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The Commoner.
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VOLUME 4, NUMBER 28,
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THE SONG OF THE REAPER.
There is music in tho water when its
laughing, mellow tones
Sound from out tho shining stretches
marked by many mossy stones;
And its rippling, soft cadonces bid us
seek the cooling shado
While tho sunlit waves are dancing
through tho flower-covered glade;
"When tho mockbird, sweetly singing
through tho heated summor days,
Joins its music with tho water's in an
endless song of praise;
But, though sweet their merry chorus,
thoro's another glad refrain
'Tis the clicking of tho reaper in tho
Holds of yellow grain.
'Tis the music of tho millions, and tho
chorus sweet and clear
Fills tho hearts of men and women,
gives them happiness and cheer;
For, as golden heads are bending low
boforo tho sickle keen,
Famine flying fast from Plenty by the
toilers' eyes is seen.
Faster files tho flashing sickle, higher
piles the golden wheat,
And with happy hearts the people join
tho reaper's chorus sweet.
Old earth's grandest burst of music,
ringing over hill and plain,
Is tho clicking of the reaper in tho
fields o yellow grain.
Oft we've heard tho crashing music
Sousa gives us with a swing;
Oft wo'vo heard the well trained voices
when tho greatest singers sing;
Oft we've heard tho bugle calling,
sounding "Taps" or "Iteiveille,"
Qd the soldier chorus singing of tho
,r flag and 'liberty.
But no war song over written, breath
ing notes of armed might,
No grand chorus led by Sousa, gave
our hearts the same delight
As tho old song ringing gladly where
sweet Peace and Plenty reign
And wo hear tho clicking reaper in
the fields of yellow grain.
Hungry children hush their sobbing
when they hear its music grand.
Labor joins tho mighty chorus that is
ringing through the land.
Ringing anvil, humming spindle, join
tho melody divine
That no author's pen can ever hope
to equal or define.
And the whole world rings with glad
ness, grim want's terrors fade
away,
Mothers smile and watch with glad
ness while the children roll and
Play,
and of government of tho people, by
,tho people and for"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!" shouted a brown
huod man on the front seat. "Hip,
hip, hurrah! Hurrah, for tho Dec"
At this juncture a policeman, an
swering a sign from tho chairman of
thn occasion, seized the brown man
I and dragged him from the audience.
Truly it taices our jnupino suojuuia
a long time to catch on to the subtle
ties of our language.
Romlndfvil.
"I can't help thinking of that fa
bled beast called the Argus," re
marked Cynucus, looking up from the
newspaper in which was printed one
of Adjutant General Sherman Bell's
pronunciamentos.
"Yes?" said Slowboy.
"Yes, reminds mo of the Argus. Got
a thousand Ts', you know."
Thorv And Now.
"Yes, sir," exclaimed Senator Grab
all, "my party was organized 'under
the oaks', but we. have progressed
since then."
"Yes?" we remarked, with a note of
Interrogation in our voice.
"Progressed wonderfully," continued
tho senator. "Then it was 'under the
oaks'. Now it is all under cover."
Droo.m Fortuos.
"I was jes' a-thinkin'," observed
Undo Josiah, "that if I had as much
money aa Philander Knox never busted
trusts I'd be able to achieve one of
my ambitions."
"What's that?" asked his nephew.
"I'd be able to buy all th' land join
in' mine on all sides."
was a long letter, and when tho em
ployer was done ho remarked :
"Now just read that over to me and
we'll see if I've omitted anything."
Silence reigned.
"Go ahead and read. What's the
matter?"
"Please, sir," sobbed the nervous
young lady. "Would you mind telling
that agalu. I forgot to put the paper
in my machine."
Ho Did.
"Did Scrougerly over take any great
interest in politics?"
"Well I should say he did. When I
was a candidate for the legislature he
loaned me a hundred to pay -my cam
paign assessment and charged me 10
per cent a month."
Fatal.
"What was the matter with Feath
erly?" "Poor fellow, he dabbled in Wall
Street stocks until he died of water on
the brain."
Impostor.
It was evening upon the Stygian
shore, and the shades of the departed
were wandering about.
"Good evening," said Shade No. 1
to Shade No. 2. "I believe we have
never met before."
'I think not," said. Shade No. 2. "I
just arrived."
"What name, please?" queried Shade
No. 1.
"Reciprocity," was the reply. "And
your own?"
"The Iowa Idea," was the answer.
Just then Shade No. 3 interrupted
and said:
"Permit mo to introduce myself. I
am the shade of the trusts busted
by Philander Knox."
Immediately Shade No. 3 was set
upon and soundly beaten, then dragged
before Pluto.
"What's this?" queried Pluto.
"Fighting in my domain? I can't have
this."
Immediately Shade No.. 1 and Shade
No. 2 explained the situation, and
then Pluto's rago was something aw
ful to contemplate.
"Get out of here, you rank im
poster!" he shouted. "Get out at once.
You may be a Shade, all right enough,
but when you claim to be the STiade
of a Knox-busted trust you make In
sinuations against my common sense.
There is no such thing."
And thereupon Shade No. 3 was
hurried back to therealms of life to
acquire a proper ancestry.
Dan Emmott '
Good-bye, Dan! We'll not fergit you
Long as cotton blossoms blow, -Or
th' cymlene seeds air sproutin'
An' th' sweet magnolias grow.
Sandy bottoms still are ringln'
With ol "Dixie's' swingln' notes,
An' "We'll live an' die in Dixie"
Swells from out ten million throats.
Good-bye, Dan! The boys are marchin'
" i au tu bwiug oi mat or song.
When the harvest time Is ready and Eyes grow diman' steps are haltln',
we hear tho glad refrain
Of tho loudly clicking reaper in the
fields of yellow grain.
Little Things.
The inventors of the Jittlo things
are the men who make tlio big money.
For instance, there is the man whp
Invented tho idea of cutting matches
cross ways of tho grain of the wood.
When you strike that kind of a match
it's ten to one it snaps off. Just think
of tho increased number of matches
consumed because of this..
Interrupted.
"Yes, my fellow citizens, this glori
ous document, this palladium of pur
liberties, this glorious Declaration of
Independence," shouted tho g. o. p.
spell-binder, "is our eternal guarantee
of justice between man and man. It
is tho death knell of tyranny, the birth
, gong of human freedom and equality
But with hearts still beatin' stronc.
"Look away!" Yes, look; for over
yonder
Glory points the better way
"Dixie Land" and "Yankee Doodle"
Bind again th' Blue an' Gray.
Good-bye Dan! We know your welcome
Brought you' back th' days of yore.
Certain sure that when you landed
On or Canaan's golden shore
You walked through tho golden por
tals, An' we ain't afeerd t' bet
That they mot you playln' ''Dixie",
An' th' boys are cheorin' yet.
Annoying.
"You can take this letter direct up
on tho machine," said tho employer to
the nervous young stenographer who
began work that morning.
Slowly and distinctly tlio employer
dictated, and the nervous young lady
hammered away upon her-machine. It
Brain Leockg.
The broader the smile the shorter
the task.
Everything is for the best, even the
worst of it.
A smile will go a mile while a frown
is going a furlong.
The "sanest Fourth" was where it
rained the hardest
Ever, notice how long the day is
when you start it off grumbling?
We'd like to go fishing just once
wnen only the little fish got away.
It is a waste of time to pray for
what you want unless you really
need it.
The man who never makes mis
takes is the man who never undertakes
anything.
When a, man begins to wondor If -ha
looks as old as ho really is, it is a
sign that he does.
. The writers of tho best old songs are
dead. Tho writers of some of the new
ones ought to be.
The man who never ate watermelon
save with a fork has an' awfully good
time coming to him.
. The men who talk loudest about tho
necessity of war are generally the men
who stay at home and finance it.
We wllPprobably never have enough
money to enablo nn in nof naun u
fund, and even if we do have enough
wo wouldn't do it. We'll set aside a
fund to reward the girls who can bake
better bread than their mothers
If there were no weeds to interfere
with the garden perhaps we wouldn't
enjoy eating the vegetables so much.
Wo are inclined to believe that the
hardest work wo could do would bo
what some men think is having a good
L1I11Q
The greatest boro in town is the
man who insists on telling you his
troubles when you want to tell him
your own.'
Nearlyevery man would like to have
a job that would permit him to get
up whenever he pleased in the morn
ing to begin it.
We have often wondered why some
corporations did not try obeying the
law just to see if it wasn't cheaper
than hiring costly lawyers to fight it.
What has become of the sweet old
grandmother who could remember
when tomatoes were called "love ap
ples" and everybody thought they
wore poison?
There are three epochs in a man's
life the day he catches his first fish,
the day he hears the wail of his first
born, and tho day he realizes the
significance of today.
A man never knows how much work
a woman has to do until his wife goes
away for a couple of weeks and he
undertakes to straighten up the, house
the day before she returns.
Quite R.emarkablo
In a report to the 'Secretary of tho
navy, tho chief constructor says that
"wfth the sole -exception of tho New
York navy yard therVis not a single
navy yard, either on the Atlantic or
the Pacific coast, which is at the pros- 5
ent time equipped with a building slip
and overhead crane facilities neces
sary for the building 0f a collier of
the size specified in tile naval appro
priation act, inasmuch as this vessel
will require a building slip as long
and as fully equipped as that neces
sary for tho Connecticut."
If the United States government
were not administered in the interests
of "captains of industry" it might
deem remarkable thabthe navy yaids
are so poorly equippcra that but one of
them is fitted to build a collier, but in
View of the obligations to encouiage
the captains of the shipbuilding and
steel industries, it is not strange that
the "statesmen" at Washington have
withheld appropriations to equip tho
government yards. The remarkable
feature in the equipment of the navy
yards is that there even should be one
yard with equipment that will permit
the government to build ships on its
own account, thus depriving the "cap
tains" of a part of their rake-off, to
which they are entitled by virtue of
their leadership and their zeal in tho
promotion of "prosperity." Milwau
kee News.
What Is Radium
The word radium is daily becoming
more familiar, but in certain parts i or
the country there is still some diver
sity of opinion as to what the sun
stance is. We hear of one man wuo
thought it was a breakfast fooa.
"That is," he remarked, recently, i
a' friend, "I thought so till Bob Bim
ler said it was some new sort of sto
d Bob say that?" the friend said.
I thought Bob usually knew what lie
was talking about."
"Well, what is it, then? ..
"Why, Bill Staples told me t Mi '
was a kind of knit goods for pyjamas
that is specially light and warm.
San Ffancisco Star.
X
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