Walt Mason

“ The orator shrieks and clamors, and kicks up a lot of dust, and larrups and whacks and hammers the weary old sinful Trust; the congressman chirps and chatters, pursuing his dream of fame; but there's only one thing that matters, and that is the baseball game. The pessimist rails and wrangles, and takes up a lot of room and tells, in a voice that jangles, his view of the nation's doom; we shy at his why and wherefore, and balk at his theories lame; for there's only one thing we care for, and that is the baseball game. ”

“ This is the day of laughter, wherein no shadows fall; and 'neath the cottage rafter, and in the mullioned hall, are happy cries ascending, and songs of joy and peace; why should they have an ending? Why should the music cease? The music! When we hear it, we old men softly sigh; "Could but the Christmas spirit live on, and never die!"
This is the day of giving, and giving with a smile makes this gray life we're living seem doubly worth the while. When giving we're forgetting the counting-room and mart, and all the work-day fretting—and this improves the heart ”

“ I am as brave as any rover described in gay, romantic screeds, but, when my fitful life is over, no epic will narrate my deeds. Condemned to silent heroism, I go my unmarked way alone, and no one hands me prune or prism, as token that my deeds are known. But yesterday my teeth were aching, and to the painless dentist's lair I took my way, unawed, unquaking, and sat down in the fatal chair. He dug around my rumbling molars with drawing-knives and burglars' tools, and cross-cut saws and patent rollers, and marlinspikes and two-foot rules. ”

“ The talking graft is all in vain, and loafers give the world a pain. The fans who watch the game of life despise the sluggard in the strife. They'll have but little use for you, who tell what you intend to do, and hand out promises galore, but, somehow, never seem to score. No matter what your stunt may be, in this the country of the free, you'll find that loafing never pays; cut out the flossy grand stand plays; put in your hardest licks and whacks, and get right down to Old Brass Tacks, and, undismayed by bruise or fall, go right ahead—in short, play ball! ”

“ I've gathered roses and the like, in many glad and golden Junes; but now, as down the world I hike, my weary hands are filled with prunes. I've gathered roses o'er and o'er, and some were white, and some were red; but when I took them to the store, the grocer wanted eggs instead. I gathered roses long ago, in other days, in other scenes; and people said: "You ought to go, and dig the weeds out of your beans." A million roses bloomed and died, a million more will die today; that man is wise who lets them slide, and gathers up the bales of hay. ”

“ Things are moving slowly? Business seems unholy? Better things are coming, though they seem delayed! Sitting down and scowling, standing up and growling, fussing round complaining will not bring the trade! Here comes Mr. Perkins for a quart of gherkins—don't begin to tell him all about your woes; you will only bore him, laying griefs before him, and he'll be disgusted when he ups and goes. Show him that you're cheerful, for the merchant tearful always jars his patrons, always makes them groan; they don't want to hearken to the ills that darken over you for they have troubles of their own. ”

“ The poor man's club is a genial place—if the poor man has the price; there's a balmy smile on the barkeep's face, and bottles of goods on ice; the poor man's club is a place designed to brighten our darkened lives, and send us home, when we're halfway blind, in humor to beat our wives. So hey for the wicker demi-john and the free-lunch brand of grub! We'll wassail hold till the break of dawn, we friends of the poor man's club! ”

“ If I should say that black is white, and white is black, today, some one would mix the two tonight—tomorrow they'd be gray. In politics I wish to thrive, and swiftly forge ahead, so dare not say that I'm alive, nor swear that I am dead. You say that fishes climb the trees, that cows on wings do fly, I can't dispute such facts as these, so patent to the eye; with any man I will agree, no odds what he defends, if he will only vote for me, and boom me to his friends. ”

“ I blow in twice a day or more to buy my prunes and things. Old Jimpson is a joyous jay; he hustles around the livelong day, he whistles and he sings. I like to watch the blamed old chump; I like to see him on the jump, he is so full of steam; and all his clerks have caught his style; they hump around with cheerful smile, and do not loaf or dream. ”

“ I like to watch the children play, upon a wintry, snowy day; like little elves they run about, and leap and slide, and laugh and shout. This side of heaven can there be such pure and unmixed ecstacy? I lean upon ye rustic stile, and watch the children with a smile, and think upon a vanished day, when I, as joyous, used to play, when all the world seemed young and bright, and every hour had its delight ”

“ And if I were a grocer man, I'd open now and then a can to see what stuff it held; 'twere better than to writhe in woe and make reply, "I didn't know," when some mad patron yelled.
I hate to hear a merchant say: "I think that this is splendid hay," "I guess it's first class tea." He ought to know how good things are, if he would sell his silk or tar or other goods to me. Oh, knowledge is the stuff that wins; the man without it soon begins to get his trade in kinks. No matter where a fellow goes, he's valued for the things he knows, not for the things he thinks. ”

“ The summer days have gone their ways, to join the days of summers olden; the eager air is making bare the trees, the leaves are red and golden; the flowers that bloomed are now entombed, the morn is chill, the night is dreary; and I confront the same old stunt that all my life has made me weary. Hard by yon grove our heating stove is standing red and fierce and rusty ”

“ Don't talk of your electric light; a candle's all I need; my father always went to bed when 'twas too dark to read; I want no books or magazines to clutter up my shack; my father never read a thing but Johnson's almanac. A bathroom? Blowing wealth for that ridiculous appears; my father never used to bathe, and lived for ninety years. I care not for your "progress" talk, "reform" or other tricks; my father never used to vote or fuss with politics; he never cared three whoops in Troy which side should win or lose, and I'm content to go his gait, and wear my father's shoes. ”

“ I'm glad that the nation is greasy and rich, acquiring high station with nary a hitch; her barns are a-bursting with mountains of grain; her people are thirsting for glory and gain. She'll ne'er backward linger, this land of our dads, for she is a dinger at nailing the scads. I'm glad that our vessels bring cargoes across, while counting rooms wrestle with profit and loss; that men know the beauties of figures and dates, and tariffs and duties and railway rebates. ”

“ Look pleasant, please, when you have met reverses, when you beneath misfortune's stroke are bent, when all your hopes seem riding round in hearses—a scowling brow won't help you worth a cent. Look pleasant, please, when days are dark and dismal and all the world seems in a hopeless fix; the clouds won't go because your grief's abysmal, the sun won't shine the sooner for your kicks. ”

“ Suppose you are doing the best you know how, and striving your blamedest to please, and bystanders throw at your head a dead cow, or break your legs off at the knees. Suppose you are trying your best to be fair, and critics come up in a crowd, set fire to your whiskers, and pull out your hair, and put you in shape for a shroud. If people refused to believe that you try to give them their fifty cents' worth, you'd be so discouraged you'd sit down and cry, and say there's no justice on earth.
Be kind to the umpire and give him a chance to live to a happy old age ”

“ There are no costly screens; no relics of dead queens; but on the stand, close to your hand, cheap books and magazines. There's no Egyptian crock, or painted jabberwock, but by the wall there stands a tall and loud six-dollar clock. Old Tiller can't impart much lore concerning art, or tell the price of virtu nice until he breaks your heart. But in his home abide those joys which seem denied to stately halls upon whose walls are works of pomp and pride. That pomp which smothers joy, and chills a girl or boy, may have and hold the hue of gold, but it has base alloy. ”

“ While eating my dinner humble—of porterhouse steak and peas, and honey from bees that bumble, and maybe imported cheese—I think, with a bitter feeling, of insolent money kings, who, drunk with their wealth and reeling, condemn me to eat such things. The pirate and banknote monger still gloat o'er their golden stacks, while I must appease my hunger with oysters and canvasbacks. The plutocrat has his chuffer, a minion of greed and pelf; the poor man must weep and suffer, and drive his own car himself. ”

“ My whiskers now are full of hay, my legs are lame and weary; it's been a-raining every day, and all the world is dreary. The road will do for those who like a pathway rough and gritty; I've had enough—just watch me hike back to the good old city. ”

“ I feel that death, and death alone, can take him from my keeping. He's mine to do with as I will, he's mine, both soul and body; his one ambition is to fill his outcast form with toddy. At first I take away his pride, destroy his sense of honor, and when I see these things have died, I know he is a goner. I house him in a squalid den, and take his decent garments, and entertain him now and then with rats and other varmints. I place a mortgage on his shack, despite his feeble ravings, I put old rags upon his back, and confiscate his savings. ”

“ Brave souls are they whose man-made pinions have borne them over plains and seas, who conquered wide and new dominions, and strapped a saddle on the breeze. Their engine-driven wings are wearing new pathways through the realm of clouds; they play with death, with dauntless daring, to please the breathless, fickle crowds.
Brave men go forth to distant regions, forsaking luxury and ease; through all the years they've gone in legions, to unknown lands, o'er stormy seas ”

“ New songs are made in long array; we learn and sing them,—for a day, and then they fade and die away. But when the long, sad day is through, refreshing as the evening dew, are those old songs our fathers knew. New books, in rich and gorgeous dress, are coming hourly from the press, and charm by all their lovliness. But when from bench or desk we roam, to find the resting place at home, we read the old, old treasured tome. New friends are made at every reach of our long road to Styx's beach ”

“ His whiskers and his hair are long, and in the zephyrs wave, because—alas! such things are wrong—he can't afford a shave. His trousers bag about the knees, his ancient coat's a botch; his shoes allow his feet to freeze, he bears a dollar watch. And when the grocer's store he seeks to buy a can of hash, in frigid tones the merchant speaks: "I'll have to have the cash!" And when he's dead a hundred years the people will arise, and praise the man who found new spheres cavorting through the skies. ”

“ When things are moving slick as grease, it's easy to be moral then, to wear a gentle smile of peace, and talk about good will to men. Such virtue doesn't greatly weigh, in making up the books of life; the man who cheerful is and gay, in times of sorrow and of strife, is better worth a word of praise, than all the gents of smiling mien, who swear in forty different ways when life has ceased to be serene. ”

“ I'm glad there are dreamers not industry-drunk, surrounded by schemers whose god is the plunk. I'm glad we've remaining incompetent jays, not always a-straining, in four hundred ways, to run down and collar one big rouble more, to add to the dollar they nailed just before. I'm glad there are writers more proud of their screeds than board of trade fighters of options and deeds. I'm glad there are preachers who tell of a shore where wealth-weary creatures need scheme never more. ”

“ When my dying eyelids close, and the world is growing dim, while I'm turning up my toes, I may ask to hear a hymn; and the people by my bed, they will sing, with streaming eyes, while each humbly bows his head: "Boil the germs and swat the flies!" ”

“ There are long deserted homesteads in this country of the free—but it's morning here in Kansas, and the dew is on the grass.
It is morning here in Kansas, and the breakfast bell is rung! We are not yet fairly started on the work we mean to do; we have all the day before us, for the morning is but young, and there's hope in every zephyr, and the skies are bright and blue. ”

“ It isn't safe, my friends, to say that any man's a failure flat because he cannot shovel hay, or climb a tree, or skin a cat. The man who's awkward with a saw, who cannot hammer in a nail, may in the future practice law and fill his bins with shining kale. The ne'er-do-well who cannot cook the luscious egg his hen has laid, may yet sit down and write a book that makes the big best sellers fade. The man who blacks your boots today, and envies you your rich cigar, next year may have the right of way while touring in his private car. ”

“ I sit in my cushioned motor, indulging in wise remarks, concerning the outraged voter crushed down by the money sharks. We burdened and weary toilers are ground by the iron wheels of soulless, despotic spoilers, and bruised by the tyrants' heels. They're flaunting their corsair mottoes while treading upon our toes, and some of us can't have autos or trotters or things like those. I know of a worthy neighbor who lives in a humble cot, and after long years of labor he hasn't a single yacht! ”

“ I use my Trenchant, fertile pen to help along the cause of men and make the sad world brighter, to give all good ambitions wings, to help the poor to better things and make their burdens lighter. The page whereon my screeds appear envoys a sacred atmosphere; it's helpful and uplifting; it hands out morals by the ton, and shows the people how to shun the rocks to which they're drifting. ”

“ He is the press and the people, the sultan who rules the Turks; he is the bell in the steeple, and he is the whole blamed works. He is the hill and valley, the dawning, the dusk, the moon; he is the large white alley, he is the man in the moon. ”