Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1915 — WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

WALT MASON

The Poet Philosopher. I pity the fellow who has no borne! No wonder gray hairs are upon his dome! No wonder he grumhles and. grunts and sighs, and brushes the briny from both his eyes: I d rent no palace of brick of stone; for an old caboose I can call my own, is better far, though it’s cheap and small, than a fine hotel or a rented hall. I want to sit on my dinky porch, and pull away at a fivecent torch, and mark the growth of the sparrowgrass, or pull the weeds from the garden sass. I want to tinker around at dawn, and nail a board where I see one’s gone, or tie a string to the pumpkin vine, and know that everything there is mine. I d rather live in a shackly cot, with a lop-eared cow in the stable lot, and a barbed wire fence and a row of trees, and swaybacked dog and a swarm of bees, and have no debts that would spoil my steep, than have a hall with a donjon keep, and a | mortgage big as the village square, | though pomp and splendor were reigning there. To have a home and be out of debt—well, that is truly the best scheme yet! ‘ ■ V'