very sad.
And behind a canvas curtain,
In a corner of the place,
The clown, with chalk and vermillion,
Was “making up” his face.
A weary looking woman
With a smile that still was sweet,
Sewed on a little garment,
With a cradle at her feet.
Pantaloon stood ready and waiting,
It was time for the going on;
But the clown in vain searched wildly—
The “property baby” was gone!
He murmured, impatiently hunting,
“It’s strange that I cannot find—
There, I’ve looked in every corner;
It must have been left behind!”
The miners were stamping and shouting,
They were not patient men;
The clown bent over the cradle—
“I must take you, little Ben.”
The mother started and shivered,
But trouble and want were near;
She lifted the baby gently,
“You’ll be very careful, dear?”
“Careful? You foolish darling!”
How tenderly it was said!
What a smile shone through the chalk and paint!
“I love each hair of his head!”
The noise rose into an uproar,
Misrule for the time was king;
The clown with a foolish chuckle
Bolted into the ring.
But as, with a squeak and flourish,
The fiddles closed their tune
“You’ll hold him as if he were made of glass?”
Said the clown to the pantaloon.
The jovial fellow nodded,
“I’ve a couple myself,” he said.
“I know how to handle ’em, bless you!
Old fellow, go ahead!”
The fun grew fast and furious,
And not one of all the crowd
Had guessed that the baby was alive,
When he suddenly laughed aloud.
Oh, that baby laugh! It was echoed
From the benches with a ring,
And the roughest customer there sprang up
With, “Boys, it’s the real thing.”
The ring was jammed in a minute,
Not a man that did not strive
For a “shot at holding the baby,”—
The baby that was alive!
He was thronged with kneeling suitors
In the midst of the dusty ring,
And he held his court right royally—
The fair little baby king—
Till one of the shouting courtiers—
A man with a bold, hard face,
The talk, for miles, of the country,
And the terror of the place,
Raised the little king to his shoulder
And chuckled, “Look at that!”
As the chubby fingers clutched his hair;
Then, “Boys, hand round the hat!”
There never was such a hatful
Of silver and gold and notes;
People are not always penniless
Because they don’t wear coats.
And then, “Three cheers for the baby!”
I tell you those cheers were meant,
And the way that they were given
Was enough to raise the tent.
And then there was sudden silence
And a gruff old miner said,
“Come boys, enough of this rumpus;
It’s time it was put to bed.”
So, looking a little sheepish,
But with faces strangely bright,
The audience, somewhat lingering,
Flocked out into the night.
And the bold-faced leader chuckled,
“He wasn’t a bit afraid!
He’s as game as he’s good-looking!
Boys, that was a show that paid!”
The Drunken Desperado
I’m wild and woolly and full of fleas,
I’m hard to curry below the knees,
I’m a she-wolf from Shamon Creek,
For I was dropped from a lightning streak
And it’s my night to hollow—Whoo‑pee!
I stayed in Texas till they runned me out,
Then in Bull Frog they chased me about,
I walked a little and rode some more,
For I’ve shot up a town before
And it’s my night to hollow—Whoo‑pee!
Give me room and turn me loose
I’m peaceable without excuse.
I never killed for profit or fun,
But riled, I’m a regular son of a gun
And it’s my night to hollow—Whoo‑pee!
Good-eye Jim will serve the crowd;
The rule goes here no sweetnin’ ’lowed.
And we’ll drink now the Nixon kid,
For I rode to town and lifted the lid
And it’s my night to hollow—Whoo‑pee!
You can guess how quick a man must be,
For I killed eleven and wounded three;
And brothers and daddies aren’t makin’ a sound
Though they know where the kid is found
And it’s my night to hollow—Whoo‑pee!
When I get old and my aim aint true
And it’s three to one and wounded, too,
I won’t beg and claw the ground;
For I’ll be dead before I’m found
When it’s my night to hollow—Whoo‑pee!
Marta of Milrone
I shot him where the Rio flows;
I shot him when the moon arose;
And where he lies the vulture knows
Along the Tinto River.
In schools of eastern culture pale
My cloistered flesh began to fail;
They bore me where the deserts quail
To winds from out the sun.
I looked upon the land and sky,
Nor hoped to live nor feared to die;
And from my hollow breast a sigh
Fell o’er the burning waste.
But strong I grew and tall I grew;
I drank the region’s balm and dew—
It made me lithe in limb and thew—
How swift I rode and ran!
And oft it was my joy to ride
Over the sand-blown ocean wide
While, ever smiling at my side,
Rode Marta of Milrone.
A flood of horned heads before,
The trampled thunder, smoke and roar,
Of full four thousand hoofs, or more—
A cloud, a sea, a storm!
Oh, wonderful the desert gleamed,
As, man and maid, we spoke and dreamed
Of love in life, till white wastes seemed
Like plains of paradise.
Her eyes with Love’s great magic shone.
“Be mine, O Marta of Milrone—
Your hand, your heart be all my own!”
Her lips made sweet response.
“I love you, yes; for you are he
Who from the East should come to me—
And I have waited long!” Oh, we
Were happy as the sun.
There came upon a hopeless quest,
With hell and hatred in his breast,
A stranger, who his love confessed
To Marta long in vain.
To me she spoke: “Chosen mate,
His eyes are terrible with fate—
I fear his love, I fear his hate—
I fear some looming ill!”
Then to the church we twain did ride,
I kissed her as she rode beside.
How fair—how passing fair my bride
With gold combs in her hair!
Before the Spanish priest we stood
Of San Gregorio’s brotherhood—
A shot rang out!—and in her blood
My dark-eyed darling lay.
O God! I carried her beside
The Virgin’s altar where she cried—
Smiling upon me ere she died—
“Adieu, my love, adieu!”
I knelt before St. Mary’s shrine
And held my dead one’s hand in mine,
“Vengeance,” I cried, “O Lord, be thine,
But I thy minister!”
I kissed her thrice and sealed my vow—
Her eyes, her sea-cold lips and brow—
“Farewell, my heart is dying now,
O Marta of Milrone!”
Then swift upon my steed I lept;
My streaming eyes the desert swept;
I saw the accursed where he crept
Against the blood-red sun.
I galloped straight upon his track,
And never more my eyes looked back;
The world was barred with red and black;
My heart was flaming coal.
Through the delirious twilight dim
And
