Jocosities, March 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Why Worry?

Why should we worry o’er the cash

     We borrowed months before?

The creditors will do all that,

     So why should we feel sore?

Why should we worry that we might

     Some future time have war?

Let worry those who have to fight,

     That’s what such chaps are for.

Why should we worry round the house

     When things are going wrong?

Why not let worries and the like

     Descend where they belong?

Why should we worry when we’ve been

     Out nights on a “furore”?

Let’s leave that to women folks –

     That’s what our wives are for!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“The reason some men git home so late is becuz the distance is greater comin’ than ‘twuz goin’.”

______

Household Note

How to keep a good cook: Marry her, and take away her street clothes.

______

She Knows, She Knows

Breathes there a man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said:

“I wish you’d let my things stay put!”

But what they got right underfoot.

______

Cheerful Comment

It can hardly be said that the counterfeiter is making good.

Isn’t it about time for Weston’s press agent to begin announcing farewell tours?

To outsiders, “Making Chicago the handsomest city in the world” sounds like jumping through a whoop.

Must be that new $7,500,000 liner is not only going to have ordinary theatricals, but grand opera as well.

But no one would think of accusing one of the Roosevelt boys of being such an ordinary figure as a champion squash player.

Pshaw! If “B. T.” was going to allow himself to be injured he would not have waited until he had shaken the dust of the jungle from his feet.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXIV.

Praise from lips so fair was praise indeed. I seized her hand and held it so long that I forgot I had it and almost put it back in my pocket with my own.

“Excuse me,” I stammered, handing it back to her, “I always hate to let a good thing go.”

“I didn’t know but that you were going to keep it until you had gotten your photo back,” she said archly.

“Perhaps that would be a good idea,” I replied, reaching outward again. She put both hands behind her for safe keeping, and resumed:

“I suppose you have been wondering about your photograph? I should have returned it long ago, but have been waiting for another magazine to start up. They are starting up every little while, you know, and I am certain I shall be able to use it sooner or later. It is perfectly safe; I keep it where I can watch it very closely. It is on my dresser,” she blushed very prettily.

“I’m sure it is in good hands so long as it is on your dresser,” I replied. “Fact is, I haven’t wondered so much about the photograph as about yourself.”

“Indeed, have you wondered about me? How kind of you. I didn’t suppose anybody ever wondered about me.”

“And why not?”

“O, I am such an insignificant being in this great, busy world, you know.”

I was about to tell her that she hadn’t the slightest idea of how much importance she was when a lucky thought flashed upon the screen of my thinkery. Here was a clever, ambitious young woman, pretty in the extreme, fair of form and feature, who really wanted to do something. I had long harbored the idea of doing a magazine of my own. What a fascinating and helpful assistant she would make! The thought came to me with such a shock that I must have colored up to the roots of my hair, which in those days began at about the usual place.

:My dear Miss Interviewer,” I said, enthusiastically, “I have a great scheme in mind; a proposition to make you, and I hope it will strike you favorably. Don’t say no! I have long been thinking about it, and need just such a person as you help carry it along; will you be my assistant?”

“O, my, this is so sudden!” she exclaimed under her breath, while her eyes dropped confusedly.

Just at that trying moment the lights of the hall went out.

(To be continued.)

______

Till Something Drops

Little drops of money,

     Little grains of gall,

And careless banking elders

     Make a mighty haul.

______

Easy Essays

THE GOAT

The goat is mainly useful as a butt for jokers. Unlike most animals, he, or she, is very easy to keep. In fact, the goat hardly needs a keeper. If let run in any well decorated dooryard, he will keep himself very well. It is his name that gives the most trouble. Although all goats don’t look alike, they are all named alike. That is, all boy goats are named “William,” while all girl goats are named “Nannie.”

Consequently, you go out on your own back doorstep and call either “William” or “Nannie,” and most any old goat in the neighborhood, if yours is missing, will butt in where he isn’t wanted.

The goat gives milk, but not free-gratis. You have to work for it. The goat doesn’t give as much milk as the cow, or the creamery, unless, of course, the goat is as big as the cow, which it never is. The goat’s milk is richer than the cow’s and makes stronger butter. Canned milk is not necessarily goat’s milk because it is canned, but if a goat chews to give canned milk it can.

____________

Mar. 1, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Uncle Ezra Says:

“To him who hath not shall be given a chance to part with that which he hath.”

______

Tourist Note

The most noticeable thing about some of the small western towns are the tanks standing in the neighborhood of the railroad stations.

______

Female Chanticlers

Alas! That the women should crow over men,

     They simply won’t do as they us’ter;

They not only want to pose as the hen,

     But wear what belongs to the ruster.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A NEAR-AUTOBIOGRAPHY

(Continued.)

XXV.

It wasn’t fate that caused the hall lights to go out so suddenly; it was the independent and ungentlemanly janitor. Sentimental people would have called it fate, but I call it names – under my breath.

To our astonishment the hall was empty. We had been whispering sweet nothings regardless of the aviation of time or surroundings, and the janitor, who had long since passed the blissful stage of puppy-love, had turned the lights out on us. At once I made a mental note that thereafter janitors would be numbered in my hammer book along with plumbers, hoboes, spring poets and ex-Presidents.

The most natural thing for a woman to do when she is suddenly left in the dark is to give a little cry, then grab something. I was the nearest thing to the interviewer. The most natural thing for a man to do, when a weak woman seizes him for protection, is to protect her. I pressed my claim, and fought off a thousand imaginary foes.

By the time we had made our way, slowly and carefully, down the darkened stairs to the street she was reassured, and once her mind was free of the idea of bats, hobgoblins and other monsters of the dark, humorists included, she was her old joyous self again.

“My, but that was a close call for you,” I said, as we emerged from the door.

“And for you also; weren’t you afraid?”

“Well, I was a long way from home, that’s a fact.”

On the way to her house I began to express my opinion of janitors in general when she stopped me suddenly.

“You mustn’t say anything about the janitor of the hall,” she said, severely.

“Why not; didn’t he play us a mean trick?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s funny, he is,” she said, laughing. “He’s always afraid I won’t have a –  a steady beau.”

“Why, who is he?”

“He’s my – my uncle Henry,” she replied.

                             *            *            *            *            *            *

The early disclosures of family history have shattered many a romance. I didn’t tarry at the front gate that memorable evening, nor did I start the publication of the little magazine as soon as I had intended. I left her in the dull gray of the evening and sought my bachelor apartments, wondering if life were a joke, a tragedy or merely a pleasant reading.

About the time I had Bill Nye discouraged and Mark Twain driven into serious writing, a brand-new humorist loomed up on the journalistic horizon. He wasn’t much to look at, nor could he have proved himself a genuine joke-cracker by anything he had foisted upon the great West public he had just quit, but when his column appeared in a Boston daily one morning something like seven years ago, its readers sat up and took notice. I, as a steady reader of the paper in question, did more than merely sit up and take notice, I stood up.

“Here,” I declared, “is a clear case of trespass; a humorist blown in here from the West, right here under my very nose, to do a daily column of humor against mine of weekly occurrence, unheralded and unsung, and without asking my permission or consulting me in any way.”

I decided to write him a personal letter, asking him who he were, and what his intentions was, which I did immediately on the spur of the resolution.      

(To Be Continued.)

______

Additional Quatrains

(“Busy Men,” published Feb. 26, 1910.)

Sam Bird an army man was.

     Though nothing of a dove;

He didn’t love to fight, they say,

     But often fought for love.

Castillian he attended

     With nicely powdered face;

But now he faces powder

     With no uncommon grace.

Malden Hospital.               W. M. P.

I studied conic sections once.

     Since then I’ve wiser grown;

For now, instead of cones, I con

     The sections of Joe Cone.

Arlington.                         W. H. H.

____________

Mar. 2, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Uncle Ezra Says:

“It’s mighty hard work to git ahead uv anybuddy who’s goin’ jest ez fast ez you be.”

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXVI.

I felt that I couldn’t let this intrusion go unchallenged; that if he proved to be the kind of humorist Boston needed, then I would extend him a welcome hand and allow him to remain. But if, on the other hand, he should prove to be a reckless humorist, one who should have a tendency to throw Boston into unseemly convulsions, when I knew it to be contrary to Boston’s traditions to convulse, then I should feel obliged to attack him in my column in the Banner and drive him to some remote section of the country where coarse laughter and ribaldry would be tolerated.

Consequently, after hours of due deliberation, in which I consulted the biographies of other noted humorists, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman and others, I penned the following and mailed it to the newspaper in which this new-born humorist was boldly appearing every morning:

                                  “Bilford Banner Office.

“Mr. Olden Oldquirk:

“Dear Sir – I have casually noticed for four consecutive mornings your column of ‘All Shorts’ in a Boston daily paper, and hereby take the liberty of addressing you on the ground that I am in the same melancholy business, on a smaller scale, and naturally feel interested in you and your work, more particularly the latter. In the first place, I wish to congratulate you upon the excellent start you have made, and only trust you may be able to keep up the high standard you have initiated. There is a serious undertone to your work which is admirable. I also wish to congratulate the management of your paper for having the courage to break away from the bleak, gray, Bostonese atmosphere and publish something besides straight news and obituary notices.

"I don’t want to seem curious of unnecessarily brusque, but would like to inquire if you have ever done a humor column before, and if so, where, and if you are a member of the ‘Smile Producers’ Union,’ and if you brought a license to operate in Boston? It may be news to you to learn that there is such an organization extent (or is it extant?), and that one, to do business in the New England district, the permit must be duly signed by me,

“Perhaps it would simplify and also expedite matters if we could have a get-together meet soon in some high-class Boston hotel, at your expense, and talk it over. I will meet you any day you say, at any hour, excepting mornings from 12:30 to 7:30 A. M., as those are the hours I like to sleep if there is any need to be had. Then, if a second meeting is necessary, we can get together out here in Bilford in a lunch car, at my expense. I think this is a fair proposition, and one that will appeal to you immensely, and which will, I am sure, look towards your best interests. Very truly yours,

                                  “                     .”

“P. S. – I am enclosing you a few sample columns of my work in the Banner. It might be well for you to peruse them carefully, inasmuch as you are a stranger here, and it may give you an inkling as to what kind of humor goes best around this section.

“P. S. (two) – In case you make an appointment with me, state in your answer what you are going to wear, so that I may know you through your disguise.   Merrily yours,                                   .”

(To be continued.)

______

Journalistic Note

Foxy Life! It’s “Improper Number” was followed by an “advanced price” number! However, the curious deserve what the bee furnishes.

______

Chanticler in Gungawamp

Hank Stubbs – I’m hesitatin’ at the cross-roads uv love an’ duty/

Bige Miller – What’s up now, Hank?

Hank Stubbs – Waal, my wife wants me to kill off the ol’ ruster so’s she kin make a “Chanticler” bunnit, an’ you know what good rusters are fetchin’ nowdays!

____________

Mar. 3, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

When You’ve Got Enough

(James Patten, the grain king, is reported to have cleaned up $12,000,000 and will retire. “What’s the use of any more? he asks)

He should live in history,

     And ages bless his name.

Let his photograph be hung

     Upon the walls of fame.

Let his words be chiseled deep

     On monument and bluff:

“What’s the use of any more

     When one has got enough?”

Few are like him in this age

     Of “grab and never stop”;

For some captains of finance

     There’s no such word as “top.”

But Patten, modest, content,

     Is of the right good stuff;

“What’s the use,” says he, “of more

     When one has got enough?”

Twelve millions, a modest sum,

     Enough to eke along;

Then let the world have the rest –

     In him can be no wrong.

O, would more like Patten were,

     Life wouldn’t be so tough.

“What’s the use of any more

     When one has got enough?”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Give the average youngster a chance, an’ he won’t want so much else.”

______

Cheerful Comment

There is something in a name after all: It belongs to its owner.

Looks like some of the Vermont towns had gotten tired of a maple surrup beverage.

“Gov. Draper blames high living.” So do we. We even go so far as to call it bad names.

Looks like those Cleveland paragraphers, who have been hitting at the Paris flood, are to have the hose turned on themselves.

There are so many “poor people” who die and leave fortunes behind them that one is almost tempted to remain poor.

Seems as though Hop’ Smith had reputation enough, of a substantial kind, without knocking a few defenceless cities off their perches.

And there will be those who will say that Mr. Roosevelt’s leaving was merely accidental, and that he didn’t know anything about the approaching fever.

______

Beating the Game

“Nothing risked is nothing gained,”

     A saying old, and sometimes true;

More frequently the gain is got

     By bunco gets, and not by you.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography.

XXVII.

In an amazingly short time, seemingly by return mail, I received the following reply:

                        “All Shorts Office, Boston.

“Mr. Jay Coen (see footnote),

“Bilford Banner Office,

              “Bilford, Mass.:

“Dear Sir – Your s-teamed letter of this morning duly received and contents noted, but not necessarily comprehended. I am amazed that you should dare address me so familiarly and handle my name in so blithe a manner, making light of my occupation, which to me seems most serious and far above unseemly levity. You say you are engaged in the same kind of business. I suppose you refer to the writing of humor? I am surprised at your broad statement. Nothing in your letter would lead me to suspect that you were engaged in anything except perhaps as caretaker in a morgue.

“I have never heard of you, or of the Bilford Banner, but probably that is my own fault, as well as misfortune. I have never been around much, and my reading is confined to my own column and a volume of Thoreau.

“There must have been some mistake in your enclosure, which you say are columns of humor of yours clipped from the Banner. Are you sure you haven’t sent me clippings of weekly items from some of the rural districts?

“Taking your cross-examining in order, I would say that I once wrote a humor column for a well-known western paper which failed shortly after I began writing for it. I want you to understand however, that my contributions had absolutely nothing to do with its passing away. I learned afterward that it had an incurable disease before I joined its staff.

“I am not a member if the “Smile Producers’ Union. I have always made it a point to avoid depressing surroundings, but will say that I have a license to operate in and around Boston, which was issued to me by the “Merry Undertakers’ Society,’ which order has picked up a good deal since my appearance here.

“I should be very glad to meet you, say day after tomorrow at 1, in front of the            House, this city, and go out with you to lunch. My credit in Boston, as yet, isn’t as good as my intentions, but no one can accuse me of not being a dead game sport when hard pressed, therefore I will shake with you to see who will ante up for the beans and coffee. (See footnote A.)

“I am willing to eat on you at some future time out in Bilford, as you suggest, but hesitate about parting with my digestion in a lunch car. What would be the matter with buying a whole custard pie and dividing it on the steps of the Bilford office?

“You ask me what I am going to wear when I meet you? I shall wear clothes, as usual. It is a little early in the season for shedding, besides, as you must know, the streets of Boston are not overheated on a raw day. So that you may know me, I will smile twice in succession as you approach, and will make the sign of lifting something foaming from a table up to where the smiles begin.

                        “Joyfully yours,

                                  “OLDEN OLDQUIRK.

“Footnote – I have decided the footnote would better be left unsung.

“P. S. – Pardon my plainness, but I wish it understood that there is nothing doing financially just because I am a stranger in your midst. The last time I met a humorist was in Cleveland, and I remember him exactly $10 worth. I am not insinuating, only it’s just as well to have those trifling matters understood,

“Footnote A – Or I will run you a 100-yard dash from Scollay square to Boyston street through Washington.

                                           “Finally, O. O.”

(To be continued.)

____________

Mar. 4, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Thomas A. Daly

(Editor of the Catholic Standard and Times and ex-President of the American Press Humorists.)

Welcome to our city, Tom,

     Good old Thomas Daly;

Strike the cymbal and pom-pom,

     Sound the bugles gayly.

Let the flag, red, white and blue,

And the one of greener hue

Wave their folds to welcome you,

     Good old Thomas Daly.

Shure the city’s at your fate,

     Fine ould Thomas Daly;

Markin’ footsteps to the bate

     Av your big shilally.

Let the bagpipes, your spalpeen,

Play the “Wearin’ av the Green”

For ouuld March the Sivinteen,

     An’ for Thomas Daly.

Glad for see Tomasso here,

     Gooda Meester Daly;

Dago man he clap an’ cheer

     Maka heem feel gayly.

Walcom’ from da Dagoman,

Com’ see hees peanutta stan’,

Geeva you da good banan’,

     Nica Meester Daly.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“A good many people learn to swim, but it’s the kind uv swimmin’ that don’t keep ‘em long above water.”

______

Aviation Note

It’s been a long time now since an aerial transportation company has been formed. What’s the matter, aren’t the lines already organized doing a paying business yet?

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A NEAR-AUTOBIOGRAPHY

XXVIII.

Did you ever, in your dreams, walk through a sunlit wood, whose paths were lined with golden coins, whose tree trunks were blazing with gems, and all you had to do was wander round and select the very largest and best? You will remember, doubtless, how you filled your pockets until they became weighted down and you walked with difficulty, and just as you emerged from the wood with all your wealth and caught sight of your home, you woke up!

Again, perhaps, you have, in your dreams, been elected to a high office, and you were about to take your seat of honor. You were attended by courtiers in gilt braid; a hidden band was playing, and beautiful women were on either side of the passage where you were to ascend the steps. All was ermine, silks and jewels. You ascended a step or two and then        stubbed your toe and fell. What a disappointment to awaken to find you had merely fallen out of bed!

Alas! We have our disappointments in our dreams, and we also have them in real life. Perhaps the greatest disappointment of my life was the occasion of the meeting of the humorist in question. Somehow I had fondly hoped that he would at least look like a humorist.

He was a small, smooth-shaven youth, keen-eyed, carefully groomed, dressed in the height of fashion and holding an immense Scotch Collie by a chain. Too prosperous looking altogether for a humorist, I thought, consequently disappointing. I felt more like saying, “The carriage waits, me lord,” than what I had framed up to say, “Hullo, Bill, how be yeh?”

Finally the ice was broken, and he led me, he in turn being led by the dog, to a high-grade eatery just off Washington Street. “Gee,” I whispered to myself, “there’s all kinds of class to this; I hope I don’t have to shake for the checks.” I soon learned that the dog’s name was “Mac,” and soon “Mac” and I became very good friends. I wasn’t at all afraid of “Mac”; he and I seemed to understand one another.

I may honestly say that I never enjoyed a meal more than my first one with “All Shorts,” for I could see by the way he was steering things that he was well acquainted in the place, probably an old haunt of his, and that he was going to pay for the sumptuous layout. How human nature will crop out on occasions of that kind! How the knowledge that you are to pay the bill will take away your appetite! But it never takes away the other fellow’s; all of which is strange.

The little humorist told me of the great West, and something of his past life, which for certain reasons I cannot publish here. I wouldn’t give away information about my friends even though I were taking chances with the law.

From that time on we became fast friends. Not fast friends in the sense you may be thinking, gentle reader, or in the sense that we have frequently been accused by jealous rivals, but fast friends with a slow and steady gait.

(To Be Continued.)

______

Father “Jocosity”

(Contributed.)

O, Cone, you’ve twined my thoughts around,

     You’ve got me on the string;

You’ve tapped the founts of verdant youth

     Whence all poetics spring.

They “auto” bury you in verse,

     For your “auto-bio-graph”

Is Over-speeding down the road –

     It’s making people laff.

But if your “auto” skids again

     With a damsel in the dark,

Don’t tell us, for we won’t believe

     You don’t know how to spark!

     Brockton.                L. M. C.

______

Airship Talk

Pilot – Wonder what all that commotion is down there?

Passenger (using glass) – Looks like a riot in that town on the left. Over on the right they’ve had a head-on railroad collision. Way ahead there appears to be a section of some city afire.

Pilot – Gee! I’m glad I’ve got through working on the earth.

______

“Unanswered Yet”

“Do you think Washington was a greater President than Roosevelt, pa?”

“I cannot tell a lie, my boy. It’s time for me to catch my car in town.”

______

The Soilers

“These Martians are a limited lot, seems to me.”

“Why so?”

“They don’t appear to be engaged in anything except digging canals.”

____________

The Idees of Abner Pease

“It beats all holler how the world

     Will take a man’s idees

An’ not give credit for the same,”

     Said Uncle Abner Pease.

“Here I hev preached for forty year

     Thet farmin’ life’s the best;

Thet farmer folks are better off

     Than any uv the rest.”

“I’ve said it o’er an’ o’er ag’in,

     An’ told the reason why;

I’ve pictured it in glowin’ terms,

     An’ spread it fur an’ nigh.

I’ve ‘lowed the tillin’ uv the soil

     Wuz best fur all mankind;

An ‘ev’ry man around this town

     Says ‘Humph!’ an’ scratched his mind.

An’ now the pollertician chaps,

     Frum Taft all down the line,

Are praisin’ farmin’ to the skies –

     Thet ol’ idee of mine.

Beats all how big men uv the world

     Will steal a chap’s idees;

Next one I git I’m goin’ to keep!”

     Says Uncle Abner Pease.

Mar. 5, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Spring’s Here

In the spring a poet’s verses often turn to mother earth,

And of rhymes to fit the season there is never any dearth;

Doves are cooing, lovers wooing, nature putting forth the bud,

Trout are leaping, frogs-a-peeping, turtles pushing through the mud.

Sonnets to the fading winter as it lingers in spring’s lap,

Odes to trees where tender leaflets answer to the rush of sap;

Sun-kissed flowers, welcome showers, turning meadows into green,

But why retail all this detail? Buy an April magazine!

     Dorchester.                     H. E. F.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Ez a man thinketh so is the world to him.”

______

The Faithful Clerk

Employer – I can’t raise your pay, young man; you watch the clock too much.

Clerk – That clock, if I am not mistaken, was given you by friends, wasn’t it, and you value it highly?

Employer – Yes, but what has that to do with it?

Clerk – Knowing you valued the clock so highly, I thought I was doing a good thing by keeping an eye on it.

Employer – Your advance will begin from last Monday morning.

______

A Cold Cream Scheme

Little Ethel – Mamma, my neck is awful sore.

Mamma – Rub some cold cream on it, dear.

Little Ethel – But it’s sore on the outside, mamma.

Mamma – Then you’d best gargle it.

Little Ethel (after a moment) – I know some cold cream that would be good for it, mamma; some ice cream.

______

Pavement Philosophy

There is also the ugly smile.

A sorehead is usually self-inflicted.

Whiskey doesn’t drown sorrow; it merely floats it.

“Easy come and easy go” is followed up by want and woe.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing to argue against.

Opportunity merely taps at your door; it doesn’t break it down.

“Cold hands, warm heart,” they say, but how would it match up with cold feet?

The long-distance telephone is a great time saver and money spender.

The longest way round is the surest way to wealth for the taxi owner.

Tell your troubles to a policeman, but not if you have brought them on yourself.

The under dog gets the sympathy, but what he wants most of all is the belt.

Some people look in store windows, not to see the goods, but to see if their hats are on straight.

Eating sweets continually on the part of many girls doesn’t always have the desired effect.

It is said old age steals upon us. There is no need for old age to do anything of the kind; he will do it anyway, and might as well do it in the open.

______

After Dinner Note

The fellow who has a story to fit every occasion is all right if the occasions don’t come too often.

______

Music

(Contributed.)

When teased to death with time’s absurd unrest,

     When thought disowns me, and when speech disdains,

     When poetry from all her wiles refrains,

Then music takes me to her siren breast

And my body revives, by sound caressed.

     Then mount I up to heaven on a note

     Of love and joy from music’s golden throat,

And, listening, all my life seems new and blest.

O, magic art, creatively divine!

     What wit can fathom thy mysterious power?

     Tell me what is the fragrance of a flower,

Or the horizon’s sunset blush define,

     Or seize the rainbow when to earth it leans,

     And I will guess what music is, and means.

     Somerville.             H. A. KENDALL.

______

In Union Is Strength

(Contributed.)

              One snowflake’s fall

              Is nothing at all,

But a trillion million billion,

    Multiplied over and over again,

By a trillion million billion,

              Will stop the rush

              Of a city’s crush,

    Or the heaviest railroad train.

Melrose.                              T. F.

______

A Brilliant Idea

Beacon – This town ought to have double sidewalks; sort of express pavements, don’t you know.

Hill – I don’t follow.

Beacon – Why, one sidewalk for those in a hurry, and one for the time killers.

____________

Mar. 6, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Barber and the Bunco

(Apologies to T. A. D.)

De beega man he com’ for shave,

     An’ getta een my chair;

He wanta face massage, an’ want

     Cologna for hees hair.

He teepa me an’ geeva me

     Seegar weeth banda on;

Den aska me, so lika frand:

     “You maka playnta mon’?”

I tal heem I mak’ gooda leev’,

     Not mooch besides. He say:

“I showa you how maka mon’,

     Beeg rolla evra day.”

He showa me rolla he has made,

     Fi’ t’ousan’ dollar; my!

“I lika for maka heem,” I say,

     An’ daen he weenk hees eye.

“I maka heem New York,” he say,

     “I maka sam’ for you;

Geeva me one t’ousan’ for eenvest,

     I breeng you backa two.”

I theenk awhile, den say to heem:

     “Axcusa me, ma son,

I tanka you all sam’, but I

     No lika New York mon’.”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“A cane jest now is a cheaper staff uv life than bread, but not so fillin’.”

______

Blynn’s Castaways

“Cast your bread upon the waters and after many days, etc,        ”

“I don’t follow.”

“For instance, I furnished Blynn’s matches for several days, and this morning he gave me a big cigar.”

“He gave me one yesterday and, after trying it, I was glad to cast it upon the waters.”

______

Tough on the Old Block

Beacon – Which would you prefer, a pretty daughter or an intelligent one?

Hill – I could be happy if mine were either.

______

Local Lines

Hope Mayor Fitzgerald, before he builds the East Boston bridge, will remove the broken lamp-post on the corner of Franklin and Washington streets.

The way the average street car conductor holds out his hand and asks for your fare is something “fierce!” This idea is not wholly original, but we refrain from mentioning our brother humorist’s name for fear he might come around trying to collect one.

____________

Mar. 7, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Midnight Oil

Are you a burner of midnight oil?

     A toiler while others sleep?

Do you spend your hours in dreary toil,

     In the silence dark and deep?

Do you turn your night to blinding day,

     And think that will suffice?

Do you buy your knowledge in such a way?

     If you do, you will pay the price.

Don’t burn too much of the midnight oil,

     The supply cannot always last;

Mere man is a creature of the soil,

     Returning unto it at last.

Besides, let me whisper in your ear,

     There’s hardly a need to shout,

You are but injuring your health, my dear,

     And helping the Standard out.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“A good many people hev the courage uv their convictions, while a good many more hev the courage of their assumptions.”

______

The Fisherman’s Joy

The fish that bites

     And gets away

May bite you hook

     Another day.

At any rate

     He thus supplies

The chance to tell

     Some corking lies.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXIX.

After we had gotten comfortable seated at the table, with “Mac” stretched at full length underneath, the humorist scaled the menu card at me and said:

“What are you going to have?”

“O, I – I guess I’ll have an – an oyster stew,” I replied, with uncertainty.

The humorist laughed heartily. They all laugh heartily when it’s at the expense of someone else.

“Do you know what month it is?” he queried.

“Why, it’s – it’s Thursday, I believe.”

“Yes, the last Thursday in June. Oysters are not now. They are not even on the half-shell; they are on the bum.”

“I knew you were to pay for them – I mean I think that’s very funny, because oysters are good all the year round down our way, because we hardly ever have any.”

“I accept your forgiveness,” he said, seating himself again. “Oysters are good here only certain seasons of the year; other times they go into their shells and stay there till the ‘R’ comes on again.”

“Ah!” said I.

“No; ‘R,’” said he.

“Ah, ‘R,’ I see. Ha, ha!”

He was about to set “Mac” on me, when he thought better of it and handed me a cigarette. Confidentially, I would have preferred “Mac,” because the cigarette was one of those long, rough ones from Pittsburg.

And so the meal progressed. Wit and humor, among other things, flowed freely and constantly, and by and by we got so well acquainted that several times we shook hands across the table and vowed eternal loyalty and friendship.

“Let me give you a pointer,” said he, assuming a cosmopolitan air; “When you go into an hotel or an restaurant, don’t ever order a oyster stew. Folks will size you up for a Rube right away. It’s all right to order oysters in any other form except in trouble – I mean in a stew. Why, it’s just the same as eating peanuts on the Boston Common. Nobody thinks of shelling peanuts on Boston Common except emigrants from Cambridge, Winthrop, Somerville and other remote sections, who come here with their families to spend the day. No; ordering oyster stews and shelling peanuts are sure signs of realism – I mean ruralism.”

“You mean un-shelling peanuts, don’t you?”

“Un-shelling? Is that right?”

“Sure thing; down our way, when we remove the shell from a peanut we un-shell it.”

“You don’t say? Say, old boy, if you don’t mind, I’ll devote my whole column tomorrow morning to that subject. A fine topic for ‘All Shorts,’ eh? ‘When you shell a peanut you un-shell it.’ Great! That’s good for 500 letters from my readers. Let’s shake on it and have another – another shigarrette; what’d you shay?”

“I think I’d prefer another piece of squash pie, if you don’t mind.”

(To be continued.)

______

Poor Spacing

(Contributed.)

On        Sunday        in        the        churches

     This        is        how        they        sit;

OnMondayintheplayhouse

     Thisishowtheyfit.

Isn’t        it        a        pity,

     Butwhocanalterit?

     Melrose.                              T. F.

______

Which?

These very large hats the ladies now wear,

Does this account for the great wealth of hair?

Or are they obliged to wind it round rats

the balance their aeroplane, chantecler hats?

     Dorchester.                             H. E. F.

______

Daisy’s Sad Fate

The members of the American Press Humorist’s Association will be rather proud, we are inclined to think, that their ex-president, Frank T. Searight of Los Angeles, has developed talents as a detective which put Sherlock Holmes on a high shelf. While in a hurry the other day, Frank went to a restaurant to satisfy his hunger with a link of wienerwurst. Before the tidbit had half disappeared, he bit into a tag. It was a dog tag, No. 4413. Of course the humorist was put out of humor, and he said things about the beef trust which caused its good friend, the restaurant man, to suggest he had better say them outside.

It occurred to Searight to discover, if possible, just what brand of dog he had been eating, because there are some dogs that no gentleman would care to eat. Going to the City Hall and examining the license clerk’s record, he made the discovery that the dog belongs to Miss Anna Bell. “It is a Scotch terrier,” said the clerk.

“I’ve eaten her. Better cancel the record,” said Searight, as he sadly left the place to inform Miss Bell what had become of Daisy, who had been missing three weeks. There are dogs a heap worse than a Scotch terrier. – H. S. Ruddy, in the Rochester Herald.

____________

Mar. 8, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Signs of Spring

Pussy willers on the bank,

     Bullfrogs in the pool;

Boys a-draggin’ lazy feet

     To an’ from the school.

Sulphur off the pantry shelf,

     Mixed with ‘lasses rare;

Cattle sheddin’ uv their fur –

     Spring is in the air.

Grass is turnin’ south the house

     To a newer green;

Mother’s daily tellin’ pa

     She must start to clean.

Seen a bluebird yesterday,

     Heered a robin sing;

Bees a-buzzin’ in the hive,

     Gee! It’s comin’ spring.

Then I feel it in my soul,

     Things begin to start.

They’s a swellin’ in my breast,

     An’ a gladder heart.

Poetry jest bubbles up

     Like a fresh dug spring;

When all natur’ starts the song

     Feller’s got to sing!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Usually the roasts thet never reach the oven are too well done.”

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXX.

The post card philosopher who wrote, “Life is just one d       d thing after another,” hit the nail on the head, and drove it home. That is the way life seems most of the time. There should, however, be another one printed, a companion to the first, which should read, “Life is just one good thing after another,” to fit the good days. They should be placed on the wall, side by side, so that one could pay his money and take his choice. One is appropriate today and one tomorrow.

There is no such thing as standing still. Even the old horse hitched to a post outside the village tavern switches his tail constantly and stamps off the flies. A man either goes forward or backward. The young man in the swirl of town life is carried along the swift stream towards success or else is sucked beneath it and lost in the whirlpool.

It is undoubtedly true, as has been said, that the man writing for the public makes a new friend every day. No mention is made of the number of enemies. True it is that the circle of his acquaintances enlarges daily, and it is inevitable that sooner or later clubs, societies and organizations of various kinds will claim him. All this is right, from one point of view, and is in the nature of things.

The young author begins strong, and produces much. He devotes a great deal of time to his work. As he approaches success, possibly with one foot already on the threshold, more and more demand is made upon his time. He must speak much in public, and must banquet with banqueters. The pink tea claims him, and invariably carries him off. Just when he is at his best, and should devote himself almost exclusively to his work, the social robber has him by the throat, and if he is not extremely careful he will spend the rest of his days with a dainty cup of tea in one hand and a lady finger in the other, gently slipping down the toboggan of oblivion, vainly thinking of what he might have been had he attended to business.

This is not the fate of all authors, but the possibility is before them all. Occasionally there is a Kipling, in strength of character anyway, who can say to himself, “I like the social tea, but O you manuscript!”

There is another temptation that constantly assails the young author, and that is the publisher who, by accident, “discovers” him and who wants to publish his books. It is one of the most cheering aspects of (young) authorship, the fact that there has been a keen-eyed and discriminating publisher who has watched his rapid rise in the literary world, and who is desirous of bringing out his book, or books, the more the merrier. The bait looks most tempting and is well worth describing in a chapter of these “confessions.”

(To be continued.)

______

Local Lines

The sight-seeing wagon will soon be one of the “sights.”

Members of a local walking club have several plans on foot.

The welcome street solderers are again stopping the leaks on Tremont street.

Boston stage hands are about to start an anti-hat pin crusade; see the point?

______

The Query Box

(WE are not conducting a “Lost Love” or a “How to Be Beautiful” department, but occasionally similar queries find their way to our desk, either by mistake or premeditated. We don’t think we would be a howling success as a conductor of such departments, though we might fill in as a brakeman.)

Merry May – How can I make my eyes brighter? By looking onto ours, May.

Polly -Try to reform the young man before you marry him. If he is what you say he is, he probably won’t be at home long enough at any one time after you are married to hear a dozen words of your conversation.

Jessamine – Do you think it nice for a girl to be a manicurist and have to hold every old hand that comes along? No, Jessamine, we do not, though we suppose all men feel as we do; we like to have ours held as often and long as possible. You must remember, Jessamine, that a manicurist can’t manicure one pair of hands all the time, no matter how much she would like to.

Pansy – Doubtless your husband’s safety razor would remove your warts if properly applied, but would you be using your husband rightly? You have no more right to use his safety razor against his knowledge than he would have to wear your switch without your knowledge or consent.

______

Hard Up

It’s hard to sit

     And work all day,

While others stand

     Around and play.

But harder still,

     While others shirk,

Would be to stand

     Around and work.

____________

March 9, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Call of the Soil

Come back to my arms and dwell in peace,

     Ye weary of town and toil;

Come back to the rest of my green-clad breast,

     Come back to the peace of the soil.

Your face is the face of the town-made man,

     It is narrow and cramped with care;

Come out of your lives in human hives,

     Come out where the world is fair.

Whatever you need I can give you here,

     I have gold, I have food and clothes;

But better than wealth I can give you health,

     I can give you rest and repose.

I can give you breath from the verdant fields,

     The birds, and their songs of love;

I can give you the sleep that is pure and deep,

     That the city knows nothing of.

I have room for each weary child of town,

     I have acres of virgin soil;

I long for the thrill of the plow and till,

     I long for the touch of toil.

Come back, come back to the arms that wait,

     All ye weary of town’s turmoil;

Come back to the rest of my green-clad breast,

     Come back to the peace of the soil.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“You can’t allus tell by the looks uv a balky motor car  which way it’s goin’ to jump.”

______

Signs of Activity

“Vesuvius is again active.”

“Doubtless the bank examiners are at work inside.”

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXXI.

After opening a morning’s mail, only to find that six out of six envelopes contained rejected manuscripts, what a joy to find the seventh contains an unsolicited letter from a publisher; a real publisher. How the heart of the young author thrills, and how the disappointments of years fade away into the mists of the past as his eager eyes fly back and forth across the pages of a letter somewhat after the following:

“My Dear Author: Having noticed your work in some of the more prominent magazines and newspapers throughout the country, we take great pleasure in telling you that we have found much of promise therein, and predict for you an enviable literary career, and we hereby wish to place before you a proposition in which we believe you will be interested.

“Why not publish a volume of your own works? Why be forever buried in the mere pages of a magazine, or be cast the next day into an ash barrel along with the advertisements and scandals of the daily paper? Surely you have been before the public long enough now, so there should be a flattering demand for your work in permanent form. We are in position to make you a most astonishing offer, and our facilities for publishing and advertising books of verse are almost unlimited.

“We will print and bind 1000 copies of your excellent poems and advertise them in our usual way for the nominal sum of $500, and take our chances as to the disposal of them, allowing you the usual 15 per cent. royalty after the costs of publishing have been deducted. You cannot afford to miss this opportunity. You have absolutely nothing to do except furnish us the manuscripts and – the $500.

“As a compliment to you, and to show you that we are truly interested in the launching of worthy young authors before the public, will will present you gratis 25 elegently bound copies of your book for yourself and for distribution among your friends. Enclosed you will find contract blanks which please fill out and return to us with your manuscripts – and the $500. Very truly yours,

              “THE HALF-SKIN-PRESS,

                                  “Book Publishers.”

The above is a letter, in substance, which I received from one of those numerous “friendly-to-young-authors” publishers. After a few days’ reflection upon so great an opportunity to get before the public between covers, I wrote the following reply:

(To be continued.)

______

At last is the thick-skulled man vindicated. Heretofore it has been a question with him whether he should stand forth in the lime-light and assert himself the equal of his thin-skulled brother. No longer need he harbor any such numb-skulled notions. By a decision handed down by the Travers City, Mich., court, it seems that the thin-skulled man mustn’t expect the same protection of the law that is given the thick-skulled man. In other words, the thin-skulled man is to blame if he gets a swat on the head and thereby becomes damaged. He has no business to have a thin-skulled head upon his person. Here is how it came about: One Caleb Cox, a butcher, struck Frank Hardy over the head and fractured his skull because Frank was protesting the high-price beef bill. A post-mortem examination showed that Hardy’s skull was abnormally thin. The court found that a similar blow on a thick skull wouldn’t have caused death, so Cox got off with a $100 fine for assault.

This must be a time of rejoicing for the thick skulls. Now can the thick-skulled man sally forth and say: “Fracture my skull if you want to, old man, but if you do you will get the full voltage of the law.”

______

Owning Up

“How’s business now?”

“Pretty rotten.”

“You don’t say? What are you engaged in?

“Cold-storing eggs.”

____________

Mar. 10, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Uncle Ezra Says:

“About the time a man thinks he’s the hull works, you kin look for a shut-down.”

______

Cheerful Comment

High flying at Newport the coming season.

Nearly time to provide yourself a fly spatter.

Next thing you know we’ll be having a wedding by wireless.

There appear to be some hard knocks ahead yet for Philander Jr.

Will poor old Bwana Tumbo, in the end, be obliged to take a tree?

If you see a bogus ten-cent piece pass it by letting it alone.

Two French aviators have found that two aeroplanes can’t pass on the same rail any more than two steamboats.

That Lynn youth of 85 tender years who wants to marry again, will probably have to ask the consent of his children or his grandchildren.

If we have got to go through another north pole griddling, and it looks as though we have, we will at once and forever refuse to donate even a plugged quarter to the proposed south pole expedition.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXXII.

                                           “Bilford Banner Office.

“The Half-Skin Press,

         “Book Publishers,

“Dear sirs: Your very kind and interesting letter duly received, and considered. I say, ‘kind and interesting,’ but I mean interesting of its kind. At first your noble proposition looked good to me, and then I rubbed my glasses. Then I scratched my head a little and pinched myself to see if I was awake. And the more I rubbed and scratched and pinched the more my point of view changed. At first I thought on account of the very plastic name of your firm, ‘The Half-Skin Press,’ that you were kidding me; the name suggested it. If I was in error I trust you will pardon me.

“I think you would do more business, with kids at least, if you would call your firm ‘The Half-Calf Press,’ or ‘The Calf-Skin Press.’ However, I dare say you know more about your own business than I do, but at the same time I think perhaps you know your business better than you know your public.

“Of course I feel grateful to you for seeing the great merit in my works. I have suspected it for a long time myself, but you know how a fellow feels about anything of that kind. He’d rather have somebody else say something about it first.

“You are right; there is a flattering demand for my work, but you are a little misled about the nature of the work demanded. The greatest demand for my work is around the woodpile, lugging up coal, keeping the back veranda clean and shoveling off the sidewalk when it snows.

“At first I didn’t see how you could possibly publish 1000 copies of my poems for the paltry sum of $500. Since receiving your letter I have been doing a little figuring on my own hook, and being in the printing business myself, I have access to prices of stock and shrinkage. As a result I shrink from telling you what I think of your office and of your desire to help budding young authors. The only way I can see that you would help me would be to help relieve me of the $500, which I haven’t got.

“I lke your joke about presenting me with 25 elegantly bound copies of my works for myself and friends. DO you think, Mr. ‘Half-Skin Press,’ that I have no more than 25 friends? You would make a splendid humorist if you didn’t have this streak of bunco in your make-up. The first quality in a humorist must be honesty; humor is only a secondary matter.

“Of course I would like to get out a book of poems; everybody would. That is something one can’t keep back. But I don’t see at this writing how I could aviate the $500. That is more than a month’s salary, and it costs me more than I earn to live. I might come and work for you nights, or better still, if you like the country and intend rusticating this summer, you might go down to our farm and board out the $500. Hoping that this may appeal to you, and trusting to hear from you further, I am, most cordially yours,

                                                                           .”

(To be continued.)

______

To Philadelphia

City of Love! Thy founder, Penn,

     Must in his grave be turning,

If now he doth the spirit ken

     Which in thy breast is burning.

Thy bond of love, so strong and stout,

     As steel or hempen cable,

Is just such love, I have no doubt,

     As Cain possessed for Abel.

Webster.                              S. G. R.

____________

Mar. 11, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

True Aestheticism

A Boston doctor tells us

     That women cannot be

The really artistic

     To any great degree,

Because, he says, the women

     Have feeling so intense

It shrivels the aesthetic

     And warps the critic sense.

But, say now, ain’t that piffle?

     Pure piffle of the pen?

If women weren’t aesthetic,

     How could they so love men?

  – W. J. Lampton in N. Y. Tribune.

O unaesthetic Lampy,

     Your Gotham life has killed

What little aestheticism

     Dame Nature on you spilled.

Our cultured Boston women

     Are fine in every sense;

Their deep, artistic feelings

     Are aesthetically intense.

Our women are aesthetic,

     Our men, too, I’ll be bound;

And so our love, O Lampy, ’s

     Aesthetic all around!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“The av’ridge man’s hobby hoss is fast becomin’ supplanted by the autymobile.”

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXXIII.

To whom it may concern: There will be a break of two days in the continuous flow of these alleged “confessions.” At this particular point in our narrative, which as you know happened several years ago, nothing happened for two days, consequently I do not see how we can proceed with accuracy and decency without letting two days pass unmolested.

If, however, any of my readers feel that they have been misused and are not getting full value for their money, I will, upon application, endeavor to give them something of equal value, if it should be nothing more than a Pittsburg cigarette, several of which I have in storage, the same being given me at different times by a well-known and beloved humorist friend of mine.

Rumor has it that this friend mentioned owns a half interest in a cigarette garage in Pittsburg, and receives a cask of its products monthly as his share of its profits. Be that a sit may, I know for a fact that he always has a generous deck load about his person.

I could tell a whole lot more about this humorist, and about the Pittsburgh cigarette garage, but it has just occurred to me that we were not to have any “confessions” for two days, so I hereby ring off before temptation gets the better of me and I disappoint the gentle reader.

(To be continued.)

______

Psalm of Bunco

Tell me not in mournful numbers

     Life is but an idle dream;

For the man who idly slumbers,

     Life’s a great, big bunco scheme.

______

The Humorists’ Night Out

A few nights ago the Shubert theatre invited the Boston members of the American Press Humorists to attend a performance of the “Midnight Sons.” When you consider that this noble organization has a membership in Boston of six strong, you can see that it is powerfully represented here. Every member was highly elated with his invitation, and every member, excepting the writer, was for tucking himself in a dress suit and going without his better half. The writer, having seen a deal of life, both before and behind the scenes, flatly refused to have anything to do with the affair unless the ladies were taken along as chaperones.

Later developments proved that his stand was a wise one. The midnight sons are surrounded by a bevy of pretty midnight daughters, and the writer well knew that, with five young humorists turned loose in the wings, the progress of the show would be interrupted early and often. This might be very enjoyable to the humorists, and perhaps to the midnight daughters, but the writer knew that the audience wouldn’t stand for it; consequently each better half was right on the job, with one eye on the show and the other on her particular humorist, except in the case of the writer.

Only once was the splendid behavior of the evening rudely broken. The humorists, with their watchful chaperones, were invited behind the scenes to participate in the great theatre interior scene. One of the members, a youthful and frisky humorist, who is always up to “All Sorts” of didoes, spied a female figure far in the semi-darkness of the wings and, breaking away from his companions, fled in her direction. He was about to tickle the fair damsel under the chin, when a large fan descended upon his shiny cupola and the stentorian voice of George Munroe rang with: “How dare you? O, you cute little humorist!” He had mistaken George, who was dressed as a lady cook, for a debonair chorus girl!

______

The Fourth Dimension Solved

(Contributed.)

“Come. Jonathan,” his father said, “you have some mental strength,

     Explain the ‘four dimensions,’ then, which all eighth-graders know.”

“Yes, father; teacher says a line has nothing else but length,

     And that dimension ‘second’ is when length some breadth can show.

And when unto the aforesaid some thickness is bestowed

     You have the ‘third dimension,’ but what the ‘fourth’ is I’ll be blowed

If I can say; but, judging from the good times of the past,

     I hope the Fourth’s dimensions won’t be smaller than the last!

     Melrose.                                       T. F.

____________

March 12, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The After Love

I love my love at morning,

     I love my love at night;

I love my love when present,

     I love her out of sight.

I love her when she’s sleeping,

     I love her when she wakes;

I love her when she’s sweeping,

     I love her when she bakes.

I love my love when when silent,

     I love her when she talks;

I love her when she motors,

     I love her when she walks.

I love her when she’s laughing,

     I love her when she’s sad;

I love her when she’s chaffing,

     I love her when she’s mad.

I love my love in music,

     I love my love in rhyme;

I love my love at random,

     I love her all the time.

I love her stout or slender,

     I love her short or tall;

Tell her? Well, hardly ever,

     For that would spoil it all!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Them who expect to git somethin’ fur nothin’ usually pay more than anybuddy else.”

______

Pavement Philosophy

Sometimes back numbers are valuable.

Better be prepared for both worse and better.

Revenge is sweet only to a perverted taste.

A good guesser always has plenty to keep him busy.

Spanking has gone out of style, but is the world any better?

It’s a long lane that has no turning to see if anybody’s looking.

When things are too high, don’t reach for them; they will come down to you.

Business combined with pleasure is usually more than 50 per cent. pleasure.

If your nightmares come in the daytime, you’d best see a doctor and then reform.

If a thing is too good to be true, perhaps it would be better if it weren’t.

It’s a good deal better to be struck with an idea than with something more fatal.

The way some people go at things is enough to make you wish you had never learned a trade.

A lean horse for a race, perhaps, but not so lean that it needs a fence to support it.

There are lots of people who can’t take a joke, and a good many times it isn’t through any fault of their own.

______

Toast to the Fisher Maid

Here’s to the maid who can handle the rod,

     Who can throw a long line with a hackle;

May she land with a “swish” most any old fish

     That gets in the way of her tackle.

______

Political Note

Col. Roosevelt, shortly after leaving Mongolla on March 2, threw a half-smoked cigar into the Nile. This is taken as an indication that he is displeased with the tobacco trust, which in consequence is smoking with apprehension.

______

A Trio of Quatrains

(Contributed.)

THE THREE SONGS

God gives to mortals at their birth

     Three songs to sing – live, love and death;

These are the only poems on the earth –

     Sole themes for man’s melodious breath.

WHEN MUSIC SOUNDS

When music sounds,

The soul’s minutest honey-cell

Dips down in Being’s deepest well –

            When music sounds!

LOVE IS FATE

Leaf bends to leaf, flower to flower, star to star,

     Soul to soul, each seeking for its destined mate;

Fatal all these blind seekings are.

     Finding, or not finding, love is fate.

Somerville.           H. A. KENDALL.

______

Helping Bear the Burden

“A woman ought to be the happiest person alive!” growled Dobson.

“Why?” queried Mrs. Dobson, sweetly.

“Because she doesn’t have to shave every day or two,” he snapped.

“But she has to live with those who do,” sighed Mrs. Dobson.

______

A Cheap Substitute

Little Pitcher – Mamma, why does papa wish to change the governess’ name?

Mamma – What do you mean?

Little Pitcher – I heard him say, “Mary, hereafter I’m going to call you ‘expensive,’ and you’ll know what that means.”

______

Musings of the Office Boy

Talk is cheap when it don’t sell no goods.

Peroxide hair ain’t the same all the way through.

A smile and a kick may go together, but dey will never be on good terms.

One and one makes two, but sometimes two get so thick that they only make one.

____________

Mar. 13, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Air castles are all right pervidin’ they don’t prevent you frum investin’ in somethin’ more substantial.”

______

Case Hardened

Miss Halo – Don’t you admire the great geniuses?

Mrs. Cooler – Well, having lived with a near-great one for several years I can’t say that they dazzle me to any great extent.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXXIV.

To the eye of the “casual observer,” who seldom looks below the surface of things, the life of the humorist is one round of gaiety and reckless abandon. The only place the word abandon fits into the life of the average humorist is that he has to abandon all gaiety and recklessness in order to joke out a living.

One of the leading humorous writers of a score of years ago was asked what he intended to make of his boy, then a precocious youngster of eight years of age.

“I don’t know what he’s going to be,” said the father, after a moment’s deliberation, “but I do know what he isn’t going to be, and that is a funny man.”

I have yet to read of a second-generation humorist, and perhaps the reason is because the humorist fathers have always nipped the jokus microbus in the bud. One often finds a succession of ministers, of statesmen and soldiers, of actors, of doctors and stone masons, but of humorists – never!

About this time I was thrown, quite by accident, into as fine a set of literary men as ever came down the Pegasus pike. My name, in its docked form, as it appears at the head of this column, had been finding its way attached to some more or less weak verse into some of the Boston dailies, and had attracted the notice of that sterling and altogether lovable author. Hezekiah Butterworth.

“Ha!” said the author of “Zig-Zag Journeys” to himself, “here is a fictitious name, short, euphonic and smacking of the New England soil, and the next time I write a New England story the leading character shall be called by that name. I’m sure it is not a real name, and because it is so easy to speak I will use it.”

As this good author produced a book about every new moon it was not long before “The Treasure Ship,” a story of early New England days and of the Spanish main, was produced in book form, and surely enough, the boy who lived all through its pages bore my identical name.

It was not long before Mr. Butterworth was informed by a prominent writer, and who is now a well known lecturer and librarian, that the name of his hero in “The Treasure Ship” was a real person, no less than the operator of the joke hatchery of the Bilford Banner.

Those who knew Mr. Butterworth’s gentle and unobtrusive nature can well imagine his surprise and concern when he received this information. No one but myself can imagine with what pleasure and trepidation I received a few days later the following letter:

                        “28 Worcester Street, Boston.

“Mr.             , Bilford Banner Office.

“My Dear Sir: Will you please call some evening, at your convenience, at my room, 28 Worcester street? I wish to make your acquaintance, also to apologize for using your name so freely in one of my books, an autograph copy of which I have waiting for you. Any evening next week will be convenient for me. Sincerely,

“HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.”

(To Be Continued.)

______

Hot Storage

“I’ve got a play in my head.”

“Might just as well be there, old man, as in a manager’s pigeon-hole.”

____________

Mar. 14, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

When Spring Has Come

I don’t consult no almanacs

     To find when spring has come;

I don’t consult no daily press,

     Nor weather men, I vum.

I’ve got a surer way than that,

     An’ got it right down fine;

They is an echo to its call

     Right in this soul o’ mine.

No man kin figger out the date

     Exactly, seems to me;

It all depends upon yourself,

     An’ natur’, don’t you see.

When spring appears in earth an’ sky,

     An’ looks with eyes divine,

They is an echo to her smile

     Right in this soul o’ mine.

She tells it though the whisp’rin’ winds,

     An’ through the wak’nin’ trees;

She tells it through the songs of birds,

     An’ stir of drowsy bees.

I want to read no printed page,

     No scientific sign;

When spring has come she wakes a song

     Right in this soul o’ mine.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“A bad beginnin’ often makes a good endin’, but there’s no end to some people.”

______

Terpsichorean Note

There always appears to be plenty of barefoot deers ready and willing to do table dances at “stag” parties.

______

How the Duck Got By

A Brewster duck, after having been buried under a snowdrift for 56 days, waddled out into the open during the recent thaw. Its owner is at a loss to understand how a duck could live that long under the snow. Evidently he doesn’t know that a duck can exist almost indefinitely on quack food.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXXV.

Had I been going to meet the redoubtable Gen. Grant, or the sometime later “Jungle Thrasher,” I could not have been more “worked up” than I was over the thought that I was soon to meet, by his own invitation, the famous author of the “Zig-Zag Journeys” and editor of The Youth’s Companion, Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth.

What could I say, out of my limited experience, to interest a man who had written 50 books, who had delivered thousands of lectures in many countries and who had been entertained by royalty? Where would I be beside a man who thought no more of packing his grip at an hour’s notice for one of his numerous world’s tours than he would have thought of taking a car for the public library? These questions bothered me for days, and when at last I found myself climbing the old brown steps at 28 Worcester street I was tempted to ring the bell and then run away.

At last I was shown by a maid into that long, front room so well known to thousands of editors, publishers and authors! Books were everywhere, but where books were not there were sores of pictures and other valuable bric-a-brac given the author by his legion of loving friends. A piano stood at one end of the room, a large table in the centre, and at the farther end a large mantel and fireplace.

Mr. Butterworth met me at the door with outstretched hand and a welcoming smile. His manner was so simple and so kindly that instantly my fears vanished into the unseen. His first words were: “Joe, it was good of you to come over,” and in that greeting all bars were let down, and I felt that I had known him a lifetime.

Seated at the table were Jefferson Lee Harbour and Charles Follen Adams, life-long friends of Mr. Butterworth, and whose companionship he valued highly. The evening passed pleasantly and all too quickly. The appropriating of my classical name for the hero of “The Treasure Ship” was duly discussed and much enjoyed, and later I was the proud recipient of an autograph copy of the same.

At an early hour Mr. Harbour and Mr. Adams rose to take their leave, and I followed suit.

“Don’t be in a hurry,” said Mr. Butterworth, gently pushing me back into the chair, “I want to talk with you.”

After the other guests had given their cordial adieus, the author of 50 books drew a chair close to mine and, leaning back with half-closed eyes, said: “Joe, I don’t want to talk about books, about art or about people; I want you to tell me what you know about keeping hens and raising asparagus for the market.”

(To be continued.)

______

Cheerful Comment

Keep your straw lid within easy reach.

Won’t it seem a long time, though, before that automobile is delivered?

Hope the Salmon will live up to her name and be the gamiest naval ship afloat.

A $24,000 private wire to the White House! How do they figure talk is cheap?

Were you one of the censors last night at the first production of the “Queen of the Moulin Rouge”?

That second-class cabin passenger, who was held up by Customs Inspector Lawton, might as well have worn his lace on the outside.

____________

Mar. 15, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

New Spring Shad!

Let poets sing of gentle spring,

     As poets always do;

I’ll pen a lay to find its way

     To heart and stomach too.

Let poets dream of field and stream,

     Of birds and lambkins glad;

Today I’ll use my faithful Muse

     Upon the new spring shad.

O, grass and bees, and budding trees

     Are fine to feed the soul;

And sky and star, and worlds afar

     May be the poets’ goal.

But day by day, in my café,

     I wait with feelings sad,

Until I read, with joy indeed;

     “Important! New Spring Shad!”

O, babbling brooks and sunny nooks

     Are then forgotten quite;

For caterwauls or robin calls

     I have no appetite.

I call the maid, in smiles arrayed,

     With sympathetic tones,

And to her say: “I would today

     A slab of new spring bones!”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“About the wust thing thet kin happen to you is nothin’.”

______

Political Note

About the only thing they haven’t slated Mr. Roosevelt for to date is umpiring the sometime Jeffries-Johnson slugging match.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXXVI.

Had Mr. Butterworth asked me what I thought of Herbert Spencer or the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy, I would have been hopelessly lost. Had he sought to draw me into a discussion of Mr. Bellamy’s then new book, “Looking Backward,” I should have looked forward to it with dismay. But when he asked me about keeping hens and raising asparagus I felt we had met on common ground. I felt that while I did not know a whole lot about the lay of the wandering minstrel, I could give him a few points on the lay of the wandering hen, and immediately I began to ransack my loft for facts and figures.

“I intend,” said he, “to leave Boston soon and go back to my Rhode Island farm and raise chickens. I don’t mean 50 or 100 chickens, but 10,000, and all the grain and other necessaries for keeping them. Did you raise chickens where you came from? Of course you did; everybody in the country raises them. And did you find it profitable? Of course you did; everybody in the country does.”

I found it very easy to converse with Mr. Butterworth because he would ask me a question and then answer it himself with greater ease and much more intelligence than I could possibly have done myself.

“I have it all figured out,” said he, “that a hen under normal conditions will support a hen and a half, and therefore two hens will pay the keep of a third one. That means that I get the product of one hen out of three gratis. On that basis it is only a matter of figures to see what the results of 1000 or 5000 hens would be.”

“You see,” he went on, enthusiastically, “the hens would support me in luxury, and then I could write as I want to, not as the publishers compel me to write. Besides, I would be out in the country where I could go in a frock coat and go barefooted any time I wanted to. I am weary, weary. weary of all this sham and propriety,” and the child-man closed his eyes and gave himself up to passing dreams.

“Along with the hens I would have an asparagus bed. I have 20 acres of suitable land in Warren, R. I., that I want to put into asparagus. I have that all figured out, too, and I want you to go with me some day and look the ground over.”

Another hour passed in which nothing was discussed other than farming and the simple life, and for the first time in my life I had spent an evening with a famous writer who had nothing of the writer about him. What a relief! Happy days followed, and many of them. For the remaining few years of Mr. Butterworth’s life I daresay there was hardly a week that we didn’t meet two or three times, either at his quarters or mine, and the amount of asparagus and the number of hens we raised, in theory, would have supplied a world ten times as big!

(To be continued.)

______

His Reception

There was a big plunger named Patten,

Who in Manchester almost got sat on;

     But in Plymouth with cheers

     They greeted his ears,

So he smiled and then sailed for Manhatten.

     Dorchester.                     H. E. F.

______

Anent the 17th

(Contributed.)

A little drop of Celtic blood

     Is like a pinch of salt,

But if you haven’t got it, man,

     It may not be your fault.

It may be that when making men’

Unhappily ‘twas found,

Not quite enough of Celtic blood

     Was there to go around.

And so a substitute was used,

     Alas! not quite as good;

For what can take the place of salt,

     Or what of Celtic blood?

But never mind, ‘twas not your fault

     You lie beneath a ban;

But surely ‘twas, you must admit,

     Your great misfortune, man!

     Melrose.                            T. F.

______

The Row of Trees

(Park board bows to mayor’s wish; grant hearing about Commonwealth avenue trees. – Herald headline.)

The park board to the mayor’s wish bow,

They want to please and have no row

About the trees they plant to grow

In double, or quadruple row.

They think it best if they allow

All to express opinions now,

For it is better to go slow

Than go ahead before you know;

So all a chance to tell have now,

Just where to plant the trees and how.

       Dorchester.                H. E. F.

____________

Mar. 16, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

To the Fishing Rod

O, slender rod, to thee I sing!

     Thou whip of peace and strife;

Thou’rt idle now, but soon I trow

     Thou’lt be a thing of life.

I have thee varnished new and bright,

     Re-wound and tested too;

When comes the call of waterfall

     Will bid the town adieu.

Thy reel is nicely cleaned and oiled,

     And sings a charming lay;

Lines old and new are tested, too,

     And ready for the fray.

O, rod, so sleek, accept these weak

     And homely lines of song;

O, rod, suppose the distance grows,

     It will not be fur-long!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Ef you believe all you hear you won’t hear much wuth believin’.”

______

Cheerful Comment

Somebody’ll steal a gunboat yet.

New geographical discovery: Virginia is in Nevada.

The anticipated $13 hog is going to be lucky for somebody.

The House committee has raised a hope that the Maine may be treated likewise.

There’s another strenuous, out-of-door nature-taker emerging from oblivion, also.

So the meat-packers are to blame? We were afraid they would blame the poor, non-meat-eating consumer.

Personally, we never could see why anybody should want to enter Rhode Island, but if the Grand Trunk wants to take a chance on it, we think it ought to be allowed to do so.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXXVII.

A few letters relative to these “Confessions” have been piling up, and as today is an off one, with mother at the dressmaker’s and the hired girl touring the bargain basements, I will take this occasion to treat them, the letters, with the scorn or courtesy they so richly deserve.

The first one is evidently from a young lady who has been reading “The Pilgrim’s Progress” or “Travels in Chelsea,” until the “Confessions” attracted her attention. That she is not used to reading rapid and soul-thrilling literature is evidenced by her earnest appeal:

“Mr. Jocosity: Dear sir – For the sake of one who is deeply interested in your auto-biography, but who dislikes soul-thrilling, hair-raising literature, couldn’t you tone down your narrative just a little? It is so absorbing and thrilling it gets on my nerves and I find I cannot sleep for days at a time.

“I should hate to give up reading your “Confessions,” and yet I feel for health’s sake I shall be compelled to if you continue them at their present rate of High speed and no slow-downs.                          PATIENCE PRUE.”

“Dear Jocosity: I have read your “Confessions” faithfully and laboriously, and must say that I admire you immensely; not your ability as a confessor, but your nerve in calling your eruptions ‘confessions’ or anything else that is literature. What are you confessing? And, if you really are confessing anything, wouldn’t it be better to keep mum?

“When you started the ‘Confessions’ we were anticipating something from behind the scenes; something racy and possibly raw, something far from being well-done. Heaven knows they are not well-done, and are raw to a finish, but they lack the raciness we anticipated. What we want in confessions is a rattling of the family skeleton, and the laying open of bare facts which would much better be well clothed and under lock and key. Can’t you inject a little speed or pepper-sauce, or a little something, so that each morning we may look forward to their coming with pleasure rather than dread?           N. C. FLOWER.”

“Deara Meester Jocosita: I can no reada Eeengleesh for tam, but all sama I lika you ‘confessa’ playnta wal. Eet ees vera fun’, an’ eet maka me laugh so I can no eata for two, t’ree day som’time. My wifa she ees laugh more dan me baycause she can no speaka or reada Eeengleesh baysides. Yours for maka playnta laugh,

                                  “ADONI DA BARBER.”

“Dear sir: Your ‘Confessions’ are great! If you had only thought to put them into blank verse, what a noble epic they would have made! What a pity we have no great composer worthy of converting your classical lines into a great opera. Alas! Great music opera-tors are scarce. The Herald should present you a bran-new automobile this spring with gasoline carte blanche.     NEXT DOOR.”

“Dear Joe Cosset: Your alleged ‘Confessions’ remind me of a funeral march with no one present but the corpse. Even the music has refused to go further. If you want to fill space, why don’t you write something good, or else use some of the jokes I have sent you from time to time?

“POINT BLANK.”

There are many more letter on my desk, but as brevity is the soul of wit, so is space the hallowed ground of the newspaper. As the remaining ones are but likenesses of those inserted, I will refrain from publishing them and proceed to sharpen my knife for tomorrow’s operation.

(To be continued.)

____________

Mar. 17, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

“In the Spring”

In the spring the youngster’s hearing

Isn’t turned for mother’s call;

All he wants to hear is cheering,

And the umpire’s loud, “Play Ball!”

In the spring the maiden’s fancy

Isn’t working rugs or mats;

She is out with Nell and Nancy

Trying on a bunch of hats.

In the spring the young man’s vision

Turns from musty sums and books,

Turns to woods and fields elysian

And to lakes and trouting brooks.

In the spring the housewife happy

Sweeps and pulls and cleans and tugs,

While her hubby, cross and snappy,

Falls to beating mats and rugs.

In the spring the poets’ sighing

For the things that cannot be –

O, but what’s the use of lying

And disgracing poetree?

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“The feller who tries hardest to hurry the season kicks most when it gets here.”

______

Musings of the Office Boy

The longer the hours, the shorter the pay.

Eternal rubberin’ is the price of a good job.

If you hain’t got pretty eyes, a pair of nose pinchers help some.

Some girls seem to think they are so good lookin’ they hafter keep eatin’ pickles to keep balanced up.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXXVIII.

My Dear “Patience Prue”: I have wept tears of remorse over the pain and anxiety I have caused you through my thrilling “Confessions.” I realized, of course, that they were going some. but didn’t think that were moving at the rate described in your letter of yesterday. How like a true artist I am! So thoroughly engrossed in the progress of my story that I didn’t realize the speed I had attained, or the wild, nervewracking realism that is surging through its chapters. Indeed, I will throw in the slow gear. The physical condition of my readers is more to me than my “Confessions,” or even what Uncle Ezra says.

And you, “N.C. Flower,” fair to look upon and sweet as the breath of new-mown catnip, I value your advice above everything. So glad you admire my nerve. I have been told so frequently that there is nothing admirable about me that your words give me hope.

If my “Confessions” are not swift enough, I will open the throttle a bit wider. “Our aim is to please,” The family skeleton shall rattle and be laid bare, so bare that the “Time and Place Society” will get out its axe, and so racy that the people who have heretofore followed them afoot will be obliged to purchase a fast automobile in order to keep up.

And you. “Adoni da Barber,” what do you mean by saying my “Confessions” make you laugh so you can’t eat for two or three days, when you admit that you can’t read English? Are you having “joka weeth me”? Then you say your wife laughs even more than you because she can “no reada or speaka Eengleesh!” Adoni, I fear you chaff me, and if you don’t look out I will “buy for me da safety raz” and never go in your blamed shavery again!

You, “Next Door,” give me real pleasure as well as encouragement. I will place the matter of having these “Confessions” put to operatic music before Mr. Hammerstein at once, and in the mean time, while Strauss or Lehar are grinding out appropriate music for them I will submit them to a canning factory and have them brought out in phonographic form.

But you, “Point Blank,” you are an unmitigated sorehead. Just because I haven’t printed your alleged jokes you seek to get even by saying the “Confessions” remind you of a funeral march with no one present but the corpse! Alas, that humanity should descend to such depths! Why don’t you hire out to some jail as chief executioner?

But away with such gloomy subjects as funerals and executions! We must be on to brighter and more cheerful scenes.

(To be continued,)

______

First Call for Shortcake

O, what care we for eggs and ham,

     Or meats of aviation price?

We have no use for beef or lamb,

     With shortcake 30 cents a slice!

Why worry over prices high,

     O’er luxuries, or monthly rents?

Why try to buy a piece of pie,

     With shortcake only 30 cents?

______

Helping Some

Mrs. Flatt – What do you think of our new cook, John?

Mr. Flatt – She would turn milk sour.

Mrs. Flatt – Then we’ll give up taking milk.

______

She Melted

“What is snow, Jimmie?”

“Dry water, mum.”

______

Poeta Nascitur Non Fit

(Contributed.)

1.

No frightful sin was mine, whereby

     I’ve learned in Life’s hard school;

But O, it makes me sick to think

     That I was such a fool.

2.

You often wish you’d held your tongue,

     And kept your silence still unbroke;

Bit O, it’s just about as bad

     To always wish you’d up and spoke.

     Boston.                             L. S.

____________

Mar. 18, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Cannon’s Last Stand

(After T. B. Read.)

Still in the house at break of day,

Bringing to Cannon fresh dismay,

Cannon of Danville with shudder bore

Down on his gavel as ne’er before,

Trying to silence the howl and roar

Telling the battle raging the floor,

And Taft 500 miles away!

And wider still the billows of war

Thundered along the horizon’s bar,

And louder yet into Washington rolled

The roar of that bedlam uncontrolled,

Making the blood of the listener cold,

As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,

And Taft in Chicago, far away!

Nervous, he champed his big cigar,

Through circles of smoke he saw afar

Votes that were once his to command,

But now, when needed for his last stand,

Refusing to rally, defying the whip,

Reckless in treason to his leadership –

And Taft in Chicago, miles away!

Still flew hot words from North, West and South,

And dust-like smoke from the Cannon’s mouth,

Like the tail of a comet faster and faster,

Foreboding to insurgents the nation’s disaster.

The hearts of the slaves, the hearts of the master

Were beating like buttors attacking the walls,

Or stamping like chargers within their stalls;

Nerves of the opponents strained to full play –

With Taft in Chicago, far away!

Still ‘neath his glaring eye the fight

Passed on to the morning from the night;

Passed on till the hour of noonday came,

With Uncle defeated, but still in the game.

“Alas!” he cried, “I can’t always hold out,

These rebels will soon put me to rout!

How different ‘twould be,” he was heard to say,

“If William were only on deck today!”

*       *        *        *        *        *        *                

Hurrah, hurrah for Uncle Joe!

Hurrah, hurrah for friend or foe!

Fighting, charging, unaided, alone,

Vainly trying to hold his own.

And if his chromo goes onto the wall,

Under the dome of the Capitol,

Be it said in letters both bold and bright:

“This is the man who lost the fray

Because Bill Taft was so far away!”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Sometimes so-called bad luck is mere pigheadedness.”

______

Cheerful Comment

Isn’t Mr. Cannon the big noise?

Four small rows as a result of one big row.

Mr. Patton said it was simply a case of saying “Boo!”

Weston and the Mauretania are a fine pair of record breakers.

The weather appears to be egging us on to a flirtation with sickness.

“Do fish remember?” asks the Scientific American. Perhaps; but not to the extent fishermen do.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XXXIX.

Gentle reader, did you ever get to a point in your career where you thought you were, and then you woke up some fine morning to find you were not? Isn’t it a peculiar sensation?

Apparently there had been the best of feeling between yourself and the fates, and to all appearances you and your employer, if you had one, were on the best of terms. Things were going along so nicely that you had forgotten that anything out of the ordinary could happen, and then, just at that point, something dropped!

That was the delightful sensation I experienced while on the staff of the Bilford Banner. The editor dropped in my room one dull, gray morning (such things always happen on a dull, gray morning) and looked at me seriously. Always before that memorable occasion he had looked at me trivially. I knew something was on his mind, and immediately I became infected.

“Joe,” said he, “you have been on this paper about two years, I believe.”

I told him I believed just as he did.

“And the circulation hasn’t doubled, nor is your work quoted to any great extent in foreign languages.”

I told him I would have to take his word for that, as I couldn’t read either Chinese or Cocobolo.

“I am receiving a great many letters from subscribers relative to your column; some of them I have shown you, and some I have not.”

“I am proud of the enemies I have made,” I said simply, and at the same time I was wondering if I could catch the afternoon train for the country, or would have to wait over till the following day.

He went on: “I feel that, for the sake of the paper, and perhaps for your own as well, there ought to be a change, so I have decided to make more of a feature of your stuff, and at the same time double your pay.”

I gave him one blank look of despair, and jumped to my feet. I placed one hand appealingly on his shoulder and cried: “For God’s sake, George, don’t do anything rash! Think of my family! Think of my future! What will become of me? Do you realize what you have done?”

“Do you accept?” he hissed.

“Not on the impulse of the moment,” I replied; “I am overcome, and want to be left alone. I want time to think it over. I am afraid this is too much, too much!” And, sinking into my chair once more, I buried my face in my hands.

“I will give you 24 hours in which to decide,” said the villain; and, turning on his heel, he left the room.

(To be continued.)

______

When They Prove Themselves

“Fine feathers make fine birds,” they say,

     The truth of which we have no doubt;

But we can tell upon the day

     The women chanteclers come out.

______

Sporting Note

The world is divided into two classes of men just now, they who are waiting to hear “Play ball!” and they who are waiting to read “The ice is out!”

____________

Mar. 19, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Amos Green’s Ambition

“I don’t expect no furrin trip,

     No furrin sights to see;

I don’t expect no airship rides,”

     Said Amos Green to me.

“But there’s one thing I’d like to see,

     One place I’d like to go

Afore I die, an’ that is to

     A movin’ pictur’ show.

I’ve heard about the Great White Way,

     The Milky Way, as well;

An’ that big Paris boolevard

     That is so mighty swell,

An’ all them p’ints uv interest,

     That tourist people know;

But I’d be satisfied to see

     A movin’ pictur’ show.

I don’t know ‘zackly what they be,

     But must be great, I know,

‘Cuz fellers who’ve been off to town

     Have frequent’ told me so.

I’ve got to where I don’t expect

     To see the world; ah, no!

But I would like to see, jest once,

     A movin’ pictur’ show.”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“You’ find thet the ruster’s main object in wakin’ you so early in the mornin’ is to tell you it is time to git up to feed him.”

______

Cheerful Comment

As a man feeleth, so is he.

A good deal of will power won’t.

Some men’s motto: “There’s money in it.”

A good many things are important, if true.

Grass widows are as new mown hay to some men.

There is danger in delay; also in haste.

It is foolish to be up to date on somebody else’s money.

Every man should have his balance wheel trued up occasionally.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing sometimes gets fleeced just the same.

There are two kinds of cold feet, and some people have both kinds.

Lots of sympathy is sent by the wireless method which is never received at the other end.

Trading umbrellas to advantage when the other fellow is away isn’t a sure sign that you’ve good business instincts.

A good many people pass a peanut stand not from choice, but through the whisperings of false pride.

Popularity is like a sieve – it has to be fed continuously in order to have anything in it, and then it doesn’t.

______

A Hard Proposition

Anxious father – I wish I knew what to do with my son!

Business friend – What is he like?

Anxious father – Well, they say he is very like me. (Silence.)

______

Foxy Dipps

“What a queer title Dipps has given his new novel; he calls it ‘Solid Cement.’”

“Not so queer when you come to think of it.”

“How’s that?”

“It makes the best cellar.”

______

Politics as It Is Polled

(Contributed.)

At a town meeting held recently not far from Boston, a group of local politicians were talking together in one corner of the room, when they saw a woman enter to deposit her ballot for school committee.

“There goes my wife to vote,” said one of them. “Now, when I go home, I shall find my seven children dirty and ragged, my house in an awful state and nothing to eat.”

“What are you talking about?” said another man near him. “I have lived near you for years, and I know there isn’t a better mother and housekeeper in town than your wife. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

The first man laughed and said: “Isn’t that just the way you fellows talk every time the women go up to the State House and ask for the ballot? How do you feel now? Isn’t there as much truth in what I just said as in what you do? I maintain that my wife voted much easier and used up less time than if she tried to get a rush seat at the Symphony, or something off a bargain counter, or belonged to a whisk club that played bridge morning, noon and night.”

But nobody tried to argue the question with him.

____________

Mar. 20, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Age of Dodging

Some people blame the packers

     Because our meats are high;

The packers they deny it,

     And wink the other eye.

The packers say the farmers

     The only ones to blame;

But then, the poor consumer,

     He gets it just the same.

This is the age of dodging,

     So anything that’s thrown

Will hit somebody else’s

     Coco besides your own.

It’s now up to the farmers

     To valiantly arouse

And lay the cost of living

     Upon the pigs and cows.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“When hot air comes in the door, patience flies out the winder.”

______

Gungy Shortsightedness

Hank Stubbs – I hear Ame Green got $25 from that autymobile feller who smashed up his hay waggin.

Bige Miller – Yep, an’ now Ame says he’s sorry he didn’t hev out his best kerriage instead, ez he’d probably got $50 for that.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XL.

The next 24 hours were moments never to be forgotten. Finally, after long and painful consideration, I swallowed my pride and cast conscience to the winds and accepted the doubling of my salary. With prosperity staring me in the face, I entered upon a new era in my career.

And then I thought how foolish were poets like Burns and Shelley and Heine to have lived way back in those old days when they had to write a whole sonnet to get a light lunch, or a 500-line ode for a full dinner. People had frequently told me that poetry didn’t pay. “Pshaw!” I exclaimed, “poets will soon be the millionaire class,” and in my exhilaration I sat down and dashed off the following four-line classic:

“THE RHYME FOR MINE.

It may be true that poetry

     Don’t pay, as people think;

But foolish verse, and even worse,

     Brings lots of easy chink.

Another fellow poetical being, doubtless one who had lately had his pay raised, had evidently found this out at about the same time, for in a current number of Puck I found the following joyous quatrain:

“O, the four-line verse beats the small joke terse,

     Prose gets it in the collar,

For the paragraph gets but half

     While the quatrain gets a dollar.

I determined the editor of the Banner shouldn’t have cause to regret his wild and unbusiness-like course, and forthwith endeavored to turn out jokes that should be gilt-edged and verses that should cause two smiles to spread where only one spread before.

And while we are dealing with quatrains, I will include one that a short time before I had sent to Mark Twain, who was then living in Hartford, Ct., not far from my boyhood home, but who had never had the boldness to call upon me. Like most un-practical people, and in a reckless moment I sent to Mr. Clemmons the following:

“Breathes there a man who’s made his Mark

By making light of things ‘twere dark;

But Mark my word, ‘tis very plain

This man has split the blues in Twain!”

To make myself thoroughly understood, and to still further show my skill as a poet and thinker, I penned below the quatrain the following beautiful couplet:

“This poem ain’t worth a cent and a half,

But surely it’s worth your autograph.”

(To be continued.)

______

Something for Nothing

The only thing not costly now,

     And quite a distance from it,

The only thing not high in price

     Is brother Halley’s comet.

And, after all, though free it is,

     And mighty well worth seeing,

It’s quite beyond the longest reach

     Of any human being.

______

Yearly Exuberance

“Why all this fuss over notables?”

“Well, the world’s spring feeling has got to be worked off in some way.”

______

Nemesis Clutched Bertie

(Contributed.)

When Bertie tried his motor car,

     He whirled away quite recklessly;

Upsetting spiteful grandpa,

     Who feigned death most successfully.

An angry mob wrecked Bertie’s car,

     And hanged him from a chestnut tree;

Then grandpa rose and chortled, “Ha,

     Ha! Nevermore’ll he pester me!”

     Boston.                     EPH KAY.

____________

Mar, 10, 1910

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

The Window O’er the Way

Sits she there a charming creature

     In the window o’er the way;

Fair of form and fair of feature,

     Wreathed in little smiles that play

All about her lips of cherry,

     Making one’s existence sweet;

Ah! She is a picture very

     In the dull and sunless street.

Sits she there a tempting vision

     In the window o’er the way;

Filling hearts with joys elysian

     Through the sombre work-a-day.

Days have come and days departed,

     And I said this very day,

“I’ll no longer be faint-hearted

     With the maiden o’er the way”

So I smiled and bowed politely

     At the window o’er the way;

See! Her eyes are shining brightly,

     What is she about to say?

See! Her lips have parted sweetly,

     Lips as red as lips can be;

O, she’s frozen me completely,

     She has made a face at me!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Fine feathers make fine birds skurce.”

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XLI.

I never had much faith in securing an autograph by mail, much less from so prominent a literary light as the iridescent Mark Twain. It is different when you get a notable pushed into a corner where he can’t escape, with the usual cup of pink tea in one hand and a lady’s finger in the other, and he realizes the easiest way to get rid of you is by granting your request. But it is the simplest thing in the world to turn down a request by mail, except perhaps when it is made on sweet-scented note paper and in a girl’s dainty handwriting. In such a case, of course, anything goes.

Strange to say, however, and almost by return mail, I received Mark’s autograph. It was on a small, neat card, in his well known scrawl, but, alas! It was one of those autographs struck off by the thousands on printing presses! I never forgave Mark for that little job he put up on me, and forthwith I dropped corresponding with him.

People who followed the light literature of the day say, 10 years ago, will remember the awful deluge of small magazines that landed on the market. It began with, I think, Elbert Hubbard’s “The Philistine,” though I have learned recently that Elbert was not the original father of that wise little offspring – that he is merely an adopted father. Anyway, the little sugar-paper bound monthly from East Aurora was one of the first, if not the first, and, strange to say, it is about the only one that has “hung on” all these years.

There was everything from “The Penny Magazine,” a freaklet about 3½ x 1½ inches, to the “Yellow Book,” a bilious output larger than the average magazine, and in name everything from “The Wet Hen” to “The Purple Cow.” Every size, form, color, and every conceivable kind of reading matter was tried out, and in a reckless moment I undertook to collect merely first issues of each magazinelet throughout the country, till I was swamped by their numbers and strapped with their expensiveness.

But the fever was on, and, in spite of all advice to the contrary and the disasters I witnessed on every hand, I determined that there was room for still another – a real one, of course – and one bright day in January, 1898, “The Little Joker” was born. Its infancy, growth and promising career is – another story.  

(To be continued.)

______

Cheerful Comment

“The smell of the bonfire,” etc.

Strange no one thought to try a big gun silencer.

The Doves made a good start last year, also – in practice.

He who advised Mr. Carnegie to start a national daily as a means of using some of his fortune was no joker.

The man who can afford only chromos doesn’t have to worry whether he’s got a spurious Homer or Inness.

It is hoped Andrew Carnegie didn’t forget to deposit his records on top of Mount Wilson; also to bring copies back with him.

______

Strange, but True

(Contributed.)

Whatever the result of the contest between the Republican factions as Albany, the mayor of New York (city) is likely to be the Gaynor.

Boston.                                                  H. E. W.

______

Be Ye Perfect

(Contributed.)

“Be ye perfect,” saith the Eternal Word.

Yea, Lord, say what and how and where and when?

“Perfection, thou dear child, means love to God and men,

Dispensing human beauty, truth and good;

By eye perceived, brain known, by heart’s best blood

Performed. In thy tumultuous hours, for then

By conquest virtue is immortal gain –

In tranquil hours is vice forgot, but not withstood.

“How? By signal grace of God to willing souls;

Where? Wherever truth is sold or beauty soiled,

Or goodness left undone; chiefly where thou standest, man.

When? At every instant that thy will controls,

In every moment that thy soul has toiled,

And yet must toil, to ‘scape the everlasting ban.”

   Somerville.             H. A. KENDALL.

____________

Mar. 22, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Ezra Hay’s Anticipation

“Uv course I’m glad to hev the spring

     Git here,” says Ezry Hay,

“So’s I kin plough ag’in, an’ git

     My garden under way.

I like to see things comin’ up

     An’ growin’ ev’ry day;

But I’ve got other reasons, too,”

     Says Uncle Ezry Hay.

“I’ve been cooped up all winter long,

     Hain’t been out anywhere;

Hain’t even been a show in town

     This winter, I declare.

But follerin’ the plantin’ time,

     An’ Mister Robin’s song,

It won’t be very long afore

     The circus comes along.

“I don’t mind stayin’ in so much,

     Nor workin’ hard all spring

With knowin’ that ‘fore very long

     I’m goin’ to hev my fling!

An’ that is why I’m glad it’s spring,

     So I can till the ground,

But more becuz the circus folks

     Will soon be comin’ round!”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“When people begin to give you advice it may be becuz they are lookin’ for information.”

______

Impossible!

“How much is a hair-cut without?”

“Without what, hair?”

“No; without the conversation accompaniment.”

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A NEAR-AUTOBIOGRAPHY

XLII.

As has been said, “The Little Joker” first tipped its hat to the public in January, 1898, the year when the magazinlet craze was at its craziest. Ninety-nine per cent. of the output were of a serious and lofty nature; but the pet of my dreams was to be humorous, or as near-humorous as my near-melancholy nature could make it. In my dreams I could picture the world going into convulsions, and Life, Puck and Judge going out of business. At last would I get back at them for turning down so many of my worthy transcripts in the past. Oh, revenge, thy name is concentrated honey!

Perhaps the best and truest description of “The Little Joker” was given editorially by the Gungawamp Advocate, the paper on which the writer made his debut (pronounced daybute) as a joke slayer. A copy of the first issue was sent to all the great papers throughout the land, including the Advocate. Here is what it said the following week:

“THE LITTLE JOKER

“The Little Joker, the first number of Joe Cone’s magazine of fun, is on our desk, and is specially interesting to us since but a few short months ago its editor was killing time on the staff of the Advocate. Just now he is doing similar work on the Bilford (Mass.) Banner.

“The Little Joker is a bulky, pretentious magazine of 12 pages, filled from cover to cover with the most side-splitting humor imaginable, much of which appeared in the columns of the Advocate 3 or 4 years ago. One good thing noticeable about Joe’s jokes – they are like baked beans, never spoiled by being warmed over.

“One pleasing thing we notice in the makeup of the magazine is that the reading matter isn’t crowded out by unsightly and uninteresting advertisements. In fact, the magazine has no advertisements, which fact gives it a decidedly literary, if not humorous, appearance.

“The magazine is largely made up of jokes, paragraphs, poems, stories, prose sketches and editorials. One of the editorials, which is bound to become a journalistic classic, reads thus: ‘We will live a year or eat the entire last edition!’ Of course, if the last edition is small enough its editor will have no difficulty in fulfilling his promise.

“We recognize one of the numerous quatrains as being one we have never seen before, and quote it herewith. If it were a quatrain of 40 or more lines we would feel that we couldn’t afford to give it the required space.

“BROTHER BILL’S JOB

“My brother Bill’s job in the old pepper mill

      Is a job one can hardly be pleased at;

But keep the position I’m certain he will,

      For the salary’s not to be sneezed at!

“The little magazine contains many more quotable features, but owing to the double-sized Spring Sarsaparilla advertisement which our readers will find on this same page, we are crowded for room this week, and will close our review with the following joke picked at random:

“IT DIDN’T WORK

“Long-Locks – I have brought in a little poem on vaccination, sir.

“Editor – On vaccination, you say?

“Long-Locks – Y-yes, sir.

“Editor – It won’t take!

“We wish The Little Joker and its editor all the success in the world, but we realize that running a humorous publication must be a serious business.”

(To be continued.)

______

The Chantecler Hat

“Let me eat, drink and be merry,

     For tomorrow I am to die.”

This is the song of the rooster

     Who knows that his end is nigh.

“Today I am king of the barnyard,

     I may as well have my ‘bat,’

For tomorrow I’m seen in a window

     On top of an Easter hat!”

Cambridge.                    S. J. L.

______

The Miser’s Disease

Miser’s disease, though first acute,

     Hardens like an old collector;

Then the victim who is astute

     Gets himself a chest protector.

Boston.                             JAY BEE

____________

Mar. 23, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Them as has gits       in bad sometimes if the investergation is what it orter be.”

______

Cheerful Comment

It seems New Yorkers can’t keep meat down.

Do you realize how near the oyster is not?

Ellen Terry has the goodness not to announce a farewell tour.

Wonder how the spurious baron bigamist will like being wedded to his cell?

Will they send out any scouts to find whether or not Col. Astor is engaged, and if so, where?

Don’t accept a cigarette from a stranger. The little roll might separate you from yours.

Did anybody hit Andrew Carnegie on the head while he was looking through the big telescope?

The papers say that the Pacific coast has been shocked by Miss Eleonora Sears. Shock not recorded on any of the eastern seismographs.

______

It’s a Question

When a town changes

     From dry back to wet,

Do all of the people

     Umbrellas then get?

______

The Value of Little Things

(A Near-Editorial.)

Yesterday a man standing on Tremont street nearly in front of this building did an EXTRAORDINARY THING.

The wheels of a passing vehicle had thrown a bit of mud upon the man’s coat. Immediately upon noticing it the man BRUSHED IT IFF! Not an EXTRAORDINARY THING, you will say. Perhaps not, viewed in the ORDINARY sense, but when looked at from the viewpoint of LAND VALUES his action was MOST EXTRAORDINARY!

THE MAN DIDN’T KNOW THE VALUE OF REAL ESTATE ON TREMONT STREET!

(The last sentence would be printed in red ink were it a mechanical feasibility.)

One spatter of mud in itself doesn’t amount to much, you say. But SUPPOSE a HUNDRED BILLION SPATTERS OF MUD had struck the man? Would he have brushed them off? Not so. He would have carried them to the market and received therefor a HANDSOME FORTUNE.

Verily it is the LITTLE THINGS of life that COUNT. Wake up to that fact, YOUNG MAN. Think of what IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. A passing vehicle may not THROW REAL ESTATE at you, but SOMETHING might throw SOMETHING at you, for which you should ever be on the ALERT!

______

Confessions of a Humorist

(Extra!)

A correspondent wants to know if it wouldn’t be a good thing to put the “Confessions” on ice for 24 hours, not so much because they are hot stuff and need a course in the cooler, but more especially to prolong the delirium of delight. He says life will hold little for him when the last “Confession” has been conned, and he would rather they would skip a cog occasionally than end abruptly, with nothing in life to look forward to.

He also says that he has taken a straw vote beside the cider barrel, and finds that he is voicing the sentiment of 99 per cent. of Jocosity readers. We have called up the other 1 per cent. and find that they bow to the will of the majority, just the same as they do in the 14^th district, hence the “Confessions” go into cold storage for 24 hours with canned eggs and other foul.

If, however, there are those who cannot get a night’s good rest till they know what the next chapter is to be, if they will call me up via the pay-as-you-enter phone, all charges not at this end, I will endeavor to break the ice as gently as possible.

ADDENDUM

“No second-generation humorist        Joking out a living.”  Jocosities, March 14, 1910.

With you I see it may not be

That even well known jokers’ sons

(As yours and mine) show any sign

Of ultra wit that’s wortha D.,

(Diploma for jocosity)

Hereditary, no doubt.

Few humorists do ever come –

They answer not to rule or plumb.

A line of wits don’t hope to see;

Sporadic they must be –

Their pay is granted might be higher,

But when in wit one takes a flyer,

Humorously pointing morals,

(To foster good and check abuse)

Is likelier to be paid with laurels

Than yellow gold – but never mind,

The humorist fills a noble use!

     Melrose.                    T. F.

_____

Fire-proof is a perfectly sweet compound noun. It sounds so well, it looks so fine in print, but it does not behave as well as it looks. Fire makes light of its proof.

______

Vesuvius feels springy, too. Let no scientist pronounce a volcano extinct, for there is sure to be life in the old man yet to give the world a surprise.

______

One Danger Less for Men

(Contributed.)

($50 fine for long hatpins. Chicago council makes limit half-inch beyond hat crown. – Herald Headline.)

Well no, at last one danger’s past,

     They’ve clapped on the embargo;

Hatpins no more are going to score,

     At least out in Chicago.

No more he’ll flinch, for half an inch

     They now have made the limit;

“Tis fifty per, the fine for her

     That otherwise would trim it.

Alas for him! There’s still the brim

     To in his eye go digging;

And then the crown might be cut down,

     And somewhat reefed the rigging.

     Dorchester.                     H. E. F.

___________

Mar. 24, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Osculation

Don’t let him kiss your hand,

          Daisy Bliss.

Don’t ever let him do it,

          Pretty Miss;

There’s danger in the act

Of osculation – ‘tis a fact.

‘Tis so subtle – the impact,

          Daisy Bliss.

                           – New York Sun.

Don’t you heed the horrid Sun,

          Daisy Bliss;

In a kiss there’s lots of fun,

          Daisy Bliss;

It’s a thing that no one misses,

And, besides, these very kisses

Often make a Miss a Mrs.,

          Daisy Bliss.

               – Rochester Post Express.

That is very bad advice,

          Daisy Bliss;

You’ll be skating on thin ice,

          Daisy Bliss;

For the deuce will be to pay

If you should get too gay

And even kiss and run away,

          Daisy Bliss.

                       – Scranton Tribune.

                  ____

Tell those bards to take a rest,

          Daisy Bliss;

Do just what you think is best,

          Pretty Sis’;

Follow out your own idee

In the matter of “kissee” –

And I know what it will be,

          Daisy Bliss!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Seed catterlogs make no mention uv weeds.”

______

Health Note

For breaking up a cold: An equal part molasses, and four times as much gin. If molasses disagrees with you cut down the portion. Apply inwardly, and repeat every other dose if necessary.

______

Cheerful Comment

Hot air won’t raise the Maine.

Weston has spring in his heel.

“Battery Dan” is silenced forever.

There’s costly living, and costly livers.

Wait till the crocus and chantecler meet!

A great many people think Mr. Melon’s food for thought.

A $25,000,000drug trust will be quite a collection of dope.

“Magazine blows up, killing six!” Not a periodical, thank heaven.

It makes a difference whether the handwriting on the wall is long or short.

The United States government is to pay for keeping politicians clean. It has always paid heavily for keeping politicians clean.

______

Early Extravagance

The way folks waste their money now

     For strawb’ries is a pity;

The radish doesn’t cost so much,

     Is red, and just as pretty.

______

The New Place

Her husband was more up to date,

     But wasn’t the old villain mean O!

He didn’t tell her to go – anywhere,

     Excepting go straight to Reno!

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XLIII.

If life is hanging heavily on your hands, if you want something with which to while away the long and wearisome hours of your existence, start a magazine. If you have a little yellow nest egg that is lying dormant, apparently, slowly creating heat within itself, and finally becoming so hot that it burns a hole in your pocket, start a magazine. Set a healthy young magazine carefully on the nest egg and then let it hatch. You will be surprised when the old hen comes off. She will have hatched you the prettiest little brood of debts and other obligations that ever emerged from a shell game.

If you want to know what advertisers think of you, start a magazine. If you want to see the greatest facial stunt ever performed, when the business man finds you are a solicitor for ads., instead of a customer, start a magazine. If you want to find out how large of a percentage of the English speaking population writes poetry and stories, to say nothing of translations, start a magazine.

If you want to know what disappointed contributors think of you, if you want to lie awake nights, and hide your head days, if you want all the questions of the day hurled at you in voluminous manuscripts, if you want the printer calling on you to spend the evening, casually sizing up your piano as possible collateral, start a magazine!

It doesn’t matter what kind of a magazine you start, all these little diversions mentioned here will thrust themselves upon you, and millions and millions more. The Little Joker had two years of joys and sorrows, two years of comedy and tragedy, and then was sold to a ready buyer. It was not sold because it was a failure, for as a matter of fact it kept its head well above water, but its papa found it impossible to attend to its many needs and hold another position at the same time.

I doubt if ever an unpretentious little magazine had a more notable list of friendly contributors; contributors who wrote for it because they loved it and wanted to see it made a permanent child in the literary family. A glance over those names brings back a flood of happy memories! There are: Edward B. Dennison, associate editor; Nixon Waterman, Sam Walter Foss, Hezekiah Butterworth, Denis A. McCarthy, W. Bert Foster, Alan Eric, James Bartlett Wiggin, J. Howard, M.D.; M. L. Foster-Parker, Maitland Leroy Osborne, Willis Edwin Hurd, Leroy Smart, George Whitefield B’Vys, H. S. Kellar, known as “Kel”; Martha Shepard Lippicott, H. Brinson Harte and many others.

In passing I want to say that in all seriousness that The Little Joker, soon a magazine of 40 to 60 pages, paid its own keep and served a noble purpose while on earth. It made people laugh, it gave its founder some practical and valuable experience in publishing; but more than all else it made and cemented friendships more valuable than gold and everlasting!

(To be continued.)

______

M     y’s L     b

Mary had a little lamb,

     And roasted pork. “I’m rash.”

Said Mary; “meats are high, but still,

     I’m sick of succotash!”

   Boston.                  EPH KAY

____________

Mar. 25, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Harbiger ob Spring

O, gee whid! Dode taug to be,

     I’be got a code, kerchoo!

Id seebs ad if by head would splid,

     Ad aud that I cad do

Id sneed ad blow, ad blow ad sneed,

     Ad cough ad swear; O, by!

Kerchoo! I ged by head wed off,

     Or eld I laud by eye.

I got do bake a speege to nighd,

     Id cannod be postpode,

Gee whid! I dode know whad to do –

     Kerchoo! Wid sughe a code.

O, by! I ged by tibe had cub,

     I caddot taug or sig;

Ad I wid shood the fird blame food

     Who taugs to be ob sprig!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Sometimes music soothes a savage beast, an’ sometimes it creates one.”

______

Musings of the Office Boy

A kiss in time saves embarrassment.

Tomorrow never comes, but the next day’s work does.

There’s a show for everybody if they’ve got the price.

Tomorrow the girls will say: “I like my hair, but O, you Easter hat!”

When some people say “they’re all in,” it’s because they’ve been too much out.

______

All Ready!

I’ve bought my seed,

     I’ve got my plow;

And all I need

     Is summer now.

I like to leap

     and hoe my corn,

While others sleep,

     At early morn.

I like to whack

     And hoe the weeds,

It gives my back

     Just what it needs.

Until I strike

     weeds thick as fun;

And then I like

     To hire it done.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XLIV.

I was just about to start upon an unusually thrilling chapter of “confessions” when the mail boy handed me the following letter:

“Dear Jocosity: Is there to be an end to the ‘Confessions’ or do they belong to a ring? I am getting to be an old man, and would like to know about how they are going to wind up before Gabriel toots his cornet in my direction.

                                  THREESCORE & 10.”

Have patience, “Threescore & 10.” A person of your age should have lost the impatience and unreasonableness of youth long ago. You are setting a very bad example before the more youthfuler readers of Jocosities.

The “Confessions” don’t belong to any ring, neither are they identified with politics. They are the true chronicles, mixed here and there with a dash of romance, of the life of a struggling young humorist thrown amongst un-humorous people in a serious age.

I don’t see why you should take me to task because you are getting to be an old man. I can’t help it. Have you tried any of the numerous elixirs of life which are so much advertised?

Another thing, “Threescore & 10,” how do you and the other fellows who keep making inquiries relative to the length and breadth and thickness of these “Confessions” expect I am ever going to finish them if you keep interrupting me with your questions? You could find answers to most of your inquiries in a common household encyclopedia or cookbook, anyway. Take today, for instance; here I was on the point of writing a thrilling chapter, and your letter of inquiry has put me back a whole day. Why don’t you write Gabriel, asking him why he doesn’t hurry up and toot his cornet, etc., etc.?

No sooner had I finished with “Threescore & 10” than I received a second letter, reading as follows:

“Dear Jocosity: I have taken one dose of your ‘Confessions’ each morning since they were opened, and feel much better. Your ‘Confessions’ should be called ‘Father Jocosity’s Medicine’! Are they all really so?

                                           “BRIGHT EYES.”

All so-so, “Bright Eyes.” Do you think a man would deliberately perjure himself on paper? Especially with so many bright eyes following him day to day? Furthermore, truth is funnier than fiction, so why should I lose my job by inventing falsehoods?

It makes me feel better to know that you are feeling better, and no doubt, if you follow directions carefully, you will be entirely cured.

(To be continued.)

______

Concerning Poetry

(Contributed.)

How close the simple themes of song

     Approach the human heart;

While fine, sky-scraping poems fail

     Like impress to impart.

Not rich morocco, gold and paint

     Will aid a poet’s quill;

The commonplace may dress in silk –

     It commonplace is still.

“Anon” in some illiterate print

     May carol verse that cheers,

Or on cheap paper leave a tale

     That wells the eyes with tears.

The difference ‘tween all poets is

     Less in theme than letter;

Some hands arrange flowers wretchedly,

     While others fix them better.

     Melrose.                    T. F.

____________

Mar. 26, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Her Easter Hat

      Her Easter hat,

     So neat and pat,

Sat lightly on her tresses;

     And breezy dips

     From April’s lips

Kissed it with their caresses.

     Her Easter hat

     So lightly sat

That I forgave her yearnings;

     Although it lay,

     I’m free to say,

Quite heavy on my earnings!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“It’s a purty good man who is willin’ to hide his light under a bushel so’s it won’t hurt his neighbor’s eyesight.”

______

Message of March

When I came in, I came in like a lamb,

And glad that I did the folks all amb;

          But, to keep up repute,

          Though I know it won’t sute,

When I go, I’ll go out like a ramb!

______

Pavement Philosophy

Idle hands work a lot of mischief.

Every drop of honey is apt to have its sting.

A good thing isn’t so when applied to persons.

Man is seldom arrested for cheating himself.

It is hard work to borrow money on a long face.

A good square meal fills more than one annoying chink.

A good listener will always have plenty of engagements.

The self-made man spoils it when he starts bragging about the job.

Money itself in nothing; it’s the trouble it gets one into that is so alluring.

When you hear a man say that he doesn’t want an automobile, look out for him.

The hookworm takes a back seat now, as the angleworm looms up on the horizon.

Sometimes the early bird, with its bottle, is caught by a pair of still earlier birds.

If a poet wants to wear long hair and a long green tie, he should be allowed to do so; it’s about the only long green that ever comes his way.

Of course, you understand there wouldn’t be so much bargain-counter advice floating around if it were really worth anything.

______

From Sir Rupert

The following gem was taken from a Worcester paper, where it was found under the caption of “Webster,” a column of two notes. What makes it so extremely pleasing to us, and why we give it space here, is because it pictures us in so picturesque a manner and tells things about us we have thought for a long time but modesty has prevented us from saying so. We thank the Webster poet for being so nice, and so fair minded.

“If I could write just like Joe Cone, and Joe could write like me, O, what a pretty pair we’d make upon the poet’s tree. Joe could slide the humor in and I could write the gush; you could almost hear the reader grin at such a lot of mush. Joe, you’ve got a thoughtful think, that must lacerate your brain, you have a joke ‘twixt ev’ry wink, and a laugh ‘twixt every pain. Walt Mason may be going some, and perhaps it is to laugh, but of you, Joe Cone, you funny one, I cannot tell the haugh. Shades of Twain, likewise of Ward and of Billings, rest his wit, also Bill Nye, that bald old fraud, who had scarce a little bit (?). How stale, how flat, their fun appears since modern lights have shown why did we laugh through all the years, Joe Cone! Joe Cone! Joe Cone! Please tell us, if you can, Joe Cone, does Eli Perkins’ spook hover o’er your humble home and give your muse a crook, or does some genius yet unknown guide your humorous pen. If so, just tell us this, Joe Cone, just where he’ll quit and when.

                                           “– IRA D. BATES.”

______

Two Quatrains

(Contributed.)

THE PROCESSION

Advance, musicians, poets, dreamers, wits,

Beauty’s wise men and nature’s favorites;

Children of bliss, forever young and bold,

Who live for joy and warm life’s pulses cold.

TRANSIENT AND ETERNAL

A fortunate dream will far outlast

     The dying annals of today;

A thought can mirror the whole past,

     A song make all the future gay.

                                      H. A. KENDALL.

     Somerville.

____________

Mar. 27, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

Spring the Fickle

We’re glad that spring has come, although

     She handed us a bad one;

Each day we fear, since she’s been here,

     Has been for us a sad one.

Just when the birds began to sing,

     With no more snow to vex us,

Then spring let go an awful blow

     Right in our solar plexus.

All day and night we cough and sneeze,

     And bark and bawl and bellow;

We sweat and swear in grim despair,

     And life looks very yellow.

We wildly groan with aches and pains,

     And curse the fates completely;

And want to shoot the robin brute

     Because he sings so sweetly.

Oh how can spring be sweet and fair,

     And altogether pleasing,

Then cause our knob to swell and throb

     With coughing and with sneezing?

How can she bear us up to heights

     Of poesy elysian,

Then knock us plum beneath the thumb

     Of nurse and cross physician!

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Some folks ruther crawl out uv a knot-hole when the door is wide open.”

______

Ballad of the Bark

This is a dang’rous time of year,

     Don’t take your flannels off;

E’en automobiles on the way,

And power boats upon the bay

     Have got a dreadful cough.

______

Cheerful Comment

Hope there’ll be no spring halt.

Easter weather was very kind to her.

Now aren’t you sorry you left it off?

Confession, they say, is good for the bank.

Eggs dropped, but not to the breaking point.

The black hand in sporting circles is having its trouble, too.

Even Uncle Sam’s torpedo boats can break down from overwork.

Otis Skinner can crow over some of his associates in being selected by Frohman for the title role in “Chantecler.”

If you want to know who’s to blame for high prices, and for everything else that’s wrong, it’s the other fellow.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XLV.

The following letter is self-explanatory, and is the keynote to many of the ups and downs met in these “Confessions.” There are some things in life that can’t be hurried. Great things are accomplished slowly. Haste makes waste, and yet –

                                           “Four-Corners, Mass.

“Dear Mr. Jocosity: I think it perfectly mean the way people are writing to you and interrupting you when you are trying so hard to finish your ‘Confessions.’ It strikes me people have little to do who will do such things. But I know how to sympathize with you, and it is for that reason I drop my own important work and write you this letter. I know just how you are situated. Many, many times during the day, when I am trying to cut out a dress, or get my pies in the oven so they will be done in time for my husband’s supper, in comes a neighbor to borrow something or to impart a choice bit of gossip, and my work has to be laid aside until she is gone. And sometimes she is no more out of the yard before another one bobs in.

“So, you see, I know how to sympathize with you, as I say, and send you this, hoping you will print it, thus showing those thoughtless people how much they are hindering you in a great and good cause. Of course, your work differs from mine, but, after all, the principle is the same. I have read the ‘Confessions’ ever since they started, and have enjoyed them immensely, the only drawback being the frequent interruptions, and of course I know you can’t help that. Perhaps, if you publish this letter, you won’t be bothered so much afterward.

“I would write you at greater length and tell you more about our life out here, but I must get an apple pie in the oven for my husband’s supper. My husband wouldn’t know what to do without his apple pie for supper. I fear he would lose all his appetite if he should finish a meal and find he had no apple pie for supper. You ought to know him; he just dotes on apple pie.                  Mrs. A. E. O.”

Now that is what I call a sensible letter. The average woman may not throw a stone well, but she can hit the nail on the head when she starts out. I had long intended to write something similar, or else give up the “Confessions” altogether, but never could have put it so plainly and effectively as she has done. Now I hope the “Confessions” will go forward calmly and uninterruptedly to their finish.

(To be continued.)

____________

Mar. 28, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

My Cous’ Caruse

(As seen by Adoni da barber.)

My cous’ Caruse he cam’ for shav’,

     An’ gatta een my chair;

I did not know ‘twas heem, an’ so

     I gat no feela scare.

I shav’ heem sam’ I shava you,

     I poncho heesa jaw,

An’ rub hees head lik’ he was dog

     Weeth my gre’t beega paw.

He say to me, “You nevra hear

     Da gre’t Caruso seeng?

No?” Dan I say I canta pay

     For hear so gre’ta theeng.

“You theenk he’s gre’t?” he say to me.

     “I am so gre’t as he.”

“You go for chase you’self,” I say,

     “You are but twanty-t’ree.”

He laugh an’ write on heesa card:

     “Pass two for opera.”

Dan light up heesa ceegarette,

`An’ bow an’ say, “Good day!”

I can no speak for my surprise,

     Tak’ time for ondrastan’;

An’ dan I say, “My cous’ Caruse

     He eesa beega man!”

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Poets are born, becuz nobuddy would make any, ef it come to thet.”

______

Our Weather Prophets

If it snows, “Winter ain’t dead yet.”

If it rains, “It’s regular April weather.”

If it’s cold, “We are going to have a late spring.”

If it’s warm, “Summer if coming right away.”

If it’s windy, “March is a hard month, anyway.”

If the sun shines, “What fine weather we’re having!”

If it’s cloudy, “We can’t expect good weather all the time.”

If nobody mentions the weather, you can gamble there’s something more important going on.

______

Cheerful Comment

Strawberries look the part this time o’ year.

Activity in the war department! Crazy Snake to be hunted again.

Peas may be planted with perfect impunity now – or with a spade.

Bulgaria wants to fight Turkey. Now, of course, that is going to send up the Thanksgiving prices!

New York janitors, to the number 700, protest. It will be news to the world to know there is anything a janitor can’t get.

Probably those wool-covered chickens produced at the Carnegie experimental station will scratch up a garden just like any other chickens.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XLVI.

Taking up our confessions where they were so ruthlessly laid down, wherever that may have been, we will proceed to go forward. “Proceeding to go forward.” you might say, is a superfluity, but not in the sense it is used here. Proceeding to go forward, as used here, means going forward with augmented impetus, or, in other words, under forced draught.

This gives our droll critics a chance to say the whole thing sounds “forced.” but we gayly step in ahead of them and say it ourselves. Writing an autobiography and publishing it while one is still alive is a very dangerous undertaking for the writer unless he does it nom-de-plumatically, and who wants to read a fictitious autobiography? If you write truth, people will say “Self-advertisement.” If you write fiction, the public says “Impossible.” If you write pleasantly about your friends, people say “Mush!” and if you tell a few choice tales out of school, they say “Soak him!” It is simply awful trying to write “Confessions” and have them either truthful or fictitious or interesting, and some kind friend should have remonstrated with me before ever I started out on so ticklish a mission.

During the next few years it was my good fortune to meet good friends thick and fast. (Important!) Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t mean to imply the friends were thick and fast. That was merely the manner in which I met them. Friends in all walks in life, and not a few on the run. That is the way one almost always meets his friends in the suburbs.

It is inevitable that the humorist, or the near-humorist, will sooner or later belong to a club, or possibly clubs. The number of clubs he will belong to will depend on the number of dollars he earns during the week. The average club gets pretty stale after a while; gets sort of tired of itself, so to speak, and the members conclude that it is time to go out and round up a humorist, one who will be led into the banquet room on a string and sit up, hold out his paw, and roll over for the edification of the members and guests at the monthly dinners. So he is approached casually by different members and told what a fine fellow he is, what a hit he has made with the public, what a fine thing the club is and how much he needs the club and how much the club needs him.

So, the first thing he knows, he has signed the innocent little application blank, and one fine night he finds himself delivering side-splitting yarns, anecdotes and poems amidst vociferous applause, following a dinner for which he has paid out of his own pocket $2 the plate!

(To be continued.)

______

No Warrior

“What would you say to a stranger who had come up to you and struck you a hard blow in the face?”

“I would say, ‘Excuse me, sir, but if I hurt your hand any I am exceedingly sorry for it.’”

____________

Mar. 29, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

A Spring Song

There’s the song of the croakers,

        The laugh of the jokers,

The bay of the watchdog that cometh afar;

        But the song that is loudest,

        Of which we are proudest,

Is the cheery old song of the open car!

        There’s the song of the robin,

        The neighing of “Dobbin,”

The song of the rooster who crows at the star;

        But the music that thills us,

        Though maybe it kills us,

Is the gladsome old song of the open car.

        There’s the song of the rhymers,

        The old and new timers,

Who sing like the heralds of joy that they are;

        But the song that surpasses,

        That catches the masses,

Is the wheezy old song of the open car.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“Lightnin’ would strike twice in the same place all right ef it thought it wuz wuth whule.”

______

Musings of the Office Boy

Matchin’ pennies is mighty poor business when you lose.

What’s the use tellin’ your troubles to a p’liceman and get more?

The boss told me not to believe all I heard unless he was doin’ the speakin’.

Some stenog’s are dreams, and some are nightmares, and some are only about half awake.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XLVII.

By and by, “in the course of human events,” a great change came over the Bilford Banner. One bright day in June a new editor appeared upon the horizon and was duly installed, and, as you know, with the installation of a new editor, changes must be made whether they are needed or not. “Or not” is another superfluity and we often tack it on, as it seems to make a stronger climax.

The new editor of the Bilford Banner thought that second-hand, warmed-over jokes would be just as good for Banner readers. He figured that pre-digested jokes were safer and certainly less expensive. He thought the wear and tear on a pair of office scissors and a few daubs of paste wouldn’t come nearly so high as my salary, so after a few pleasant hours in his society I was moved up; out on the retired list, so to speak. This gave me the opportunity I had long been looking for. I would go into the country, buy a small farm and raise my own living, and while not actually occupied with the rake and wheelbarrow and hoe I would sit joyfully under a chestnut tree and dash off a few jokes, thereby earning a few thousand a week on the side, and with no effort at all, as it were.

It looked so good to me that I wondered I hadn’t thought of it before. The idea, said I, of slaving away in the city, with its foul air and its artificial life and light when I can go into the country and pick hen fruit off the trees and bathe in milk or apple juice as my mood calls for! Why listen to the curses of the teamster and the motorman when I can listen to the morning song of the crow and meadow hen?

Why drink in the brassy air of the whirling electric fan when I can sit on the rustic fence and drink the invigorating zephyrs that float over from the onion patch or from the skunk-cabbage swamp primeval?

The friends? O, yes; would be hard to leave the friends made in the city far, far behind, but when one has a wide-open country place, with plenty to eat and – and – good fishing – it is not so difficult to get the good city friends to come down occasionally and play golf with the lawn mower.

And so bidding good-bye to the gas-laden, smoke begrimed atmosphere of Bilford, and of Boston, its suburb, we, meaning Mrs. Joker, the “Little Joker,” now a pert miss of 6 years, and myself, took the dusty train back to the soil where the “wicked cease from troubling and the weary shall be at rest.”

(To be continued.)

______

Unanswered

(Contributed.)

I smiled at the Girl – just once,

I’d do as well

To smile upon an angel carved in stone

And get as much response,

Of vainly tell

My troubles to an idol one by one.

I spoke to the Girl – but then

She did not hear

My words were spoken to the soulless air,

Just to return again

In echoes drear,

And chide me for addressing one so rare.

But why should I care? why not

Forget her slight;

E’en as the hand pricked by the summer rose

So soon its pain forgot?

My wound was light

And yet, perhaps I loved the girl – who knows!

WILLIAM ROGER BURLINGAME,

       Cambridge.

____________

Mar. 30, ‘10

JOCOSITIES

____

By JOE CONE

    For Sale: 100 Cold Cures!

We have 100 cures for sale,

     One hundred, maybe two;

And any one of which will cure

     A cold up P. D. Q.

If any reader wants a cure,

     One fully guaranteed,

For any kind of grippy cold,

     We can supply his need.

Two weeks ago we stricken were,

     And friends and neighbors all

Brought endless “splendid remedies”

     When they came in to call.

And so we have a kitchen full,

     We ne’er can use them all,

And so we will dispose of them

     In bunches big or small.

We’ve syrups, plasters, pills and baths,

     And pellets white and black;

We’ve applications for the chest,

     And blisters for the back.

We’ve spray pumps for the throat and nose,

     Old remedies and new;

We’ve swabs for cleaning out the pipes,

     And things to snuff and chew.

Come all unto the private sale,

     Before the auction day;

Let no man suff’ring with a cold     

     Unwisely stay away.

Excuse us if we can’t appear,

     We’re still too sick and lame;

“How is our cold?” O, thanks (“eschew!”)

     It’s just about the same.

______

Uncle Ezra Says:

“A man is apt to grow bunions ef he waits too long fur dead man’s shoes.”

______

Cheerful Comment

Exit: The snowploughs; enter: The swan boats.

The fickle canoe upsets many a well laid plan.

No Harvard student should be out after 11 without a chaperone, anyway.

The $11.20 Chicago hogs have nothing on some of the nickel ones.

Three gallons of 10-year-old Kentucky ought to help some after a strenuous day on the streets of Cairo.

The name of that thief of time who got away with 2000 watches evidently isn’t procrastination.

Orville Wright took a 100-foot fall in Montgomery, Ala., but Orv’ says he’s got so used to it now it doesn’t hurt him any more.

______

Confessions of a Humorist

A Near-Autobiography

XLVIII.

In the language of one more or less in the public eye, “It was bully fun” buying an old, run-down country place and putting it in order again. In the exhilaration of dipping all the water out of the well, of levelling up the doorstep, of setting window glass and cleaning out the massive cellar I quite forgot the joke side of my country proposition, or if I thought of it at all I figured I would take it up after we had gotten all cleaned up and settled down.

There were a score or more of big stumps left here and there in the yard and lawn, and these, of course, must come up and the ground filled in and turfed. The first thing to do was to pull them out. I began with the enthusiasm of a dentist. I pulled sidewise and straight up and down. Sometimes I would go out before breakfast and pull all day long. Then I would pull at night with the aid of a lantern, thinking the night air might have some effect on the obstinacy of the stumps. I injected soapy water into the gums, and often stopped to ask if it hurt. Of course I was loosening them all the time, and finally, after building a pair of immense forceps, I was able to extract the stumps, roots and all, without pain or any bad after-effects.

Then the garden must be ploughed, and the field beyond made ready for the planting of winter crops. I thought all I had to do was go out and whistle and I could get a dozen farmers to plow for me. But, as a matter of fact, they were so busy with their own ploughing and planting that they would pay no attention to my wants until their own work was out of the way. So I fell to with the spade. Didst ever spade all day, gentle reader, then try to bend over at night to fasten your shoes?

Days came and went, and my farm-work increased steadily. There was planting and hoeing, and grading and turfing. There were paths to cut and lawns to mow. There were 101 things to be done every day and only 15 to 20 hours a day in which to do them. And me write jokes under the spreading chestnut tree while the lark-songs filled the joyous ether? A very pretty theory, but utterly impossible with weeds growing in your garden and neighbors’ hens constantly changing the surface geography of your place!

Sit on the rustic fence and pen odes to the summer squash? Not practical, for, while you were performing the ode act, the squashes would either be choked with weeds or devoured by millions of striped bugs.

One of the most interesting things about opening a country place is the gathering of one’s neighbors, who drop round, as if by accident, to see how the fellow from the city does his work. They will line up alongside the garden, taking in every move, feeling grateful, of course, for any new ideas you might impart to them. Then, later, down in the village store, you will be sized up for what you are – nothing more.

Of the sharp trades I engineered among my neighbors, of the “splendid” family horse I bargained for, of the milkless cow and the layless hens I became the possessor of, I will say nothing. It is a painful subject, not conducive to good humor.

I am not going to chronicle here the swift ups and downs of those six years on a farm. Looking at them now, with my financial pockets turned inside out, I can see no humor in them. I have promised myself, and some others, that some day I shall write a book of the truly rural, and that book shall be called “Raising Jokes and Other Stuff on a Farm.”

(To be continued.)

____________

March 31, 1910