I’ve heerd of Demosthenes—b’longed down in
Greece,
—And Cicero, too!
But ’course, never knew
A great deal about ’em except through my niece,
Who’s tended the ’cademy,—lets on to know
’Bout most of the critters who lived years ago,
—Who’d talk to a standstill the chaps of their
day
With a broadside of words like a gatling, they
say.
And folks knuckle down, and praise up, and
kow-tow
To those hefty old tongue-lashing chaps even
now.
So I’m ready for brickbats, and hollers, and howls,
From the folks of the schools, and from hide-
bound old owls,
When I shin the high flag-staff of Fame to tear
down
All colors that flop there for rival renown,
And string up the banner of Bennington Brown.
Don’t think I’ll assert
What he knew ever hurt!
He was mostly considered an ornery squirt.
He traded old hosses, and cattle, and such,
And the sayin’ ’round town was: “Oh, Brown,
he ain’t much!”
But I read t’other day, in a volyum called
“Hints,”
That a speaker is gauged by his gifts to convince.
So I stand on that statement and solemnly swear
That as a star-actor convincer, I’d dare.
Back Bennington Brown up against the best
man
That ever tongue wrassled, grab holts, catch as
can.
Give Cicero Pointer, Directum, or Hanks,
And Brown an old pelter with wobbly shanks,
—Just leave ’em an hour, no odds, a clear field,
No matter how Cicero sputtered and spieled,
I’ll bet he would find himself talked to a stop,
And Brown would unload the old rip, even swap!
I can see how he’d look
When he carefully took
Old Cic by the gallus with “come-along” hook
Of that gnurly forefinger. And there Cic would
stand,
For he wouldn’t be yankin’ away from that hand,
Unless in his desperate efforts to skip
Cic dodged from his toga, and gave Brown the
slip.
And it’s likely that Brown would talk something
like this:
I ain’t at all anxious to shift with you, Cic.
Your hoss, I’ll admit, has got plenty of speed,
But you know, Cic, you know that he ain’t what
you need.
Outside of a show piece to stand in the barn,
That hoss he ain’t worth, Cic, a tinker’s gol-
darn.
What you want is that hoss of mine—want him
blame bad,
He don’t need no whip, crackers, cudgel, or gad.
’Thout strap, boot, or toeweights, he’s gone out
and showed
His quarters in thirty. He stands lots of road,
And I swow I dunno what I’m sellin’ him for,
—I need him myself. But I’ll sell! Have a
chaw?
And as I was sayin’, he’s just what you want;—
Oh, yes, have to own he’s a leetle dite gaunt!
Been a-drivin’ him hard, for he’ll stand lots of
work,
Never had a sick day, never shows the least
quirk.
He’s young: look yourself; jest you roll up his
lip;
By the way, ever smile? I’ve some stuff on my
hip.
Now as I was sayin’”—and on, and so on,
Till Cicero’d put his suspenders in pawn,
Hand oyer his steed for a wind-broken brute,
And sling in some golden sestertia to boot.
I tell you again,
That of all of the men
Who can slat the King’s English, I swear by
old Ben!
And you’ll never appreciate half of my praise
Till you’ve stood there yourself in the beller
and blaze
Of his thirteen-inch barker, and fust thing you
know
Discover you’ve bought an old bone yard or so,
I hardly expect, O ye hurrying throng,
Ye’ll bow to my hero, applaud my rude song,
But sling, if ye will, all your bouquets and praise
At the cut-and-dried speakers of pod-auger days,
I’ll go by myself and I’ll tenderly crown
With bay the bald brows of old Bennington;
Brown.
Feller was far as the foot of the hill in one of
those boggy places,
Had a first-class team,
As strong as a beam,
But the feller had busted his traces;
And the feller gave up when he saw he was
stuck.
He borrowed a chaw and consarned his luck,
—Admitted he didn’t know what to do;
Sat down on a bank and looked so blue
He worried the people that passed, and they
Just turned their noses the other way.
Old Ammi Simmons muttered that he
Was a dite afraid of his whiffle-tree;
It was slivered some, “and there warn’t much
doubt
’Twould bust if he pulled that feller out.”
And Ira Dorsey, regretful and smug,
Would have helped had he brought his heavier
tug,
So he simply beamed a bright “good day”
And clucked to his team and rode away.
So thus they passed for an hour or two;
Many not noticing, while a few
Assured him they’d like to help him out
“If the rigging they had was only stout.”
Feller had thought he was up a stump, when
along drove Ivory Keller;
Saw the sunken hub,
Yelled, “What’s the troub?
Don’t ye want a lift there, feller?”
And the feller said that he did, you bet,
But said he had begged while he’d set and set,
And he hadn’t discovered a single man
Who’d give him a boost with an extra span.
“Why,” Ivory said, “that’s jest my holt.
That off hoss there ain’t more’n a colt,
And it’s hardly an extry pulling pair,
But it’s youm for what it’s worth, I swear.
For I’ve got a home-made sort of a rule
—Won’t kick a cripple nor sass a fool,
And when I find that a feller’s stuck
—A side-tracked chap down on his luck—
Why, bless you, neighbor, in jest about
Two shakes of a sheep’s tail I yank him out.”
And the very next thing that the feller knew
Old Ivory busted a chain or two,
But the horse and the colt and the gay old man
Bent to the job till the clogged wheels ran,
—Tugged and buckled with hearty will
Till the cart rolled over the tough old hill.
Then the feller begged him to take some pay,
But the old man chuckled and shoved him
away;
“Why, bub, see here,” said Ivory Keller,
“I’m a tollable busy son of a gun,
And this is the way I squeeze in fun,
—Grab in same’s this and help a feller.”
’Tis the tale of Bart of Brighton—meaning
Brighton up in Maine;
It’s the tale of Uncle Bart, sir, and his racker-
gaited mare;
I have toned it down a little where the language
was profane,
But the rest is as he told it—this remarkable
affair.
It is very wrong to swear;
Bart admits the fact—but there!
Times occur when human nature simply is
obliged to “r’ar.”
“It’s all along o’ givin’ lifts to Uncle Isr’el
Clark,
—His folks don’t like him stubbin’ round the
village after dark,—
And old Mis’ Clark has asked of folks that see
him on the road
To take him in and bring him home, if ’tain’t too
much a load.
The day this ’ere affair come off I’d took in
Uncle Pease,
With a pail of new molasses that he hugged be-
tween his knees.
We see old Clark ahead of us, a-lugging home
a gun.
Says I to Pease, ‘Now brace yerhat: we’ll have
a leetle fun.’
‘Set in behind, old Clark,’ I says. ‘Hop in be-
hind,’ says I.
‘Prowidin’ these ’ere tngs don’t bust I’ll take
you like a fly.’
He piled aboard, s’r, master quick, there warn’t
no need to tease,
And there he sot, the gun straight up, the butt
between his knees.
“I’ll tell you ’bout that mare of mine—the
more you holler ‘whoa,’
I’ve larnt the whelp to clench her teeth, and
h’ist her tail—and go!
And when we got clus’ down to Clark’s I thought
for jest a sell
I’d make believe we’d run away. So I com-
menced to yell,
And old man Pease he hugged his knees and
gaffled to his pail.
And now, my boy, purraps you think that turn-
out didn’t sail!
He hugged his gun, did Uncle Clark, and set and
hollered’ Oh!’
While I kep’ nudgin’ Uncle Pease and bellered,
’Durn ye, whoa!’
“I larfed, suh, like a lunytick, I larfed and
thought ’twas fun
To look around and see old Clark a-hangin’ to
his gun,-
Eor he was scart plum nigh to death, and so was
Uncle Pease,
Who doubled clus’ above that pail he clenched
between his knees.
But while I larfed I clean forgot the Jackson
corderoy,
And when we struck that on the run, we got
our h’ist, my boy.
Old Clark went up jest like a ball and, next the
critter knowed,
Come whizzlin’ down, s’r, gun and all, starn-
fust there in the road.
And when the gun-butt struck the ground, ker-
whango, off she went,
—Both barrels of her, all to onct, and then—
wal, ’twas—hell-bent!
The off-rein bust, the wheels r’ared up—the old
mare give a heave,
That runaway was on for sure—there warn’t
no make-believe;
With t’other rein I geed the mare up-hill to’ards
Clarkses yard,
—We struck the doorstep, struck her fair, and
struck her mighty hard!
And long as Lord shall give me breath I shan’t
forget the eye
That old Aunt Clark shot out at me as we went
whoopin’ by.
Then I went out and Pease went out and things
got kinder blue
—’Twas sev’ral minits by the clock ’fore this
old cock come to.
And there the old mare’d climbed the fence and
stood inside the gate,
With eyes stuck out and ears stuck back and
head and tail up straight.
And from the way she looked at me ’twas master
evident
She wasn’t catchin’ on to what this celebration
meant.
And I was clutchin’ jest about two feet of one
the reins,
While Uncle Pease was dodderin’ round, a-yellin’
‘Blood and brains!’
For, bless my soul, when he had lit he’d run
himself head-fust
Right down in that molasses pail;—he thought
his head had bust!
And that the stuff a-runnin’ down and gobbed
acrost his face
Was quarts of gore, and so old Pease had clean
give up his case.
And there he stood like some old hen a-drippin’
in the rain,
And hollered stiddy, ‘Blood and brain, I’m
dead; oh, blood and brain!’
Old Uncle Clark was on his back, a-listening to
the fuss,
And wonderin’ whuther that old gun had
murdered him or us.
“Now that’s the way the thing come off. Best
is,” concluded Bart,
“They warn’t nobody hurt a mite: three-fifty
fixed the cart.”
But as he spoke he sought to hide a poultice
with his hat
And curtly said, “Oh, jest a tunk! you see,
Aunt Clark done that.”
'Tis the tale of Bart of Brighton—mean-
ing Brighton up in Maine,
—It’s the tale of Uncle Bart, sir, and his
racker-gaited mare;
I have toned it down a little where the language
was profane,
But the rest is as he told it, this remarkable
affair.
I know my confession is homely, but Yankees
are Yankees clean through,
Their dollars make shells like a turtle’s, but
their hearts, my dear fellow, are true
To the dear, sacred days of their childhood, and
luxury loses its charm:
—The only good things are the old things to
the fellow brought up on the farm.
And I’d trade all the cheer of a banquet, I’d
“swop” them, as grandpap would say,
For the tang of the infinite gusto that came to
me, when, after play,
I lifted the battered tin cover and squared my
brown arms to assail
The grub that this hearty young shaver had
carried to school in his pail.
God bless her, that darling old mother! She
cherished the honest conceit
That the groundwork of boyish good morals is,
first of all, plenty to eat.
And though I went barefoot in summer, with
trousers cut over from Jim’s,
We scampered to school every morning with
dinner pails filled to their brims.
There were doughnuts, both holed ones and
twisters, and always a bottle of cream,
And jell cakes and tarts and all such like—oh,
bow the kids’ eyes used to gleam!
I pitied the poor little shavers who slunk to a
corner to eat,
Who brought only bread and potatoes and never
had anything sweet;
And some carried grub in their pockets, and hid
with a child’s bitter shame
To choke down the crust and the cooky before
some rude fun-maker came.
But out of such manhood’s successes of which
I’ve a right to be proud
There never was one I’ve uncovered, with such
a delight, to the crowd
As that pail with its bountiful dinner, each
cake and each jelly-tipped tart
A dumb but an eloquent voucher of a thoughtful
and true mother-heart.
And, neighbors, from things I have noted, I
think it’s a pretty good rule
To size up a mother’s devotion by the grub her
child carries to school.
Those savors that float from my childhood dull
all the delights of my board;
The good things from mother’s old kitchen my
dollars can never afford,
And I’d trade all these delicate dishes—a clean
unconditional sale—
For the tang of the infinite gusto from the depths
of that old dinner pail.
Mother says it’s something fearful—way this
pesky young one acts,
And she’s called the Johnson children by the
name of “Paddywhacks.”
And she keeps a-givin’ orders that I musn’t have
’em round;
But she thinks that Satan’s in me, for she says
I’m always bound
To go mixing with ’em somehow when she lets
me out to play;
And you bet I’m going to see ’em if I have to
run away.
I’ll never wear them blamed dude clothes
Nor boots with patent leather toes.
I like to stomp and scoff and kick
And holler round. It makes me sick
To have that Reynolds youngster call,
He’s primped up like a big wax doll.,
My mother says he’s just too sweet,
He always keeps his clothes so neat,
And wishes I’d spruce up a bit;
What! Look like that? Well, I guess not,
—They’ve duty mugs and ragged backs,
But just give me them Paddywhacks.
They can catch ye lots of suckers—know the
brook and shortest cut;
They have got a robber’s dungeon and a nice
browse Injun hut.
They can scrape ye lots of sly ver—juicy stuff
from little pines,
They can make a willow whistle, and they’re
posted on the signs
Of woodchucks, coons, and squirrels; and they
own a brindle houn’,
And they get to going barefoot first of any boys
in town.
That’s the stuff—oh, that’s the stuff,
Let a kid kick up and scuff!
Not go round with mouth all screwed
Goody, like that Reynolds dude.
Say, I’ll push him once, if he
Comes a-making mouths at me.
Yah, yah! See them corkscrew curls!
That’s right, let him play with girls.
Let him wear his ruffled shirt
—Give me one that won’t show dirt.
I’m the chap, you bet, that stacks
Up ’long-side them Paddywhacks.
Mother rigged the little basket, for I’d teased a
day or so,
—I was just a little shaver, and ’twas years and
years ago,—
And I blushed while I was teasing; I was young,
so mother said,
To be running ’round with baskets when I ought
to be in bed.
But she trimmed me up the basket and she asked
me whom ’twas for;
Ah, I didn’t dare to tell her; thought I’d better
hold my jaw,
For I wanted it for Mabel, not for Minnie on the
Hill;
—For a maid in rags and tatters, not a maid in
lace and frill.
Minnie rode behind her ponies; Mabel had a
wooden cart,
But to Mabel went the homage of my foolish
boyish heart.
True, her gown was frayed and ragged, and her
folks were sort of low,
And her brothers swore like demons,” and they
tagged where ’er we’d go,
And my father always scolded me and drove
them all away
Whene ’er they followed Mabel if I asked her np
to play.
But I saw not Mabel’s tatters; for I loved her
sun-browned face,
And I’d lick the kid that didn’t say she was the
handsomest girl in the place.
’Tis a tricksy prank that memory plays
Taking me back to those early days;
But the purest affection the heart can hold
Is the honest love of a nine-year-old.
It isn’t checked by the five-barred gate
Of worldly prudence and real estate.
And that, my friend, was the reason why
I hung my basket to Mabel Fry,
She’d a tattered dress, and a pink great toe
Stuck out through her shoe, but—I loved
her so—.
Though that was years and years ago.
I sat down and looked at mother while she
trimmed the pasteboard box,
While she crimped the crinkly paper till it fluffed
like curly locks;
Till she fastened on the streamers, red and
yellow, white and blue,
And she held it up and twirled it, saying, “Sonny,
will that do?”
Would it do? It was a beauty! ’Twas a gem
in basket art;
And I piled it full of candy, put on top a big
red heart.
Then as soon as dusk could hide me I escaped
my mother’s eyes,
And I hung the grand creation on the door-latch
of the Frys.
How my youthful limbs were shaking! how my
dizzy noddle rocked!
And my heart was pounding louder than my
knuckles when I knocked.
So she caught me at the corner, for you see I
didn’t fly,
—Might have been I was so frightened; then
perhaps I didn’t try.
When I swung around to meet her, neither of
us dared to stir.
Mabel stood and watched the sidewalk and I
stood and gawked at her,
While those little imps of brothers gobbled every
blessed mite
Of the candy in that basket—Mabel didn’t get a
bite.
But I saved the little basket, gave each kid a
hearty cuff,
And I tried to comfort Mabel; told her she was
sweet enough,
—Said she didn’t need the candy; but my little
Mabel sighed,
Blushed and whispered that she wondered how
I knew—I hadn’t tried—
To-day—to-day from a long-gone May
This tricksy memory strays my way.
Just for a moment I close my eyes
And see that cracked old door of Fry’s.
And my heart is brushed, as the noon day
trees
Are touched with the whisp of the strolling
breeze.
Alas, that the heart mayn’t always hold
The honest love of the nine-year-old.
I haven’t a doubt you’re dreaming now
Of some frank maid with an honest brow
Who chose you out for she loved you so,
When Worth got “Yes,” and Wealth got
“No.”
But that was years and years ago.