Jocosities, April, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

A Bald Statement

   O, would I were*

        A poet great,

   With loads of hair

        Both long and straight.

   What poems glad,

        What heights I’d strike,

   If I but had

        Hair poet-like!

   Alas! Alas!

        My fate should be

   So second-class,

        In poetree.

   No bard should dare

        To think him great,

   Who has a bare

        And shiny pate!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“There may be a high price to livin’, but it’s low compared with the price uv dyin’.”

______

Cheerful Comment

Look sharp this morning but not behind you!

A three-cornered fight means spreading out some.

Menelik II. had many licks, but so did the other fellows.

New York hotels to raise their prices? Now if they would only elevate their standards!

Peary’s “farthest north” dog is dead. What a chance for his critics to say, “Another proof lacking.”

Gov. Hadley oughtn’t to worry about those eight peach trees that were stolen from his place; probably they would have been frosted, anyway.

______

This Is On You

Don’t be disconcerted whatever you do,

     And go through the day with a pout

Because you find here no April first cheer –

     The April Fool editor’s out.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XLIX.

Gungawamp is not what might be called a literary centre. That is to say, it is not a distinctly literary centre. A good deal of hay is raised in Gungy, quite a bit of garden sass and a little Old Ned, but not much literature,

It is not a fruit belt either, although enough cider is squoze each fall to keep the average belt in a tightened condition. We were fortunate in having a goodly number of apple trees! To all appearances, and in the eyes of my good neighbors, I was a farmer rather than a breeder of jokes. But that was my own fault rather than their’s for I began wrong end to. I had originally planned to devote six hours per day to writing and the remaining four to farming, but as a matter of fact I began by spending fully 15 at farming and doing a bit of writing now and then on a rainy day, even then feeling that I ought to be repairing fences or broken and overworked implements of the soil.

But once in all that time did the light of the old life shine upon me. I was asked to speak before the Connecticut State Editorial Association at Lake Compounce during the summer of 1905 which I did, making an everlasting impression and a successful escape.

About this time I made the pleasant acquaintance of Mr. Percival Pollard, the author and critic, who was summering in the northern part of our town, on the bank of the winding Connecticut, and the literary skies brightened wonderfully, but a few seasons of Gungy satisfied Mr. Pollard and, taking Mrs. Pollard and the sleek saddle horse and the high trap, he moved on to Milford, a shore town several miles farther west.

Mr. Butterworth came down as often as he could, still talking hens and asparagus in his interesting way, finding much of interest in the quaint old town historically famous, and noted for its beautiful scenery. I love to think, though with mixed feelings of pride and sadness, that Mr. Butterworth’s last pleasure trip out of Boston was to the little rural spot I have chosen to call “Gungawamp.”

Denis McCarthy, the poet, spent a season there, and good old Newt. Newkirk came down occasionally to show us how to extract clams and oysters from sea water. The best things Newt ever did in Gungy. however, were his stunts at the dining table, where he was always found at the tinkle of the first bell.

John H. Whitson, the novelist, was another visitor, who having been a ranchman in the early days, thought he could tell us a lot about rounding up our cow for the night milking. There were other Boston friends who came down, too, who weren’t literary, but who could give us all kinds of information on how to run a farm, economically or into the ground.

So we weren’t so far from Boston after all, because much of the time we had a part of Boston scattered about our vast estate, but little by little the Boston microbe worked on our systems, and the call became louder and louder, till once again we headed for the ever alluring old town, the town of crooked streets but straight people, the town of narrow sidewalks but wide hospitality, of old families, but new ideas, of low skyscrapers but high ideals!

(To be continued.)

______

A Kindly Hint

No more you’ll hear him sneeze and cough,

     But do not blame the fates so grim;

He took his winter flannels off,

     And now they’ve done the same with him.

____________

April 1, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Jonas Lee’s Spring Feelin’

“I tell ye what,” says Jonas Lee,

“The spring is jest the time fur me;

Don’t care fur all the rest the year,

But when the gentle spring gits here

There is a feelin’ in my soul

Which puts me way beyond control;

A joy thet busts my prison bars

An' kerries me beyend the stars.

“I like to set outside the door

Jest where the sure rays shed an’ pour

Their warmth down on my head all day,

An’ doze an’ dream, an’ doze away

An’ hold communion with the skies,

An’ ketch a glimpse uv parrerdise!

But jest ez soon ez I git sot

My wife lands right there on the spot.

“My wife ain’t got the least idee

Uv soulful things the same ez me;

She’ll come at me full tilt an’ say

‘I’m goin’ to clean the house today;

Now peel your jacket, Jonas Lee,

An’ bang thet parlor carpet, see!’

An’ then the dreams thet I hev had

Are busted, an’ my soul is sad.”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Where on’y a few are gethered tergether there will be soldierin’ also, ef the boss ain’t around.”

______

Too Quick for Him

“Is this a quick lunch place?”

“Yes, sir, the quickest place in town. We can serve you in one minute, you can stow it away in two minutes and be out on the street in four.”

“Guess I won’t stop. I’m looking for a five-minute place.”

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A NEAR-AUTOBIOGRAHY

L.

Some poet, or other fatalist, has said there is an end to everything. On the whole this is a pretty good idea, because if it were not so some things might go on forever.

I had fondly hoped to run these “Confessions” over into 1915, using the funeral obsequies as a part of the mammoth celebration planned for that year, but for reasons unforeseen, and over which I have no control, for the little good they may have done, but more particularly for the good their cessation might do, the curtain will be rung down with this, the 50^th chapter. Fifty chapters of anything are enough, good or bad. Whether the story has been told, or whether the public appetite has been appeased, nothing should run over 50 chapters.

It is an unequal fight; one against many. Murmurs are rife, threats coming by every mail, and this morning brought Black Hand letter No. 1. Years ago I learned that discretion was the better part of value. With the odds against me, I surrender gracefully and drink with the enemy. There are up to the present time filed against me eight suits for libel by people I have mentioned in these “Confessions,” and 34 suits filed by people I have failed to mention. Isn’t that significant on the face of it?

There was so much I wanted to say, so many heads to hit, so many secrets to expose and so much damage to be done, but, alas! much will have to be left undone, greatly to the disappointment of the lawyers and undertakers.

Speaking seriously, in a humorous vein, if the “Confessions” have served to amuse, if they have cause a smile to penetrate the face of gloom, if they have kept anybody from momentarily reading something worse, then I shall feel deeply repaid for writing them, and this in addition to the regular weekly wage will be handsome pay for the labor involved.

If, on the other hand, they have caused a moment’s pain to any sensitive soul I shall feel humbled to the dust and will slap myself sharply on the wrist if any such knowledge comes my way. If they have caused neither pain nor amusement then I shall feel that it were better I had laid aside the pen in favor of the grub hoe and the broad axe.

To the proprietor of this paper, who has allowed these alleged “Confessions” to occupy valuable space, the writer gives thanks. To the editors who have allowed them to pass the trying journalistic gauntlet, he also gives thanks. To the brave compo men who have run chances in throwing them into type, to the printer men who have allowed them to run riot over their presses, he gives thanks. To the newsboys who have hawked them in the streets, and last but not least, to the “gentle reader,” who has tried to read them and – and failed, perhaps – he gives thanks.

(The End.)

______

“Gid-dap!”

I wish I were a p’liceman,

     A big policeman grand,

But not to hold up traffic,

     Or on the corner stand.

I wish I were a p’liceman,

     All dressed so nice and neat,

A-straddle of a bronco,

     Upon a Boston street.

______

Musings of the Office Boy

A shake-up rarely means a shake-down.

Every little helps if it’s the right kind of little.

So much down and so much a week looks much more at the end of a year.

The quickest way to get through life is to walk in the street and get run over.

I never could see why a girl liked to hold hands, anyway, unless she thinks it’ll make ‘em smaller.

Now that the grand opera is over perhaps the stenog’, who has never seen one, will stop arguin’ on the merits of the singers.

______

“Nothing to Say”

(Contributed.)

When our mighty hunter returned,

Reporters were greatly concerned

     To find out what he thinks;

     But said he, “There’s the Sphinx,

From it just as much can be learned.”

          But –

On Egyptian affairs his address

Kicked up quite a deuce of a mess;

     When he gets back our way

     They don’t know what he’ll say,

Meanwhile politicians can guess.

                                      – H. E. F.

____________

April 2, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Seedtime and Harvest

I’ve got a new seed catalogue,

     All full of pictures bright;

No flower bed or garden patch

     Was ever such a sight.

They make me want to seize my spade

     And dig from morn till night;

I like my new seed catalogue,

     ‘Tis such a wondrous sight.

The roses are as big as plates,

     The onions are the same;

To lug the watermelons round

     Would make a fellow lame.

The beans are 14 inches long,

     Cucumbers 23;

O, what a mess of giant stuff,

     Within my book I see!

I’ll plant a bed of everything,

     And then I’ll watch them grow;

I’ll get a magnifying glass

     And study every row.

And if I get a summer squash

     As big as half a crown,

I’ll be the wonder of the year

     In this suburban town.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“It don’t take a very swift pusson to ketch a cold.”

______

Pavement Philosophy

Shortsightedness is usually voluntary.

A full stomach is a fine working capital.

The street urchins of today are the leaders of tomorrow.

Tainted money depends altogether on its location.

Weeds don’t take root in the worst soil they can find.

People say, “once in a dog’s age,” but dogs ages vary so!

How one mean man despises another of the same stamp!

Be sure you are right, then go ahead and verify it.

If we were as good as we think we are we’d attract more notice outside.

The long green is the most restful shade to the eye, except the round yellow.

Man has no patience with a balky horse, but thinks woman ought to be patient with balky man.

It takes a good deal of confidence and courage to stake your last dollar when you haven’t got it.

Smoking a cigar now and then is expensive, but it is nothing compared with supporting a 200-foot steam yacht.

It is hard work to draw the line sometimes; this is specially true when the fish are biting well.

______

Trials No Bar to Faith

(Contributed)

When I consider all this glorious sphere,

And all the worlds beyond in dreamless space

All poised serene in God’s secure embrace,

I say, “What perfect majesty is here!”

Then lose I all mean, selfish, groveling fear

Lest such a God should petty tyrant prove

In our small matters, when his greater love

Whirls all these orbs unharmful year by year.

What if at times our foolish hearts are sore,

And tears fa;; shower-like, mixed with sighs,

Lamenting some sincere yet vain distress?

‘Tis not that heaven’s pity is the less

When our poor simple faith it tries, –

Is God unkind in leasts and merciful in more?

    Somerville.                 H. A. KENDALL.

______

Musings of the Office Boy

De dead easy chap is hard to get along with.

It’s all right fer man to be alone if he’s watched close enough.

De boss works when he feels like it. Dat’s when we work – when he feels like it.

Leave it to a girl for winnin’ her point, or throwin’ the point on the floor an’ steppin’ on it.

De elevator kid may have his ups and downs, but he wants to remember he’s getting’ his passage paid both ways.

Don’t you believe it; a barkin’ dog will bite all right if he thinks he can get out of the way of a No. 9 boot.

____________

April 3, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Misery’s Awakening

Come, Misery, and sit by me,

     The hour is not too late;

Come sit you here by me and we

     Will have a tête-à-tête.

Your hand is cold, you shiver so,

     You do not feel at ease;

Ah! Let me stir the fire’s glow

     To warm your quaking knees.

Now tell me, Comrade Misery,

     Wherefore this robe of black?

Stay, do not draw away from me,

     Pray do not turn your back!

What’s this? My God, you’ve changed your cloak!

     The glow has caught your brow;

Am I asleep? Is this a joke?

     It’s Joy beside me now!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Some people don’t cry ‘quits’ becuz they ain’t enough uv ‘em left to make any sound.”

______

A Hitch

I wish I were an opera star,

High up as opera singers are;

     Perhaps someone would want to hitch

     To me – it wouldn’t matter which –

A wagon or a motor car.

______

The Corn Doctor’s Mistake

“Do you have any trouble with your feet?”

“Sir?”

“Do you have any trouble with your feet?”

“How dare you?”

“Why, I – I’m       ”

“Sir, I don’t care what you are, but I am a poetess!”

______

A New Type

Patient – Doctor, I know I’m not going to get well, but I want to pay you your bill before I go.

Doctor – Well, you’re dead easy!

______

The Possibility of Possibilities

Did you ever stop to think what might happen if certain things occurred? Or, to be more specific, what might occur if certain things happened?

We go along, day after day, in pretty much the same old way, and our existence becomes more or less machine-like. We get up in the morning, wash, eat, say good-bye at the door and hurry down to the end of the street for the trolley or the steam train. We come into Boston and take up our work just where we laid it down the night before.

So accustomed are we to do this that we could almost do it with our eyes shut! But suppose, for instance, we got up some morning and in a moment of abstraction took a train or a car going in an opposite direction, and didn’t discover our mistake until we had reached the end of the route? Supposing thousands of dollars’ worth of business were waiting for us, or that several hundreds of employees were waiting for us to open up, and we were 10 or 20 miles in the opposite direction?

It is easy enough to see what consternation would take place, and possibly what havoc might be wrought in the business world!

Always keep your eyes open as to direction. No matter how many times you have been over the ground before, there is always a chance to make a slip if your mind is too much occupied with foreign matter!

Always keep in your mind what might occur if something else should happen.*

______

*We would like to carry this editorial idea still further, but find ourselves exhausted by the tremendous strain under which we have labored.

______

The Engine

(Contributed.)

Through the day and through the night,

Over the rails of burnished light,

With the rush and roar of traffic’s din,

A rush of steam, a swing of steel,

A thing of life, to move to thrill,

The ford of river, the stretch of sand,

Are mine, by right, to bridge, command.

The mail of the nation my forces carry,

The life, the death, the mankind all,

A thing of steam, of light, of call.

To north, to east, to south, to west,

Over torrent wide and mountain brink,

With rod of iron and span of steel,

By civilization’s mood I fee;

The rocking rail, the crossing track,

The light of city burns between,

A message fleet, a passing street,

A thing at rest, at peace at all,

The iron horse layeth down

His burdens, gladness, sorrow,

To wait the wide tomorrow.

                    ALICE M. S. COLLAM.

    South Boston.     

______

Cheerful Comment

Russell claiming is getting to be a habit.

“Buffalo” Jones wires he is getting some live ones.

Mayor Howard of Salem is now in the hands of his friends, the ladies.

Hope they won’t find and lose Pinchot like they have been doing with Dr. Cook.

It is hoped the new Mrs. Rube Waddell will be able to straighten out some of the big twirler’s curves.

Then Thaw’s counsel spent $100 a night on chorus girls, he was merely following out the Thaw policy.

______

Fleeting Joys

How sad! When summer joys appear,

     Then joys we’ve had must pass away;

In just another month, O, dear,

     The oyster he will be passé.

______

A Jolly for Joe!

(Contributed.)

               

Joke on, jocose and jocund Joe, joke on;

     Jocosities and jocundities

Are all the go, my festive Joe;

     To h      with the profunddities!

              “MOLASSES BILL.” (H. A. K.)

____________

April 4, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Angler’s Misfortune

In the spring the young man’s fancy, and the old man’s, too, I guess,

     Lightly turns to thoughts of fishing on the ancient boyhood stream;

And he holds communion daily, with a heart of happiness,

     And sees the speckled beauties in his mild tobacco dream.

O, he hears the gurgling brooklet as it swats the mossy stones,

     And sees the golden splashing of the victim on his line;

He hears the call of nature in her most enticing tones,

     And hankers for the fragrance and the soughing of the pine.

In the spring the young man’s fancy isn’t with his musty books,

     It is not around his ledger or within his office gloom;

It has gone beyond the city, out among the fishing brooks,

     Where the buds from swamp and meadow shed a sweet spring-like perfume.

But he hesitates to venture, for the laws are not the same;

     No more he’s sure of coming with a goodly string at night;

The law prohibits selling, so he cannot buy, O, shame!

     The county youngster’s catches, hence his very vexing plight.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

Ez a rule, cheap talk costs somebody purty dear.”

______

Muller Vs. Mullah

Curious – As near as we can find out, and we have consulted “Who’s Who” and “What’s What,” “The Mad Mullah” and “Maude Muller” were not related, or are not related, as it may be. Although there is a similarity in the sound of the names, you will notice on close observation that they are spelled differently.

______

Chicken Fever Season

A hen was bound to set;

     The farmer let her sit;

She set and sot until she got

     Some chickens out of it.

______

A Bald Proceeding

A New Jersey minister has resigned from his pulpit on account of his baldness. At first one might think that pride’s call had out-sounded the call of the gospel, but that, according to the minister, is not true. He is retiring from the ministry because he cannot preach bareheaded without catching cold. No congregation should be so selfish as to expect its minister to take a fresh cold every Sunday. On the other hand, very few ministers would want to deceive the world to the extent of wearing a wig. Of course, a person wearing a wig, whether he be minister or layman, is deceiving his fellow man. Yet it seems a sorrowful state of affairs when a man in the prime of his life, in the very zenith of his fame, can be driven from the pulpit because the cold air strikes his bald dome of thought in too large quantities.

Surely there must be some way of getting round this difficulty. If nature has been unkind to this poor minister, surely his congregation oughtn’t be.  A warm-air blower could be installed without much expense, or the sun’s rays coaxed to shine upon his arid top-piece by means of looking glasses. O, there are numerous ways this suffering could be at least partly alleviated, it seems to us, unless, of course, the minister has received a louder call to do some other kind of work. Since probably nine-tenths of his congregation sit through the services heavily hatted, why shouldn’t the poor preacher be allowed the same privilege? We suggest the congregation take up a collection and purchase the pastor a skull-cap lined with elder down, and we will chip in a quarter if they pass the box this way.

______

On the Other Hand

“It takes all kinds of people to make a world.”

“Yes, and it takes all kinds of worlds to suit a people.”

______

Fellow Sympathy

Dear Joe:

It is a shame

     That you are bald

Yet, just the same,

     A poet called.

Your joyful verse

     Each morn we see;

It might be worse

     We all agree.

So never mind

     Your lack of thatch;

You write the kind

     ‘Tis hard to match.

O, do not care,

     We think you great;

This – loss of hair –

     Should compensate!

                              – H. E. F.

______

Angler’s Bulletin

(North Station, April 2, 1910.)

Ice gone out, Sebago free

     For hook and fish to meet;

(Lack-a-day, for woe is me!

     I can’t those fishes greet.)

Smith a four-pound salmon got

     (I might have had that fish);

Mr. Binks, a fine “red spot”

     (That, too, upon my dish).

Bangor Salmon Pool is fine –

     Just hungering for bait;

Come down and fling ‘em out a line,

     Don’t ‘gin your fishin’ late!

Melrose.                                   T. F.

____________

April 5, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Lands of Plenty and Naught

O, there is a land of Plenty just beyond the land of Naught,

Where the verdant fields are yielding something else than food for thought;

Where the orchards all are bearing fruits abundant every day,

Where the keepers of the vineyards never work, but always play.

But between the land of Plenty and the land of Naught arise

Mountains called the Heights of Trouble, with their summits in the skies;

They are steep and bold and rugged, nigh impossible to scale,

And the climbers often falter, and the greater number fail.

There are winding paths and crossroads, there are tunnels, pits and streams,

There are dark and lonely places, there are spots aglow with dreams;

There are traps and snares and pitfalls, there beauty places, too.

And it’s up to every pilgrim which direction he’ll pursue.

Every mortal on this footstool seeks the land of Plenty, which

Is the garden of the victors, and the playground of the rich;

Only men endowed with courage, and with honesty and thought

Can pass o’er the Heights of Trouble far beyond the land of Naught.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“The hoss thet kicks holes in the sky wastes too much time on the road to be profitable.”

______

Art Note

There appears to be a great demand for paintings this year      by thieves.

______

Political Note

Mr. Roosevelt might have saved all this trouble had he consented to run in 1908.

______

Cheerful Comment

Some are calling it “Song Bird Stock.”

Tip Knox was in Detroit merely for tips.

And being married on roller skates is going some.

“Big guns for the canal.” We supposed there were some there already.

“All this hoorah over Roosevelt makes me sick.” – Tillman. Invalids should go where it’s quiet.

Miss Eleonora Sears is not in Mr. Edward Payson Weston’s class, not by a long shot.

A New Jersey scientist says the earth doesn’t move. Has the old thing got the hookworm?

There should be no kick over the floating oyster; there is always difficulty in finding one in the float.

Hope that “Better Farming Special” won’t scare some farmer’s horse and undo a whole lot that has been done for the farmers.

To eschew rag complications in the future the Chelsea court has decided that a rag is not a rag when it can be a patch.

Helie owes only $4,000,000. What a comfort! It is a lot more pleasing to know you owe so much you can never hope to pay it.

It cost Mr. David Zinger of Worcester just $1300 to see President Taft the other day. Some people have paid even higher than that to see the elephant.

______

As to Poles

O, never mind the north pole now;

     Just let it go for fair;

The south pole, too, is now N. G.,

Pray let ‘em stay where e’r they be,

     The fish pole beats the pair.

______

The Cost of Living

(Contributed.)

Some blame the trusts for the prices,

     Some say there’s too much gold;

But little it suffices

     To be thus often told.

Some lay it to the tariff,

     Or our expensive taste;

Claim plenty and to spare if

     It wasn’t for the waste.

Some say to cut expenses

     One must economize;

We’ve made a few pretenses

     Our habits to revise.

They say buy bigger portions

     Of meats and this and that,

But these are foolish notions –

     We’ve living in a flat.

Some say it’s higher wages,

     And labor’s shorter day

Which better life presages;

     We should be glad to pay.

That higher cost of living,

     Whate’er the cause may be,

Is tribute we are giving

     To live among the free.

     Dorchester.           H. E. F.

______

Personal

If “W. F. S.,” will kindly send name and address, not for publication, Father Jocosity will gladly publish the poem, “As You Make It.”

______

John’s Foresight

MABEL – O, John, papa asked me this morning if you play poker, and I’m in a quandary to know what to tell him. You – you see I don’t know how it might strike him.

JOHN – He puts up a pretty fair game, doesn’t he?

MABEL – I – I believe so.

JOHN – Then tell him I know absolutely nothing about cards.

______

Woman’s Faith

DODSON – I’m going fishing this morning, but I’ll be back in plenty of time to clean them for supper.

MRS. DODSON – When you go past the butcher’s leave this order, please. I always get a headache if I go without a meal.

______

Pretty Girls and Plain Ones

A correspondent, who evidently has one foot on love’s doorsill, writes to ask if a really pretty girl is expected to be endowed with much intelligence. He avers that beauty offsets any little deficiency in other lines.

He is right. If a girl is extremely pretty she has all that belongs to her. If an extremely pretty girl should be endowed with all the other gifts, what hope would there be for the plain girl? The homely girl must be provided for, and so many of the gifts which the beautiful girl wouldst have are taken from her and turned over to her plain sister.

Surely the pretty girl wouldn’t begrudge her homely sister a few little things like intelligence, form, talent, brilliancy and energy. She would be a selfish girl, indeed, who, having a beautiful face, would expect to be possessed of more of nature’s divine gifts. Nature, in the matter of personal charms, has distributed her gifts pretty evenly. Did you ever know an exceptionally plain girl who wasn’t a most interesting companion? We wot not. She has grown up with the idea of looking into things more important than the looking glass, and that is what makes her interesting and companionable.

No, dear correspondent, if your lady love is beautiful to look at you would better get her under contract as soon as possible, as some other chap may like her looks as well as you do. If, on the other hand, she be as homely as the proverbial hedge-fence, you would better take out a quit claim deed at the earliest possible moment, since she, in her way, is just as desirable, and somebody more alive than yourself may step in and sweep the stakes while you are dreaming. In short, if you are going with any kind of girl, get busy!

____________

Apr. 6, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Summer Season

O, the joyous summer season, with its pleasures out of doors,

Far removed from close apartments with their musty walls and floors;

Far removed from bin and furnace, from the sifter and the can –

O, the gladsome summer season, it is good for weary man!

First we have the festive mower which we push across the lawn,

Clinging to the daily pleasure till the morning train is gone;

Then we play the hose each ev’ning till we’re all played out for fair,

And we hoe the garden later by the lantern’s mellow glare.

O, the joyous summer season, with the autos whizzing by,

Covering the new piano with a coating deep and dry;

Running over hens and roosters as they try to cross the street,

Sending through the open windows wafts of gasofume so sweet.

Then the journeys to the beaches, hanging on an open car,

Coming home again disgusted with the things that never are.

O, the joyous summer season, far removed from winter’s ban,

With its rest and peace and quiet, it is good for weary man!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Lots uv men are willin’ to kick up a dust knowin’ it will all blow onto the next feller.”

______

Household Note

The ice dealers will be willing to sell you a 5-cent piece of ice, madam, providing you are willing to pay 10 for it.

______

The Broad Gage

Nothing “narrow” about the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad. Their recent 5 per cent. raise for their employees puts them in the “broad gauge” class.

______

Gungawamp Reasoning

Hank Stubbs – Don’t you think this fuss over Mr. Roosevelt is goin’ to hurt him more or less?

Bige Miller – Waal, it depends on who you mean by “him.”

______

Cheerful Comment

Hope Frisco will have a safe and sane “Fourth.”

How many more days? Ask any of the office boys.

The ice wagon will soon do a rattling business.

Will it be, ‘James, after you,” or “Eugene, after you?”

You are worth $34.87 anyway, whether you know it or not.

Usually the end seat hog isn’t worth 11 cents, let alone $11.

Etna, like lots of other hot air producers, never knows when to stop.

Charlotte Hunt’s courage is commendable, and her talent and business ability unquestionable.

There is so much shooting going on in and around Boston that one would think it were still the open season.

The St. Lawrence Power Company won’t dam the St. Lawrence river, but doubtless will do so by the opposition.

If Weston only had time and distance enough, and kept gaining on his schedule, he would certainly arrive before he started.

______

Sprouting

The radish shows its tender ends,

     Likewise the dainty lettuce;

We write this merely so our friends

     The farmers won’t forget us.

______

Disappointed Churchgoers

A Georgia pastor has resigned because a week ago two of his deacons advertised they would out on a prize fight in the pulpit of the church before services. They confessed they had made the announcement merely to draw a crowd. The crowd came, as might have been expected, and were disappointed, as might have been expected also.

The dispatch doesn’t say whether the pastor resigned because the fight wasn’t pulled off, or because the deacons were interfering with his own methods of filling the church. To our way of thinking the pastor didn’t rise to his opportunity. When he reached his pulpit and found out what had taken place he should have peeled off his coat and started a bout of his own. He could have taken satan for his antagonist and put on the gloves with him. The deacons could have acted as referees and thus their thirst for the manly art could have been appeased. Figuratively the pastor could have walloped satan all over the platform, finally reaching his solar plexus and knocking him out completely, amidst the wild applause of the congregation, and while the deacons were counting time. To us it seems like a rare chance gone wasted.

Now that the pastor has declined to have anything to do with pugilistic preaching, the congregation should demand that the two deacons put on the gloves and carry out their part of the program. Perhaps it was the spring feeling, which affects all kinds of sporting natures, more or less, that prompted their pugilistic announcement in the first place.

______

The New Yorker

[From Life.]

I remember, I remember,

     The flat where I was born,

The little window where the sun

     Did not peep in at morn.

Today we live on floor eighteen,

     But now ‘tis little joy

To know I’m closer up to Heaven

     Than when I was a boy.

______

Don’t Do It!

(Contributed.)

Don’t ride your hobby horse too hard,

     Although you think – yes, know – you’re right;

Remember there must be some doubt,

     Simply because your mind’s finite.

______

Spring Harbingers

A correspondent wants to know if it is legal to throw a flatiron at a cat on the back fence and kill it, and we hasten to inform him that it is perfectly legal to kill a back fence provided it is given a decent burial and the authorities notified. As for hitting the cat, we know from experience that it is not in the category of human possibilities.

______

To the Rescue

“John Henry, you’ve been swimmin’ ag’in!”

“No, marm; but dat little Miller kid fell in de pond, an’ I hadter dive in an’ pull him out, an’ I knew you’d lick me if I got me clothes wet, so I hadter stop an’ take ‘em off.”

____________

April 7, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Drunk

Some fellows get drunk on the red, red wine,

    Aye, red as the blush of morn;

And some desire the strength and the fire

    That drips from the rye or corn.

And some get drunk on the lust for gold,

    And soak in the slums of trade;

And some fall prey, aye, and well they may,

    To the eyes of a fair young maid.

I like to get drunk, and I often do,

    On the wine of the waking day;

And I like to drink of the bobolink,

    And thrush in his roundelay.

Aye, I like to soak in the strains of Pan,

    And reel ‘neath the moon and star;

And I like to stand with a glass in hand,

    A drunkard at Nature's bar.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“The man who thinks he hears a call to pollertics sometimes mistakes it fur a warnin’.”

______

Financial Note

About the only healthy thing for you in cold storage is money.

______

Supported

“There’s room enough on top,” they say;

     The bald man says, “Aye, so;

There’s room enough on top, alack!

     For lots of hair to grow.”

______

Cheerful Comment

Jekylls and Hydes are too numerous.

Hope they won’t forget to remember the Maine.

Last call for all outstanding Russell claimants.

Children act so differently away from home, anyway.

Indiana is literary, and shouldn’t be taken politically.

March was lamblike, consequently a regular “dear.”

Is it a bad omen for “Jeff” because “Jack” won a case?

“Rita” is a writer, if anyone should happen to ask you her occupation.

Some are predicting that Cleveland 3 cent fare fever is going to hit Boston.

If they have Sunday baseball here who’ll be left to attend the concerts on the Common?

A new color scheme: Two negroes lynched in Arkansas by a mob composed entirely of negroes.

Artist Wallace Bryant has painted his recognition of “Fresno Dan” in exceedingly brilliant colors.

Those “silent tooters” will have to secure tutors and learn to toot if they want to continue to toot in New York bands.

______

Over the Plate

Teacher – What happened the 19^th of April?

Johnny – I don’t know, mum; I ain’t looked up nothin’ beyond de 14^th.

______

The Answer

He – Do you think you could learn to love me, dearest?

She – Well, the teacher used to say I had hard work to get anything through my head, but still I managed to get by.

______

The Polecat Plant

If we are to believe reports, and we are providing they are loud enough, Connecticut is to have a skunk-raising industry. (Whew! Isn’t it warm?) Connecticut is a busy little state, noted for its number of smokestacks and patent holders, and we are not surprised that the promoters of this proposed skunk shop have selected the Nutmeg State as a place of operations. From the viewpoint of the neighbors, probably Texas or the unsettled lands of the great north country would be better for skunk-raising purposes, but it must be understood that this new industry is not to be run for the benefit of the neighbors     in a way.

Doubtless this skunk proprietor knows where he’s at. Connecticut possesses many natural advantages for skunk raising. We know personally of acres upon acres of swamps where skunk cabbage abounds, which is, as all know who have studied skunk culture, excellent fodder for young and growing skunks. It is tender, always green and fresh, and very strengthening. It is cheap, too, many farmers having lovely beds of skunk cabbage who would be willing to part with it for the asking. We have heard farmers say, "Come and take all the skunk cabbage you want; we have lots more than we can use.”

The company is to be capitalized for $2500, shares issued at $25 each. They should have no trouble in disposing of all the shares. Skunks, as times are now, might be called a rich product. Of course, $3500 isn’t a large capital, but it will be a strong company notwithstanding. We would like to invest in this venture, but wouldn’t care to have anything to do with the manufacture of the goods. We would like to be a silent partner by telephone. It is not a wildcat scheme, rather it is a polecat scheme, the outcome of which we wait with baited breath.

______

Still Jocosing

Though one may strive to be jocose,

     But never one joke own,

One’s jocundity one may disclose,

     But never one Joe Cone.

     Boston.                          J. C. P.

______

As You Make It

(Contributed.)

To the preacher life’s a sermon,

To the joker it’s a jest;

To the miser life is money,

     To the loafer life is rest.

To the lawyer life’s a trial,

     To the poet life’s a song;

To the doctor life’s a patient

     Needing treatment right along.

To the soldier life’s a battle

     To the teacher life’s a school;

Life’s a “good thing” to the grafter,

     It’s a failure to the fool.

To the man upon the engine

     Life’s a long and heavy grade;

It’s a gamble to the gambler,

     To the merchant life is trade.

Life’s a picture to the artist,

     To the rascal life’s a fraud;

Life, perhaps, is but a burden

     To the man beneath the hod.

Life is lovely to the lover,

     To the player life’s a play;

Life may be a load of trouble

     To the man upon the dray.

Life is but a long vacation

     To the man who loves his work;

Life’s an everlasting effort

     To shun duty to the shirk.

To the heaven-blest romancer

     Life’s a story ever new;

Life is what we try to make it –

     Brother, what is life to you?

     Boston.                             W. F. S.

______

Comfort and Luxury Assured

Mary Jane – You offer your hand, but what about supporting me, Henry?

Henry – I’ve got a dozen layin’ hens, by gosh!

Mary Jane p Henry, I accept!

____________

April 8, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Lo, the Poor Hen

Were I a hen

     I would not lay

Another egg,

     Not one, I say.

She gets the blame

     For all that’s bad;

An honest deal

     She has not had.

She gets the blame

     ‘Cause eggs are high;

“She does not lay!”

     They cry and cry.

And now because

     Fowl has arose,

They blame her still,

     And swell her woes.

And since our beef

     Is in the sky,

They say it’s ‘cause

     Eggs are so high.

O, what a “plant”

     Hatched out by men!

I’d “cut” it out

     Were I a hen.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Ef ev’rybuddy let well enough alone we’d all be Indians still.”

______

Every Little Helps

Of course, it can’t be expected that the hen will lay herself out just to gratify the “high-cockoloums” in their mad scramble during this shell-game of high prices. She knows they would only crow over her in the end. Still, the hen is only human, and can be egged on to larger results if she can be coaxed to drop her obstinacy and be made to see how the food trusts are poaching on the resources of the ultimate egg consumer.

______

Cheerful Comment

Won’t Somerville swell up the Fourth?

Is he really a peacemaker or a pacemaker?

It’s an ill wind that doesn’t show a pair of new shoes.

Fine to think that T. R., senior, will be in time to dance at T. R. junior’s wedding.

Col. Bill Cody denies the allegation, and Col. Bill ought to know.

Well, Harry didn’t act like a real millionaire, come to think of it.

A Cambridge grocery has a maple sugar display with “white birch” trimmin’s.

Some of our small 60-year-old actresses will have to return to their child roles now.

Granting that Canadians can live cheaper than we, how does that help us at the grocer’s?

Eight Wellesley girls of the graduating class to be married! Wellesley will have a long waiting list at that rate.

______

Her Way

She – I’m not going to throw away all my long hatpins, not if I know myself.

He – But the law, my dear!

She – Hang the law; I’ll get some bigger hats!

______

Freak Weddings

We didn’t attend the roller-skate wedding in Milwaukee. WE did not receive an invitation to attend it, and we very much doubt we should have been present had we been favored with the necessary pasteboard. Milwaukee is a long way off, and we still have our spring planting.

Somehow the word “Milwaukee,” combined with “skate,” doesn’t appeal to us. They are suggestive of a free and easy existence not good for a hard-working New Englander brought up on tea. And then the roller skate! We were never very strong as a roller, low or high, and if we had been a guest at this wedding, propped up on roller skates, it is more than likely we would have unduly rubbered, and as a consequence slipped up our expectations.

What gets us most is, how a trembling bride and groom could stand on roller skates to be married. We recall that very trying moment in our own life, and it was with extreme difficulty we could stand on a pair of No. 9 soles. Ah! But times have changed. People of today are calmly married in whizzing automobiles, airships, on slack wires and at the bottom of swimming tanks. It will surprise us very much if we don’t open a paper some fine day and read of a wedding being performed while the nonchalant bride, groom and parson are being shot out of guns.

______

Spring in Boston

(Contributed.)

I bask in April’s soft breezes,

     My heart with sunshine is filled;

And now comes an east wind that freezes

     My bones till the marrow is chilled.

My heavy flannels I’ve shaken,

     In spring suit I’m looking quite slick;

But what a bad cold I have taken,

     I’m sorry I changed quite so quick.

Today is warm beyond reason,

     But in winter’s clothing I’m clad;

Could I but dress right for this season

     You bet I’d be awfully glad,

     Boston.                            H. E. F.

____________

April 9, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Funeral Trust

(An alleged “funeral trust” is the latest sensation in Cincinnati. – News.)

O, this is a merry footstool

     Where we linger day by day!

And the things that daily happen

     Make us want to always stay.

How we love the trusts and mergers

     Raising oil and bread and beef;

How we love the ones who promise

     They will soon bring us relief!

We has hoped sometime to shuffle

     Off this choking mortal coil,

And be freed from slow starvation,

     And be freed from daily toil.

But the undertakers’ merger

Knocks our fondest hopes sky-high;

For we’ll find, when comes the challenge,

     It will cost too much to die.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Some men are in favor uv capital punishment, but more men are in favor of punishin’ capital.”

______

Over the Feetlights

The theatre season soon will end,

     Our stars will fade, alas!

The pony ballet will disband

     And be turned out to grass.

______

Pavement Philosophy

Calf love needs a lot of rope.

Hard luck stories are not always told by word of mouth.

If you can be happy with a little it is always at hand.

The man who says he’ll never give in pretty soon gives out.

The room at the top is always spoken for, but seldom occupied.

That word wholesome is being stretched to unwholesome proportions.

When you loan a dollar give it; you’ll forget it sooner, and so will he.

Some people never help their run of luck by doing a little sprinting on their own account.

The man who makes a cloak of religion is not well-dressed in the eyes of the lord.

The difference between a pessimist and an optimist is exactly the same as that between an optimist and a pessimist.

The longest way round isn’t always the surest way home; there’s the cider mill, and all the other hindrances.

The average young man hardly knows what to do with his new moustache, but most any of his friends can tell him if he wishes they should.

______

Literary Note

The best 10 novels: Ours and nine others.

______

To Break It Gently

“How should I break the news to him?”

“What news?”

“That I’m going to attach his property.”

“Well, knowing his ability to scrap, I would advise you to do it with a hammer.”

______

When We All Come to Heaven

(Contributed.)

When we first come to heaven

     And look a bit around,

The first spot we’ll all see

     Will be the old ground;

The valley or the hill

     Where we were world-born,

Else heaven would be strange,

     And being strange, forlorn.

The old ground, the old ground,

     The sunlight and the shade,

Where manhood’s years crept happy round,

     Where blithe our boyhood played.

We love the spot where we were born,

     And e’en the Better Place

Would seem homesickly and forlorn

     Wore it another face.

So when we come to heaven

     And look with glee around,

The first spot we’ll all see

     Will be the old ground.

The old ground, the old ground,

     The sunlight and the shade,

Where manhood’s years crept happy round,

     Where blithe our boyhood played.

Somerville.             H. A. KENDALL.

______

A Foul Situation

Chicken are roosting high, whether in the old apple tree or the cold storage tombs. Reports from Chicago say they flew to 19 cents a pound on the South Water street market, April 7, the highest prices ever recorded in the history of the trade. What is the answer to this? There is something wrong in the henyard. If it’s corn, let’s all plant corn. If it’s the scarcity of chickens, let’s all get incubators. If it’s scarcity of eggs, let’s all lay in to find a way out. In food circles it’s all laid to the other fellows. If the fowls have all been cur-tailed for Chantecler purposes, then we say it time for the men to rise up and say, “Hereafter the women shall pay for the eggs and the Saturday night chicken!”

Surely in this land of warriors, statesmen, sages and specialists there must be a Moses capable of leading us out of this era of vegetable diet to an epoch of pinfeathers and omelets!

______

Autoless, Not Goless

Poor Uncle Joe has got to go

     Without an auto, so they say;

But I can’t see where that will be

     A means of keeping him at bay.

I don’t believe he cares a rap;

     A Cannon doesn’t need, you know,

An automobile or a trap

     Of any kind to make it “go”.

____________

April 10, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The “Trailing Arbutus.”

A breath of the woods in the city street,

     A picture of home and the days gone by;

A spray of arbutus so dainty and sweet,

     A glimpse of the field and the open sky.

A breath of the woods in the city street,

     Where rumble the trucks o’er the slimy stones;

Where pavements are ground by a thousand feet,

     Where piercing and harsh are the hawker’s tones.

A breath of the woods in the city street,

     A delicate flush of the wakening morn;

A spray of arbutus so dainty and sweet,

     To waken the mem’ries of days agone!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“When the door is slammed in your face you still hev the best uv it; the hull world is before you.”

______

Health Note

If the undertaker advises you to take your winter flannels off, even though backed by a doctor’s certificate, you may know that there is a conspiracy somewhere in the background.

______

His Developer

He looked in the bottle his wife had bought

     With a feeling of deep disgust;

Then he pulled a half-pint he had on his hip,

And said, “Hic, my dear,” as he took a nip,

     “I’m tryin’ to develop my bust!”

______

Musings of the Office Boy

A soft snap only comes after a hard fight.

A hard look means more dan words, and hurts more.

Take care of de pennies, also de ten cent pieces and up.

“This is our busy day” is for outsiders; they’re all busy ones for de rest of us.

Some fellers read dime novels because dey can’t afford de higher priced ones.

My grandmothers are all dead, but I still have aunts and uncles enough to last through de season.

______

The Rift Within the Lute

(Contributed.)

Clarissa has a lovely face,

     Where all the virtues sweeten,

And yet there’s one thing jars her grace

     When that dear girl has eaten.

Nothing there is but has a use,

     East or West or North or South;

But, O, Clarissa, ‘tis abuse

     Of a most bewitching mouth.

When coming from your feeding place

     (In and out she daily slips),

You spoil the vision we would trace –

     Take, O, take it from your lips!

     Melrose.                              T. F.

______

How Natural

Mildred – Does anybody else know that Jack and Dora are engaged?

Hettie – Yes; she told Helen right away. You know Jack went with her awhile.

______

Cheerful Comment

George is willing to do it.

No, the new battleship was not named for “North Dakota Dan.”

Some people get so very hot over a bad cold.

No man ought to expect to duplicate his first honeymoon, anyway.

If “Jeff” is a little sore at the start what’ll he be at the finish?

The birthplace of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy is burned down whether you think so or not.

The oyster fiend begins to wear a harried look, but the oyster himself is looking hopeful.

When a very little man in a street car offers his seat to a very large lady he is doing her a kindness, but it is rough on the neighbors.

______

An Awful Shock

“They say he’s just broke up over her refusal.”

“No wonder; he bet his machine against mine on it.”

______

Angling Note

“I know the early bird catches the worm,” says the small boy, “but what use is it in bein’ an early bird when a feller’s father won’t let him go fishin’?”

______

“Detained at Home”

A man in our town

     Got this dispatch today

From nephew Henry Brown,

     Two hundred miles away:

“Can’t make my city trip;

     It does beat all, by gum!

A chicken’ got the pip,

     I’ve got to stay to hum.”

______

Revised Mother Goose

(Contributed.)

Hey! diddle, diddle, no meat on the griddle,

     The price has jumped high as the moon;

The people all laughed at the Beef Trust graft,

     And guessed ‘twould come down pretty soon.

Sing a song of boycott, people full of grit;

A big pie for dinner, down to which they sit.

When the pie was opened, they found it full of meat,

All were very hungry, but not a bit they’d eat,

Jack Sprat would eat no fat,

     His wife would eat no meat;

And so they gave up both

     For eggs and threaded wheat.

Dorchester.                       H. E. F.

____________

Apr. 11, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Ideal and the Real

(Dedicated to               *)

I fished adown a swirling stream,

     Knee-deep in spring-time bliss;

“Was ever man so fortunate,”

     My glad heart cried, “as this?”

It was a perfect April day

     An ideal morn for trout;

My rod was new, my reel in tune,

     My line well oiled and stout.

The stream it teemed with darting fish,

     Big fellows, swift, aglow;

I was cock sure of that because

     The farmer told me so.

I’d tipped him with a fiver, then

     I opened up my gear.

O joy, the foaming falls to see,

     O joy, the splash to hear!

Down, mile on mile, I swashed within

     The winding, weaving stream;

My singing reel in sweet accord

     With wood and wave a-gleam.

O, what a tale for fireside cup,

     Perchance – but woe is me!

The only strike I got was when

     He hit me for the “V”.

_______

     *Fill in with any name you choose.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“It is better to hev a little vexation on your mind than six feet uv soil.”

______

Theatrical Note

This is the funniest old world you ever saw. A New York actress has been sued by her manager because she refuses to wear tights; while, on the other hand, some ought to be sued because they do.

______

Successful

“”Does he play the races?”

“No; rather he works the races.”

______

Cheerful Comment

Oscar has the big, artistic temperament, too.

Welcome to our city, Pigeons and Red Stockings.

Also snake stories are beginning to show above the ground.

And so the little Winslow must meet the fate of all heroes!

There is a chance now of the upper berth growing in popularity.

“Wild biplane hits auto.” Next thing we know one will be chasing somebody into a cellar.

The abolishment of college and high school secret societies should be a part of our modern education.

Editor Stanley Y. Beach of the Scientific American has been arrested for striking a six-year-old girl with his machine. What is an editor doing with an automobile, anyhow?

______

Out of Tune

O, Mistress Mary, quite contrary,

     What is this Garden row?

Your will is quite strong, but if Oscar’s wrong,

     Then we’ll Hammerstein, I vow.

______

How He Handles Them

A man, too busy with coughing and blowing and sneezing to answer any questions, hung a card over his desk on which was printed the following information:

“Yes; I’ve got an awful cold.”

“I don’t know how I got it.”

“No, I didn’t take them off.”

“I didn’t sit by an open window.”

“I didn’t leave off my overcoat.”

“I haven’t had a doctor yet.”

“No; it’s not the grippe, it’s just a plain cold.”

“I’ve taken everything under the sun.”

“And over the sun.”

“Yes; I’m willing to try it if it helped you.”

“Yes, indeed, I hope so, too.”

“O, I’ll be careful.”

“Good-by!”

______

Donald Meek

We are glad you’re going to stay,

          Donald Meek;

To still please us at the play,

          Donald Meek.

We have laughed at you before

As you capered o’er the floor,

And we want to laugh some more,

          Donald Meek.

Glad you’re slated for Ko Ko,

          Donald Meek;

You can do it, we all know,

          Donald Meek.

You can do Ko Ko, we say,

While your own coco will stay

Just its normal size alway,

          Donald Meek!

______

“Ragtime Preaching”

My! Bishop McIntyre of St. Paul, Minn., condemns “ragtime preaching” from the pulpit, with poetry, politics, literature and travel as themes. Looking at the matter calmly, and with as much charity as possible, we don’t see how the bishop can live consistently now without cutting out his reading, his travelling and his duty at the polls.

____________

April 12, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

A Two Year’s Courtship

                          HE.

“Though all the world be cold and dark,

     Though days were long and nights were drear;

Though your papa should throw me down,

     I’d worship you the same, my dear.”

And then he kissed her once again,

     The very happiest of men.

                          SHE.

“Papa gave me this note for you,

     He said it would your true love test;

If you agree to what it says,

     It’s up to us to do the rest.”

He read, then fainted at her feet –

     It was a bill for gas and heat.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“The world can’t expect much do in a man who hez been thoroughly done.”

______

Note of Weights and Measures

It is a mistaken idea that “nobody loves a fat man.” The slim man who has got his job is just crazy about him.

______

Daggett Coming Up

Beacon – I never saw such enthusiasm as Daggett displays this spring.

Hill – True; he is going to unload all his steel stock and buy a farm.

______

Gungawamp Advice

Ef you’re eatin’ shad or elwhops,

     Ez shad an’ elwhops go,

Don’t try to take your shirt off

     For least a week or so.

______

Cheerful Comment

Sometimes there isn’t a speck in speculation.

Guess the weather man wanted to see the games, too.

A stitch in time – the Waltham Watch Company shut-down.

The farmers are getting their early crops in on the Common.

The fat man is already beginning to have trouble with his collar.

Capt. Hains will be lucky if he doesn’t lose anything more than his salary.

Now if those peach buds don’t get frosted we’ll forgive everything and everybody.

Even the White House can’t keep a good cook if the right policeman comes along.

Harvard expects Haughton to do his duty, but even the Herculean Percy can’t do it all.

Students are divided into two classes, they who study too little and they who study too much. What joy would be a happy medium.

There’s a good deal of fuss and feathers over this “Chantecler” business, but the baseball bat will soon knock it off its perch.

______

Not Guilty

We are not prone to brag or throw

     Our chest out on the spot,

But we can’t help at feeling proud

     At one thing we’ve done not.

Since Teddy R. has left the swamp,

     Through other lands to roam,

We haven’t writ a poem called,

     “When Ted’ Comes Marching Home”!

______

Concise

(Contributed.)

“Love is a tender thing,”

     Said he.

“Then why not tender it?”

     Said she.

                                      –Transcript.

“Wedlock’s a game of chance,”

     Said he.

“Then why not take a chance?”

     Said she.

– Cleveland Plain Dealer.

“The cost, ah, there’s the hitch!”

     Said he.

“Coward, you’ll never hitch!”

     Said she.

(And she left the room.)             C. B.

Boston.

______

A Musical Rat

A rat is reported to have put a Jersey City church organ out of business. The church officials say the unwelcome tenant can be heard inside the works, but nobody appears to have the ingenuity to get him out. Cats have been sent inside, but all to no purpose, as the rat is an old one and gets up amongst the high keys where the cats, who have never had any training, can’t reach the pitch.

We don’t wish to pose as an expert rat-catcher, but we think we know of a couple of tricks that would dislodge that Jersey City rat in about three shakes of a cat’s tail, and we will sell this information to the church authorities for a nominal sum so they will be able to hold services next Sunday. Not that we need the money, but because they need the organ.

As method number one we would try setting a rat trap just outside the instrument baited, not with limburger cheese, but with cheese with a more modern and new-mown-hay atmosphere about it. Rats differ from people in this respect. Rats, as bad as they are, would never consent to approach limburger cheese of their own free will and accord.

If this inducement failed after two settings, then we would procure a girl who had taken a quarter’s lessons on the piano and ask her to play “Home, Sweet Home,” with variations on the organ while we pumped the same with a fire engine. We feel certain that the rat, after variation number one, would wither do a Marathon to the belfry or surrender unconditionally.

____________

April 13, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Envelope Saturday Night

I would away from the city street,

     With its gloom and its noises rife,

Out into the country pure and sweet,

     Out into the simple life.

I know there is rest and quiet there,

     And peace, and pure delight;

But one thing I’d miss, and miss for fair,

     Is the envelope Saturday night.

One can raise so much on well-tilled soil,

     So many choice things to eat;

Cucumbers to slice and cabbage to boil,

     The squash and the blood-red beet.

One can raise so much on his garden patch,

     And eke a good appetite!

But out of the soil he cannot scratch

     A full envelope Saturday night.

We would all away from the city’s gloom,

     From the noise and its grimy air,

Out, out where the tangled meadows bloom,

     And the world is sweet and fair.

But we stay and stay as the years go by,

     In the thick of the city’s fight,

Just to feel the touch, and I wonder why,

     Of the envelope Saturday night.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“There is somethin’ to be said for a ‘has been,’ ‘cuz lots uv folks never hev.”

______

Cheerful Comment

Were they studying forestry in the woods of Italy?

Has anybody here seen Weston, Weston with the eastern gate?

That Fairbanks expedition to the top of Mt. McKinley had a walkover.

“Nude in art splits house,” says a heading. It has split many a home before.

The President’s bust is finished, and now he’s going to settle down to work for a spell.

New ideas come along so swiftly that we are not sure now whether our annual spring laziness is due to the hook worm or Halley’s comet.

After cleaning up a million on Broadway, Anna Held is going to quit the stage for farming. Another answer to “Ze high cost of ze leeving?”

Strings of pearls and diamonds have such a way of losing themselves that it would seem that the best place to wear them would be in a safety deposit vault.

______

The Query Box

J. A. G. – If you’re dropping in merely to borrow money, we are most always out.

Belgrade – Rejoice with you in your good fishing; we had boiled scrod for dinner.

Quid – The broken lamp-post you are asking about is situated at the corner of Washington and Franklin streets. It is an old landmark, of rare historical interest. We doubt if the city would charge you anything for it, but you might have to pay for the privilege of taking it away.

______

The Maiden’s Dream

My bonnet spreads over the ocean,

     My bonnet spreads over the sea,

To merely spread over the sidewalk

     Is not enough for me.

                          – Chicago Journal.

Each night as I lay on my pillow,

     My bonnet shoved under the bed,

I know there’s not room for a burglar,

     And so my anxiety’s dead.

______

Railroads to the Rescue

Mere man, for several years ground under the heel of fashion, mere atom man, so long o’ershadowed and hidden behind the colossal cloud known as woman’s up-to-date bonnet, sees at last a faint streak of hope on the horizon of almost total eclipse. The railroads of this country have helped puncture the big hat. Heretofore when the railroads have raised rates the men have said things that wouldn’t sound nice even by wireless, but of this rise in the rates of millenary transportation they are expressing themselves in terms that would sound uplifting even at a Sunday school picnic.

As many a twisted-necked, nose-to-the-grindstone man knows, women’s hats have been growing larger year by year, while according to our railroad officials they have been growing less in weight, occupying room in a freight or express car at a rate of 10 to 1 as against 10 years ago. This has, of course, put the milliners up in the air, but mere man, who is really the ultimate sufferer, is actually walking amongst the clouds.

He says, not within the hearing of his wife or sweetheart, of course: “Put the rates still higher, boys, and your old railroad can have anything it wants from us. Do anything you can to reduce the size of woman’s crowning glory and we will reciprocate by never trying to dodge a railroad fare again as long as we live.”

We never could see why a woman should choose to adorn herself with something that would detract from the natural beauty of her face. A pretty face buried under loads of gorgeous millinery hasn’t much chance of being observed by interested passers-by. Many, many times we have heard: “Gee! I didn’t notice the face, but did you see the hat?” Perhaps this will help a little, also.

______

Just Depends

Hank Stubbs – Do you believe in h   l on earth, or hereafter?

Bige Miller – Waal, I believe on earth ef you git ketched, an’ hereafter ef you don’t.

____________

April 14, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Poor Head Farmers

A man can grow forests both deep and wide,

     Luxurious birches and pines;

He can grow oak trees with the greatest of ease,

     And acres of shrubs and vines.

He can grow choice fruits on the topmost boughs,

     On which the nations are fed,

But he can’t grow thatch on the little patch

     On the top of his well-tilled head.

Ah, man can raise acres of waving grain,

     Tall, subtle and fair to behold;

He can meet the dawn with his fields of corn,

     Green-stalked and as yellow as gold.

He can raise the roof, or the price of beef,

     He can all but raise the dead;

But he can’t raise a thatch to cover the patch

     On the top of his old bald head.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“What’s one man’s meat is another man’s bankruptcy.”

______

Her Idea of Cents

“But, my dear, roses smell of money just now.”

“Even so,” she pouted, “I much prefer that aroma to any of the cheaper kinds.”

______

Lost Article Note

Beginning yesterday, if you can’t find your husband holding down his job you can probably find him doing the same thing with a 25 cent baseball seat.

______

To Filling

“I think I could fill the place, sir,” said the 250-pound applicant.

“I know you could more than fill it, but you see, we are cramped for room here,” said the boss, looking at the man next in line.

______

Some Suffering Suffragettes

The Baltimore % Ohio railroad is in bad with its women employees. The roads auditors and statisticians estimate that, on the average, a young woman does 30 per cent. less work that a young man in the same position. Those terrible men go even further and say the young men do the work more carefully and accurately. The same broad statement applies to other branches of work on the road. While the road isn’t to vacation indefinitely its women employees “for the good of the service,” still, no new women are to be taken on. This means the abolishment of female help in the course of time, and, as one thing leads to another, careful observers look to see other large corporations following in the B. & O.’s footsteps.

Naturally, the women are up in arms and some of them make faces at the railroad when it isn’t looking, and again man gets blamed for something that woman has brought upon herself. One has only to watch a group of girls, removed from the immediate eye of the boss, to discern the reason. If they are young girls, the party of the night before must be discussed the next morning even if it ties up the whole system. Then the matter of mirrors must be looked into, not only at the beginning of the day’s work, but scores of times through the day. The fixing of 200 barrettes 200 hundred times per day figures astonishingly large at the end of the week. The artistic arrangement of 200 apron strings is another great time destroyer. The the telephone girls, if they have sweet voices, and they all do, must lend their ears to the gush of all the male admirers on the lines.

The boxes of sweets snugly tucked away in the desks is another item that pulls heavily on the road’s time. The receiving of letters which the girls don’t dare to have sent to their home addresses is another thing that helps keep down the profits of the road. And so we might go on indefinitely. Probably the greatest time-killing item of all is the jollying done by the men employed with the women, in which the officials themselves probably figure as largely as anybody.

____________

April 15, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Holy Rollers All

O, we ain’t a Holy Roller

     Of the Holy Roller kind,

And we ain’t a Holy Jumper

     Of the jumper kind you mind,

But we like to jump and holler,

     An’ we have to jump an’ shout,

But it’s when our local pitcher

     Strikes the other fellers out.

O, we ain’t a Holy Roller

     As the Holy Rollers go;

Though we must admit that often

     We just make a holy show.

An’ we ain’t a Holy Jumper,

     But we always jump an’ shout

When our peerless local batter

     Knocks a distant comet out.

Don’t condemn the Holy Rollers

     Nor the Holy Jumpers too,

Till you visit of the diamond

     An’ observe what we can do.

O, we ain’t a Holy Roller,

     But we have to roll an’ scream

When our champ, bean-eatin’ speeders

     Put it on the other team!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“The people like to be humbugged, an’ they’s allus a planty who like to please the people.”

______

Angling Note

It is better to have fished and lost than never to have lied at all.

______

Cheerful Comment

That Mr. Hawks is a rare bird.

The Grand Trunk will soon be packed.

Alas! How those poor boxes do catch it.

Bacchante wasn’t much for settling down, anyway.

Jeff will have a real black bass to land on July Fourth.

If you should happen to get stranded in Westerly, don’t drink.

Evidently Mrs. Thaw had more effect than he son in melting the court.

Not much to try to prove anything nowadays with your records buried in some far-away cache.

Uncle Joe tells very nicely how to live long, but he can tell us how to Always hold a job?

If those operatic stars keep fading away the Hammerstein comet will have to shine all alone.

A Spokane suffragist calls Mr. Roosevelt a “poor ignorant man.” What excellent methods some of them employ for hurting their cause.

______

The Every-Day Singers

Of all the songs we hate to hear,

     Songs which should be unsung,

Are those that fall upon the ear

     From mortals who’ve been stung.

______

Hymen on the Run

According to an active New York paper, Mr. Lawrence Swift of No. 40 East Thirtieth street took out a license a few days ago to marry Miss Elizabeth Hurry of 242 Lexington avenue. A quick glance will tell you that this is rushing material for a rapid-fire paragraph. The dispatch doesn’t say whether this is the culmination of a brief courtship, but one can picture Swift hastening to the clerk’s office and his rapid return to Miss Hurry, breathlessly telling her of the clerk’s lack of speed in complying with his brief request.

The most remarkable thing about the Swift-Hurry wedding is that it won’t take place till April 21. To a rapidly moving mind that date must seem slow and afar off, and were we in Mr. Swift’s place, unless something momentous stood in the way, we would rush in pell-mell and hurry this lingering joy to a speedy climax.

______

With Automobiles Outside

(Contributed.)

Boston’s going to have a horse show,

     With tan bark ring and all;

‘Twill happen after Lent, you know,

     When equines have the call.

There’ll be ribbons on the horses,

     And on the ladies tall;

And we’ll all go through our courses

     When the equines have the call.

     Boston.                        JAY BEE.

______

A Remarkable Happening

(Contributed.)

A few years ago a young man was driving a horse attached to a wagon through one of the streets of Exeter, N. H., when suddenly the poor animal without any warning fell dead. The youth climbed down from his seat, walked round the breathless animal several times, and then said: “Gee, I never knew him to do that before.”     H. V. L.

______

Mayflowers, and Others

Soon will the little busy bee

     Buzz through the meadow lot,

And leave upon your swelling knee

     A red “forget-him-not.”

______

Science and Industry

Hank Stubbs – What do you think of this here wireless telepathy?

Bige Miller – I put it all on a par with minin’ stocks where there ain’t no mines.

____________

April 16, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Halley’s Comet And Amos Green

“I ain’t had no good luck this year,”

     Said Amos Green in Stokes’ store;

“They hain’t a thing thet’s come my way

     Fur somethin’ like a year or more.

I’ve made a try at this an’ thet,

     But ev’ry time it’s jest the same;

An' I’ve about made up my mind

     Thet Halley’s Comet is to blame.

“The French folks say, an’ I believe

     Thet comet is an awful thing;

It means disaster, grief an’ death,

     An’ all thet sort uv thing, I jing!

An’ as fur feelin’ bad, why, say,

     I’m sick an’ sore an’ stiff an’ lame;

Ain’t got no hankerin’ to work,

     An’ Halley’s comet is to blame.

“I’m jest ez tired ez I kin be,

     I’m sick an’ lame an’ stiff an’ sore;

I know thet comet is to blame,”

     Said Amos Green in Stokes’ store.

An’ then the fellers round the stove

     Jest laughed; an’ Uncle Ez, says he:

“They’s ALLUS been some comets, Ame,

     A-chasin’ you, it seems to me!”

  

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Sometimes it needs a black sheep in a fam’ly in order to make the whiteness uv the others noticeable.”

______

Pavement Philosophy

The more talk the less do.

Tomorrow never comes; neither does yesterday.

There are no great men, in their estimation.

A soft answer turneth away discouragement.

Lots of good advice is wasted simply because it’s free.

No man can ever make good by making bad.

Some folks put their shoulders to the wheel and then don’t push.

Time will tell, and therefore time must, of course, be feminine.

If a man was “made to mourn,” then woman was made to make him mourn.

Although actions speak louder than words they can’t be heard so distinctly.

The man who is easily discouraged has this in his favor: He usually gets over it easily. There may be two sides to every question, but usually one side overbalances the other.

There may be nothing new under the sun, but remember the sun doesn’t shine all the time.

It makes a cat mad to stroke its fur the wrong way, and people are not above cats when it comes to that.

If a man were what he’d like every other man to be, what a fine old world we’d be living in!

It is pathetic when a man imagines he is capable of ruling a lot of people, or controlling a large business, when he can’t control himself.

______

Time Will Tell

We passed two churches in Pawtucket, R. I., recently, standing side by side, the clock on one giving the time as 5:45, while the other pointed to 1:30. To the casual observer it looked as though the two churches didn’t agree very well.

______

Wendell Phillips

(Contributed.)

Bayard, Sidney, Phillips! let humanity decide

     Between immortals, and the popular voice

     Be silent, awed by the superior choice.

This voice it was aforetime lifted to deride

This hero, who stood with God upon his side,

     Unflinchingly before the popular storm

     Of rage and fury, upright in face and form –

A god undaunted, exalted rather, by opposing pride.

That storm was silenced, and serener than the calm

     Succeeding showed his nobility, when freed

     From moral tumult, envy, wrath and greed.

Humanity this matchless triumph shall embalm

     In oracle and song, this brave sincerity of deed

That recued man from the oppressor’s banded arm.

     Somerville.                H. A. KENDALL.

______

Two Ways

There’s a right way and a wrong way,

     Be sure you enter right;

If you don’t your route is a long way,

     And your battle an up-hill fight.

____________

April 17, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

High and Low, Fast and Slow

What joy to soar to heights above,

     By mountain peak or aeroplane!

To be above the common herd

     Who stalk the dreary earth in vain.

What joy to be so far on high

     One cannot hear discords below;

But O, imagine what a drop,

     If one has ever to let go!

What luxury and comfort great

     To ride on seats of velvet soft;

What joy to sail financial seas

     And point one’s shining nose aloft.

How swift, exciting, is the ride

     Behind the “limited’s” rich toot;

But O, how slow and hard the way

     If one has to wind up afoot!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Misery doesn’t love company when the company merely adds to it.”

______

Outing Note

Keep in mind when you are saving up for your vacation that your vacation needs all the money it can get.

______

Rapid Farming

The gay suburbanite must rush

     The early evening train to catch,

To put, ere day has lost its flush,

     Hop plasters on his garden patch.

______

Spring Fishing

Hank Stubbs – Hen Billin’s ‘pears to be doin’ quite a bizniz sellin’ fishin’ rights this spring. I should think they’d clean his trout brook all out?

Bige Miller – Hen says he don’t care how many trout the ketch long’s he ketches plenty o’ suckers.

______

Cheerful Comment

Weston has a sore throat, not feet.

The world isn’t going to let Mark Twain off so easy.

When moving pictures get too fast, they have to be slowed down.

Undoubtedly the best seller for 1911 will be based on the great Russell mystery.

About the only hold-over from the game of ancient days is “Three strikes are out!”

It may be fun to become engaged by cable, but nobody would care to be married by long distance methods.

First straw hat of the season was spotted on Tremont street Friday. Anxious relatives are advised to search the nearest emergency hospital.

A high price has been put on low necks, a New York girl having been awarded $20,000 for scars received in an automobile accident, the scars forever preventing her wearing an evening gown.

______

On the Level

If a body meet a body

     Coming from the play,

And a body ask a body:

     “What’s the score today?”

Everybody tells a body,

     Need a body frown?

Everybody knows a body

     When a game’s in town.

______

Local Baseball

(A Near-Editorial from the Gungawamp Advocate.)

Anther year has rolled around on its axis, and before we go to press again the baseball season will have opened. Baseball, in spite of all things to the contrary, such as croquet, lawn tennis, golf and even bridge whist, has become a national game, and is now recognized as such. It has come to such a pass that men will risk not only their health, but their jobs, to attend a ball game. Men who demand air cushions at home to sit on, will sit on a hard board for four hours witnessing, in perfect comfort, a 12-inning game. Men who can speak scarcely above a whisper in the office will yell like Pawnee Indians on the warpath when their home team does anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, we are interested more or less in the larger teams outside, but what interests us mostly is out strong county league and out peerless home team. It is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, and we predict that the pennant will spend the next winter in Gungy. We admit that last year, through no fault of our own, that we didn’t take as keen an interest in baseballics as we do this year. Last year our rival and competitor got all the poster printing, as well as the tickets; but this year we are assured by the management that we will have our share, if not more. We intend to attend the games in person this year, and so arrange the publication of our paper that out help can attend also.

Local pride is strong in our home team this year, and the Advocate advocates baseball as relaxation from dull care, and asks the people to turn out en mass to the games for the sake of encouraging the boys and renewing old acquaintances. Score cards and all kinds of printing are on sale at the Advocate office.

______

In Washington

(Contributed.)

‘Twas impertinent, Miss,

For you to rudely hiss,

And from mature Mrs.

We don’t expect hisses.

How much better than this

Would have been a sweet kiss;

Women gain far more blisses

By judicious kisses.

Boston.                          H. E. F.

____________

April 18, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Lay Low, Teddy

(M. Clement, the builder of the big dirigible balloon, has invited Theodore Roosevelt to make an ascension during his visit to France.)

O, don’t you do it, Teddy,

     No matter what the boon,

Don’t accept the invitation

     To try that French balloon.

No matter how they urge you,

     You’ll do well, I will be bound,

Just to keep your understanding

     Safe upon the solid ground.

You can flay the thickest jungle

     In a manner most sublime;

You can twist a lion’s wig-wag,

     And subdue him every time.

But O, Teddy, stop and listen,

     When you’re miles up in the air,

You can’t shoot yourself to safety

     If the bag goes on a tear.

Don’t you fly too high, O, Teddy,

     Though you like to be on top;

If the bubble should be punctured,

     It would be an awful drop.

Don’t you let them fool you, Teddy,

     Wink your eye and let them croon;

Keep your feet on terra-firma,

     Don’t you tackle that balloon.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Becuz one ha’f uv the world don’t know how the other ha’f lives ain’t the fault uv either ha’f.”

______

The Query Box

Ethelmaude – I will meet you at the corner of Washington and Franklin street, which is now known as “The-Corner-of-the-Broken-Lamp-Post.” I will wear an “everlasting” in my button hole so you will know me readily, and will you please wear a leaf from a “century plant” so I may know you. Then we will place the flowers on the post in memory of our first meeting.

______

Cheerful Comment

The Doves are not wet weather birds.

The “fruit picker” seems to have reached the topmost bough.

What is one man’s sane Fourth is another man’s Hades let loose.

Can’t Oscar be arrested for trying to bag song birds out of season?

Naturally an aeroplane would keep its equilibrium at Plum Island.

Haven’t you ever noticed that all banquet photographs look alike?

When Miss Fortune and Mr. Fortune combine their fortunes, it ought to prove a fortunate combination.

A real, old-fashioned train robbery in California, with all the spectacular features, even to the good get-away.

“John Carter,” a newly discovered poet, has written himself out of the Minnesota state prison. This is encouraging to many who have written hard all their lives trying to keep out.

______

High and Low Finance

No wonder the innocent wage-earner squeals

     And wishes to do more than talk,

When bank-wreckers ride in automobiles

     And depositors and stockholders walk.

______

A True Fisherman

Leo Addison Handy, a 13-year-old boy of Rutland, during the past winter caught 280 pickerel, supplying the family table, besides selling $55 worth. This Leo accomplished in his spare time, and in addition caught all the shiners he used for bait. We take off our new spring hat to Leo; he is a “handy” boy to have around. He not only did his share towards giving the beef trust a black eye, but while many of his companions were inside dallying with the cut-up puzzle, he was out in the open adding to his stock of health, enjoyment and finance.

But it is not Leo’s industry that we admire most. It is his extreme modesty and self-restraint. When night came Leo didn’t go down to the grocery store and tip back in a cord-bottomed chair and tell of the wondrous things he had on a string; no, he took his little string of pickerel and went home and went to bed, to dream the dreams of the innocent, and to get up early I the morning to tend to his hooks, eat his breakfast and off to school. Leo didn’t hold up every one whom he met with tales of the big one he would have landed if he hadn’t lost it. Leo didn’t take a near-to photograph of his biggest ones and then sit down and write a four-page article for a sporting magazine on “Big Fish I Have Took, and How I Took Them.”

There is a deep lesson in Leo Addison Handy’s fishing career. The count at the end of March was 280; it still remains the same. He earned $55 from Dec. 10, last year, to March 11, this year; the figures haven’t aviated. His largest fish weighed a certain amount; it hasn’t increased with the flight of time. Leo is a remarkable boy. Think it over, brother fishermen. Leo hasn’t all the paraphernalia of the modern angler; he hasn’t some of the other features, also.

______

The Leading Questions

(Contributed.)

We read of Roosevelt’s travel,

     And the prospect of the crops,

How Joe Cannon holds his gavel,

     And the market’s sudden drops.

There is news of strikes and wages,

     And the rival Russell claim;

But at first we turn the pages

     For to see WHO WON THE GAME!

We discuss the bar-room question,

     And the right way to sell milk;

About tenement congestion,

     And the grafters and their ilk.

How our funds may be invested

     In such stocks as bring us more;

But we’re really interested

     Just to know WHAT IS THE SCORE!

We debate the rise in prices,

     And the latest types of cars;

The bad trusts, with all their vices,

     And those queer canals on Mars.

Halley’s comet gets attention

     For it’s headed now our way;

But we listen if they mention

     WHO THE BOSTON’S PLAY TODAY!

     Boston.                           H. E. F.

______

Knew What He Wanted

Fisherman (from the north) – I wanter look at some good, strong fish-lines.

Dealer – Ah, down here to try your luck with the big tarpon? Here’s a fine oiled silk, double-strong line, made in Massachusetts, which I –

Fisherman – Thunderation no! I wanter try one o’ them famous Mason an’ Dixon lines I’ve heard so much about up there.

____________

April 19, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

When We Go Back Upon the Farm

When we go back upon the Farm – O, happy thought is this!

We’ll dwell in realms ne’er reached before, and soak in rural bliss.

We’ll breathe the air God made to breathe, and walk within his wood,

When we go back upon the farm, and quit the town for good.

We’ll hear the music of His voice where brooks flow through the vale,

We’ll see His wondrous handiwork stretch over hill and dale;

We’ll view the ever changing scenes within His blue-domed sky,

When we go back upon the farm, and bid the town good-bye.

When we go back upon the farm – our dreams by night and day –

There’ll be no weird, unearthly sounds to drive our Muse away.

There’ll be no fierce, impatient crowds to push us to the wall,

When we go back upon the farm to live for good and all.

There’ll be no artificial lakes or parks laid out in squares,

There’ll be no hawkers through the streets to bellow out their wares.

There’ll be no “higher cost of foods” to drag our income down,

When we go back upon the farm, and leave the costly town.

When we go back upon the farm, O, happy thought and gay!

We’ll write and write and then recite long poems ev’ry day;

We’ll let our wife do all the chores, and hoe the garden, too,

And let her cut the kindling wood, and other joys pursue.

We know ‘twill do her worlds of good, this labor out of doors,

This getting close to nature, cutting wood and doing chores.

O, golden hours of happiness there is for us in view,

When we go back upon the farm, and bid the town adieu!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Most people don’t take things ez they come simply becuz they don’t come fast enough.”

______

Then the Conversation Lagged

He – Do you believe in the Darwinian theory?

She – As far as some people are concerned.

______

Cheerful Comment

The Holy Rollers have subsided.

Moral: Policemen, don’t eat off your beats.

The Red Sox are fast colors, but not mud proof.

Anyway, W. J. B. got ahead of T. R. on the come back.

The mayor is going to didge that milk and bottle issue.

The Trenton, N. J., “no seat no fare” idea is standing on its merits.

Anyhow, “Dakota Dan” is going to camp pretty close to the Russell trail.

Seems awfully queer to have a fashionable wedding not at high noon.

The passengers on the Minnehaha gave the submerged rocks of St. Mary’s the laugh.

That there is no place like home Mr. Mark Twain of Redding, Ct., can amply testify.

Mary says Oscar must apologize or she won’t sing, and Oscar says Mary must pay up or she can’t sing. There’s an operatic setting for you!

John Carter left prison with a $200 surplus, earned by writing poetry, which is going some for a poet, but John hasn’t had any board to pay, you understand.

______

A Fine String

Daylight will see him cast and swing,

     And trouting doth he call it;

At night he’ll carry home his “string”

     Wrapped snugly in his wallet.

______

His Last Resort

“Dullquill is going to start a magazine of his own.”

“I understand he has a lot of stuff he can’t sell.”

______

Prepared for Emergency

Poet – Here, sir, is a poem which came to me in the middle of the night.

Editor (handing it back) – I would advise you to keep a light burning and a club side of your bed.

______

Two Down, and the Bases Full

(Contributed.)

The brightest bunch of luminaries

     Adorn the modern baseball game,

Where full many dignitaries

     Prove dignity is but a name.

     Boston.                            G. C. P.

______

“That Reminds Me”

(Contributed.)

Just a patch of pigweed busy

     In the garden growing,

Reminded me my new year’s promise

     Needed constant hoeing.

Just a piece of crumpled paper

     In my pocket stowing,

Reminded me on opening it

     Of a trifle owing.

Just a corner signboard pointing

     Out the way of going,

Reminded me my new year’s promise

     Hadn’t had fair showing.

And so unless we heed the signs,

     When the tide’s in-flowing,

We’re likely quite to find the shoals

     Mighty anxious rowing!

     Melrose.                              T. F.

______

Sporting Note

A baseball game is the greatest thing in the world, unless it’s two baseball games.

______

Gungy Local Item

“Ame Green is putting out an unusually large number of cabbage plants this spring. Ame says the tobacco trust can go hang, he’s got through paying a nickel for an ordinary cigar.

______

Both Bad Enough

“I suppose there is more or less danger from the pie belt of New England?”

“I don’t think it’s to be considered with the poet belt of Indiana.”

____________

April 20, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Boy of Today

The boy of today is the man of tomorrow,

     Remember, and give him a welcoming hand;

Partake in his pleasure, and join in his sorrow,

     Make him companion and help him to stand.

The boy is the echo of man as he sees him,

     You are his model, his teacher, his goal;

Gain his confidence, interest and please him,

     Make him aware he’s a heart and a soul.

The boy of today is the man of tomorrow,

     Soon will he stand where you’re standing today;

Lend him your knowledge when he wants to borrow,

     Show him the safest and easiest way.

Scorn not his trifles, be patient and kindly,

     The fate of the future lies over the way;

Give him your vision, don’t let him go blindly,

     The man of tomorrow’s the boy of today.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Ef money burns your pocket put it in the bank’s cold storage.”

______

Astronomological Note

When a comet’s tail gets so big and bushy that it obscures the comet itself it is time the tale were cut.

______

Asking the Impossible

Caller – Don’t you get tired of writing jokes?

Humorist – Ah, if only I could!

______

In the Game

Lives of pitchers oft remind us

     We could live like lords, indeed,

If life’s batters couldn’t find us,

     And we had sufficient speed.

______

Chanterclerism in Gungawamp

Hank Stubbs – Sime Hadley hez moved all his hen houses an’ chicken coops into his front yard an’ onto his front piazzy.

Bige Miller – Yes. Sime thought ez how it would make a great hit with folks looking for summer board.

______

A Human Omelet

Reports from North Dennis inform us that 48 eggs went into human cold storage one day this week. One Patrick Harvey disposed of four dozen of the shell fruit at three settings, declaring that if anybody had a surplus of eggs on their hands to bring them along. Patrick, as we understand it, is not the proprietor of an egg plant, not is he the father of a chicken industry; in fact he has such an antipathy for eggs, whether raw, boiled, fried or scrambled, that he can’t bear the sight of them, and puts them out of his reach whenever opportunity offers. The lay of the hen in North Dennis is a sad one, because, as they say, they have given up setting round and trying their best to scratch out enough to supply the local market, when along comes Pat and gobbles up  all they have laid out. They say if they weren’t fowl they would complain to the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals and have Pat put onto a vegetable diet.

______

Looking Backward

(The following is from a valued Herald reader and contributor who has gone to Ohio for his health. The Herald and Father Jocosity wish him a speedy recovery and assure him a welcome return):

Dear Father Jocosity; I was compelled to leave your state suddenly. Nothing criminal. The same compulsion stayed me here un Ohio. I have tried to forget, but it is of no use. The waves of recollection have beat upon the shores of memory until they have washed up the following debris:

LINES TO MASSACHUSETTS

My dear old Mass.;

      Ohio’s good,

But I, alas!

      I miss you, Mass.;

I miss your hills and mountains high!

And O, dear me, I miss your pie!

I miss your girls, demure and sweet,

And bak-ed beans that gods might eat.

Your wary trout, just out of sight,

And pickerel that never bite;

Your doughnut round, and skies of blue,

And your J       C        I miss him too.

My heart doth yearn for those I’ve left,

The wind doth moan like one bereft;

Within my heart the dead arise,

And inky blackness alls the skies.

What if Ohio’s spring doth pass,

Her charms are naught to thine, O Mass!

In all the world

     No hearts more true;

My dear old home,

     I long for you.

Spencer, Ohio.            JOE SETON.

____________

April 21, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Optimistic Boston

(Mr. George S. Smith, at the dinner of the New England Confectioners’ Club at Young’s, said the trouble with Boston is that we have been just a bit too grouchy.)

Boston, Boston, if it’s true

You have had a grouch on you,

It is time to change your face

And get in the Good-cheer race.

If you’ve worn a sullen frown,

With your hat brim rolling down,

Turn it upward for awhile,

And, by golly, throw a smile!

Boston, Boston, you have been*

Far too dignified, I ween

With your learning and your blood

Coursing blue, and like a flood,

You’ve become, from year to year,

Just a bit too grouchy, dear.

Rid yourself of all that bile,

And, by gorry, throw a smile!

With the coming of the bloom,

Of the spring and rose perfume,

With the joy of May and June

Change your pessimistic tune.

Smile upon your children great,

And the stranger at your gate;

Change your tactics for awhile,

And, by gorry, Boston, SMILE!

_____

*Pronounced “Bean.”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Never look a gift autymobile in the gasoline tank.”

______

Historical Note

Sight-seeing wagon, in passing though Washington street, should ca;; attention to the now famous historical spot known as “The-Corner-of-the-Broken-Lamp-Post.”

______

Coming Events, Etc.

Brer Taft, he saw a picture show –

     O, that some one had made a bungle,

And thrown upon the screen a view

     Of Teddy cleaning out the jungle.

______

Cheerful Comment

April raining brings forth complaining.

Congratulations to Uncle Sam for saving one American heiress.

Sometimes a pugilist is in fine trim for a good trimming.

Little Cuba also appears to have that restless spring feeling.

So the comet with its tail had something to do with the rioting Chinese with their pigtails.

If Mars isn’t inhabited who in the diggin’s, Dr. Hale, is cutting those canals?

One of our sports says the China uprising may be going some, but just wait for the Boxer outbreak in California!

Every year the list of entries for the sprinting matches increases, showing plainly that Marathoning is having a big run.

Butte, Mont., felt an earthquake shock day before yesterday. Evidently Mary MacLane has started another new book.

______

Time to Get Ready

(Contributed.)

Now you should try

To purify

     Your slow, adulterated blood;

Mosquitoes they

Are on the way

     To revel in the summer flood.

Boston.                          J. A. T.

______

Extremity Trouble

Hank Stubbs – I hear Jedge Gouter is comin’ down fur the week end.

Bige Miller – Gosh all hemlock! His old foot trouble broke out again?

______

Literary Note

Now that John Carter, the poet-prisoner, is at liberty, perhaps the Muse won’t visit him as of yore and lay bouquets at his feet.

______

Fruit

Hyman Blum, a Brooklyn Taylor, is a very sour man these days, and states that if he ever had any idea of going into the fruit business he is over it now. He gave a pair of fruit pickers $635, all of his hard-earned money, with the understanding that they were to raise the sum to $1000. Alas! It proved a poor day for raising bills, although it was a fine day for raising fruit, of Hyman’s sort, and when he received back his little hand-satchel supposed to contain $1000 all he found was four lemons carefully done up in tissue paper.

Hyman says that to get one lemon is hard enough, but to be handed four is more than even a green farmer can stand, so he placed his case in the hands of Gotham’s authorities who have had more experience in gathering fruit gatherers than Hyman has. Hereafter, he says, he will stick to his needle and thread and try to dodge any fruit that he sees coming his way.

______

A Tribute to Helen

The Trojan Helen’s wondrous fame

     Is safely shrined in poets’ song;

And yet methinks some meed of blame

     To Helen does of right belong.

So beautiful of form and face,

     That for her sake stern war was made;

But ah! Despite her matchless grace,

     I fear she was a sorry jade.

As butterflies do idly flit,

     So she pursued her random course,

And seldom troubled, you’ll admit,

     With either marriage or divorce.

Not sober age, or fiery youth

     Could hold her vagrant fancy still;

Life was to her, in very truth,

     Naught but a passing vaudeville.

One place for her I now would claim,

     Which she can fill beyond complaint;

A niche within the Hall of Fame,

     As Reno’s charming patron saint.

     Webster.                          S. G. R.

____________

April 22, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Man with the Hoe

(Not after Markham.)

Up at the break of golden dawn,

Clear in the cool of an April morn,

While wife and childer are still asleep,

The wild commuter is seen to creep

Out through the back yard’s winding way,

In overalls and course array;

Out where the garden patch remains,

Washed by the frequent April rains,

Out where the radishes and peas

And beets and all such truck as these,

Have reared their heads above the soil

Calling the son of man to toil.

Just see him now, this stalwart man,

With muscle of iron and cheek of tan,

His pipe afire and his eyes aglow,

About to attack with his painted hoe.

Behold him whacking the soggy ground,

Each lusty whack a thud-like sound,

And hear his joyous morning song,

As the weeds fall ‘neath his weapon strong.

The honest sweat stands on his brow,

His back and legs are aching now;

Yet manfully he stays a-toil

Until he’s freed the weed-bound soil.

     *       *        *

O, noble ploughman (we mean hoe-man) you have taught

A lesson with rich blessings fraught;

We much admire your farming art,

But we prefer it a la “cart.”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Blessed are the meek, for the spotlight will never ruin their eyesight.”

______

Mark Twain

It is doubtful if there be any laughing in heaven, but there will assuredly be a feeling of pride there.

______

Cheerful Comment

Paris goes wild over “ze beeg huntaire.”

Weston says: “Come on in, the walking’s fine.”

If they stop the milk supply, shall we have to get our goats?

It was a close shave for somebody when that hot water tank burst in a local barber shop.

Excepting for little baseball flurries at home, the eyes of the nation will now be centered on California.

Mayor Howard of Salem ought to be able to get by all right if the new incomes keep coming in.

The brake on the warship is all right, but what we want is a brake on the need of a warship.

Anyway, it’s less harmful to keep a cigar going 94 minutes than to puff it out in as many seconds.

B. I. L. – Your suggestion of having creeping nasturtiums running over the broken lamp post is a good one.

Miss Edith Walker, the American singer, has been fined $25 for “talking back” to her impressario, Herman Gura. Oscar Hammerstein undoubtedly is hurrying to Berlin to get the recipe.

______

A March Soliloquy

(Contributed.)

“If you can take the wind out of me

By putting April first,” says she,

“What I can do, I’ll try to show,

And all the harder I will blow.

Some men you can cheat, but you can’t cheat me,

For I’m no relation to ‘William C.’”

   Winchester, N. H.          M. E. T.

______

Shakespeare Day

April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1910.

Those wondrous plays, by Shakespeare or Lord B.,

     Would read as well;

“The play’s the thing!” By any other name

     A rose would smell!

     Melrose.                          T. F.

______

Bacchante

(Contributed.)

(Macmonnies’ Bacchante, once in the courtyard fountain of the Boston Public Library, now reported to be soon placed in the Art Museum.)

O. Bacchante, lively miss,

     You’ve been long away;

But we will forgive you this,

     If you’ll come to stay.

We recall your laughing face

     In the fountain’s play;

And your figure, full of grace,

     Of that bygone day.

With that smiling jackanapes

     On your strong left arm,

And the luscious bunch of grapes

     Held in your right palm.

What was it you ever did

     That caused the alarm?

Do come back and bring the kid,

     We have grown quite calm.

We have much admired your poise,

     And your saucy air;

‘Twas not we who made the noise

     When you were out there.

What is it you would confide?

     “Not a thing to wear?”

Now that you will be inside

     Why, you need not care.

Dorchester.                   H. E. F.

______

Ideal Newspaper, No?

Maj. J. C. Hampill, editor of the Richmond Times-Despatch, in a lecture at Yale University said among other interesting things journalistic that the ideal newspaper doesn’t exist. Now here is a rare chance for several thousands of newspapers to do the major up in A1 newspaper style.

____________

April 23, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Down and Out Row

Just look at their faces, deep pictures of woe;

And pity, you workers, the down and out row.

Here is bench after bench, in sun and in shade,

Filled up with the toilers who haven’t quite made.

Look not with suspicion, nor yet with disdain,

Their souls may be free as your own from a stain;

A sense of respect at least you can show

When passing in silence the down and out row.

For all that we know an injustice lies

Behind the dull look of those dull looking eyes;

Ill health might have been at the bottom of one,

Another, perchance, has been heartlessly done.

No doubt some are failures from causes their own,

And by whirlwinds of fate are hitherward blown;

But not all are at fault, and God pity their woe,

And lay a warm hand on the down and out row.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Some folks who think they are blue are, after all, on’y color blind.”

______

Fashion Note

Chantecler hats may come and go, and automobiles come fast or slow, but the peek-a-boo waist goes on forever.

______

Such Is Fame

Worcester has granted the Dube brothers a permit to build an airship garage. No mention is made of Tillinghast in the transaction.

______

Pavement Philosophy

Figures don’t lie; it’s the figurer.

The hookworm will never put a stop to fishing.

A stitch in time just tickles the watchmaker.

Only near-great men are noted for their smallness.

Sometimes the calm after the storm works havoc, too.

The high cost of living isn’t to be compared with the high cost of dying.

A very little person can have big ideas, but it’s funny when he expresses them.

There always appears to be a woman in the case, both before and after.

One can treat a friend well and still keep away from the bar.

The man who won’t give in when he knows he’s wrong is very seldom apt to be right.

There are different kinds of rheumatism, but only one kind of swearing to go with them.

We hear that “truth is stranger than fiction.” We know, of course, that it is scarcer.

It may be possible to love a number of women at the same time, but it is more dangerous than possible.

Probably the reason a doctor doesn’t take a dose of his own medicine is the same one that keeps you from practicing what you preach.

______

Misfits

(The comet called a “wanderer” on first page, and “erratic” on editorial page of Herald, April 14, 1910.)

Halley’s comet here again, strictly up to date!

     What amazing timing a “wanderer” can achieve;

Seventy-five years travelling, not a moment late,

     And then be called “erratic?” Hardly (by your leave!)

     Melrose.                                   T. F.

______

Pa’s Conclusion

“What is an old adage, pa?”

“Generally speaking, an old chestnut, my son.”

______

Her Sense of Humor

“Yes,” admitted the walking delegate, sarcastically, as she fixed her barrette for the 10^th time, “we have plenty of suffragette, but no suffrage-yet.”

______

Love’s Lament

(Contributed.)

Sweet sister, must thou be

     A lost delight forevermore,

Like spicy wafts at sea

     That never reach the shore,

Or drowned pearl and ivory

     That fated vessels bore?

Thy little life has perfect rest

     At its faint, dying close;

Not softer from her nest

     The early robin goes,

Or fades the daylight in the west,

     Or shuts the evening rose.

A breath, a memory –

     Brief love and long regret;

Thy dying look I seem to see

     As earth and heaven met,

And thy dear face is still with me

     With June-plucked roses set.

Somerville.                H. A. KENDALL.

____________

April 24, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

While Going Along

It’s all right to save up for a rainy day

     And salt all the shekels you can;

This advice has been spread before each little head,

     Since ever existence began.

It is well to look out for Number One,

     And keep on the right side of wrong;

But we mustn’t neglect, as some do, I expect,

     To enjoy life in going along.

We mustn’t deny all the comforts we’d like,

     For the sake of the far by and by;

If we don’t have some fun while still on the run,

     We certainly can’t when we die.

So let’s not be wasteful, or spend too much time

     In riotous living and song,

But let’s not be small and deny ourselves all,

     But have some fun going along.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“There may be a diffrunce between tweedle-dee an’ tweedle-dum, but would it pay anybuddy to stop an’ figger it out?”

______

Industrial Note

It is very seldom that a factory pays satisfactory wages.

______

“Fresh Haddie!”

If old T Wharf

     Should change its name,

Would fish therefrom

     Taste just the same?

______

Cheerful Comment

There’s a Big Bill to pay somewhere.

Sometimes a dead claimant wins when a live one can’t.

“Funny,” said the census taker, “how quickly women of a certain age sense us.”

That Salem $500 a year won’t go very far toward going to Congress.

W. J. B. has denied the vaudeville allegation, but not so Elbert Hubbard.

In Act II. of the great Russell Brothers’ show, the brothers will appear together.

The Plum island airship got a little out of plum at the turn and the marsh came up and hit it.

Ice is out of ll the Maine lakes at last, and a great many men are out of their usual haunts.

The Rev. Thomas I. Gasson, S. J., lectured Sunday on the Crow Indians. Being a farmer, we wish someone would lecture on the crow.

The man who hasn’t anything else to worry about is wondering if President Taft will have to eat in a restaurant while the White House is without a cook.

______

A Saved Cigar Stump

I trust the man who saved this stub

     In life’s great overturning,

Like it, will be, with you and me,

     “A brand picked from the burning!”

     Melrose.                    T. F.

______

Trials of the Census Taker

The census taker flicked a bit of dust from the lapel of his coat and climbed nimbly up the steps and rang the bell. After waiting a few moments he decided the bell was out of order and so hammered on the door. Another wait, and the door opened a few inches and a curious face peered out at him.

“I am the census taker,” he said boldly, reaching for the knob and placing one foot on the sill.

“Every one of my young ones had it done to ‘em and they all took,” said the woman, impatiently.

“You don’t understand me, I am out after the census, madam!”

“Well, we hain’t got it here; never heard it was missin’. Anyway, you can’t search my house without an officer.”

“No, no; I don’t want to search your house; I want your husband’s occupation, his age, and so on.”

“You want me husband’s occupation, do you? Well, you’d look fine long-shorin’, you would. Say, young feller, you couldn’t lift a lamb chop at the butcher’s”

“You don’t understand me,” said the young man, growing impatient. “I am in the employ of the state, and you must let me in and answer my questions. I want your age, your husband’s age, how many children you have, their ages, and all that. Come, don’t hinder me, or you may get the worst of it!”

The woman swung the door wide and placed her hands on her broad hips. She weighed at least 200 pounds and her fighting blood was up.

“Say,” said she, “ for a human spindle you are about the nerviest specimen that ever tried to force an entrance to my house. Come over the threshold, my son, and I’ll guarantee you the quickest trip to the ‘Emergency’ that was ever made out of this alley!”

The young man looked at the woman, and then at his own 110 pounds. Then he looked up the street. Fortunately a policeman was coming his way. The guardian of the peace was called into the case and soon made satisfactory explanations. The census taker, after a good deal of haggling, got what he went after, and went on his way, but not rejoicing.

______

By Contraries

“Don’t you think my hat is a perfect dream?”

“As dreams go, yes.”

____________

1910. Apr. 25,

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Git Up an’ Git

The world it likes grit, an’ plenty uv it,

But what it wants most is git up an’ git.

No matter how good or how wholesome the show,

It won’t ever git by without plenty uv go.

Though the heroine be pretty, the hero quite brave,

The villain ferocious, there is nothing ‘twill save

The play from a plunge in the bottomless pit

Except that it savors uv git up an’ git.

The same thing is true uv the autymobile,

When it kicks in the traces an’ acts so unreal;

The man at the helm he jest pitches a fit

Ef it isn’t plum loaded with git up an’ git.

It is so with the airship, it is so with the hoss,

An’ ev’ry blame product that man comes across;

No man or no woman fur bizniz is fit

Ef they hain’t b’ilin’ over with git up an’ git.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Ef you don’t see what you want, ask fur it. Ef you don’t git it then KICK!”

______

Weather Note

If the weather were totally unlike what we have at present, how we imagine we could enjoy the weather we are having.

______

Scents and Cents

A rose by any other name

     Would smell as sweet,

And yet, ‘twould hardly be the same

     In price as meat.

______

Cheerful Comment

Thank you, Maj. Hoffman.

“Sweet Adeline” is gone, but not forgotten.

Now numberless “Salomes” will rise up and call the Colonel names.

Little pitchers have ears, of course, but they get paid for their curves.

We take it for granted, of course, that when a preacher preaches against kissing, he practices what he preaches.

Nearly a million more barrels of beer were consumed by the people of the United States last month than in March, 1909. Well, it makes us more at ease over the water supply.

______

Don’t Be a June Bug

The June bug buts in everywhere

     From drawing room to shed;

He always gets the angry stare,

     He always bumps his head.

                             – Editor Guild

The kissing bug he butts in, too,

     Where girls are passing fair;

Unlike the June bug, he gets more

     Than just an angry stare.

______

The Query Box

Hap Stranger – Is the average man better able than the average woman to stand in the street cars?

He sure is. Because why? Well, in the first place, he has more practice, and in the second place he isn’t so apt to have his arms so loaded down with the contents of a department store. Then, again, he probably has frittered away his entire day in his office chair, with his feet on the desk, making goo0goo eyes at the blonde-haired typewritress, while the average woman has been on the go all day doing Marathons from the soda fountain to the remnant counters and back, and consequently is tired and more deserving of a seat.

______

The Best Ten Novels

B. U. M. – Your list of America’s best 10 best novels seems passing strange, but of course it is every man to his taste. If our tastes were all alike, we know very well that everybody would eat pumpkin pie, and pretty soon there wouldn’t be any more pumpkins. For the benefit of our readers, and that the list may go down in history, we print it below”

     Friday the Thirteenth – Lawson.

     Twenty-one Days – Glynn.

     The Stork Book – Newkirk.

     Furnace of Earth – Rives.

     A Daughter of Thespis – Barry.

     Schooners That Pass in the Night – Harraden.

The Massachusetts Royalists – Stark.

Confessions of a Humorist – Uncle Ezra.

The Real Diary of a Real Henry – Shute.

Getting Close to the Pole – Cook.

____________

April 26, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Roosevelt Comet

Perhaps you’ve wondered why our beef

     Has soared to prices way on high?

Perhaps you’ve wondered why relief

     Don’t black the Cost of Living’s eye?

Perhaps you’ve wondered why the hens

     Don’t lay as they were wont to do?

Perhaps you’ve wondered why the pens

     Of humorists have all gone blue?

Perhaps you’ve wondered why it’s cold,

     And why it’s wet and skies are gray;

Why trade is dull, and nothing sold,

     And bad luck seems to rule the day?

Perhaps you’ve wondered at the freeze

     That laid our western crops so low;

Perhaps you’ve wondered why the trees

     Won’t bear the peach of long ago?

And so we might go on for aye,

     And death and dire disaster name;

And you, and everyone would say

     That Halley’s Comet were to blame.

But I think that in this they err,

     I think the sorrows of today

Are not from Halley’s comet, sir,

     But just because T .R.’s away!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Two’s company an’ three’s a crowd until pa is needed on the financial end.”

______

Athletic Note

Every young person should be taught to swim, and also to keep out of the swim.

______

Cheerful Comment

What do you expect in April, anyway?

It is hoped the Aurora will continue to shine.

Wonder who Teddy will give that flight ticket to?

Some of the “surprises,” like bad rockets, fail to go off.

Remember what we wrote you about going up in that airship, Theo!

A dirigible balloon is a good servant, but a bad master when masterless.

An “ad.” in a New York paper saved a dog’s life. If you are lost, have lost or expect to lose, advertise; it pays.

They are calling upon Mr. Roosevelt to do all sorts of things, the latest is to save New York. But who’s going to save Mr. Roosevelt?

A good many people believe Halley’s comet responsible for many joys as well as disasters. Indian Orchard has just come forward with a set of triplets, and in Virginia a woman has given birth to a quartet.

______

Fly Time

Travel, travel, little fly,

On the butter and the pie;

Leave the germs upon your feet

On the food we have to eat.

Welcome, welcome little fly,                         

How I wonder we don’t die.

______

Queer Playthings

Word comes from Tucson, Ariz., that 18 persons in that neighborhood have been bitten by skunks in the last two years, and that five of that number have died of rabies, while the remaining 13 were cured. It is not surprising that a person should die after being bitten by a skunk, but it is surprising that so many people should be bitten by skunks in that space of time. What were those 18 people doing with skunks, anyhow? We were brought up to avoid playing with fire. Common sense, coupled with instinct, taught us to let skunks alone. With people in general a little experience with a skunk goes a long way. The lesson taught by the skunk stays by one a long time.

Eighteen persons bitten by skunks in two years! It looks very much as though these Arizonians had been trying to make pets out of their non-affiliating skunks. Skunks don’t domesticzee worth a scent – we mean a cent. Common sense should have told those people they couldn’t get gay with skunks the same as they could with cats and dogs and goats, etc. Imagine trying to tie a tin can to a skunk’s tail and set him going round the neighborhood! Try to picture yourself coming up behind a skunk and stamping your foot and making a noise like a dog, expecting to see the skunk put for a tree after the manner of a cat! A skunk wouldn’t do any such silly thing. He would turn slowly round and face you and throw a look of pity at you and try to impress you with the fact that he was perfectly able to take care of himself, and above all, that he disapproved of your familiarity.

Then you can’t kick a skunk the way you can a dog, If you think you can kick a skunk you are on the wrong scent. If you let him alone he will neither bite nor otherwise show his displeasure, but if you try to pet him or play any of the innumerable little tricks on him he is apt to cover you with objections and brand you a social outcast whether you are a member of the polite circles of Tucson, Ariz., or Brookline, Mass.

____________

April 27, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

In the Harness

“When I get rich I am going to retire,”

     Said the man at the start of life;

And he ground each day in the same old way,

     Knee-deep in commercial strife.

“I’m not going to wait till I get old;

     I shall have a few years of rest,”

And he plugged along with the toiling throng

     In the way which he thought was best.

When he rolled up a thousand he thought ‘twas small,

     So he labored to make it two;

And when he reached four he wanted still more,

     As every man’s sure to do.

And he struggled and worked to make it ten –

     When he got it it still seemed small;

For his point of view it had altered, too,

     And his ten wouldn’t do at all.

And the white crept over his wrinkled brow,

     And a stoop crept into his frame;

“I’ll stay a year more” – he had said it before –

     “And then I’ll get out of the game.”

But the years they came and the years they went,

     And the pile grew yellow and great;

And the sum he’d prized was at last realized,

     But the rest didn’t come till too late.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Ef you are a misfit it may be becuz you had too much to do with the shapin’ uv your own course.”

______

Literary Note

Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson had a great name even before he became a litterateur.

______

Financial Problem

If a girl can run an automobile on $12 per week, whaat couldn’t a girl do on $13.50?

______

The Anheuser-Busch Flood

O, dear, O, dear, to think that beer

     Was wasted in St. Louis!

Half million bot’s all gone to pots,

     And lost within the souis.

But after all, ‘tis pretty small

     To wish them any strife time;

They ought, I think, to have a drink

     At least once in a lifetime.

______

Cheerful Comment

To fast is slow death.

Miss May Yohe got her decree.

Why not “let George” name that new car?

The scarlet fever cow should be taken by the horns.

Aren’t the tales of the sea serpents a little late in developing?

The second Mrs. Mack isn’t going to live in the first Mrs. Mack’s house – not if the first Mrs. Mack knows it.

They are playing “The Girl with the Whooping Cough” in New York. Doubtless this will be followed by “The Man with the Hiccoughs.”

The best way to get even with a man who is puffing smoke from a rank cigar in your face is to light up one that is ranker.

______

Gungywamp Jealousy

Mrs. Hank Stubbs – People seem to be worryin’ a lot about that there Halley’s comet tail.

Mrs. Bige Miller – I expect some of the city women will be a-wantin’ it yit to wear on a Chantycleer bunnit.

______

Whiskers What Are Whiskers

Alister Wilkie, of Bamff Alyth, (to be spoken quickly), Perthshire, Scotland, was a visitor in town recently. It would seem that “Bamth Alyth” hitched to a man’s name would make him sufficiently famous, but Alister Wilkie doesn’t think so, so he has added 11 feet and one inch of whiskers to his otherwise remarkable bid for fame. Bamff Alyth, the 11-foot Vandyke and Wilkie’s talent for singing and bagpipe playing, a strong combination, create a demand for him in vaudeville, and it is said he is never without an engagement.

Men are queer creatures. Here our leading Bostonians are striving daily to keep their whiskers as short as possible, and along comes Alister Wilkie, of Bamff Alyth, (don’t forget the name), straining every nerve, and every hair, to make his beard as long as possible. Friends of this man from Bamff Alyth are wondering, now that the season of the lawn mower and the pruning knife has come, if Alister won’t be in season and at least trim his frazzled frontage into something like symmetrical proportions, but when approached on the subject Alister said in splendid broken English, “Cut it oot! I’ll na speer wan inch!” And then Alister went on to explain that every inch meant a longer engagement and a more extended bank account.

Wilkie owns two farms in Mamff Alyth, but is a confirmed bachelor. He says as much as he likes the girls he likes his 11-foot roll of whiskers better. He wouldn’t take any chance on lessening his roll during a family misunderstanding. He says there are plenty of girls in Bamff Alyth who would have him, but prefers to remain single till his show days are over. He is but 50 years old and has plenty of time, he says. When asked to whom he would leave all his property, including his beautiful bundle of puffs, Marcel waves and Roxbury russets he said he had an hair apparent, and in the dull gray of the morning we left him, repeating over and over again the words, “Alister Wilkie, of Bamff Alyth.”

______

The Barbers’ Waterloo

(An ordinance forbidding barbers eating onions between 7 A. M. and 9 P. M., using tobacco, discussing town gossip, insisting on a singe or neck shave, etc., has become a law in Waterloo, Neb. Penalty, $5.)

Do you want to get shaved

     Mid surroundings delightful?

Have your sensations saved

     From those odors most frightful?

Enjoy peace and quiet

     While they’re scraping your face?

You would like to try it?

     The Nebraska’s the place.

For there onions are barred,

     Either boiled, sliced or raw,

And with them ‘twill go hard

     If they break this new law.

Of escape there’s no hope;

     It will cost a V, rather,

If they’re careless with soap

     And your mouth fill with lather.

If the barbers out there

     Any gossip discuss,

Talk of things you don’t care,

     It will raise a big fuss.

They can’t strike you each time

     For a singe or shampoo –

Such a thing is a crime

     In that town, Waterloo.

Boston.                          H. E. F.

____________

April 28, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

An Appeal to the Cow

Bossie, bossie, how can you

Make us feel so awful blue?

How can you us milk deny

When we are so very dry?

Though we long to take a drink,

From your milk we have to shrink;

And we cannot come to terms

With your scarlet fever germs.

Bossie, bossie, do not eat

Anything that is un-meat;

Don’t partake of flannel red,

Or of the geranium bed.

Shun all scarlet tinted things,

Butterflies with tainted wings,

Don’t be feverish or hot,

Or ill tempered in the lot.

Bossie, bossie, how we long

For the milk so white and strong;

For the glass that cheers our face,

But don’t put us off our base.

Bossie, bossie, come to terms;

Give the hook to all those germs.

Give down milk from microbes free,

Or we’ll kick the bucket, see?

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Ef you don’t do today you are purty apt to be done tomorrer.”

______

Fashion Note

We think that the styles in women’s toggery are some changeable, but they have got to speed up considerably to keep ahead of the baseball language.

______

Cheerful Comment

A little fly, that Paulhan.

Oscar’s troubles with the songbirds are over.

Even the earth has split and separated around Reno.

Fifty thousand dollars is fine pay for stealing a march.

If old “Hime Look” had only been out there to help round up those elephants!

There seems to be more or less looseness in those New York tights contracts.

If Walker Weston hurts both feet there’s nothing to prevent him from finishing on his hands, is there?

Lord Kitchener says ours is a great country, but that is calm in comparison with what he said about our girls.

Mr. Adolph Busch, of St. Louis, has donated an additional $100,000 for the Germanic Museum at Harvard. The deal was closed, of course, before that half-million bottles of Anheuser-Busch ran away.

______

On the Way!

O, we don’t know, and we don’t care

     Where summer breezes stray,

Or where the flies go when they go,

Or whence they come, so long’s we know

     The circus’s on the way!

______

Breaking the Shock

Hank Stubbs – I’m skittish about them airships flyin’ over my house; s’pose one should come down plum on the roof?

Bige Miller – I can’t help thinkin’ that mebbie our lightnin’ rods will be uv some use after all.

______

Lost, a Spring

Once upon a time there was a spring. It appeared one morning in March and, although people didn’t expect it so soon, nevertheless they were well pleased, and did all sorts of things to show their pleasure. They opened their doors and windows to let it in, and took off their hats to it, they were so glad and joyous of spirit. Some even took off their heavy flannels to show spring they weren’t afraid of it, offering their heavy apparel, as it were, as a sacrifice to the goddess of spring.

Well, anyway, spring hung around awhile and there didn’t appear to be much doing. Only a few died off as a result of their indiscretions, and so it took a French leave one morning even as mysteriously and as suddenly as it came, leaving a damp coldness or a cold dampness in its wake.

But spring had done its work. A great number of the populace had got the spring halt – or rather the spring habit – and couldn’t leave off. That is to say, they had left off nearly everything but the habit. Gardens were plowed and summer flowers planted on weakly looking straw hats. Peek-a-boo waists sprang up as if by magic, and open cars wriggled over the earth. The doctors got busy and the undertakers looked hopeful.

Spring is still off the job. The soda fountain man is on the verge of nervous prostration, and the baseball fan looks longingly at the Thermos bottles in the store windows before he starts for the game. Anybody furnishing information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of the above delinquent please address the oversigned and receive a liberal reward.

______

Pa’s Wonderful Rescue

(Contributed.)

Some years ago “Old Frances,” the schoolmaster who figures in “The Real Diary of a Real Boy,” asked a son of the late engineer, “Tom” French, to tell about his father’s experiences in the train wreck at Haverhill. The boy started in and told the scholars about the affair and, getting somewhat excited, ended up by saying: “Father pulled out one man and two other women!”

                                           H. V. L.

____________

April 29, '10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Pops

We were asked, not by the prop’s,

Could we poetize the pops.

One can see if he but stops

To think, while his brow he mops,

That in all the rhyming shops

Words are scarce that rhyme with pops.

Even with the aid of cops

Or the literary tops,

It would give a bard the drops,

Keep him from his beer and chops,

Stay him from the festive hops

Make him do some awful flops,

Did he poetize the pops.

So we had to tell the prop’s,

Even if the failure lops

Off our golden weekly crops,

We can’t poetize the pops!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“The under dorg gits the symperthy, but he prefers the gate receipts.”

______

Musical Note

Heavy opera, heavy trouble. Light opera, a perfect cinch.

______

Also $50,000

Little drops of petrol,

     Little grains of sand

Helped aviator Paulhan

     To rise, and fly, and land.

______

Cheerful Comment

Long live “Sweet Adeline!”

How Weston must love the auto.

The milk war doesn’t appear to skim over.

Mt. M’Kinley is going to catch it again, poor thing!

In dodging the house fly, don’t run into the mosquito.

Eleonora Sears and Edward Payson Weston ought to pull off a match.

The world has never suffered from a short crop of heroes, and never will.

Good thing Charlie Taft wasn’t as big as his father during that “splash.”

If we understand Mr. Hammerstein aright, the difference is all in that little word “grand.”

Bacchante, the barefoot dancer, will give daily exhibitions at the new Museum of Fine Arts until further notice. No flowers.

______

Not a Best Seller

Banter – Drirott’s novel has been suppressed.

Canter – Great Scott! You don’t say! By the postal authorities?

Banter – No; the general public.

______

“So Sudden”

“I called on Gertrude’s father last night.”

“What was the outcome?”

“You see it now.”

______

To J      C     .

(Contributed.)

Don’t look so serious,

     Life is short at best;

Be more hilarious,

     By way of zest.

Gum folks are annoying,

     So cheer up a bit;

Laugh long in the morning,

     And so make a hit.

We like your expression,

     We smile when you smile;

There’s only one session,

     So cheer up awhile.

Boston.                            O. Y. K.

It is very evident that the above poet or poetist hasn’t seen us in our natural surroundings. The William Jennings Bryant perpetual smile has nothing on ours. In fact, we have cultivated the perpetual smile habit to such an extent that the corners of our mouth are hanging over our ears like spectacle bows. No, “O. Y. K.,” you must have been passing the financial editor’s window after he had dropped his week’s salary in State street and mistook him for us. We appreciate your suggestion, but deny the allegation.

______

Another “What to Do with T. R.”

(Contributed.)

O, some they fear the comet’s shock, 

And some they fear its gassy tail;

At trifles such as these I mock,

     A greater danger makes me quail.

In balmy June what shall we do

     When fearless Teddy strikes our shores?

And o’er our heads, an erring crew,

     The vials of his wrath he pours.

O, that ere then the Pow’rs would give

     A place where Teddy might disport;

There in The Hague would let him live,

     And be himself the whole Peace Court.

Unfailing wisdom would decide

     All questions which might cause dispute;

And the Big Stick would over-ride

     All those who would his words confute.

     Webster.                          S. G. R.

____________

April 30, 1910