ile may swell your roll today, but in the clammy afterwhile it
melts that roll away.

STANDING PAT

Your arguments for modern things with me cannot avail; my father reaped
his grain by hand and thrashed it with a flail; then who am I to strike
new paths and buy machinery? The methods good enough for dad are good
enough for me! I want no hydrant by my house--such doodads I won't
keep! My father drew the water from a well three furlongs deep, and
skinned his hands and broke his back a-pulling at the rope, and methods
that my father used will do for me, I hope! 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.

THE OUTCAST

You ask me why I weep and moan, like some lost spirit in despair, and
why I wonder [Transcriber's note: wander?] off alone, and paw the
ground and tear my hair? You ask me why I pack this gun, all loaded
up, prepared to shoot? Alas! my troubles have begun--the women folk
are canning fruit! There is no place for me to eat, unless I eat upon
the floor; and peelings get beneath my feet, and make me fall a block
or more; the odors from the boiling jam, all day assail my weary snoot;
you find me, then, the wreck I am--the women folk are canning fruit!
O, they have peaches on the chairs, and moldy apples on the floor, and
wormy plums upon the stairs, and piles of pears outside the door; and
they are boiling pulp and juice, and you may hear them yell and hoot; a
man's existence is the deuce--the women folk are canning fruit!

ODE TO KANSAS

Kansas: Where we've torn the shackles
From the farmer's leg;
Kansas: Where the hen that cackles,
Always lays an egg;
Where the cows are fairly achin'
To go on with record breakin',
And the hogs are raising bacon
By the keg!

DOMESTIC HAPPINESS

It is good to watch dear father as he blithely skips along, on his face
no sign of bother, on his lips a cheerful song; peeling spuds and
scrapi