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UNCLE WALT


[Illustration: To George Matthew Adams
From his Accomplice Walt Mason]


UNCLE WALT
[WALT MASON]

[Illustration]

The Poet Philosopher







Chicago
George Matthew Adams
1910

Copyright, 1910, by George Matthew Adams.
Registered in Canada in accordance with
the copyright law. Entered at Stationers'
Hall, London. All rights reserved.




Contents


  A Glance at History         17
  Longfellow                  18
  In Politics                 19
  The Human Head              20
  The Universal Help          21
  Little Sunbeam              22
  The Flag                    23
  Doc Jonnesco                24
  Little Girl                 25
  The Landlady                26
  Twilight Reveries           27
  King and Kid                28
  Little Green Tents          29
  Geronimo Aloft              31
  The Venerable Excuse        32
  Silver Threads              33
  The Poet Balks              34
  The Penny Saved             35
  Home Life                   36
  Eagles and Hens             37
  The Sunday Paper            38
  The Nation's Hope           39
  Football                    40
  Health Food                 41
  Physical Culture            43
  The Nine Kings              44
  The Eyes of Lincoln         45
  The Better Land             46
  Knowledge Is Power          47
  The Pie Eaters              48
  The Sexton's Inn            49
  He Who Forgets              50
  Poor Father                 51
  The Idle Question           52
  Politeness                  53
  Little Pilgrims             55
  The Wooden Indian           56
  Home and Mother             57
  E. Phillips Oppenheim       58
  Better than Boodle          59
  The Famous Four             60
  Niagara                     61
  A Rainy Night               62
  The Wireless                63
  Helpful Mr. Bok             64
  Beryl's Boudoir             65
  Post-Mortem Honors          67
  After A While               68
  Pretty Good Schemes         69
  Knowledge by Mail           70
  Duke and Plumber            71
  Human Hands                 72
  The Lost Pipe               73
  Thanksgiving                74
  Sir Walter Raleigh          75
  The Country Editor          76
  Useless Griefs              77
  Fairbanks' Whiskers         78
  Letting It Alone            79
  The End of the Road         80
  The Dying Fisherman         81
  George Meredith             82
  The Smart Children          83
  The Journey                 85
  Times Have Changed          86
  My Little Dog "Dot"         87
  Harry Thurston Peck         88
  Tired Man's Sleep           89
  Tomorrow                    90
  Toothache                   91
  Auf Wiedersehen             92
  After the Game              93
  Nero's Fiddle               94
  The Real Terror             95
  The Talksmiths              96
  Woman's Progress            97
  The Magic Mirror            99
  The Misfit Face            100
  A Dog Story                101
  The Pitcher                102
  Lions and Ants             103
  The Nameless Dead          104
  Ambition                   105
  Night's Illusions          106
  Before and After           107
  Luther Burbank             108
  Governed Too Much          109
  Success in Life            110
  The Hookworm Victim        111
  Alfred Austin              112
  Weary Old Age              113
  Lullaby                    114
  The School Marm            115
  Poe                        116
  Gay Parents                117
  Dad                        118
  John Bunyan                119
  A Near Anthem              121
  The Yellow Cord            122
  The Important Man          123
  Toddling Home              124
  Trifling Things            125
  Trusty Dobbin              126
  The High Prices            127
  Omar Khayyam               128
  The Grouch                 129
  The Pole                   130
  Wilhelmina                 131
  Wilbur Wright              132
  The Broncho                133
  Schubert's Serenade        135
  Mazeppa                    136
  Fashion's Devotee          137
  Christmas                  138
  The Tightwad               139
  Blue Blood                 140
  The Cave Man               141
  Rudyard Kipling            142
  In Indiana                 143
  The Colonel at Home        144
  The June Bride             145
  At The Theatre             146
  Club Day Dirge             147
  Washington                 149
  Hours and Ponies           150
  The Optimist               151
  A Few Remarks              152
  Little Things              153
  The Umpire                 154
  Sherlock Holmes            155
  The Sanctuary              156
  The Newspaper Graveyard    157
  My Lady's Hair             158
  The Sick Minstrel          159
  The Beggar                 160
  Looking Forward            161
  The Depot Loafers          162
  The Foolish Husband        163
  Halloween                  165
  Rienzi To The Romans       166
  The Sorrel Colt            167
  Plutocrat and Poet         168
  Mail Order Clothes         169
  Evening                    170
  They All Come Back         171
  The Cussing Habit          172
  John Bull                  173
  An Oversight               174
  The Traveler               175
  Saturday Night             176
  Lady Nicotine              177
  Up-To-Date Serenade        179
  The Consumer               180
  Advice To A Damsel         181
  The New Year Vow           182
  The Stricken Toiler        183
  The Law Books              184
  Sleuths of Fiction         185
  Put It On Ice              186
  The Philanthropist         187
  Other Days                 188
  The Passing Year           189




List of Illustrations


                            Page
  Frontispiece                12
  "A Glance at History"       16
  "Geronimo Aloft"            30
  "Physical Culture"          42
  "Little Pilgrims"           54
  "Post-Mortem Honors"        66
  "The Journey"               84
  "The Magic Mirror"          98
  "A Near Anthem"            120
  "Schubert's Serenade"      134
  "Washington"               148
  "Halloween"                164
  "Up-to-Date Serenade"      178




[Illustration: _"Uncle Walt" on his favorite steed. Drawn by John T.
McCutcheon_]




A Poet of the People


Walt Mason's Prose Rhymes are read daily by approximately ten million
readers.

A newspaper service sells these rhymes to two hundred newspapers with a
combined daily circulation of nearly five million, and assuming that
five people read each newspaper--which is the number agreed upon by
publicity experts--it may be called a fair guess to say that two out of
every five readers of newspapers read Mr. Mason's poems.

So the ten million daily readers is a reasonably accurate estimate. No
other American verse-maker has such a daily audience.

Walt Mason is, therefore, the Poet Laureate of the American Democracy.
He is the voice of the people.

Put to a vote, Walt would be elected to the Laureate's job, if he got a
vote for each reader. And, generally speaking, men would vote as they
read.

The reason Walt Mason has such a large number of readers is because he
says what the average man is thinking so that the average man can
understand it.

The philosophy of Walt Mason is the philosophy of America. Briefly it is
this: The fiddler must be paid; if you don't care to pay, don't dance.
In the meantime--grin and bear it, because you've got to bear it, and
you might as well grin. But don't try to lie out of it. The Lord hates a
cheerful liar.

This is what the American likes to hear. For that is the American idea
about the way the world is put together. So he reads Walt Mason night
and morning and smiles and takes his knife and cuts out the piece and
carries it in his vest pocket, or her handbag.

It will interest the ten million readers of Walt Mason's rhymes to know
that they are written in Emporia, Kansas, in the office of the Emporia
Gazette, after Mr. Mason has done a day's work as editorial writer and
telegraph editor of an afternoon paper. The rhymes are written on a
typewriter as rapidly as he would write if he were turning out prose.

Day after day, year after year, the fountain flows. There is no poison
in it. And sometimes real poetry comes welling up from this Pierian
spring at 517 Merchant street, Emporia, Kansas, U. S. A.

In the meantime we do not claim its medicinal properties will cure
everything. But it is good for sore eyes; it cures the blues; it
sweetens the temper, cleanses the head, and aids the digestion. In cases
of heart trouble it has been known to unite torn ligaments and encourage
large families.

And a gentleman over there takes a bottle! Step up quickly; remember we
are merely introducing this great natural remedy. Our supply is limited.
In a moment the music will begin.

[Illustration: Signature]

[Illustration: To JAMES C. MASON

  For the happy, youthful days
    That long since had an end;
  For the distant trodden ways
    That we no more may wend;
  For the dreams of woven gold
  And the memories of old,
  These little tales are told,
    My brother and my friend.]

[Illustration: "_I to swing the shining axe, you to take a few swift
whacks._"]




_A Glance at History_


Charles the First, with stately walk, made the journey to the block. As
he paced the street along, silence fell upon the throng; from that
throng there burst a sigh, for a king was come to die! Charles upon the
scaffold stood, in his veins no craven blood; calm, serene, he viewed
the crowd, while the headsman said, aloud: "Cheer up, Charlie! Smile and
sing! Death's a most delightful thing! I will cure your hacking cough,
when I chop your headpiece off! Headache, toothache--they're a bore! You
will never have them more! Cheer up, Charlie, dance and yell! Here's the
axe, and all is well! I, though but a humble dub, represent the Sunshine
Club, and our motto is worth while: 'Do Not Worry--Sing and Smile!'
Therefore let us both be gay, as we do our stunt today; I to swing the
shining axe, you to take a few swift whacks. Lumpty-doodle, lumpty-ding,
do not worry, smile and sing!"




_Longfellow_


Singer of the kindly song, minstrel of the gentle lay, when the night is
dark and long, and beset with thorns the way--in the poignant hour of
pain, in this weary worldly war, there is comfort in thy strain, courage
in "Excelsior." When the city bends us down, with its weight of bricks
and tiles, lead us, poet, from the town, to the fragrant forest aisles,
where the hemlocks ever moan, like old Druids clad in green, as they
sighed, when all alone, wandered sad Evangeline. Writer of the cleanly
page, teacher of the golden truth; still I love thee in my age, as I
loved thee in my youth. In some breasts a fiercer fire flamed, than ever
thou hast known; but no mortal minstrel's lyre ever gave a purer tone.
Singer of the kindly song, minstrel of the gentle lay, time is swift and
art is long, and thy fame will last alway.




_In Politics_


His days were joyous and serene, his life was pure, his record clean;
folks named their children after him, and he was in the social swim;
ambitious lads would say: "I plan to be just such a worthy man!" But in
the fullness of his years, the tempter whispered in his ears, and begged
that he would make the race for county judge, or some such place. And so
he yielded to his fate, and came forth as a candidate. The night before
election day they found him lying, cold and gray, the deadest man in all
the land, this message in his icy hand: "The papers that opposed my race
have brought me into deep disgrace; I find that I'm a fiend unloosed; I
robbed a widow's chicken roost, and stole an orphan's Easter egg, and
swiped a soldier's wooden leg. I bilked a heathen of his joss, and later
kidnapped Charlie Ross; I learn, with something like alarm, that I
designed the Gunness farm, and also, with excessive grief, that Black
Hand cohorts call me chief. I thought myself a decent man, whose record
all the world might scan; but now, alas, too late! I see that all the
depths of infamy have soiled me with their reeking shame, and so it's
time to quit the game."




_The Human Head_


The greatest gift the gods bestowed on mortal was his dome of thought;
it sometimes seems a useless load, when one is tired, and worn and hot;
it sometimes seems a trifling thing, less useful than one's lungs or
slats; a mere excuse, it seems, to bring us duns from men who deal in
hats. Some men appreciate their heads, and use them wisely every day,
and every passing minute sheds new splendor on their upward way; while
some regard their heads as junk, mere idle knobs upon their necks; such
men are nearly always sunk in failure, and are gloomy wrecks. I know a
clerk who's served his time in one old store for twenty-years; he's
marked his fellows climb, and climb--and marked with jealousy and tears;
he's labored there since he was young; he'll labor there till he is
dead; he never rose a single rung, because he never used his head. I
know a poorhouse in the vale, where fifty-seven paupers stay; they paw
the air and weep and wail, and cuss each other all the day; and there
they'll loll while life endures, and there they'll die in pauper beds;
their chances were as good as yours--but then they never used their
heads. O human head! Majestic box! O wondrous can, from labels free! If
man is craving fame or rocks, he'll get them if he uses thee!




_The Universal Help_


My cow's gone dry, my hens won't lay, my horse has got the croup; the
hot winds spoiled my budding hay, and I am in the soup. And while my
life is sad and sore, and earthly joys are few, I'll write a note to
Theodore; he'll tell me what to do. I wasn't home when Fortune called,
my feet had strayed afar; I fear that I am going bald, and I have got
catarrh. The wolf is howling at my door, I've naught to smoke or chew;
but I shall write to Theodore--he'll tell me what to do. My Sunday suit
is old and sere, I'm wearing last year's lids; my aunt is coming for a
year, to visit, with her kids. They will not trust me at the store, and
I am feeling blue, so I shall write to Theodore--he'll tell me what to
do. When we are weary and distraught, from worldly strife and care, and
we're denied the balm we sought, and given black despair, ah, then, my
friends, there is one chore devolves on me and you; we'll simply write
to Theodore--he'll tell us what to do.




_Little Sunbeam_


She was sweet and soft and clinging, and he always found her singing,
when he came home from his labors as the night was closing in; she was
languishing and slender, and her eyes were deep and tender, and he
simply couldn't tell her that her coffee was a sin. Golden hair her head
was crowning; she was fond of quoting Browning, and she knew a hundred
legends of the olden, golden time; and her heart was full of yearning
for the Rosicrucian learning, and he simply couldn't tell her that the
beefsteak was a crime. She was posted on Pendennis, and she knew the
songs of Venice, and he listened to her prattle with an effort to look
pleased; and she liked the wit of Weller--and he simply couldn't tell
her that the eggs he had for breakfast had been laid by hens diseased.
So she filled his home with beauty, and she did her wifely duty, did it
as she understood it, and her conscience didn't hurt, when dyspepsia
boldly sought him, and the sexton came and got him, and his tortured
frame was buried 'neath a wagon-load of dirt. O, those marriageable
misses, thinking life all love and kisses, mist and moonshine, glint and
glamour, stardust borrowed from the skies! Man's a gross and sordid
lummix--men are largely made of stomachs, and the songs of all the
sirens will not take the place of pies!




_The Flag_


Bright-hued and beautiful, it floats upon the summer air; and every
thread of it denotes the love that's woven there; the love of veterans
whose tread has sounded on the fields of red; and women old, who mourn
their dead, but mourn without despair. Bright-hued and beautiful, it
courts caresses of the breeze; and, straining at its staff it sports, in
flaunting ecstasies; and other flags, that once were gay, long, long ago
were laid away, and many men, whose heads are gray, are thinking now of
these. Serene and beautiful it waves, the flag our fathers knew; in
Freedom's sunny air it laves, and gains a brighter hue; and may it still
the symbol be of all that makes a nation free; still may we cherish
Liberty, and to our God be true.




_Doc Jonnesco_


"O Doc," I cried, "I humbly beg, that you will amputate my leg." The
doctor cheerfully complied, and shot some dope into my hide, and made
his bucksaw fairly sail, until it struck a rusty nail. "Hoot, mon!" he
said, quite undismayed, "I'll have to finish with a spade." And as he
dug and toiled away, we talked about the price of hay, the recent
frightful rise in pork, the sugar grafters in New York, the things we
found in Christmas socks, the flurry in Rock Island stocks, the hookworm
and the hangman's noose, the bright career of Captain Loose. I felt no
pain or ache or shock; it pleased me much to watch the doc; and when the
job was done, I said: "Now that you're here, cut off my head." With
skillful hands he wrought and wrought, and soon cut off my dome of
thought, and when I asked him for his bill: "There is no charge,
already, still; I work for Science, not for scads, so keep the dollars
of your dads; to banish pain is my desire; to nothing more do I aspire;
if I may win that goal, you bet, I'll be so happy, always, yet!" Is
there a more heroic game? Could any man have nobler aim? One poet, old,
and bald and fat, to this great man takes off his hat!




_Little Girl_


Little girl, so glad and jolly, playing with your home-made dolly, built
of rags and straw, fill the sunny air with laughter, heedless of the
sorrow after--that is childhood's law! Let no sad and sordid vision
cheat you of the joy Elysian that to youth belongs; let no prophecy of
sorrow scheduled for a sad tomorrow still your joyous songs! Soon enough
will come the worry, and the labors, and the hurry, soon you'll cook and
scrub; soon with milliners and drapers you will fuss, and read long
papers, at the Culture Club. Lithe your form, but soon you'll force it
in a torture-chamber corset that will make you bawl; and those little
feet, that twinkle, you will squeeze, until they wrinkle, into shoes too
small. And those sunny locks so tangled will be tortured and kedangled
into waves and curls; and you'll buy complexion powder, and your bonnets
will be louder than the other girl's. Little girl, with home-made dolly,
cut out woe and melancholy, jump and sing and play! Fill the rippling
air with laughter! Tears and corns will follow after! This is
childhood's day!




_The Landlady_


I run a hash bazaar, just up the street; there all my boarders are
yelling for meat; boarders carniverous, boarders herbiverous; Allah
deliver us! just watch them eat! Boarders are ravenous, all the world
o'er; "feed till you spavin us," thus they implore; boarders are
gluttonous, roastbeef and muttonous; "come and unbutton us, so we'll eat
more!" Little they pay me for chicken and rice; yet they waylay me for
dainties of price; "bring us canary birds"--these are their very words,
bawling like hairy Kurds--"bring them on ice!" I give them tea and
toast, jelly and jam, some kind of stew or roast, codfish or ham; their
words are Chaucerous: "Dame Cup-and-Saucerous, bring us rhinoceros,
boiled with a yam!" I run a boarding booth, as I have said; there Age
and Smiling Youth, raise the Old Ned; maybe the clamoring, knocking and
hammering bunch will be stammering, when I am dead!




_Twilight Reveries_


At that hour supremely quiet, when the dusk and darkness blend, and the
sordid strife and riot of the day are at an end; when the bawling and
the screaming of the mart have died away, then I like to lie a-dreaming
of my castles in Cathay. I would roam in flowery spaces watered by the
fabled streams, I would travel starry spaces on the winged feet of
dreams; I would float across the ages to a more heroic time, when
inspired were all ages, and the warriors sublime. At that hour supremely
pleasing, dreams are all knocked galley west, by the phonograph that's
wheezing: "Birdie, Dear, I Love You Best."




_King and Kid_


The king sat up on his jeweled throne, and he heaved a sigh that was
like a groan, for his crown was hard, and it bruised his head, and his
scepter weighed like a pig of lead; the ladies smirked as they came to
beg; the knights were pulling the royal leg. The king exclaimed: "If I
had my wish, I would cut this out, and I'd go and fish. For what is pomp
to a weary soul that yearns and yearns for the fishing hole; the
throne's a bore and the crown a gawd, and I'd swap the lot for a bamboo
rod, and a can of worms and a piece of string--but there's no such luck
for a poor old king!" And a boy who passed by the palace high, to fish
for trout in the streamlet nigh, looked up in awe at the massive walls,
and caught a glimpse of the marble halls, and he said to himself: "Oh,
hully chee! Wisht I was the king, and the king was me! To reign all day
with your crown on straight is a whole lot better'n diggin' bait, and
fishin' round when the fish won't bite, and gettin' licked for your luck
at night!"




_The Little Green Tents_


The little green tents where the soldiers sleep, and the sunbeams play
and the women weep, are covered with flowers today; and between the
tents walk the weary few, who were young and stalwart in'sixty-two,
when they went to the war away. The little green tents are built of sod,
and they are not long, and they are not broad, but the soldiers have
lots of room; and the sod is part of the land they saved, when the flag
of the enemy darkly waved, the symbol of dole and doom. The little green
tent is a thing divine; the little green tent is a country's shrine,
where patriots kneel and pray; and the brave men left, so old, so few,
were young and stalwart in'sixty-two, when they went to the war away!

[Illustration: "_The Judge who knows the hearts of men may find a desert
or a glen for souls that love the wild._"]




_Geronimo Aloft_


The sod is o'er the dauntless head, the fierce old eyes are dim and
dead, the martial heart is dust; they say he died in sanctity, and his
wild soul, of fetters free, went forth to join the just. But will the
joys of Paradise, as we imagine them, suffice to hold Geronimo? Will
joyous song and endless calm to that bold spirit be a balm, while silent
eons flow? But Heaven is a region fair, and there may be long reaches
there, to give the savage space to ride his steed o'er field and fell
and raise his fierce, defiant yell, in foray and in race. The Judge who
knows the hearts of men may find a desert or a glen for souls that love
the wild; and through the gates perchance may jog the hunter's pinto and
his dog, his painted squaw and child.




_The Venerable Excuse_


You say your grandma's dead, my lad, and you, bowed down with woe, to
see her laid beneath the mold believe you ought to go; and so you ask a
half day off, and you may have that same; alas, that grannies always die
when there's a baseball game! Last spring, if I remember right, three
grandmas died for you, and you bewailed the passing, then, of souls so
warm and true; and then another grandma died--a tall and stately dame;
the day they buried her there was a fourteen-inning game. And when the
balmy breeze of June among the willows sighed, another grandma closed
her eyes and crossed the Great Divide; they laid her gently to her rest
beside the churchyard wall, the day we lammed the stuffing from the
Rubes from Minnepaul. Go forth, my son, and mourn your dead, and shed
the scalding tear, and lay a simple wreath upon your eighteenth
grandma's bier; while you perform this solemn task I'll to the
grandstand go, and watch our pennant-winning team make soupbones of the
foe.




_Silver Threads_


Sing a song of long ago, now the weary day is done, and the breeze is
sighing low dirges for the vanished sun; sing a song of other days, ere
our hearts were tired and old; sing the sweetest of old lays: "Silver
Threads Among the Gold." We who feebly hold the track in the gloaming of
life's day, love the songs that take us back to life's springtime, far
away, when our hope had airy wing, and our hearts were strong and bold,
and at eve we used to sing "Silver Threads Among the Gold." Then our
hair no silver knew, and these eyes, that shrunken seem, were the
brightest brown or blue, and old age was but a dream; but the years have
taken flight, and life's evening bells are tolled; so, my children, sing
tonight, "Silver Threads Among the Gold."




_The Poet Balks_


If old Jim Riley came to town, to read a bundle of his rhyme, I guess
you couldn't hold me down--I'd want to hear him every time. I wouldn't
heed the tempest's shriek; I'd walk ten miles and not complain, to hear
Jim Hoosier Riley speak. But I would not go round a block to see a
statesman saw the air, to hear a hired spellbinder talk, like a faker at
the county fair. For statesmen are as thick as fleas, and poets, they
are far between; one song that lingers on the breeze is worth a million
yawps, I ween. If John McCutcheon came to town, to make some pictures on
the wall, I'd tear the whole blamed doorway down to be the first one in
the hall; you couldn't keep me in my bed if I was dying there of croup;
the push would find me at the head of the procession, with a whoop. But
I won't push my fat old frame across a dozen yards of bricks, to list to
men whose only fame is based on pull and politics.




_The Penny Saved_


It is wise to save the pennies when the pennies come your way, for
you're more than apt to need them when arrives the rainy day; and when
Famine comes a-whooping with the cross-bones on her vest, then the
fellow with the bundle has the edge on all the rest. I admire the man
who's saving, if he doesn't save too hard, if he doesn't think a dollar
bigger than the courthouse yard; and I like to see him salting down the
riches that he's struck, if he always has a quarter for the guy that's
out of luck. When the winter comes upon us, yelling like a baseball fan,
then it's nice to have some boodle in an old tomato can; when there's
sickness in the wigwam, and we have to call the doc, then it's nice to
have a package hidden in the eight-day clock; when Old Age, the hoary
rascal, comes a-butting in at last, then it's nice to have some rubles
that you cornered in the past; and the man who saves the pennies is a
dandy and a duck--if he always has a quarter for the guy that's out of
luck.




_Home Life_


Now the nights are growing longer, and the frost is in the air, and it's
nice to hug the fireside in your trusty rocking chair, with the good
wife there beside you, feeding cookies to the cat, while the energetic
children play the dickens with your hat. O, it's nice to look around
you, and to feel that you're a king, that your coming home at evening
makes your joyous subjects sing! So you read some twenty chapters of old
Gibbon's dope on Rome, and you know what human bliss is in your humble
little home! There is really nothing better in the way of earthly bliss,
than to toddle home at evening, and to get a welcome kiss, and to know
the kids who greet you at the pea-green garden gate, have been wailing,
broken-hearted, that you were two minutes late! There is nothing much
more soothing than a loving woman's smile, when she sees your bow-legs
climbing o'er the bargain counter stile! If you don't appreciate it,
then the bats are in your dome, for the greatest king a-living is the
monarch of a home!




_Eagles and Hens_


The eagle ought to have a place among the false alarms; we place its
picture on our coins, and on our coat of arms; but what did eagles ever
do but fro