Part 30 (2/2)

TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS

Wide windy reaches of high stubble field; A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines; A wagon moving in a ”cloud by day.”

Two city sportsmen with a dove between, Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep-- A solitary dove, the only dove In twenty counties, and it sick, or else It were not there. Two guns that fire as one, With thunder simultaneous and loud; Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone!

And later, in the gloaming, comes a man-- The worthy local coroner is he, Renowned all thereabout, and popular With many a remain. All tenderly Compiling in a game-bag the debris, He glides into the gloom and fades from sight.

The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock, Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet, To die of age in some far foreign land.

SLANDER

FITCH:

”All vices you've exhausted, friend; So all the papers say.”

PICKERING:

”Ah, what vile calumnies are penned!-- 'Tis just the other way.”

JAMES L. FLOOD

As oft it happens in the youth of day That mists obscure the sun's imperfect ray, Who, as he's mounting to the dome's extreme, Smites and dispels them with a steeper beam, So you the vapors that begirt your birth Consumed, and manifested all your worth.

But still one early vice obstructs the light And sullies all the visible and bright Display of mind and character. You write.

FOUR CANDIDATES FOR SENATOR

To flatter your way to the goad of your hope, O plausible Mr. Perkins, You'll need ten tons of the softest soap And b.u.t.ter a thousand firkins.

The soap you could put to a better use In was.h.i.+ng your hands of ambition Ere the b.u.t.ter's used for cooking your goose To a beautiful brown condition.

”The Railroad can't run Stanford.” That is so-- The tail can't curl the pig; but then, you know, Inside the vegetable-garden's pale The pig will eat more cabbage than the tail.

When Sargent struts by all the lawmakers say: ”Right--left!” It is fair to infer The right will get left, nor polar the day When he makes that thing to occur.

Not so, not so, 'tis a joke, that cry-- Foolish and dull and small: He so bores them for votes that they mean to imply He's a drill-Sargent, that is all.

G.o.ds! what a sight! Astride McClure's broad back Estee jogs round the Senatorial track, The crowd all undecided, as they pa.s.s, Whether to cheer the man or cheer the a.s.s.

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