Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1916 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

Goodbye, old town, I’m going home, to shuck the corn and plow the loam, to prune the tree and train the vine, and feed with swill the shrieking swine. I was not built for urban life, for city tricks and city strife, and every time I walk the street I’m euchred by some smiling beat, who sees in me an easy hick, and sells me a goldplated brick. I’m always buying costly shares in ginseng plants and Belgian hares, in silver mines and orange groves, and mills that turn out wooden cloves. The smiling fakers of the town! I simply cannot turn them down. They charm me with their sunny smiles, they fascinate me with their wiles, and sell me, from their catalogues, tin motor cars and hairless dogs, and remedies that grow new hair on domes of thought that long were bare, and lithographs of Statesman Hughes, and ships and sealing wax and shoes. Tomorrow, if you look for me, my form in town you will not see, though you may rake it with a comb—-goodbye, old town, I’m going home!