Read Ebook: Horse Sense in Verses Tense by Mason Walt

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A FIERCE and bitter storm's abroad, it is a bleak midwinter day, and slowly o'er the frozen sod the postman's pony picks its way. The postman and his horse are cold, but fearlessly they face the gale; though storms increase a hundredfold, the farmer folk must have their mail. The hours drag on, the lonely road grows rougher with each mile that's past, the weary pony feels its load, and staggers in the shrieking blast. But man and horse strive on the more; they never learned such word as fail; though tempests beat and torrents pour, the farmer folk must have their mail. At night the pony, to its shed, drags on its cold, exhausted frame; and after supper, to his bed, the wearied postman does the same. Tomorrow brings the same old round, the same exhausting, thankless grind--the journey over frozen ground, the facing of the bitter wind. The postman does a hero's stunt to earn his scanty roll of kale; of all the storms he bears the brunt--the farmer folk must have their mail!

HOME, SWEET HOME

OH, Home! It is a sacred place--or was, in olden days, before the people learned to chase to moving picture plays; to tango dances and such things, to skating on a floor; and now the youthful laughter rings within the Home no more. You will recall, old men and dames, the homes of long ago, and you'll recall the fireside games the children used to know. The neighbors' kids would come along with your own kids to play, and merry as a bridal song the evening passed away. An evening spent away from home in olden days was rare; the children hadn't learned to roam for pleasure everywhere. But now your house is but a shell where children sleep and eat; it serves that purpose very well--their home is on the street. Their home is where the lights are bright, where ragtime music flows; their noon's the middle of the night, their friends are--Lord, who knows? The windows of your home are dark, and silence broods o'er all; you call it Home--God save the mark! 'Tis but a sty or stall!

POOR WORK

YOU can't afford to do poor work, so, therefore, always shun it; for no excuse or quip or quirk will square you when you've done it. I hired a man to paint my cow from horntips to the udder, and she's all blotched and spotted now, and people view and shudder. "Who did the job?" they always ask; and when I say, "Jim Yellow," they cry, "When we have such a task we'll hire some other fellow." And so Jim idly stands and swows bad luck has made him nervous, for when the people paint their cows they do not ask his service. And thus one's reputation flows, a-skiting, here and yonder; and wheresoe'er the workman goes, his bum renown will wander. 'Twill face him like an evil ghost when he his best is doing, and jolt him where it hurts the most, and still keep on pursuing. A good renown will travel, too, from Gotham to Empory, and make you friends in places new, and bring you cash and glory. So always do your best, old hunks; let nothing be neglected, and you will gather in the plunks, and live and die respected.

OLD MAIDS

ALL girls should marry when they can. There's naught more useful than a man. A husband has some faults, no doubt, and yet he's good to have about; and she who doesn't get a mate will wish she had one, soon or late. That girl is off her base, I fear, who plans to have a high career, who sidesteps vows and wedding rings to follow after abstract things. I know so many ancient maids who in professions, arts or trades have tried to cut a manlike swath, and old age finds them in the broth. A loneliness, as of the tomb, enshrouds the spinsters in its gloom; the jim crow honors they have won they'd sell at seven cents a ton. Their sun is sinking in the West, and they, unloved and uncaressed, must envy, as they bleakly roam, the girl with husband, hearth, and home. Get married, then, Jemima dear; don't fiddle with a cheap career. Select a man who's true and good, whose head is not composed of wood, a man who's sound in wind and limb, then round him up and marry him. Oh, rush him to the altar rail, nor heed his protest or his wail. "This is," you'll say, when he's been won, "the best day's work I've ever done."

CHRISTMAS RECIPE

MAKE somebody happy today! Each morning that motto repeat, and life, that was gloomy and gray, at once becomes pleasant and sweet. No odds what direction you go, whatever the pathway you wend, there's somebody weary of woe, there's somebody sick for a friend; there's somebody needing a guide, some pilgrim who's wandered astray; oh, don't let your help be denied--make somebody happy today! There's somebody tired of the strife, the wearisome struggle for bread, borne down by the burden of life, and envying those who are dead; a little encouragement now may drive his dark visions away, and smooth out a seam from his brow--make somebody happy today! There's somebody sick over there, where sunlight is shut from the room; there's somebody deep in despair, beholding no light in the gloom; there's somebody needing your aid, your solace, wherever you stray; then let not your help be delayed--make somebody happy today. Make somebody happy today, some comfort and sympathy give, and Christmas shall ne'er go away, but always and ever shall live.

THE OLD MAN

BE kind to your daddy, O gamboling youth; his feet are now sluggish and cold; intent on your pleasures, you don't see the truth, which is that your dad's growing old. Ah, once he could whip forty bushels of snakes, but now he is spavined and lame; his joints are all rusty and tortured with aches, and weary and worn is his frame. He toiled and he slaved like a government mule to see that his kids had a chance; he fed them and clothed them and sent them to school, rejoiced when he marked their advance. The landscape is moist with the billows of sweat he cheerfully shed as he toiled, to bring up his children and keep out of debt, and see that the home kettle boiled. He dressed in old duds that his Mary and Jake might bloom like the roses in June, and oft when you swallowed your porterhouse steak, your daddy was chewing a prune. And now that he's worn by his burden of care, just show you are worth all he did; look out for his comfort, and hand him his chair, and hang up his slicker and lid.

WINTER NIGHT

HAIL, Winter and wild weather, when we are all together, about the glowing fire! Let frost be e'er so stinging, it can't disturb our singing, nor can the Storm King's ire. The winds may madly mosey, they only make more cozy the home where we abide; the snow may drift in billows, but we have downy pillows, and good warm beds inside. The night indeed has terrors for lonely, lost wayfarers who for assistance call; who pray for lights to guide them--the lights that are denied them--may God protect them all! And to the poor who grovel in wretched hut and hovel, and feel its icy breath, who mark the long hours dragging their footsteps slow and lagging, the night seems kin to Death. For cheery homes be grateful, when Winter, fierce and fateful, comes shrieking in the night; for books and easy rockers, for larders filled and lockers, and all the warmth and light.

GRANDMOTHER

OLD granny sits serene and knits and talks of bygone ages, when she was young; and from her tongue there comes the truth of sages. "In vanished years," she says, "my dears, the girls were nice and modest, and they were shy, and didn't try to see whose wit was broadest. In cushioned nooks they read their books, and loved the poets' lilting; with eager paws they helped their mas at cooking and at quilting. The maidens then would shy at men and keep them at a distance, and each new sport who came to court was sure to meet resistance. The girls were flowers that bloomed in bowers remote from worldly clamor, and when I view the modern crew they give me katzenjammer. The girls were sweet and trim and neat, as fair as hothouse lilies, and when I scan the modern clan I surely have the willies. Refinement fades when modern maids come forth in all their glory; their hats are freaks, their costume shrieks, their nerve is hunkydory. They waste the night and in daylight they're doctoring and drugging; when they don't go to picture show, they're busy bunny-hugging." Then granny takes her pipe and breaks some plug tobacco in it, and smokes and smokes till mother chokes and runs out doors a minute.

THE TORNADO

WE people infesting this excellent planet emotions of pride in our victories feel; we put up our buildings of brick and of granite, equip them with trusses and bastions of steel. Regarding the fruit of our earnest endeavor, we cheerily boast as we weave through the town: "A building like that one will stand there forever, for fire can't destroy it nor wind blow it down." Behold, as we're boasting there falls a dun shadow; the harvester Death is abroad for his sheaves, and, tumbled and tossed by the roaring tornado, the man and his building are crumpled like leaves. And then there are dead men in windrows to shock us, and scattered and gone are the homes where they died; a pathway of ruin and wreckage to mock us, and show us how futile and vain is our pride. We're apt to, when planning and building and striving, forget we are mortals and think we are gods; and then when the lord of the tempest is driving, his wheels break us up with the rest of the clods. Like ants we are busy, all proud and defiant, constructing a home on the face of the lawn; and now comes the step of a wandering giant; it crushes our anthill, and then it is gone.

THE GREAT GAME

THE pitcher is pitching, the batsman is itching to punish the ball in the old-fashioned way; the umpire is umping, the fielders are humping--we're playing baseball in our village today! Two thousand mad creatures are perched on the bleachers, the grand stand is full and the fences the same, the old and the youthful, the false and the truthful, the plain and the lovely are watching the game. The groaning taxpayers are watching the players, forgetting a while all their burdens and wrongs, and landlord and tenant are saying the pennant will come to this town where it surely belongs. The lounger and toiler, the spoiled and the spoiler, are whooping together like boys at the fair; and foes of long standing as one are demanding the blood of the umpire, his hide and his hair. The game is progressing, now punk and distressing--our boys are all rattled, the audience groans! But see how they rally--O, scorer, keep tally! We'll win at the finish, I'll bet seven bones! The long game is ended, we fans have all wended back, back to our labors, our cares and our joys, once more grave and steady--and yet ever ready to stake a few plunks on our own bunch of boys!

AT THE FINISH

OH say, what is this thing called Fame, and is it worth our while? We seek it till we're old and lame, for weary mile on mile; we seek a gem among the hay, for wheat among the chaff; and in the end some heartless jay will write our epitaph. The naked facts it will relate, and little else beside: "This man was born on such a date, on such a date he died." The gravestones in the boneyard tell all we shall ever know of men who struggled passing well for glory, long ago. They had their iridescent schemes and lived to see them fail; they had their dreams, as you have dreams, and all of no avail. The gravestones calmly tell their fate, the upshot of their pride: "This man was born on such a date, on such a date he died." The great men of your fathers' time, with laurel on each brow, the theme of every poet's rhyme--where are those giants now? Their names are written in the books which no one ever reads; and on the scroll--where no one looks--the record of their deeds. The idler by the churchyard gate this legend hath espied: "This man was born on such a date, on such a date he died."

THE VAGABOND

HE'S idle, unsteady, and everyone's ready to throw him a dornick or give him a biff; he's always in tatters, but little it matters; he's evermore happy, so what is the diff? He carries no sorrow, no care for tomorrow, his roof is the heavens, his couch is the soil; no sighing or weeping breaks in on his sleeping, no bell in the morning shall call him to toil. As free as the breezes he goes where he pleases, no rude overseer to boss him around; his joys do not wither, he goes yon and hither, till dead in a haystack or ditch he is found. The joys of such freedom--no sane man can need 'em! Far better to toil for the kids and the wife, till muscles are aching and collarbone breaking, than selfishly follow the vagabond life. One laborer toiling is worth the whole boiling of idlers and tramps of whatever degree; and though we all know it we don't find a poet embalming the fact as embalmed it should be. The poets will chortle about the blithe mortal who wanders the highways and sleeps in the hay, but who sings the toiler, the sweat-spangled moiler, who raises ten kids on a dollar a day?

THE COMING DAY

THERE'LL come a day when we must make full payment for all the foolish things we do today; and sackcloth then perchance will be our raiment, and we'll regret the hours we threw away. We loaf today, and we shall loaf tomorrow, hard by the pump or in the corner store; there'll come a day when we'll look back with sorrow on wasted hours, the hours that come no more. We say harsh things to friends who look for kindness, and bring the tears to loving, patient eyes; we scold and quarrel in our fretful blindness, instead of smiles, we call up mournful sighs. Our friends will tread the path that leads us only to rest and silence in the grass-grown grave; there'll come a day when weary, sad and lonely, we'll think of them and of the wounds we gave. In marts of trade we're prone to overreaching, to swell our roll we cheat and deal in lies, forgetful oft of early moral teaching, and all the counsel of the good and wise. It is, alas, an evil road we travel, that leads at last to bitterness and woe; there'll come a day when gold will seem as gravel, and we shall mourn the sins of long ago.

SALTING THEM DOWN

THERE'S trouble in store for the gent who never salts down a red cent, who looks upon cash as the veriest trash, for foolish extravagance meant. Since money comes easy today, he thinks 'twill be always that way, and he burns up the scads with the rollicking lads and warbles a madrigal gay. His dollars are drawn when they're due; and rather than salt down a few, he throws them, with jests, at the robin red breasts, with riotous hullabaloo. I look down the scurrying years--for I'm the descendant of seers--and the spendthrift descry when his youth is gone by, an object of pity and tears. I see him parading the street, on weary and ring-boney feet, a-begging for dimes, for the sake of old times, to buy him some sauerkraut to eat. I see him abandoned and sick, his pillow a dornick or brick; and the peeler comes by with a vulcanized eye and swats him for luck with a stick. I see him when dying; he groans, but his anguish for nothing atones! And they cart him away in the dawn cold and gray, to the place where they bury cheap bones. Don't burn up your money, my friend; don't squander or foolishly lend; though you say it is dross and regret not its loss, it's a comfort and staff in the end.

SUCCESS IN LIFE

IT'S easy to be a success, as thousands of winners confess; no man's so obscure or unlucky or poor that he can't be a winner, I guess. And success, Mr. Man, doesn't mean a roll that would stagger a queen, or some gems of your own, or a palace of stone, or a wagon that burns gasoline. A man's a success, though renown doesn't place on his forehead a crown, if he pays as he goes, if it's true that he owes not a red in the dod-gasted town. A man's a success if his wife finds comfort and pleasure in life; if she's glad and content that she married a gent reluctant to organize strife. A man's a success if his kids are joyous as Katy H. Dids; if they're handsome and neat, with good shoes on their feet, and roses and things on their lids. A man's a success if he tries to be honest and kindly and wise; if he's slow to repeat all the lies he may meet, if he swats both the scandals and flies. I know when old Gaffer Pete Gray one morning was taken away, by Death, lantern-jowled, the whole village howled, and mourned him for many a day. Yet he was so poor that he had but seldom the half of a scad; he tried to do good in such ways as he could--he was a successful old lad!

TRUE HAPPINESS

WHEN torrents are pouring or tempests are roaring how pleasant and cheerful is home! To sit by the winder all drier than tinder and watch the unfortunates roam! With glad eyes to follow the fellows who wallow around in the rain or the sleet, to watch them a-slipping and sliding and tripping, and falling all over the street! There's nothing so soothing, so apt to be smoothing the furrows of grief from your brow, as sitting and gazing at folks who are raising out there in the mud such a row! To watch a mad neighbor through hurricane labor, while you are all snug by the fire, to see him cavorting and pawing and snorting--what more could a mortal desire? I love storm and blizzard from A clear to Izzard, I'm fond of the sleet and the rain; let winter get busy and whoop till he's dizzy, and I'll be the last to complain. For there is a casement just over the basement where I in all comfort may sit, and watch people wading through mud or parading through snow till they fall in a fit.

GENEROSITY

OLD Kink's always willing to preach, and hand out wise counsel and teach; but ask him for aid when you're hungry and frayed, and he'll stick to his wad like a leech. He's handy with proverb and text to comfort the needy and vexed; but when there's a plan to feed indigent man, old Kink never seems to get next. He'll help out the widow with psalms, and pray for her fatherless lambs; but he never would try to bring joy to her eye with codfish and sauerkraut and hams. On Sunday he joins in the hymn, and makes the responses with vim; when they pass round the box for the worshipers' rocks, his gift is exceedingly slim. He thinks he is fooling the Lord and is sure of a princely reward when to heaven he goes at this life's journey's close--with which view I am not in accord. For the Lord, he is wise to gold bricks, and the humbug who crosses the Styx will have to be sharp if he captures a harp; St. Peter will say to him, "Nix!" They size up a man nearly right when he comes to the portals of light; and no stingy old fraud ever hornswoggled God or put on a robe snowy white.

BACKBONE

FROM Yuba Dam to Yonkers the man of backbone conquers, where spineless critters fail; all obstacles o'ercoming, he goes along a-humming, and gathers fame and kale. No ghosts of failure haunt him, no grisly bogies daunt him or make his spirits low; you'll find him scratching gravel wherever you may travel, from Butte to Broken Bow. From Winnipeg to Wooster you'll see this cheerful rooster, this model to all men; undaunted by reverses he wastes no time in curses, but digs right in again. His face is always shining though others be repining; you cannot keep him down; his trail is always smoking while cheaper men are croaking about the old dead town. From Humboldt to Hoboken he leaves his sign and token in buildings high and grand; in factories that flourish, in industries that nourish a tired, anaemic land. He brings the work to toilers and fills with bread and broilers their trusty dinner pails; he keeps the ripsaw ripping, the big triphammer tripping, the workman driving nails. All honor to his noblets! We drink to him in goblets of grapejuice rich and red--the man of spine and gizzard who hustles like a blizzard and simply won't be dead!

THE POORHOUSE

THE poorhouse, naked, grim, and bare, stands in a valley low; and most of us are headed there as fast as we can go. The paupers sit behind the gate, a solemn thing to see, and there all patiently they wait, they wait for you and me. We come, we come, O sad-eyed wrecks, we're coming with a will! We're all in debt up to our necks, and going deeper still! We're buying things we can't afford, and mock the old-time way of salting down a little hoard against the rainy day! No more afoot the poor man roams; in gorgeous car he scoots; we've mortgages upon our homes, our furniture, our boots. We've banished all the ancient cares, we paint the country red, we live like drunken millionaires, and never look ahead. The paupers, on the poorhouse lawn, are waiting in a group; they know we'll all be there anon, to share their cabbage soup; they see us in our costly garb, and say: "Their course is brief; we see the harbingers that harb of bankruptcy and grief." Be patient, paupers, for a span, ye friendless men and dames! We're coming, blithely as we can, to join you in your games!

NIGHT IS COMING

WHILE the blessed daylight lingers, let us work with might and main, with our busy feet and fingers, also with the busy brain; let the setting sun behold us tired, but filled with honest pride; for the night will soon enfold us, when we lay our tools aside. When we're in the churchyard lonely, where the weeping willows lean, there's one thing and one thing only that will keep our memory green. If we did the tasks appointed as we lived our speeding years, then our graves will be anointed with a mourning legion's tears. All our good intentions perish when is closed the coffin lid, and the world will only cherish and remember what we did. Nothing granite, monumental, can preserve your little fame; epitaphs are incidental, and will not embalm your name. Nothing counts when you are sleeping, but the goodly work you've done; that will last till gods are weeping round the ruins of the sun. Let no obstacles confound us, let us work till day is o'er; soon the night will gather round us, when we'll sleep to work no more.

DOING THINGS RIGHT

TO do things right, with all your might--that is a goodly motto; I've pasted that inside my hat, and if you don't you'd ought to. To do things right, as leads your light, with faith and hope abiding; to do your best and let the rest to Jericho go sliding! With such an aim you'll win the game and see your fortune founded; and goodly deed beats any creed that ever man expounded. To do things right, to bravely fight, when fate cuts up unfairly, to pay your way from day to day, and treat your neighbor squarely! That doctrine fills all wants and stills the doubter's qualms and terrors, and guides him straight at goodly gait through all the field of errors. To do your best, within your breast a cheerful heart undaunted--that is the plan that brings a man all things he ever wanted. At finding snares and nests of mares I am not very handy; but when it comes to finding plums folks say I am a dandy; and my receipt is short and sweet, an easy one to follow; just do things right, with all your might--it beats all others hollow!

RIGHT SIDE UP

THOUGH now and then our feet descend to byways of despair, we nearly always in the end land right side up with care. I've seen a thousand frenzied guys declare that all was lost, there was no hope beneath the skies, this life was but a frost. And then next year I'd see them scoot around in motor cars, each one a-holding in his snoot the richest of cigars. I've seen men at the wailing place declare they were undone; no more the cold world could they face, their course, they said, was run. Again I'd see them prance along, all burbling with delight; whatever in their lives was wrong, became at last all right. And so it's foolishness, my friend, to weep or tear your hair; we nearly always, in the end, land right side up with care. Some call it luck, some providence, and some declare it fate; but there's a kind, o'erruling sense that makes our tangles straight; and there are watchful eyes that mark our movements as we roam; a hand extended in the dark to guide us safely home. In what direction do you wend? You'll find the helper there; we nearly always, in the end, land right side up with care.

THE IRON MEN

WHEN the north wind roars at your cottage doors and batters the window panes, and the cold's so fierce that it seems to pierce right into your bones and veins, then it's sweet to sit by the fire and knit, and think, while the needles clank, of the iron men, of the shining yen, you have in the village bank! When you've lost your job and misfortunes rob your face of its wonted grin, when the money goes for your grub and clothes, though there's nothing coming in; when the fates are rough and they kick and cuff and give you a frequent spank, how sweet to think of the bunch of chink you have in the village bank! When you're gray and old and your feet are cold, and the night is drawing on; when you're tired and weak and your joints all creak, and the strength of youth is gone; when you watch and wait at the sunset gate for the boatman grim and lank, oh, it's nice to know there's a roll of dough all safe in the village bank! The worst, my friend, that the fates can send, is softened for you and yours if you have the price, have the coin on ice--the best of all earthly cures; oh, a healthy wad is your staff and rod when the luck seems tough and rank; your consolers then are the iron men you have in the village bank!

PROCRASTINATION

YOU are merely storing sorrow for the future, sages say, if you put off till tomorrow things which should be done today. When there is a job unpleasant that it's up to me to do, I attack it in the present, give a whoop and push it through; then my mind is free from troubles, and I sit before the fire popping corn or blowing bubbles, or a-whanging at my lyre. If I said: "There is no hurry--that old job will do next week," there would be a constant worry making my old brain-pan creak. For a man knows no enjoyment resting at the close of day, if he knows that some employment is neglected in that way. There is nothing more consoling at the setting of the sun, when the evening bells are tolling, than the sense of duty done. And that solace cometh never to the man of backbone weak who postpones all sane endeavor till the middle of next week. Let us then be up and doing, with a heart for any fate, as the poet said, when shooing agents from his garden gate. Let us shake ourselves and borrow wisdom from the poet's lay; leaving nothing for tomorrow, doing all our chores today!

TIMBERTOES

OLD GOMER, of a Kansas town, was never known to wear a frown, or for man's pity beg, although he stumps along his way, and does his work from day to day, upon a wooden leg. And every time he goes out doors he meets some peevish guy who roars about his evil luck; some fretful gent with leg of flesh who, when vicissitudes enmesh, proceeds to run amuck. Strong men with legs of flesh and bone just stand around the streets and groan, while Gomer pegs along and puts up hay the long hours through, and sounds his joyous whoopsydo, and makes his life a song. Old Gomer never sits and broods or seeks the hermit's solitudes to fill the air with sighs; there's no despondency in him! He brags about that basswood limb as though it were a prize. Sometimes I'm full of woe and grief, convinced the world brings no relief until a man is dead; and as I wail that things are wrong I see old Gomer hop along and then I soak my head. I've noticed that the men who growl, the ones who storm around and howl o'er fate's unwise decrees, are mostly Fortune's special pets; and then the man who never frets is one with red elm knees.

THE THANKLESS JOB

THERE'S nothing but tears for the man who steers our ship o'er the troubled sea; there's nothing but grief for the nation's chief, whoever that chief may be. Whatever he does, he can hear the buzz of critics as thick as flies; and all of his aims are sins and shames, and nothing he does is wise. There's nothing but kicks for the man who sticks four years to the White House chair; and his stout heart aches and his wishbone breaks and he loses most of his hair. There's nothing but growls and the knockers' howls, and the spiteful slings and slams; and the vile cartoons and the dish of prunes and a chorus of tinkers' dams. Oh, we humble skates in our low estates, who fuss with our garden sass, should view the woes of the men who rose above and beyond the mass, and be glad today that we go our way mid quiet and peaceful scenes; should thankfully take the hoe and rake, and wrestle with spuds and greens!

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