What Would Jesus Do?

The expression, “What would Jesus do,” has almost if not quite reached the stage of blasphemy and it is to be hoped that it will be given a rest.

When a man uses it as a guide for his own conduct it is most commendable, but when he applies it to the life of others he travesties the life and character and omnipotence of the Christ. The man who judges for himself what Jesus would do and tries to do it will dignify the cause of religion.

The man who judges for others what Jesus would do assists in making a mockery of religion.

Adams County Free Press (Corning, Iowa) Mar 21, 1900

Remembering Caraway Cookies

Image from Attic Paper

AUNT LUCINDA’S COOKIES.

Oh, baker, you haven’t in all your shop,
A cookie fit to be tried,
For the art of making them came to a stop
When my Aunt Lucinda died.
I can see her yet with her sleeves uprolled,
As I watched her mix and knead
The flour and eggs with their yolks of gold,
The butter and sugar, just all athey’ll hold,
And spice them with caraway seed.

Oh, that caraway seed! I see the nook
Where it grew by the garden wall;
And just below is the little brook
With the laughing waterfall.
Beyond are the meadows, sweet and fair
And flecked with the sun and shade;
And all the beauties of earth and air
Were in those cookies so rich and rare,
My Aunt Lucinda made.

So, add one more to the world’s lost arts,
For the cookies you made are sad,
And they haven’t the power to stir our hearts
That Aunt Lucinda’s had;
For I see her yet, with sleeves uprolled;
And I watch her mix and knead
The flour and eggs, with their yolks of gold,
The butter and sugar, just all they’ll hold
And spice them with caraway seed.

— Nixon Waterman.

The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Dec 29, 1900

Image from Homemade Dessert Recipes

Longing.

O, for the meadow-lands, warm and sweet,
Where the tall grass whispers the whole day long,
And the meadow lark on the old rail fence
Floods all the silence with exquisite song;
To lie on the south hill slope and dream —
O, wonderful dreams that never come true;
Then home to the kitchen, cool and wide,
Where grandma’s caraway cookies grew.

O, heart of mine, ’tis a weary way
From the city’s streets to the meadows wide,
From the clearer vision of manhood’s years
To youth’s sweet dreams on the south hillside;
So far from the ways that bruise the feet
To the grassy paths that my childhood knew,
From crowding walls to the kitchen wide
Where grandma’s caraway cookies grew.

— Florence A. Jones, in Good Housekeeping.

Daily Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Jul 27, 1899

Here are several Caraway Cookie recipes from various newspapers – published from 1891 – 1981:

The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California) Jul 4, 1891

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For the Nutmeg lovers:

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) May 12, 1898

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The Wellsboro Agitator (Wellsboro, Pennsylvania) Aug 24, 1910

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This one gives the option of using the newfangled “butterine”:

Lincoln Daily News (Lincoln Nebraska) Jan 17, 1919

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This holiday recipe uses rose water and rose-flavored icing:

Hamilton Daily News (Hamilton, Ohio) Dec 2, 1926

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For leaf-shaped cookies:

San Antonio Light (San Antonio, Texas) May 17, 1936

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This special family recipe includes honey and English walnuts:

The Maryville Daily Forum (Maryville, Missouri) Sep 8, 1941

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And finally, this “modern” recipe (1981) from the American Rose Society includes rose syrup:

The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California) Nov 11, 1981

Step Lively

THE STREET CAR.

The car stopped comfortably filled,
Then four men got on.
At the next corner seven edged in,
And sixteen got on after that;
Afterward two boys swung on;
Soon a red-faced woman beckoned,
And she go on.
In the midst of the glad revelry
A party of serenaders trooped on.
By and by a colored gemmen,
Redolent of old-mown hay,
He got on.
Then five giggling school girls registered.
A hard-faced mother, with a squalling kid,
Mounted the platform.
Did she? She did?
Then a pompous police officer,
With girth for several.
Ripped in.
There little maids from school
Didn’t do anything but get on.
After a while a street sweeper pushed in,
Then a bricklayer
And a hod carrier.
Three tinsmiths, four stonemasons,
Also a printer,
Two Sunday school teachers,
And a prizefighter.
They got on.
But the “con” didn’t mind — he did his stunt,
And furiously bellowed: “Move up  to the front!”

— St. Paul Dispatch.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Feb 8, 1902

Image from The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula

Dazed a Conductor.

A Western woman who is on a visit to New York was boarding a street car in that city the other day. She had just placed her foot upon the step and was preparing to take another step to the upper platform when, with a furious “Step lively,” the conductor pulled the strap. The car jerked forward and the Western woman swayed back for a minutes, then just caught herself in time to prevent a bad fall upon the cobbles.

She confronted the conductor with angry eyes — eyes that had looked undismayed into those of mighty horned monsters of the prairies.

“What do you mean by starting the car before I was on?” she asked.

“Can’t wait all day for you, lady,” the conductor snarled. “Just step inside there.”

In a moment the Western woman, with a backward golf sweep of the arm, lunged for the conductor’s head. He dodged. The blow sent his hat spinning back into the track. The woman entered the car and sat down. She was flushed, but dignified. While the other women passengers were rather startled, they all knew just how she felt. Then the car stopped while the conductor went back for his hat. The Western woman rode free that time.

The Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, Montana) Jul 23, 1900

Mrs. Stelling has Eloped with a Streetcar Conductor.

Fort Wayne News (Fort Wayne, Indiana) Oct 4, 1894

A PUBLIC EVIL.

You very often notice, as you’re riding in the car,
There’s one distressing feature all our peace of mind to mar,
It’s the fellow right in front of us who holds his paper so,
We’re forced to read the headlines, but the villain seems to know
Just when we get an inkling of a thrilling bit of news,
For he turns the paper over and thereafter he’ll refuse
To let us finish out the line, and so, with soul distressed,
We feel like smiting him because we cannot read the rest.

There’s nothing suits him better than to tantalize our view
With some big headline till he’s sure we’ve caught a word or two,
But just before we’re quite aware of what it’s all about,
He flops the paper upside down or yanks it inside out
And every time we seek to get a fact within our grasp
He upsets all our purposes and leaves us with a gasp,
Until at last we swear it, in a law and rasping tone,
That if we had the price we’d buy a paper of our own.

— Nixon Waterman, in L.A.W. Bulletin.

Middletown Daily Argus (Middletown, New York) Mar 31, 1898

Street-Car Crushed by Train

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Oct 6, 1883

The Comic Valentine

The Johnny sent his valentine
And followed on thereafter,
To see her greet “Will you be mine?”
With quite a burst of laughter.

Mansfield News (Mansfield, Ohio) Feb 14, 1900

Mr. Skinner’s Valentine

Mr. Zachariah Skinner was a lanky ruralist,
Rather loose at knees and elbows, but extremely tight of fist,
With a local reputation as to sharpness in a trade
And an appetite for saving every cent that could be made.
Twice he’d stood at Hymen’s altar, but his wives were now asleep
In that portion of the graveyard where the lots were few and cheap,
And their broken hearted relict, with an eye for number three,
Was attracted very strongly toward the widow Martha Bee.

Now the widow she was rosy, and the widow she was fair,
And her age was nigh to forty, with a year or two to spare,
And her first connubial venture left her pretty well to do,
As, perhaps it’s well to mention, crafty Zachariah knew.
So he thought as Mrs. Skinner she would be exactly right,
And the question how to win her vexted his brain both day and night,
Till there came an inspiration from Dan Cupid’s sacred shrine,
And he thought, “Perhaps ‘twould fetch her if I sent a valentine.”

So he wrote: “Dear Mrs. Martha — I’m a steady man, you see,
And, if you’re a frugal woman — as I understand you to be —
With a faculty for saving and a little cash on hand —
As I’ve always heard you did have — and no mortgage on your land,
Why, as I am sort of anxious for a partner during life,
I just kind of thought I’d write you asking you to by my wife.
P.S. — My heart I send you, just chock full of love divine,
And I’d like to have you take me for to be your valentine.”

This he mailed, and then he waited till the answer came at last,
And he burst the seal to read it, with his pulses beating fast.
“Mr. Zachariah Skinner,” formally the note began,
“Yours received and contents noted. Glad that you’re a steady man
That there heart you mention sending, couldn’t find it round about,
‘Fraid it must have been so little that the mail folks lost it out.
Got some cash and got no mortgage, but your offer I decline,
‘Cause I’ve got no use at present for a comic valentine.”

*          *          *          *          *          *          *
How the story reached the gossips probably will never be known,
Possibly the widow told it to some crony of her own,
But through all that country village, to the township’s farthest line,
Zachariah Skinner’s nickname is “The Comic Valentine.”

Newark Daily Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Feb 13, 1900

Pirates, Opium and the Plague

Three Hundred Criminals Beheaded.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 12. — The steamer City of Pekin has arrived from Hong Kong and Yokahama, bringing advices that 300 pirates, robbers and other criminals were beheaded in Kwantung province during the last few days of the old Chinese new year.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Mar 18, 1891

Things theatrical for the past two weeks have been rather of routine. The near approach of the holidays is having a depressing effect on the attendance at the Faurot. With tonight’s performance the Holden repertoire company will have closed their engagement of one week. Only two shows are booked for the coming week, the first being that startling success, “King of the Opium Ring,” this is booked for Tuesday night.

KING OF THE OPIUM RING

No doubt that enthusiasm is already being manifested concerning the engagement of the Chinese-American play, “King of the Opium Ring,” which will be the attraction at Opera House Tuesday, December 19.

The play comes with a repute for great success at the Academy of Music, New York, where it played to the capacity of that great theatre for 150 nights. It is a sensational melodrama which is said to contain more different kinds of villiany and Chinamen than anything that has been seen for a long time.

The scenes are laid in San Francisco’s famous Chinatown. The first act represents Deadman’s Dock, showing the escape of the smuggling yacht, “Halcyon” with a revenue cutter firing a fusillade from a rapid fire gun.

The second act is an opium joint, which from the outside is an innocent looking laundry, but the interior shows side rooms with upper sections fitted with bunks in which men and women lay with little lamps at their side inhaling “happy thought,” through realistic looking opium pipes. Opium smoking is a form of a vice which most theater-goers are familiar with only through the newspaper reports of a raid, and the realistic layouts offered in this act are a decided novelty.

In the third act is pictured the heart of Chinatown on the occasion of the Chinese New Year; the great mart, the Chinese theater and Joss house, together with the many illuminations are shown, and the thrilling climax of the rescue of the Queen from an upper balcony by the wonderful Chinese acrobats.

The last set is the assembly room of the swell Chink club of ‘Frisco, the Fong Quay Society, and is an exact reproduction of the original. This scene is said to be one of Oriental magnificence; in fact, it may be said that all of the scenes are the same, true to the originals.

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Dec 16, 1899

Image from Geocaching – Plague!

BLACK PLAGUE IN HAWAII.

Breaks Out In Two Islands — Situation In Honolulu Improves.

Honolulu, Feb. 15, via San Francisco, Feb. 23. — The black plague has broken out at both Kahului, on the island of Maui, and Hilo, on the island of Hawaii. The latest advices report seven deaths at Kahului, all Chinese, and one at Hilo, a Portuguese woman, the wife of A.G. Seneo. The news was received here Feb. 10 in a letter from Sheriff Baldwin.

Chinatown in Kahului, which had about 300 inhabitants, has been destroyed by fire. The sanitary conditions were worse than in Honolulu. The towns of Lahaine and Hauhua have established quarantine against other portions of Maui. An unfortunate feature of the case is the proximity to Kahului of several large plantations with their thousands of laborers. It is thought that the plague reached Kahului through the shipment of Chinese new year goods.

In Honolulu the health situations is better than at any time since the outbreak of the plague. Not a case has developed in the last ten days. Although the board of health is confident that the trouble is over, vigilance will not be relaxed. Up to Feb. 6, the date of the last case, there had been 50 deaths from the plague in this city. The board of health has passed a resolution prohibiting the landing of all merchandise from countries where the bubonic plague exists.

Saturday, Feb. 17, has been set apart as “rat killing” day, and a great slaughter of the rodents is expected.

Portsmouth Herald (Portsmouth, New Hampshire) Feb 24, 1900

Toe-Jam and Bread?

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

A baker in Kansas City is red-hot with anger because a female patron has asserted that he kneaded his bread with his feet. He has commenced suit for $2,000. She declares her ability to produce a loaf of his bread with footprints on it.

The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Nov 5, 1900

Should Royal Lightning Hit Me

Image from The Graphics Fairy

AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST’S REMARKS

THERE’S a tremble and a shiver and a dark, portentous quiver, that has side-stepped through the vitals of these great United States. For we’re up against a crisis, if there’s truth in our advices, and we see, athwart the future forms of haughty potentates.

YES, sir! Danger grim and murky, like an axe above a turkey, lurks just in the dim horizon, and its shadow will not down. And unless we stop our fooling, after while we’ll know the ruling of the cruel, crafty monarch who is topped off with a crown.

‘TWOULD be easy to arrange it, and we’d never get to change it, once the grasping hands of schemers held our country in its clutch, for the minute we suggested that we felt that we had tested kings and queens and wished to stop it, they would smile and say: “Not much!”

DON’T you see? If they’d abolish congress, with its stately polish, and should overturn the statutes — I shiver when I pen it — they should bounce the solemn senate, then the country’d feel the power of the reckless royal hand.

THEN, by some wild resolution they could down the constitution, and could oust each high official in the states we call our own. Then they’d have us, and they’d boss us, with a grip on our proboscis, and beneath imperialism we would sigh and slave and groan.

THUS, we know not the occasion when we’ll see the dire invasion of our rights as free-born people, be we white or black or brown. Perhaps I, or you, my neighbor, may be called to toil and labor with the scepter and the signet and the heavy golden crown.

I’M opposed to such an outcome, but, should any vexing doubt come as to who should bear the burdens as the ruler of the states — well, should royal lightning hit me, any royal robe would fit me, and a crown to set right easy should be six-and-seven-eighths.

— Josh Wink in Baltimore American.

The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Nov 5, 1900

More of the “White Man’s Burden”

Another collection of the “White Man’s Burden” from various papers and time periods.

Image from the book cover of A Prairie Populist on the Iowa Research Online website

CARRIES WHITE MAN’S BURDEN.

Populist Delegate Holds Their Baby While His Wife Lobbies.

CINCINNATI, May 8. — Mrs. Luna E. Kelli is one of the most active among the delegates and lobbyists gathering here for the anit-fusion populist national convention. In the near vicinity can usually be seen her husband carrying “the white man’s burden” — in this case their infant.

Mrs. Kelli, who is the editor of the Prairie Home at Hartwell, Neb., is here as a delegate both to the Reform Press association and the populist convention. Her husband is also a delegate to the latter body. At home he is a tiller of the soil.

Mrs. Kelli is particularly active in urging the adoption of a universal suffrage plank, and her husband gives hourly proof that he is assisting her in attaining her desire.

Fort Wayne News (Fort Wayne, Indiana) May 8, 1900

THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN

Practically every western state is facing for this year the greatest tax bill on record. In many instances, the tax has been doubled and trebled in the past six years.

Industry will be called upon to pay this burden and there is no way to get out of it, for the bill has been contracted.

The people are largely to blame for the present state of affairs and they will get no relief until by their voice expressed at elections they have the courage to demand tax reduction and to hold public officials to campaign pledges for economy.

Further, the citizen must get out and vote for men and measures which guarantee economy. If this is not done our tax burdens will grow until it will take special deputies to hunt down individuals and confiscate their property, if they have any, to meet the tax bills. This is not an exaggerated picture.

That the power to tax is the power to destroy has been already well illustrated and taxation today is the greatest single item which prevents and will prevent a return to pre-war conditions. Inasmuch as we have an enormous war tax bill to pay in addition to our other taxes, it is all the more necessary that a reduction in local taxrolls be demanded and secured.

Ada Weekly News (Ada, Oklahoma) Jul 28, 1921

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MacNIDER ENLARGES WHITE MAN’S BURDEN
(By Associated Press)

NEW YORK, April 16. — Responsibility for righting the wrongs of the world rests with the people of the United States and Canada, Hanford MacNider, United States Minister to Canada, declared tonight, addressing the annual banquet of the Prudential Insurance Company of America.

“Whether we want the responsibility or not,” he said, “or whether the older countries have any desire to turn their eyes in our direction, it is from the North American Continent that the first move will be expected to right world affairs when they become complicated or confuses.”

San Antonio Express (San Antonio, Texas) Apr 17, 1931

CARRY THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN

France has taken possession of seven islands off the Philippines, with the secret approval of the United States.

This country has lost interest in that part of the world, inasmuch as the Philippines are to be given their freedom, if they so desire.

The United States preferred to have French occupy the islands rather than the Japanese.

From now on the French will be called upon to carry the white man’s burden in that region.

Ogden Standard Examiner (Ogden, Utah) Jul 30, 1933

NEW LANDS ON FRENCH MAPS
[Excerpt]

The despatch boats Astrolabe and Alerte that planted the French flag on Tempest, Loaita, Itu Aba, Thi-Tu and Twin Islands and Amboyne coral reef found inhabitants on only two, Thi-Tu and Twin Islands.

Ogden Standard Examiner (Ogden, Utah) Aug 4, 1933

WHITE MAN’S BURDEN.

The mystery of Italy’s African policy seems to be at least partly explained in the latest statement from the government’s colonial department at Rome.

Under-secretary Allesandro Lessona says:

The Ethiopian situation is a problem of vast importance, embracing the whole European civilizing mission, not merely security for our own lands.”

Americans have not been able to see, from any facts provided by the Italian government, that lawful Italian interests were really threatened in Africa.

The Ethiopian government has seemed eager to settle on any fair basis the trivial boundary dispute that Italy makes so much fuss about. But now the situation begins to clear up. Europe has a “civilizing mission” in Africa, and must make life in that dark continent as “secure” as it is in Europe.

If the Ethiopians have a sense of humor, they must laugh as they read that.

Kokomo Tribune (Kokomo, Indiana) May 11, 1935

THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN

The Indians of California are on the war path again.

It’s not scalps they’re after, this time, nor are they mobilizing to repulse a new invasion of “pale faces.” They are aroused because a law they pushed through Congress at the recent session was vetoed.

The law was an amendment to an act approved in 1928, which authorized the Indians to sue the U.S. for pay for lands, goods, and other benefits promised in the “Eighteen Lost Treaties” negotiated in 1851 and 1852. It would have made possible suits totalling $35,000,000 instead of just ten or twelve millions, as in now the case.

Of course the Indians are not trying to get back the land itself. But, in view of the hazards of land-owning these days, it might be a break for white men if they did. There is the continual struggle against droughts, insects, weeds and taxes. And now there is this new threat in California to try to support the whole State treasury by a tax on land alone — the Single Tax.

Although such was what Kipling meant by the phrase, nevertheless land seems to be qualifying as the real “White Man’s Burden.” And if this latest tax blow falls on land, we might just as well give it back to the Indians to let it become the Red Man’s Burden.

Arcadia Tribune (Arcadia, California) Jul 20, 1936

THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN

President Truman has announced that he is considering asking congress for legislation to permit the entry of European refugees — including Jews — to the United States.

How congress will react to this is a matter for speculation, but it is to be hoped that it will be rejected.

From a humanitarian standpoint we will admit that the victims of the World War should be assisted, but it should be in a way of repatriation rather than absorption.

Not so long ago we had an acute unemployment problem in this country, and it is not impossible that it should recur. What it would be if millions of Europeans were received into this country, no one can foretell. It would certainly require more than a glorified WPA, for most of the refugees would be penniless, and would have to  be provided with housing and maintenance until they could become established.

In view of the disturbance which is now in progress in Palestine, it would seem that the admission of Jews would be taking on a problem with which Great Britain has been unable to cope. We might be inviting an explosive situation such as is now besetting the Holy Land.

Somehow Uncle Sam has fallen heir to a large proportion of the white man’s burden of the entire world. We not only financed and furnished munitions and material for our allies in the late war, but have since made them loans, and now the President proposes to adopt all the unfortunates of war-torn Europe.

If the people of the United States are not to be brought to the economic level of Chinese collies, they will have to demand that Uncle Sam quit playing the role of Santa Claus.

Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, Montana) Aug 17, 1946

J.A. Livingston
Three Major Crises For John Kennedy
[Excerpt]

RECOVERY OR RECESSION

Next week, Secretary of the Treasury Anderson will personally ask Chancellor Adenauer, of West Germany to assume more of the “white man’s” burden and, thus, relieve the drain on U.S. gold. The central bank of West Germany has reduced its discount rate from 5 per cent to 4 per cent in order to discourage the flow of investment funds from the U.S.

2. The new president will have to decide whether the nation is in a recession or recovery is just around the corner. More than 5,000,000 persons will be out of jobs when Kennedy assumes office. Then outdoor work on farms, construction, and the railroads will be at a seasonal low. As many as seven persons out of every hundred may be seeking work.

Mr. Kennedy, therefore, will have to decide whether to cut taxes to stimulate retail sales (see chart), or initiate hurried public works to provide jobs, or both. Such expansionary efforts will unbalance the budget and aggravate international worry about:

3. The soundness of the dollar. Even the richest nation in the world can bite off more economics than it can handle. In recent post-war years, high defense outlays, aid to under-developed nations, and federal social undertakings have overreached taxes. Collectively, as well as individually, Americans have been living on the installment plan.

Big Spring Daily Herald (Big Spring, Texas) Nov 13, 1960

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Previous White Man’s Burden post.

Goin’ Buggy

Image from the iPhone Wallpaper website.

FLY BITTEN.

Of all the plagues hot Summer brings,
Whether they wear legs or wings,
The little wretch that closest clings,
The thing that most your patience wings,
Is the nasty little fly.

He sticks to your flesh, he hums in your ear,
Is drowned in your milk, your tea, your beer;
You chase him away, in a trice he is here;
No goblin sprite can so quickly appear
As your plaguey, dirty fly.

Volumes of words of objurgation,
Alps on Alps of vituperation,
Alphabets of illiteration.
And hate enough to kill a nation,
For the ugly and useless fly.

They say each creature hath its use;
Not so ! rely on’t ’tis a ruse,
Invented only to confuse,
And take away the sole excuse
To leave on earth one fly!

Why didn’t old Pharaoh make a trade,
And agree, if their ghosts forever were laid,
He’d strike a good bargain as ever was made
And let every Israelite, man or maid,
Go, to rid earth of the fly!

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Apr 29, 1871

Image from Ennirol on Flickr

MUSICAL INSECTS.

The Notes Produced by the House-Fly the Bee and the Mosquito.

Poets have frequently alluded to the “busy hum of insect life,” and its harmonious murmur adds a dreamy charm to summer’s golden days. Naturalists have afforded us much interesting information as to the means whereby these tiny morsels of creation produce distinctive sounds, and musicians have succeeded in transferring to paper the actual notes to which they give utterance. The song of birds has been often utilized by musicians, even Beethoven having so far pandered to a taste for realism as to simulate (and that in masterly fashion) the utterances of the quail, cuckoo and nightingale in his Pastoral Symphony [YouTube link]. Mendelssohn, too, has idealized insect life in his “Midsummer Night’s Dream”   [YouTube link]   music.

From researches recently made it has been discovered that the cricket’s chant consists of a perpetually-recurring series of triplets in B natural, whereas the “death watch” a series of B flats duple rhythm extending over one measure and an eighth. The female indulges in precisely the same musical outbursts one minor third lower. The whirr of the locust is produced by the action of muscles set in motion by the insect when drawing air into its breathing holes, and which contract and relax alternately a pair of drums formed of convex pieces of parchment-like skin lodged in cavities of the body.

The male grasshopper is an “animated fiddle.” Its long and narrow wings placed obliquely meet at the upper edges and form a roof-like covering. On each side of the body is a deep incision covered with a thin piece of tightly drawn skin, the two forming natural “sounding boards.” When the insect desires to exercise its musical functions, it bends the shank of one hind leg behind the thigh, and then draws the leg backward and forward across the edges and veins of the wing cover. The sound produced by the motion of its wings, the vibrations of which amount, incredible as it may appear, to nearly twenty thousand in the minute. The actual note heard is F.

The honey bee, with half the number of vibrations, causes by similar means a sound one octave lower, and the ponderous flight of the May bug originates a note an octave lower than the bee. It is interesting to add that the popular mosquito is responsible for the production of A-natural when wooing her victim in the otherwise silent watches of the summer night. — Boston Musical Herald.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Jun 20, 1889

Image from www.ponderstorm.com

GRASSHOPPER GREEN.

Grasshopper Green is a comical chap,
He lives on the best of fare;
Bright little jacket and trousers and cap,
These are his summer wear.
Out in the meadow he loves to go,
Playing away in the sun,
It’s hopperty, skipperty, high and low,
Summer’s the time for fun.

Grasshopper Green has a dozen wee boys,
And as soon as their legs grow strong,
Each of them joins in his frolicsome joys,
Singing his merry song.
Under the hedge in  a happy row,
Soon as the day is begun,
It’s hopperty, skipperty, high and low,
Summer’s the time for fun.

Grasshopper Green has a quaint little house,
It’s under the hedge so gay,
Grandmother Spider, as still as a mouse,
Watches him over the way.
Gladly he’s calling the children, I know,
Out in the beautiful sun.
It’s hopperty, skipperty, high and low,
Summer’s the time for fun.

–Anonymous.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Jun 28, 1900

Image from Rabbit Runn Designs website

A LITTLE INCIDENT.

The air is still, the sky is bright,
Clear flows the shining river,
Yet all around the hills are white —
The sunbeams seem to shiver.

‘Tis winter, wearing summer’s smile
And aping summer’s gladness,
Like human faces, smiling while
The heart is full of sadness.

Now from its hive creeps forth a bee,
Lured by the treacherous brightness;
It spreads its wings as if to see
They still had strength and lightness.

Away it flies, with noisy hum,
To seek a field of clover.
Poor insect; while all nature’s dumb,
A worker, though a rover.

A cloud has drifted o’er the sun,
Its radiance all obscuring,
And through the air a chill has run,
A touch of frost ensuring.

The bee has fallen, cold and dead,
Again, its wings will never
Fold o’er the purple clover’s head;
Hushed is its hum forever.

Weekly Reno Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Feb 19, 1880

Oh! the June bug’s wings are made of gauze,
The lightning bug’s of flame —
Ben Harrison has no wings at all,
But he’ll get “thar” all the same.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Aug 29, 1888

Firefly from The Lonely Firefly Literature Lesson

Two Irishmen, just landed in America, were encamped on the open plain. In the evening they retired to rest, and were soon attacked by swarms of mosquitoes.

They took refuge under the bed clothes. At last one of them ventured to peep out, and seeing a firefly, exclaimed in tones of terror:

“Mickey, it’s no use; there’s one of the craythers searchin’ for us wid a lantern.”

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) May 22, 1897

A Mosquito’s Meditation.

“Did anybody ever see such an ungrateful wretch?” sang a Mosquito, who had been vocalizing to the best of her ability for a good half-hour for the sole benefit of the Man who lay in his bed.

“Here I’ve been trying my best to entertain this ingrate with my choicest selections, and all the thanks I get is a cuff on the ear. Why doesn’t the fool lie still? If he had any music in his soul, he’d soon be wafted into dreamland. But, no; he must toss his arms about like a windmill — Ah! you didn’t do it that time, old fellow!

I’ll pay you for that by-and-by. You need bleeding badly, my friend; you’re in a dreadfully feverish condition. And yet, it is almost too good of me to doctor you for nothing. Where would you find any of your men-physicians who would treat you without charging you a heavy fee?

Hark! He’s snoring, as I’m alive!

Now, old chappie, I’ll have my supper.”

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Jan 30, 1885

March, March, A Song for March

Image from I Photo Central.

MARCH.

Where the gusty skies o’erarch
Hill and hollow, rock and river,
Comes the blustering wind of March,
Setting all the reeds a-shiver;
Leafless willow tree and arch,
How their branches shake and quiver!

Touch of grasses on the hill
Where the awkward lambs are playing;
Color-glints that nestle still
Where the violets are staying;
Sound of waters by the mill
Where the current down is straying.

Swallows in their figured flight,
Upward rising, downward dipping,
Pass, as would ashaft of light
Into opened shutter slipping,
Now above in airy height,
Now across the mill-pond skipping.

Now the world is in its prime,
Banished all the signs of sadness,
Spring’s wild winds are set to rhyme
Sweeter than midsummer’s madness;
Even on the face of Time —
Old and wrinkled — there is gladness.

— Ernest McGaffey in Women’s Home Companion.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 4, 1899

Image from the Historical Boys’ Clothing website.

MARCH.

March! and all the winds cry, March!
As they sweep the heaven’t arch,
Polishing the stars that gem
Earth’s resplendent diadem;
Setting all the waters free
From the winter’s chancery,
Sending down an avalanche
From the tree’s snow-covered branch.
March makes clear the frosty track
That the birds may hasten back
On their northward flight and bring
Jocund carols for the spring.
March is merry, march is mad,
March is gay and March is sad;
Every humor we may know
If we list the winds that blow,
Have you heard the bugle call
Gathering the soldiers all?
March is Springs’ own trumpeter,
Hailing us to welcome her.

— Frank Dempster Sherman in Exchange.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 12, 1900

Image from the Rampant Scotland website.

A SONG FOR MARCH.

It is the roaring month of March.
The wild northeaster bends the larch;
The gray rain beating on the wold
Has closed the crocus cups of gold,

Adown the dale, adown the dale,
The thrush pipes sadly to the gale;
His song is sad, and I would hear
The anthem of the coming year.

But there will be an April day —
The thrush will pipe another lay,
And we will find on greener hills
White violets and daffodils.

— Eric Parker in March St. Nicholas.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 13, 1900

Image from the Finnish Blog, Lankokamero.

MARCH.

I am the bringer of the swallow.
I bring with grass the woodland hollow —
I open up the folded mallow,
I hang the willow with green laces.
In marshy places
I set the shining golden faces
Of kingcups, with the gorse to follow.
I am the life of daffodils
Deep in the valley on the hills
I am the wind that sways the grasses;
I am the love ‘twixt lads and lasses,
Love that is sweet and swiftly passes;
I dust with golden meal the sallow;
I am deep water and the shallow —
I am the blossom on the mallow.

— Nora Hopper in Exchange.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 29, 1900

Image from the Old Tonbridge History website.

A SONG FOR MARCH.

Sing ho! sing ho, for the sleet and snow!
For the stormy March and the winds that blow
From north and south, now high, now low,
Or chill or warm!
Oh, March is the month of months for me;
Its south winds set old winter free,
And tell of the springtime soon to be
With all its charm.

Sing ho, for March on the sea’s bleak shore,
Where the bracing breezes evermore
Blow up from the ocean bearing before,
The salty spray!
Sing ho! for March among the hills!
Melting snow filling the ice-rimmed rills,
Streams rushing madly past meadows and mills
Day after day.

Sing ho, for the roughest month of all,
When shrill o’er the tempest sounds the call
Of the crow from woodland tree-top tall,
Telling of spring!
And ho, for the waning winter days,
When the lingering north winds cold delays
April’s coming, and chills the sun’s red rays!
Oh, March is king!

— Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 5, 1901

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By coincidence, all the images happen to be from other countries, while all the poems were published in American newspapers.