I’ve joined the orders that came our way,
—Been sort of a “jiner,” as one would say,—
And I’ve bucked the goat, and trudged the sands,
And taken the oaths in most secret bands,
Till now at last I seldom slip
On test or password, sign or grip.
And every day when I walk the street
I give the signs to the men I meet.
There’s the S. of T. and the K. of P.
And the League of the Order of Liberty;
Masons and Odd Fellows string along,
Thicker than flies in the moving throng.
Till it seems that every fellow could
Give you a sign of a brotherhood.
Oh, I like to meet them, every one,
From the Daughter of Peace to a Son of a Gun.
But I can’t quite feel the same delight
As I used to when, some summer night,
I’d take a few of the high degrees
In the O. K. K. B. W. P’s.
We had no lodge-room with locks and bars
—Our hall was the dome ’neath the winking
stars;
No lofty dais and tufted throne,
No crown or symbol or altar stone,
No velvet carpets or flashing lights
Were needed there in those old-time rites;
There was only the light from some honest eyes
Up-raised to the velvet evening skies;
And the only crown was the flower wreath
Set light on the curling locks beneath,
And the mystic grip was the tender squeeze
Of our hands as we roamed past the orchard
trees;
And the head of the lodge was an elfin chap
With roses heaped in his dimpled lap.
—With wings a-spread and his locks a-blow,
And the wand of his office a silver bow.
He welcomed the timid neophytes.
And into the hearts of his pure delights
He led each happy candidate
Who breathed Love’s password at the gate,
And happy he who sought degrees
In the O. K. K. B. W. P’s.
’Tis just a page from the dear conceit
That makes the volume of school life sweet;
—A bit of a jest from the callow days
When we bashfully trudged the self-same ways
As the girls from the evening meeting took,
And we carried their capes and the singing-book.
—Sauntered along the dim old lanes
With chirrup and chatter and gay refrains,
Shouting “Good-nights” as here and there,
Pausing by gate or stile, a pair
Loitered a bit on the threshold’s stone
For a sweet and fond good-night of their own.
It irks me, friend, that I must profane
The oath of the order and voice that chain
Of mystic letters: yet ’twere not kind
To take you thus far and leave you blind.
And I’ll whisper, you know, just heart to heart,
’Twas “One Kind Kiss Before We Part,”
The mystic grip was a warm hand-press,
The sign and the test a swift caress,
And the dearest and sweetest of Used-to-be’s
Were the O. K. K. B. W. P’s.
“Ten, ten and a double ten, forty-five and then
fifteen!”
Stand you here, old friend of mine, close your
eyes the while you lean
Your silvered hair against the wood that’s silvered
too, by sun and rain,
—The butt of storms as well as we,—old aliens
crawling back to Maine.
The driving sleet, the drifting snows have filched
away the vivid red
That matched, as I remember it, the flaming top-
knot on your head.
And this—so gaunt, so bent, so small—it seems,
alas, a wooden ghost
Of what it was when it was “gool”: the school-
house’s old red hitching-post!
And ah, old friend, to lean your brow upon its
crest you have to stoop;
—You had to stretch to reach its top in those
old days of hide-and-coop.
“Ten, ten and a double ten,”
That’s the way we counted then;
—Counted hundreds rapidly,
Begged the happy days to flee.
Moments were not precious then.
What we hoard to-day as men,
Then we flung in careless way;
Counting life as when at play;
“Blinding” at the old red post,
We strove to see who’d count the most.
“Forty-five and then fifteen,—”
Lavish then: ah, now we glean
On our bended knees as men
What we flung uncounted then.
Friend, old friend, the past troops back
With all its smiles and all its sighs,
When I was “It,”
And the world was lit
By the star-shine of two soft brown eyes.
“Ten, ten, and a double ten, forty-five and then
fifteen!”
That talisman of boyhood days has brought a
sorrow that is keen.
And yet there’s joy along with pain; let me bow
my head here too,
And here with brow upon this wood I’ll tell you
what you never knew.
You’ve asked me many times, old friend, the
secret of an unwed life;
I’ll tell you now: I loved but once; that girl
loved you; she was your wife.
I loved her in those boyhood days, but in Life’s
game of counting out
Fate’s happy finger stretched to you, and I—
poor awkward, bashful lout—
Just stepped aside. But ’twas all right! I’m
not the sort to curse and whine,
My joy has been that she was yours, so long as
she could not be mine.
—My joy, old friend, is now to say, as here we
clasp this worn old post,
There is no heart-burn in my past, no shimmer of
a jealous ghost.
For boyhood’s lesson taught me this: ’Tis only
some egregious fool
Who rails at Fate and storms the skies because
some better man “tags gool.”
I’ve been content to stand there, friend, while
one by one the eager troop
Of boyhood’s chums have won their goal in Life’s
more earnest hide-and-coop.
Thank God, old chum, we still clasp hands and
pledge again our boyhood ties.
Though I’ve been “It,”
And your world is lit
By the star-shine of her soft brown eyes.