The Old Soldier's Story: Poems and Prose Sketches
TekstGEORGE A. CARR
GREENFIELD, JULY 21, 1914
O playmate of the far-away
And dear delights of Boyhood's day,
And friend and comrade true and tried
Through length of years of life beside,
I bid you thus a fond farewell
Too deep for words or tears to tell.
But though I lose you, nevermore
To greet you at the open door,
To grasp your hand or see your smile,
I shall be thankful all the while
Because your love and loyalty
Have made a happier world for me.
So rest you, Playmate, in that land
Still hidden from us by His hand,
Where you may know again in truth
All of the glad days of your youth —
As when in days of endless ease
We played beneath the apple trees.
TO ELIZABETH
OBIT JULY 8, 1893
O noble, true and pure and lovable
As thine own blessed name, Elizabeth! —
Ay, even as its cadence lingereth
Upon the lips that speak it, so the spell
Of thy sweet memory shall ever dwell
As music in our hearts. Smiling at Death
As on some later guest that tarrieth,
Too gratefully o'erjoyed to say farewell,
Thou hast turned from us but a little space —
We miss thy presence but a little while,
Thy voice of sympathy, thy word of cheer,
The radiant glory of thine eyes and face,
The glad midsummer morning of thy smile, —
For still we feel and know that thou art here.
TO ALMON KEEFER
INSCRIBED IN "TALES OF THE OCEAN"
This first book that I ever knew
Was read aloud to me by you!
Friend of my boyhood, therefore take
It back from me, for old times' sake —
The selfsame "Tales" first read to me,
Under "the old sweet apple tree,"
Ere I myself could read such great
Big words, – but listening all elate,
At your interpreting, until
Brain, heart, and soul were all athrill
With wonder, awe, and sheer excess
Of wildest childish happiness.
So take the book again – forget
All else, – long years, lost hopes, regret;
Sighs for the joys we ne'er attain,
Prayers we have lifted all in vain;
Tears for the faces seen no more,
Once as the roses at the door!
Take the enchanted book – And lo,
On grassy swards of long ago,
Sprawl out again, beneath the shade
The breezy old-home orchard made,
The veriest barefoot boy indeed —
And I will listen as you read.
TO – "THE J. W. R. LITERARY CLUB"
Well, it's enough to turn his head to have a feller's name
Swiped with a Literary Club! – But you're the ones to blame! —
I call the World to witness that I never agged ye to it
By ever writin' Classic-like—because I couldn't do it:
I never run to "Hellicon," ner writ about "Per-nassus,"
Ner ever tried to rack or ride around on old "P-gassus"!
When "Tuneful Nines" has cross'd my lines, the ink 'ud blot and blur it,
And pen 'ud jest putt back fer home, and take the short way fer it!
And so, as I'm a-sayin', – when you name your Literary
In honor o' this name o' mine, it's railly nessessary —
Whilse I'm a-thankin' you and all – to warn you, ef you do it,
I'll haf to jine the thing myse'f 'fore I can live up to it!
LITTLE MAID-O'-DREAMS
Little Maid-o'-Dreams, with your
Eery eyes so clear and pure
Gazing, where we fain would see
Into far futurity, —
Tell us what you there behold,
In your visions manifold!
What is on beyond our sight,
Biding till the morrow's light,
Fairer than we see to-day,
As our dull eyes only may?
Little Maid-o'-Dreams, with face
Like as in some woodland place
Lifts a lily, chaste and white,
From the shadow to the light; —
Tell us, by your subtler glance,
What strange sorcery enchants
You as now, – here, yet afar
As the realms of moon and star? —
Have you magic lamp and ring,
And genii for vassaling?
Little Maid-o'-Dreams, confess
You're divine and nothing less, —
For with mortal palms, we fear,
Yet must pet you, dreaming here —
Yearning, too, to lift the tips
Of your fingers to our lips;
Fearful still you may rebel,
High and heav'nly oracle!
Thus, though all unmeet our kiss,
Pardon this! – and this! – and this!
Little Maid-o'-Dreams, we call
Truce and favor, knowing all! —
All your magic is, in truth,
Pure foresight and faith of youth —
You're a child, yet even so,
You're a sage, in embryo —
Prescient poet – artist – great
As your dreams anticipate. —
Trusting God and Man, you do
Just as Heaven inspires you to.
TO THE BOY WITH A COUNTRY
DAN WALLINGFORD
Dan Wallingford, my jo Dan! —
Though but a child in years,
Your patriot spirit thrills the land
And wakens it to cheers, —
You lift the flag – you roll the drums —
We hear the bugle blow, —
Till all our hearts are one with yours,
Dan Wallingford, my jo!
CLAUDE MATTHEWS
GOVERNOR OF INDIANA
Steadfastly from his childhood's earliest hour —
From simplest country life to state and power —
His worth has known advancement, – each new height
A newer glory in his fellow's sight.
So yet his happy fate – though mute the breath
Of thronging multitudes and thundrous cheers, —
Faith sees him raised still higher, through our tears,
By this divine promotion of his death.
TO LESLEY
Burns sang of bonny Lesley
As she gaed o'er the border, —
Gaed like vain Alexander,
To spread her conquests farther.
I sing another Lesley,
Wee girlie, more alluring,
Who stays at home, the wise one,
Her conquests there securing.
A queen, too, is my Lesley,
And gracious, though blood-royal,
My heart her throne, her kingdom,
And I a subject loyal.
Long shall you reign, my Lesley,
My pet, my darling dearie,
For love, oh, little sweetheart,
Grows never old or weary.
THE JUDKINS PAPERS
FATHER AND SON
Mr. Judkins' boy came home yesterday with a bottle of bugs in his pocket, and as the quiet little fellow sat on the back porch in his favorite position, his legs elbowed and flattened out beneath him like a letter "W," his genial and eccentric father came suddenly upon him.
"And what's the blame' boy up to now?" said Mr. Judkins, in an assumed tone of querulous displeasure, as he bent over the boy from behind and gently tweaked his ear.
"Oh, here, mister!" said the boy, without looking up; "you thist let up on that, will you!"
"What you got there, I tell you!" continued the smiling Mr. Judkins, in a still gruffer tone, relinquishing the boy's ear, and gazing down upon the fluffy towhead with more than ordinary admiration. "What you got there?"
"Bugs," said the boy – "you know!"
"Dead, are they?" said Mr. Judkins.
"Some of 'em's dead," said the boy, carefully running a needle through the back of a large bumblebee. "All these uns is, you kin bet! You don't think a feller 'ud try to string a live bumblebee, I reckon?"
"Well, no, 'Squire," said Mr. Judkins, airily, addressing the boy by one of the dozen nicknames he had given him; "not a live bumblebee – a real stem-winder, of course not. But what in the name o' limpin' Lazarus air you stringin' 'em fer?"
"Got a live snake-feeder," said the boy, ignoring the parental inquiry. "See him down there in the bottom, 'ith all th' other uns on top of him. Thist watch him now, an' you kin see him pant. I kin. Yes, an' I got a beetle 'at's purt' nigh alive, too – on'y he can't pull in his other wings. See 'em?" continued the boy, with growing enthusiasm, twirling the big-mouthed bottle like a kaleidoscope. "Hate beetles! 'cause they allus act so big, an' make s'much fuss about theirselves, an' don't know nothin' neither! Bet ef I had as many wings as a beetle I wouldn't let no boy my size knock the stuffin' out o' me with no bunch o' weeds, like I done him!"
"Howd'ye know you wouldn't?" said Mr. Judkins, austerely, biting his nails and winking archly to himself.
"W'y, I know I wouldn't," said the boy, "'cause I'd keep up in the air where I could fly, an' wouldn't come low down ut all – bumpin' around 'mongst them bushes, an' buzzin' against things, an' buttin' my brains out a-tryin' to git thue fence cracks."
"'Spect you'd ruther be a snake-feeder, wouldn't you, Bud?" said Mr. Judkins suggestively. "Snake-feeders has got about enough wings to suit you, ef you want more'n one pair, and ever' day's a picnic with a snake-feeder, you know. Nothin' to do but jes' loaf up and down the crick, and roost on reeds and cat-tails, er fool around a feller's fish-line and light on the cork and bob up and down with it till she goes clean under, don't you know?"
"Don't want to be no snake-feeder, neither," said the boy, "'cause they gits gobbled up, first thing they know, by these 'ere big green bullfrogs ut they can't ever tell from the skum till they've lit right in their mouth – and then they're goners! No, sir;" continued the boy, drawing an extra quinine-bottle from another pocket, and holding it up admiringly before his father's eyes: "There's the feller in there ut I'd ruther be than have a pony!"
"W'y, it's a nasty p'izen spider!" exclaimed Mr. Judkins, pushing back the bottle with affected abhorrence, "and he's alive, too!"
"You bet he's alive!" said the boy, "an' you kin bet he'll never come to no harm while I own him!" and as the little fellow spoke his face glowed with positive affection, and the twinkle of his eyes, as he continued, seemed wonderfully like his father's own. "Tell you, I like spiders! Spiders is awful fat – all but their head – and that's level, you kin bet! Flies hain't got no business with a spider. Ef a spider ever reaches fer a fly, he's his meat! The spider, he likes to loaf an' lay around in the shade an' wait fer flies an' bugs an' things to come a-foolin' round his place. He lays back in the hole in the corner of his web, an' waits till somepin' lights on it an' nen when he hears 'em buzzin', he thist crawls out an' fixes 'em so's they can't buzz, an' he's got the truck to do it with! I bet ef you'd unwind all the web-stuff out of thist one little spider not bigger'n a pill, it 'ud be long enough fer a kite-string! Onc't they wuz one in our wood-house, an' a taterbug got stuck in his web, an' the spider worked purt' nigh two days 'fore he got him so's he couldn't move. Nen he couldn't eat him neither – 'cause they's shells on 'em, you know, an' the spider didn't know how to hull him. Ever' time I'd go there the spider, he'd be a-wrappin' more stuff around th' ole bug, an' stoopin' down like he wuz a-whisperin' to him. An' one day I went in ag'in, an' he was a-hangin', alas an' cold in death! An' I poked him with a splinter an' his web broke off – 'spect he'd used it all up on the wicked bug – an' it killed him; an' I buried him in a' ink-bottle an' mashed the old bug 'ith a chip!"
"Yes," said Judkins, in a horrified tone, turning away to conceal the real zest and enjoyment his face must have betrayed; "yes, and some day you'll come home p'izened, er somepin'! And I want to say right here, my young man, ef ever you do, and it don't kill you, I'll lint you within an inch of your life!" And as the eccentric Mr. Judkins whirled around the corner of the porch he heard the boy murmur in his low, absent-minded way, "Yes, you will!"
MR. JUDKINS' REMARKS
Judkins stopped us in front of the post-office yesterday to say that that boy of his was "the blamedest boy outside o' the annals o' history!" "Talk about this boy-naturalist out here at Indianapolis," says Judkins, – "w'y, he ain't nowhere to my boy! The little cuss don't do nothin' either only set around and look sleepy, and dern him, he gits off more dry things than you could print in your paper. Of late he's been a-displayin' a sort o' weakness fer Nature, don't you know; and he's allus got a bottle o' bugs in his pocket. He come home yesterday evening with a blame' mud-turtle as big as an unabridged dictionary, and turned him over in the back yard and commenced biffin' away at him with a hammer and a cold-chisel. 'W'y, you're a-killin' the turtle,' says I. 'Kill nothin'!' says he, 'I'm thist a-takin' the lid off so's I can see his clock works.' Hoomh!" says Judkins: "He's a good one! – only," he added, "I wouldn't have the boy think so fer the world!"
JUDKINS' BOY ON THE MUD-TURTLE
The mud-turtle is not a beast of pray, but he dearly loves catfish bait. If a mud-turtle gits your big toe in his mouth he will hang on till it thunders. Then he will spit it out like he was disgusted. The mud-turtle kin swim and keep his chin out of water ef he wants to but he don't care ef he does sink. The turtle kin stay under water until his next birthday, an' never crack a smile. He kin breathe like a grown person, but he don't haf to, on'y when he is on dry land, an' then I guess he thist does it to be soshibul. Allus when you see bubbles a-comin' up in the swimmin' hole, you kin bet your galluses they's a mud-turtle a-layin' down there, studyin' up some cheap way to git his dinner. Mud-turtles never dies, on'y when they make soup out of 'em. They is seven kinds of meat in the turtle, but I'd ruther eat thist plain burnt liver.
ON FROGS
Frogs is the people's friend, but they can't fly. Onc't they wuz tadpoles about as big as lickerish drops, an' after while legs growed on 'em. Oh, let us love the frog – he looks so sorry. Frogs kin swim better'n little boys, and they don't haf to hold their nose when they dive, neither. Onc't I had a pet frog; an' the cars run over him. It thist squshed him. Bet he never knowed what hurt him! Onc't they wuz a rich lady swallered one – when he wuz little, you know; an' he growed up in her, an' it didn't kill him ut all. An' you could hear him holler in her bosom. It was a tree-toad; and so ever' time he'd go p-r-r-r-r- w'y, nen the grand lady she'd know it was goin' to rain, an' make her little boy run an' putt the tub under the spout. Wasn't that a b'utiful frog?
ON PIRUTS
Piruts is reckless to a fault. They ain't afeard of nobody ner nothin'. Ef ever you insult a pirut onc't, he'll foller you to the grave but what he will revenge his wrongs. Piruts all looks like pictures of "Buffalo Bill" – on'y they don't shave off the whiskers that sticks out over the collar of their low-necked shirt. Ever' day is a picknick fer the piruts of the high seas. They eat gunpowder an' drink blood to make 'em savage, and then they kill people all day, an' set up all night an' tell ghost stories an' sing songs such as mortal ear would quail to listen to. Piruts never comes on shore on'y when they run out of tobacker; an' then it's a cold day ef they don't land at midnight, an' disguize theirselves an' slip up in town like a sleuth houn', so's the Grand Jury can't git on to 'em. They don't care fer the police any more than us people who dwells right in their midst. Piruts makes big wages an' spends it like a king. "Come easy, go easy," is the fatal watchword of them whose deeds is Deth. Onc't they wuz a pirut turned out of the house an' home by his cruel parents when he wuz but a kid, an' so he always went by that name. He was thrust adrift without a nickel, an' sailed fer distant shores to hide his shame fer those he loved. In the dead of night he stol'd a new suit of the captain's clothes. An' when he growed up big enough to fit 'em, he gaily dressed hissef and went up an' paced the quarter-deck in deep thought. He had not fergot how the captain onc't had lashed him to the jib-boom-poop an' whipped him. That stung his proud spirit even then; an' so the first thing he done was to slip up behind the cruel officer an' push him over-board. Then the ship wuz his fer better er fer worse. An' so he took command, an' hung high upon the beetling mast the pirut flag. Then he took the Bible his old mother give him, an' tied a darnic round it an' sunk it in the sand with a mocking laugh. Then it wuz that he wuz ready fer the pirut's wild seafaring life. He worked the business fer all they wuz in it fer many years, but wuz run in ut last. An', standin' on the gallus-tree, he sung a song which wuz all wrote off by hissef. An' then they knocked the trap on him. An' thus the brave man died and never made a kick. In life he wuz allus careful with his means, an' saved up vast welth, which he dug holes and buried, an' died with the secret locked in his bosom to this day.
ON HACKMENS
Hackmens has the softest thing in the bizness. They hain't got nothin' to do but look hump-shouldered an' chaw tobacker an' wait. Hackmens all looks like detectives, an' keeps still, an' never even spits when you walk past 'em. An' they're allus cold. A hackman that stands high in the p'fession kin wear a overcoat in dog-days an' then look chilly an' like his folks wuz all dead but the old man, an' he wuz a drunkard. Ef a hackman would on'y be a blind fiddler he'd take in more money than a fair-ground. Hackmens never gives nothin' away. You kin trust a hackman when you can't trust your own mother. Some people thinks when they hire a hack to take 'em some place that the hackman has got some grudge ag'in' 'em – but he hain't – he's allus that way. He loves you but he knows his place, and smothers his real feelings. In life's giddy scenes hackmens all wears a mask; but down deep in their heart you kin bet they are yourn till deth. Some hackmens look like they wuz stuck up, but they hain't – it's only 'cause they got on so much clothes. Onc't a hackman wuz stabbed by a friend of his in the same bizness, an' when the doctors wuz seein' how bad he wuz karved up, they found he had on five shurts. They said that wuz all that saved his life. They said ef he'd on'y had on four shurts, he'd 'a' been a ded man. An' the hackman hissef, when he got well, used to brag it wuz the closetest call he ever had, an' laid fer the other hackman, an' hit him with a car couplin' an' killed him, an' come mighty nigh goin' to the penitenchary fer it. Influenshal friends wuz all that saved him that time. No five shurts would 'a' done it. The mayor said that when he let him off, an' brought down the house, an' made hissef a strong man fer another term. Some mayors is purty slick, but a humble hackman may sometimes turn out to be thist as smooth. The on'y thing w'y a hackman don't show up no better is 'cause he loses so much sleep. That's why he allus looks like he had the headache, an' didn't care ef he did. Onc't a hackman wuz waitin' in front of a hotel one morning an' wuz sort o' dozin' like, an' fell off his seat. An' they run an' picked him up, an' he wuz unconshus, an' they worked with him till 'way long in the afternoon 'fore they found out he wuz thist asleep; an' he cussed fearful cause they waked him up, an' wondered why people couldn't never tend to their own bizness like he did.
ON DUDES
Ever'body is allus a-givin' it to Dudes. Newspapers makes fun of 'em, an' artists makes pictures of 'em; an' the on'y ones in the wide world that stuck on Dudes is me an' the Dudes theirse'f, an' we love an' cherish 'em with all a parent's fond regards. An' nobody knows much about Dudes neither, 'cause they hain't been broke out long enough yit to tell thist what the disease is. Some say it's softinning of the brains, an' others claim it can't be that, on the groun's they hain't got material fer the softinning to work on, &c., &c., till even "Sientests is puzzled," as the good book says. An' ef I wuz a-goin' to say what ails Dudes I'd have to give it up, er pernounce it a' aggervated case of Tyfoid blues, which is my 'onnest convictions. That's what makes me kind o' stand in with 'em – same as ef they wuz the under-dog. I am willing to aknolege that Dudes has their weakness, but so has ever'thing. Even Oscar Wild, ef putt to the test; an' I allus feel sorry fer George Washington 'cause he died 'fore he got to see Oscar Wild. An' then another reason w'y you oughten't to jump on to Dudes is, they don't know what's the matter with 'em any more than us folks in whom they come in daily contack. Dudes all walks an' looks in the face like they wuz on their way to fill an engagement with a revolvin' lady wax-figger in some milliner-winder, an' had fergot the number of her place of bizness. Some folks is mean enough to bitterly a'sert that Dudes is strained in their manner an' fools from choice; but they ain't. It's a gift – Dudes is Geenuses – that's what Dudes is!