet little glade
Abides a pretty maiden of the bonny name of Sue —
As pretty as the black-eyed flow'rs and quite as modest, too;
And lovers came there by the score, of every age and kind,
But not a one (the story goes) was quite to Susie's mind.
Their sighs, their protestations, and their pleadings made her ill —
Till at once upon the scene hove Penn-Yan Bill.
III
He came from old Montana and he rode a broncho mare,
He had a rather howd'y'do and rough-and-tumble air;
His trousers were of buckskin and his coat of furry stuff —
His hat was drab of color and its brim was wide enough;
Upon each leg a stalwart boot reached just above the knee,
And in the belt about his waist his weepons carried he;
A rather strapping lover for our little Susie – still,
She was his choice and he was hers, was Penn-Yan Bill.
IV
We wonder that the ivy seeks out the oaken tree,
And twines her tendrils round him, though scarred and gnarled he be;
We wonder that a gentle girl, unused to worldly cares,
Should choose a man whose life has been a constant scrap with bears;
Ah, 'tis the nature of the vine, and of the maiden, too —
So when the bold Montana boy came from his lair to woo,
The fair Kentucky blossom felt all her heartstrings thrill
Responsive to the purring of Penn-Yan Bill.
V
He told her of his cabin in the mountains far away,
Of the catamount that howls by night, the wolf that yawps by day;
He told her of the grizzly with the automatic jaw,
He told her of the Injun who devours his victims raw;
Of the jayhawk with his tawdry crest and whiskers in his throat,
Of the great gosh-awful sarpent and the Rocky mountain goat.
A book as big as Shakespeare's or as Webster's you could fill
With the yarns that emanated from Penn-Yan Bill!
VI
Lo, as these mighty prodigies the westerner relates,
Her pretty mouth falls wide agape – her eyes get big as plates;
And when he speaks of varmints that in the Rockies grow
She shudders and she clings to him and timidly cries "Oh!"
And then says he: "Dear Susie, I'll tell you what to do —
You be my wife, and none of these 'ere things dare pester you!"
And she? She answers, clinging close and trembling yet: "I will."
And then he gives her one big kiss, does Penn-Yan Bill.
VII
Avaunt, ye poet lovers, with your wishywashy lays!
Avaunt, ye solemn pedants, with your musty, bookish ways!
Avaunt, ye smurking dandies who air your etiquette
Upon the gold your fathers worked so long and hard to get!
How empty is your nothingness beside the sturdy tales
Which mountaineers delight to tell of border hills and vales —
Of snaix that crawl, of beasts that yowl, of birds that flap and trill
In the wild egregious altitude of Penn-Yan Bill.
VIII
Why, over all these mountain peaks his honest feet have trod —
So high above the rest of us he seemed to walk with God;
He's breathed the breath of heaven, as it floated, pure and free,
From the everlasting snow-caps to the mighty western sea;
And he's heard that awful silence which thunders in the ear:
"There is a great Jehovah, and His biding place is here!"
These – these solemn voices and these the sights that thrill
In the far-away Montana of Penn-Yan Bill.
IX
Of course she had to love him, for it was her nature to;
And she'll wed him in the summer, if all we hear be true.
The blue grass will be waving in that cool Kentucky glade
Where the black-eyed Susans cluster in the pleasant walnut shade —
Where the doves make mournful music and the locust trills a song
To the brook that through the pasture scampers merrily along;
And speechless pride and rapture ineffable shall fill
The beatific bosom of Penn-Yan Bill!
ED
Ed was a man that played for keeps, 'nd when he tuk the notion,
You cudn't stop him any more'n a dam 'ud stop the ocean;
For when he tackled to a thing 'nd sot his mind plum to it,
You bet yer boots he done that thing though it broke the bank to do it!
So all us boys uz knowed him best allowed he wusn't jokin'
When on a Sunday he remarked uz how he'd gin up smokin'.
Now this remark, that Ed let fall, fell, ez I say, on Sunday —
Which is the reason we wuz shocked to see him sail in Monday
A-puffin' at a snipe that sizzled like a Chinese cracker
An' smelt fur all the world like rags instead uv like terbacker;
Recoverin' from our first surprise, us fellows fell to pokin'
A heap uv fun at "folks uz said how they had gin up smokin'."
But Ed – sez he: "I found my work cud not be done without it —
Jes' try the scheme yourself, my friends, ef any uv you doubt it!
It's hard, I know, upon one's health, but there's a certain beauty
In makin' sackerfices to the stern demand uv duty!
So, wholly in a sperrit uv denial 'nd concession
I mortify the flesh 'nd fur the sake uv my perfession!"
HOW SALTY WIN OUT
Used to think that luck wuz luck and nuthin' else but luck —
It made no diff'rence how or when or where or why it struck;
But sev'ral years ago I changt my mind and now proclaim
That luck's a kind uv science – same as any other game;
It happened out in Denver in the spring uv '80, when
Salty teched a humpback an' win out ten.
Salty wuz a printer in the good ol' Tribune days,
An', natural-like, he fell in love with the good ol' Tribune ways;
So, every Sunday evenin' he would sit into the game
Which in this crowd uv thoroughbreds I think I need not name;
An' there he'd sit until he rose, an', when he rose he wore
Invariably less wealth about his person than before.
But once there come a powerful change; one sollum Sunday night
Occurred the tidle wave what put ol' Salty out o' sight!
He win on deuce an' ace an' jack – he win on king an' queen —
Cliff Bill allowed the like uv how he win wuz never seen!
An' how he done it wuz revealed to all us fellers when
He said he teched a humpback to win out ten.
There must be somethin' in it for he never win afore,
An' when he tole the crowd about the humpback, how they swore!
For every sport allows it is a losin' game to buck
Agin the science of a man who's teched a hump f'r luck;
An' there is no denyin' luck was nowhere in it when
Salty teched a humpback an' win out ten.
I've had queer dreams an' seen queer things, an' allus tried to do
The thing that luck apparrently intended f'r me to;
Cats, funerils, cripples, beggars have I treated with regard,
An' charity subscriptions have hit me powerful hard;
But what's the use uv talkin'? I say, an' say again;
You've got to tech a humpback to win out ten!
So, though I used to think that luck wuz lucky, I'll allow
That luck, for luck, agin a hump ain't nowhere in it now!
An' though I can't explain the whys an' wherefores, I maintain
There must be somethin' in it when the tip's so straight an' plain;
For I wuz there an' seen it, an' got full with Salty when
Salty teched a humpback and win out ten!
HIS QUEEN
Our gifted and genial friend, Mr. William J. Florence, the comedian, takes to verses as naturally as a canvas-back duck takes to celery sauce. As a balladist he has few equals and no superiors, and when it comes to weaving compliments to the gentler sex he is without a peer. We find in the New York Mirror the latest verses from Mr. Florence's pen; they are entitled "Pasadene," and the first stanza flows in this wise:
I've journeyed East, I've journeyed West,
And fair Italia's fields I've seen;
But I declare
None can compare
With thee, my rose-crowned Pasadene.
Following this introduction come five stanzas heaping even more glowing compliments upon this Miss Pasadene – whoever she may be – we know her not. They are handsome compliments, beautifully phrased, yet they give us the heartache, for we know Mrs. Florence, and it grieves us to see her husband dribbling away his superb intellect in penning verses to other women. Yet we think we understand it all; these poets have a pretty way of hymning the virtues of their wives under divers aliases. So, catching the afflatus of the genial actor-poet's muse, we would answer:
Come, now, who is this Pasadene
That such a whirl of praises warrant?
And is a rose
Her only clo'es?
Oh, fie upon you, Billy Florence!
Ah, no; that's your poetic way
Of turning loose your rhythmic torrents —
This Pasadene
Is not your queen —
We know you know we know it, Florence!
So sing your songs of women folks —
We'll read without the least abhorrence,
Because we know
Through weal and woe
Your queen is Mrs. Billy Florence!
ALASKAN BALLADRY. – III
(Skans in Love.)
I am like the wretched seal
Wounded by a barbed device —
Helpless fellow! how I bellow,
Floundering on the jagged ice!
Sitka's beauty is the steel
That hath wrought this piteous woe:
Yet would I rather die
Than recover from the blow!
Still I'd rather live than die,
Grievous though my torment be;
Smite away, but, I pray,
Smite no victim else than me!
THE BIGGEST FISH
When, in the halcyon days of old, I was a little tyke,
I used to fish in pickerel ponds for minnows and the like;
And, oh, the bitter sadness with which my soul was fraught
When I rambled home at nightfall with the puny string I'd caught!
And, oh, the indignation and the valor I'd display
When I claimed that all the biggest fish I'd caught had got away!
Sometimes it was the rusty hooks, sometimes the fragile lines,
And many times the treacherous reeds were actually to blame.
I kept right on at losing all the monsters just the same —
I never lost a little fish – yes, I am free to say
It always was the biggest fish I caught that got away.
And so it was, when, later on, I felt ambition pass
From callow minnow joys to nobler greed for pike and bass;
I found it quite convenient, when the beauties wouldn't bite
And I returned all bootless from the watery chase at night,
To feign a cheery aspect and recount in accents gay
How the biggest fish that I had caught had somehow got away.
And, really, fish look bigger than they are before they're caught —
When the pole is bent into a bow and the slender line is taut,
When a fellow feels his heart rise up like a doughnut in his throat
And he lunges in a frenzy up and down the leaky boat!
Oh, you who've been a-fishing will indorse me when I say
That it always is the biggest fish you catch that gets away!
'Tis even so in other things – yes, in our greedy eyes
The biggest boon is some elusive, never-captured prize;
We angle for the honors and the sweets of human life —
Like fishermen we brave the seas that roll in endless strife;
And then at last, when all is done and we are spent and gray,
We own the biggest fish we've caught are those that get away.
I would not have it otherwise; 'tis better there should be
Much bigger fish than I have caught a-swimming in the sea;
For now some worthier one than I may angle for that game —
May by his arts entice, entrap, and comprehend the same;
Which, having done, perchance he'll bless the man who's proud to say
That the biggest fish he ever caught were those that got away.
BONNIE JIM CAMPBELL: A LEGISLATIVE MEMORY
Bonnie Jim Campbell rode up the glen,
But it wasn't to meet the butterine men;
It wasn't Phil Armour he wanted to see,
Nor Haines nor Crafts – though their friend was he.
Jim Campbell was guileless as man could be —
No fraud in his heart had he;
'Twas all on account of his character's sake
That he sought that distant Wisconsin lake.
* * * * * *
Bonnie Jim Campbell came riding home,
And now he sits in the rural gloam;
A tear steals furtively down his nose
As salt as the river that yonder flows;
To the setting sun and the rising moon
He plaintively warbles the good old tune:
"Of all the drinks that ever were made —
From sherbet to circus lemonade —
Not one's so healthy and sweet, I vow,
As the rich, thick cream of the Elgin cow!
Oh, that she were here to enliven the scene,
Right merry would be our hearts, I ween;
Then, then again, Bob Wilbanks and I
Would take it by turns and milk her dry!
We would stuff her paunch with the best of hay
And milk her a hundred times a day!"
'Tis thus that Bonnie Jim Campbell sings —
A young he-angel with sprouting wings;
He sings and he prays that Fate'll allow
Him one more whack at the Elgin cow!