Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 297, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1913 — The ONLOOLER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The ONLOOLER

by HENRY HOWLAND

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Mother's gettln’ thin and so She’s quit appearin’ sad; She sings all day to let us know That she Is feelin’ glad. Father’s work is hard to do; He makes an start And comes home when the day Is through. Worn out and sad at heart ! His clo’s are old and Out of style. He wearg his last year’s bat' For mother’s had to spend a pile To keep from bein’ fat. He scolds around a lot ’cause I’m So hard on pants and shoes, And every day, ’most all the time. He seems to have the blues. Before he gets one month’s bills paid The next month’s bills pome in; But mother says she’s nbt dismayed— She’s glad and gettln’ thin. She does not care about the cost When there’s a goal to seek: For nearly four weeks now she’s lost Almost a pound a week.

“I can’t see,” the poet’s wife complained, “why you don’t give up writing poetry and go in for something that might be more profitable.” “My dear, you don’t understand the poet’s mission.” “I suppose I don’t I wish you’d tell me what it is.” « “Can’t you see how great a boon I am conferring upon posterity? A hundred years from now orators will be quoting my lines without mentioning me, and it will be supposed that they themselves are the authors of them, just as orators of the present day embellish their speeches with quotations from poets who have long been dead, without taking the trouble to mention the fact that they were borrowing.” “But how will that help you?” “It won’t help me at all. But do you want oratory to become a lost art?”

The Poet’s Mission.