Gov. Bob. Taylor\'s Tales
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Robert L. Taylor >> Gov. Bob. Taylor\'s Tales
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Our brains _are_ clocks, and our hearts are the pendulums. If we live
right in this world, when the Resurrection Day shall come, the Lord God
will polish the wheels, and jewel the bearings, and crown the casements
with stars and with gold. And the pendulums shall be harps encrusted
with precious stones. They shall swing to and fro on angel wings, making
music in the ear of God, and flashing His glory through all the blissful
cycles of eternity!
THE PANIC.
Happy is the man who lives within his means, and who is contented with
the legitimate rewards of endeavor. The dreadful panic that checks the
progress of civilization and paralyzes the commerce of the world, is the
death angel that follows speculation. Everything is staked and hazarded
on contingences that are as baseless as the fabric of a dream. The day
of settlement comes and nobody is able to settle. The borrower is
powerless to meet his note in the bank; the banker is powerless to pay
his depositors, and confidence is stampeded like a herd of cattle. The
timid and suspicious old farmer catches the wild note of alarm, and
deserting his plow and sleepy steers in the field, he mounts his mule,
and urging him on with pounding heels, rushes pell-mell to the bank, and
with bulging eyes, demands his money. The excitement spreads like fire.
The blacksmith leaves his anvil, the carpenter his bench, and the tailor
his goose. The tanner deserts his hide, and the shoemaker throws down
his last to save his all. The mason with his trowel in his hand, rushes
from the half-finished wall; Pat drops his hod between heaven and earth
and slides down the ladder, muttering: "Oi'll have me moaney or _Oi'll_
have blood!" The fat phlegmatic Dutchman, dozing behind his bar, wakes
to the situation and waddles down the street, puffing and blowing like
an engine, and muttering: "Mine Got in Himmel--mine debosit ish
boosted!" And thus they make the run on the bank, gathering about it
like the hosts of Armageddon. The bottom drops out, and millionaires
go under like the passengers of a wrecked steamer.
"BUNK CITY."
Did you ever pass the remains of a "boom" town in your travels? Did you
never gaze upon the remains of "Bunk City," where but yesterday all was
life and bustle, and to-day it looks like the ruins of Babylon? The
empty fields for miles and miles around are laid off and dug up in
streets, and look like they had been struck with ten thousand streaks
of chain lightning. Standing here and there are huge frames holding up
mammoth sign boards, bearing the names of land companies, but the land
companies are gone. Half driven nails are left to rust in a few old
skeleton buildings, the brick lies unmortared in half finished walls,
and tenantless houses stand here and there like the ghosts of buried
hope. Down by the river stands the furnace, grim and silent as the
extinct crater of Popocatepetl; and the great hotel on the hill looks
like the tower of Babel two thousand years after the confusion of
tongues. The last of the speculators, with his blue nose and his old
battered plug hat which resembles an accordion that has been yanked by
a cyclone, stands on the corner and contemplates his old sedge fields
which have shrunk in value from one hundred dollars a front foot, to one
_dollar for a hundred front acres_, and balefully sings a new song:
"After the boom is over, after the panic's on,
After the fools are leavin', after the money's gone,
Many a bank is "busted," if we could see in the room,
Many a pocket is empty, after the boom."
"YOUR UNCLE."
[Illustration: COMING.]
An impecunious speculator once flooded a town with handbills and posters
containing this announcement: "Your Uncle is coming." The streams of
passers-by looked at the bill boards and wondered what it meant. The
speculator rented the theatre, and one day a new flood of handbills and
posters made this announcement: "Your Uncle is here." He gave orders
to his stage manager to raise the curtain exactly at eight o'clock.
The speculator himself stood in the door and received the admission fees
and then disappeared. In their curiosity to see the performance of "Your
Uncle," the villagers filled every seat in the theatre long before the
hour for the performance arrived. The curtain rose at the appointed
hour, and lo! on a board, in the center of the stage, was a card bearing
this announcement in large letters: "_Your Uncle is gone._"
What a splendid illustration of modern speculation and its willing
victims who are so easily led into the "Paradise of Fools!"
[Illustration: GONE.]
FOOLS.
But why mourn and brood over broken fortunes and the calamities of life?
Why tarry in the doldrums of pessimism, with never a breeze to catch
your limp and drooping sails and waft you on a joyous wave? Pessimism is
the nightmare of the world. It is the prophet of famine, pestilence, and
human woe. It is the apostle of the Devil, and its mission is to impede
the progress of civilization. It denounces every institution established
for human development as a fraud. It stigmatizes law as the machinery of
injustice; it sneers at society as hollow-hearted corruption and
insincerity; it brands politics as a reeking mass of rottenness, and
scoffs at morality as the tinsel of sin. Its disciples are those who
rail and snarl at everything that is noble and good, to whom a joke is
an assault and battery, a laugh is an insult to outraged dignity, and
the provocation of a smile is like passing an electric current through
the facial muscles of a corpse.
God deliver us from the fools who seek to build their paradise on the
ashes of those they have destroyed. God deliver us from the fools whose
life work is to cast aspersions upon the motives and characters of the
leaders of men. I believe the men who reach high places in politics
are, as a rule, the best and brainiest men in the land, and upon their
shoulders rest the safety and well-being of the peace-loving,
God-fearing millions.
I believe the world is better to-day than it ever was before. I believe
the refinements of modern society, its elegant accomplishments, its
intellectual culture, and its conceptions of the beautiful, are glorious
evidences of our advancement toward a higher plane of being.
I think the superb churches of to-day, with the glorious harmonies of
their choral music, their great pipe organs, their violins and cornets,
and their grand sermons, full of heaven's balm for aching hearts, are
expressions of the highest civilization that has ever dawned upon the
earth. I believe each successive civilization is better, and higher, and
grander, than that which preceded it; and upon the shining rungs of this
ladder of evolution, our race will finally climb back to the Paradise
that was lost. I believe that the society of to-day is better than it
ever was before. I believe that human government is better, and nobler,
and purer, than it ever was before. I believe the Church is stronger and
is making grander strides toward the conversion of the world and the
final establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, than it ever made
before.
I believe that the biggest fools in this world are the advocates and
disseminators of infidelity, the would-be destroyers of the Paradise
of God.
A BLOTTED PICTURE.
I sat in a great theatre at the National Capital. It was thronged with
youth, and beauty, old age, and wisdom. I saw a man, the image of his
God, stand upon the stage, and I heard him speak. His gestures were the
perfection of grace; his voice was music, and his language was more
beautiful than I had ever heard from mortal lips. He painted picture
after picture of the pleasures, and joys, and sympathies, of home. He
enthroned love and preached the gospel of humanity like an angel. Then
I saw him dip his brush in ink, and blot out the beautiful picture he
had painted. I saw him stab love dead at his feet. I saw him blot out
the stars and the sun, and leave humanity and the universe in eternal
darkness, and eternal death. I saw him like the Serpent of old, worm
himself into the paradise of human hearts, and by his seductive
eloquence and the subtle devices of his sophistry, inject his fatal
venom, under whose blight its flowers faded, its music was hushed, its
sunshine was darkened, and the soul was left a desert waste, with only
the new made graves of faith and hope. I saw him, like a lawless,
erratic meteor without an orbit, sweep across the intellectual sky,
brilliant only in his self-consuming fire, generated by friction with
the indestructible and eternal truths of God.
[Illustration: INFIDELITY.]
That man was the archangel of modern infidelity; and I said: How true
is holy writ which declares, "the fool hath said in his heart, there is
no God."
Tell me not, O Infidel, there is no God, no Heaven, no Hell!
"A solemn murmur in the soul tells of a world to be,
As travelers hear the billows roll before they reach the sea."
Tell me not, O Infidel, there is no risen Christ!
When every earthly hope hath fled,
When angry seas their billows fling,
How sweet to lean on what He said,
How firmly to His cross we cling!
What intelligence less than God could fashion the human body? What
motive power is it, if it is not God, that drives that throbbing engine,
the human heart, with ceaseless, tireless stroke, sending the crimson
streams of life bounding and circling through every vein and artery?
Whence, and what, if not of God, is this mystery we call the mind? What
is this mystery we call the soul? What is it that thinks and feels and
knows and acts? Oh, who can comprehend, who can deny, the Divinity that
stirs within us!
God is everywhere, and in everything. His mystery is in every bud, and
blossom, and leaf, and tree; in every rock, and hill, and vale, and
mountain; in every spring, and rivulet, and river. The rustle of His
wing is in every zephyr; its might is in every tempest. He dwells in the
dark pavilions of every storm cloud. The lightning is His messenger, and
the thunder is His voice. His awful tread is in every earthquake and on
every angry ocean; and the heavens above us teem with His myriads of
shining witnesses. The universe of solar systems whose wheeling orbs
course the crystal paths of space proclaim through the dread halls of
eternity, the glory, and power, and dominion, of the all-wise,
omnipotent, and eternal God.
"VISIONS AND DREAMS."
[Illustration]
The infinite wisdom of Almighty God has made a plane of intelligence,
and a horizon of happiness, for every being in the universe, from
the butterfly to the archangel. And every plane has its own horizon,
narrowest and darkest on the lowest level, but broad as the universe
on the highest. Man stands on that wondrous plane where mortality and
immortality meet. Below him is animal life, lighted only by the dim lamp
of instinct; above him is spiritual life, illuminated by the light of
reason and the glory of God. Below him is this old material world of
rock, and hill, and vale, and mountain; above him is the mysterious
world of the imagination whose rivers are dreams, whose continents are
visions of beauty, and upon whose shadowy shores the surfs of phantom
seas forever break.
We hear the song of the cricket on the hearth, and the joyous hum of
the bees among the poppies; we hear the light-winged lark gladden the
morning with her song, and the silver-throated thrush warble in the
tree-top. What are these, and all the sweet melodies we hear, but echoes
from the realm of visions and dreams?
The humming-bird, that swift fairy of the rainbow, fluttering down from
the land of the sun when June scatters her roses northward, and poising
on wings that never weary, kisses the nectar from the waiting flowers;
how bright and beautiful is the horizon of his little life! How sweet is
the dream of the covert in the deep mountain gorge, to the trembling,
panting deer in his flight before the hunter's horn and the yelping
hounds! How dear to the heart of the weary ox is the vision of green
fields and splashing waters! And down on the farm, when the cows come
home at sunset, fragrant with the breath of clover blossoms, how rich
is the feast of happiness when the frolicsome calf bounds forward to the
flowing udder, and with his walling eyes reflecting whole acres of "calf
heaven" and his little tail wiggling in speechless bliss, he draws his
evening meal from nature's commissariat. The snail lolls in his shell
and thinks himself a king in the grandest palace in the world. And how
brilliant is the horizon of the firefly when he winks his "other eye!"
The red worm delves in the sod and dines on clay; he makes no after-dinner
speeches; he never responds to a toast; but silently revels on in his
dark banquet halls under the dank violets or in the rich mould by the
river. But the red worm never reaches the goal of his visions and dreams
until he is triumphantly impaled on the fishhook of the barefooted boy,
Who sees other visions and dreams other dreams,
Of fluttering suckers in shining streams.
And Oh, there is no thrill half so rapturous to the barefooted boy as
the thrill of a nibble! Two darkies sat on a rock on the bank of a
river, fishing. One was an old darkey; the other was a boy. The boy got
a nibble, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong into the surging waters
and began to float out to the middle of the stream, sinking, and rising,
and struggling, and crying for help. The old man hesitated on the rock
for a moment; then he plunged in after the drowning boy, and after a
desperate struggle, landed his companion safely on shore. A passer-by
ran up to the old darkey and patted him on the shoulder and said: "Old
man, that was a noble deed in you, to risk your life that way to save
that good-for-nothing boy." "Yes boss," mumbled the old man, "I was
obleeged ter save dat nigger, he had all de bate in his pocket!"
THE HAPPY LONG AGO.
Not long ago I wandered back to the scenes of my boyhood, on my
father's old plantation on the bank of the river, in the beautiful land
of my native mountains. I rambled again in the pathless woods with my
rifle on my shoulder. I sat on the old familiar logs amid the falling
leaves of autumn and heard the squirrels bark and shake the branches
as they jumped from tree to tree. I heard the katydid sing, and the
whip-poor-will, and the deep basso-profundo of the bullfrog on the bank
of the pond. I heard the drumming of a pheasant and the hoot of a wise
old owl away over in "Sleepy Hollow." I heard the tinkling of bells on
the distant hills, sweetly mingling with the happy chorus of the song
birds in their evening serenade. Every living creature seemed to be
chanting a hymn of praise to its God; and as I sat there and listened
to the weird, wild harmonies, a vision of the past opened before me.
I thought I was a boy again, and played around the cabins of the old
time darkies, and heard them laugh and sing and tell their stories as
they used to long ago. My hair stood on ends again (I was afflicted with
hair when I was a boy), and the chills played up and down my back when I
remembered old Uncle Rufus' story of the panthers. He said: "Many years
ago, Mas. Jeems was a-gwine along de path by de graveyard late in de
evenin', an' bless de Lo'd, all of a sudden he looked up, an' dar was a
painter crouchin' down befo' 'im, a-pattin' de ground wid his tail, an'
ready to spring. Mas. Jeems wheeled to run, an' bless de Lo'd, dar was
annudder painter, crouchin' an' pattin' de groun' wid his tail, in de
path behind him, an' ready to spring. An' boaf ov dem painters sprung at
de same time, right toards Mas. Jeemses head; Mas. Jeems jumped to one
side. An' dem painters come to-gedder in de air. An' da was a-gwine so
fast, an' da struck each udder wid sitch turble ambition dat instid ov
comin' down, da went up. An' bless de Lo'd, Mas. Jeems stood dar an'
watched dem painters go on up, an' up, an' up, till da went clean out
o' sight a-fightin'. An' bless de Lo'd, de hair was a-fallin' for three
days. Which fulfills de words ob de scripchah whar it reads, 'De young
men shall dream dreams, an' de ol' men shall see visions.'"
[Illustration: THE MUSIC OF THE OLD PLANTATION.]
I remembered the tale Uncle Solomon used to tell about the first
convention that was ever held in the world. He said: "It wuz a
convenchun ov de animils. Bruder Fox wuz dar, an' Brudder Wolf, an'
Brudder Rabbit, an' all de rest ov de animil kingdom wuz geddered
togedder fur to settle some questions concarnin' de happiness ov de
animil kingdom. De first question dat riz befo' de convenchun wuz,
how da should vote. Brudder Coon, he took de floah an' moved dat de
convenchun vote by raisin' der tails; whereupon Brudder Possum riz wid
a grin ov disgust, an' said: 'Mr. Chaiahman, I's unanimous opposed to
dat motion: Brudder Coon wants dis couvenchun to vote by raisin' der
tails, kase Brudder Coon's got a ring striped an' streaked tail, an'
wants to show it befo' de convenchun. Brudder Coon knows dat de 'possum
is afflicted wid an ole black rusty tail, an I consider dat moshun an
insult to de 'possum race; an' besides dat, Mr. Chaiahman, if you passes
dis moshun for to vote by raisin yo' tails, de Billy-Goat's already
voted!'"
I sometimes think that Uncle Solomon's homely story of the goat would
be a splendid illustration of some of our modern politicians. It is
difficult to tell which side of the question they are on.
[Illustration: THE HAPPY LONG AGO.]
I remembered the yarn Uncle Yaddie once spun at the expense of
Uncle Rastus. Rastus looked sour and said: "You bettah not go too fur;
I'll tell about dem watermillions what disappeared frum Mas. Landon's
watermillion patch." But Uncle Yaddie was undismayed by the threatened
attack upon his own record, and said: "Some time ago Rastus concluded to
go into de egg bizness, an' he prayed to de Lo'd to send him some hens,
but somehow or nudder de hens never come; an' den he prayed to de Lo'd
to send him after de hens, an' lo! an' behold! nex' mornin' his lot wus
full ov chickens. Rastus fixed de nestiz, an' waited, an' waited fur de
hens to lay, but somehow or nudder de hens wouldn't lay dat summer at
all; an' Rastus kep git'n madder an' madder, till one day de ole rooster
hopped up on de porch an begun to flop his wings an' crow. Rastus looked
at him sideways, an' muttered, 'Yes! floppin' yo' wings an' crowin'
aroun' heah like an ole fool, an' you caint lay a egg to save yo' life!'"
The darkies fell over in the floor, and every body laughed except
Rastus. But to appease his wrath, Uncle Yaddie rolled out a big
"watermillion" from under the bed, which lighted up the face of the
frowning old Rastus with smiles, and as the luscious red pulp melted
away in his mouth, he cut the "pigeon wing" in the middle of the floor,
and sang like a mocking bird:
"Oh, de honeymoon am sweet,
De chicken am good,
De 'possum, it am very very fine,
But give me, O, give me,
Oh, how I wish you would!
Dat watermillion hanging' on de vine!"
Then old Uncle Newt rosined his bow, and the welkin rang with the music
of the fiddle.
There I sat in the old familiar woods and dreamed of the happy long ago,
until a gang of blackbirds, spluttering in a neighboring treetop woke
me. And when I rose from the log and threw myself into the shape of an
interrogation point, and touched the trigger, at the crack of my rifle
old bullfrogg shot into the pond; the hoot-owl "scooted" into his castle
in the trunk of an old hollow tree; the blackbirds cut the "asymptote of
a hyperbolical curve" in the air; the squirrel fell to the ground at my
feet, with a bullet through his brain, and there was silence--silence in
the frog pond; silence in the trees; silence in "Sleepy Hollow;" silence
all around me.
I shouldered my rifle and wended my way back to the old homestead on the
bank of the river and silence was there. The voices of the happy long
ago were hushed. The old time darkies were sleeping on the hill, close
by the spot where my father sleeps. The moss-covered bucket was gone
from the well. The old barn sheds had "creeled." The old house where
I was born was silent and deserted.
As I looked upon these scenes of my earliest recollection, I was
softened and subdued into a sweet pensive sorrow, which only the
happiest and holiest associations of by-gone years can call into being.
There are times in our lives when grief lies heaviest on the soul; when
memory weeps; when gathering clouds of mournful melancholy pour out
their floods and drown the heart in tears.
Oh, beautiful isle of memory, lighted by the morning star of life! where
the roses bloom by the door, where the robins sing among the apple
blossoms, where bright waters ripple in eternal melody! There are echoes
of songs that are sung no more; tender words spoken by lips that are
dust; blessings from hearts that are still. There's a useless cradle,
and a broken doll; a sunny tress, and an empty garment folded away;
there's a lock of silvered hair, and an unforgotten prayer, and _mother_
is sleeping there!
DREAMS OF THE YEARS TO COME.
[Illustration: AMBITION'S DREAM.]
There, under the shade of the sycamores, on my father's old farm, I used
to dream of the years to come. I looked through a vista blooming with
pleasures, fruiting with achievements, and beautiful as the cloud-isles
of the sunset. The siren, ambition, sat beside me and fired my young
heart with her prophetic song. She dazzled me, and charmed me, and
soothed me, into sweet fantastic reveries. She touched me and bade me
look into the wondrous future. The bow of promise spanned it. Hope was
enthroned there and smiled like an angel of light. Under that shining
arch lay the goal of my fondest aspirations. Visions of wealth, and of
laurels, and of applauding thousands, crowded the horizon of my dream.
I saw the capitol of the Republic, that white-columned pantheon of
liberty, lifting its magnificent pile from the midst of the palaces,
and parks, the statues, and monuments, of the most beautiful city in
the world. Infatuated with this vision of earthly glory, I bade adieu
to home and its dreams, seized the standard of a great political party,
and rushed into the turmoil and tumult of the heated campaign. Unable to
bear the armor of a Saul, I went forth to do battle armed with a fiddle,
a pair of saddlebags, a plug horse, and the eternal truth. There was the
din of conflict by day on the hustings; there was the sound of revelry
by night in the cabins. The mid-night stars twinkled to the music of the
merry fiddle, and the hills resounded with the clatter of dwindling shoe
soles, as the mountain lads and lassies danced the hours away in the
good old time Virginia reel. I rode among the mountain fastnesses like
the "Knight of the woeful figure," mounted on my prancing "Rozenante,"
everywhere charging the windmill of the opposing party, and wherever
I drew rein the mountaineers swarmed from far and near to witness the
bloodless battle of the contending candidates in the arena of joint
discussion. My learned competitor, bearing the shield of "protection to
American labor," and armed to the teeth with mighty argument, hurled
himself upon me with the fury of a lion. His blows descended like
thunderbolts, and the welkin rang with cheers when his lance went
shivering to the center. His logic was appalling, his imagery was
sublime. His tropes and similes flashed like the drawn blades of
charging cavalry, and with a flourish of trumpets, his grand effort
culminated in a splendid tribute to the Republic, crowned with
Goldsmith's beautiful metaphor:
"As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm;
Though 'round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
I received the charge of the enemy "with poised lance, and visor down."
I deluged the tall cliff under a flood of "mountain eloquence" which
poured from my patriotic lips like molasses pouring from the bung-hole
of the universe. I mounted the American eagle and soared among the
stars. I scraped the skies and cut the black illimitable far out beyond
the orbit of Uranus, and I reached the climax of my triumphant flight
with a hyperbole that eclipsed Goldsmith's metaphor, unthroned the foe,
and left him stunned upon the field. Thus I soared:
"I stood upon the sea shore, and with a frail reed in my hand, I wrote
in the sand, 'My Country, I love thee;' a mad wave came rushing by and
wiped out the fair impression. Cruel wave, treacherous sand, frail reed;
I said, 'I hate ye I'll trust ye no more, but with a giant's arm, I'll
reach to the coast of Norway, and pluck its tallest pine, and dip it
in the crater of Vesuvius, and write upon the burnished heavens; 'My
Country, _I love thee_! And I'd like to see _any_ durned wave rub that
out!!'"
Between the long intervals of argument my speech grinned with anecdotes
like a basketfull of 'possum heads. The fiddle played its part, the
people did the rest, and I carved upon the tombstone of the demolished
Knight these tender words:
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