The Wit and Humor of America Volume IX Part 9

A BALLADE OF PING-PONG

BY ALDEN CHARLES n.o.bLE

She wears a rosebud in her hair To mock me as it tosses free; Were I more wise and she less fair I fear that I should never be A victim to such witchery; For at her wiles and lovely arts I'm fain to laugh with her, while she Plays ping-pong with my heart of hearts.

The play's the thing; I wonder where, What courtier with what courtesy First played it, with what lady fair, To music of what minstrelsy?

I wonder did he seem to see Such eyes wherein a sunbeam starts, And did he love (as I) while she Played ping-pong with his heart of hearts?

For battledore they called it, there In courts of gilded chivalry; No gallant ever lived to dare To doubt its airy potency; But now, that all the pageantry Of those dead emperors departs, I dream that she in memory Plays ping-pong with my heart of hearts.

L'ENVOI

Ah, maiden, I must sail a sea Whereof there are no maps or charts; Wilt thou sail too, and there with me Play ping-pong with my heart of hearts?

BUDGE AND TODDIE

BY JOHN HABBERTON

My Sunday dinner was unexceptional in point of quant.i.ty and quality, and a bottle of my brother-in-law's claret proved to be most excellent; yet a certain uneasiness of mind prevented my enjoying the meal as thoroughly as under other circ.u.mstances I might have done. My uneasiness came of a mingled sense of responsibility and ignorance. I felt that it was the proper thing for me to see that my nephews spent the day with some sense of the requirements and duties of the Sabbath; but how I was to bring it about, I hardly knew. The boys were too small to have Bible-lessons administered to them, and they were too lively to be kept quiet by any ordinary means. After a great deal of thought, I determined to consult the children themselves, and try to learn what their parents'

custom had been.

"Budge," said I, "what do you do Sundays when your papa and mama are home? What do they read to you,--what do they talk about?"

"Oh, they swing us--lots!" said Budge, with brightening eyes.

"An' zey takes us to get jacks," observed Toddie.

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Budge; "jacks-in-the-pulpit--don't you know?"

"Hum--ye--es; I do remember some such thing in my youthful days. They grow where there's plenty of mud, don't they?"

"Yes, an' there's a brook there, an' ferns, an' birch-bark, an' if you don't look out you'll tumble into the brook when you go to get birch."

"An' we goes to Hawksnest Rock," piped Toddie, "an' papa carries us up on his back when we gets tired."

"An' he makes us whistles," said Budge.

"Budge," said I, rather hastily, "enough. In the language of the poet

"'These earthly pleasures I resign,'

and I'm rather astonished that your papa hasn't taught you to do likewise. Don't he ever read to you?"

"Oh, yes," cried Budge, clapping his hands, as a happy thought struck him. "He gets down the Bible--the great _big_ Bible, you know--an' we all lay on the floor, an' he reads us stories out of it. There's David, an' Noah, an' when Christ was a little boy, an' Joseph, an'

turnbackPharo'sarmyhallelujah--"

"And what?"

"TurnbackPharo'sarmyhallelujah," repeated Budge. "Don't you know how Moses held out his cane over the Red Sea, an' the water went way up one side, an' way up the other side, and all the Isrulites went across? It's just the same thing as _drown_oldPharo'sarmyhallelujah--don't you know?"

"Budge," said I, "I suspect you of having heard the Jubilee Singers."

"Oh, and papa and mama sings us all those Jubilee songs--there's 'Swing Low,' an' 'Roll Jordan,' an' 'Steal Away,' an' 'My Way's Cloudy,' an'

'Get on Board, Childuns,' an' lots. An' you can sing us every one of 'em."

"An' papa takes us in the woods, an' makesh us canes," said Toddie.

"Yes," said Budge, "and where there's new houses buildin', he takes us up ladders."

"Has he any way of putting an extension on the afternoon?" I asked.

"I don't know what that is," said Budge, "but he puts an India-rubber blanket on the gra.s.s, and then we all lie down an' make b'lieve we're soldiers asleep. Only sometimes when we wake up papa stays asleep, an'

mama won't let us wake him. I don't think that's a very nice play."

"Well, I think Bible stories are nicer than anything else, don't you?"

Budge seemed somewhat in doubt. "I think swingin' is nicer," said he--"oh, no;--let's get some jacks--_I'll_ tell you what!--make us whistles, an' we can blow on 'em while we're goin' to get the jacks.

Toddie, dear, wouldn't _you_ like jacks and whistles?"

"Yesh--an' swingin'--an' birch--an' wantsh to go to Hawksnesh Rock,"

answered Toddie.

"Let's have Bible stories first," said I. "The Lord mightn't like it if you didn't learn anything good to-day."

"Well," said Budge, with the regulation religious-matter-of-duty face, "let's. I guess I like 'bout Joseph best."

"Tell us 'bout Bliaff," suggested Toddie.

"Oh, no, Tod," remonstrated Budge; "Joseph's coat was just as b.l.o.o.d.y as Goliath's head was." Then Budge turned to me and explained that "all Tod likes Goliath for is 'cause when his head was cut off it was all b.l.o.o.d.y." And then Toddie--the airy sprite whom his mother described as being irresistibly drawn to whatever was beautiful--Toddie glared upon me as a butcher's apprentice might stare at a doomed lamb, and remarked:

"Bliaff's head was all bluggy, an' David's sword was all bluggy--bluggy as everyfing."

I hastily breathed a small prayer, opened the Bible, turned to the story of Joseph, and audibly condensed it as I read:

"Joseph was a good little boy whose papa loved him very dearly. But his brothers didn't like him. And they sold him, to go to Egypt. And he was very smart, and told the people what their dreams meant, and he got to be a great man. And his brothers went to Egypt to buy corn, and Joseph sold them some, and then he let them know who he was. And he sent them home to bring their papa to Egypt, and then they all lived there together."

"That's ain't it," remarked Toddie, with the air of a man who felt himself to be unjustly treated. "Is it, Budge?"

"Oh, no," said Budge, "you didn't read it good a bit; _I'll_ tell you how it is. Once there was a little boy named Joseph, an' he had eleven budders--they was _awful_ eleven budders. An' his papa gave him a new coat, an' his budders hadn't nothin' but their old jackets to wear. An'

one day he was carryin' 'em their dinner, an' they put him in a deep, dark hole, but they didn't put his nice new coat in--they killed a kid, an' dipped the coat--just think of doin' that to a nice new coat--they dipped it in the kid's blood, an' made it all b.l.o.o.d.y."

"All bluggy," echoed Toddy, with ferocious emphasis. Budge continued: