Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1918 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

The neighbors come around at eve, and talk with me of war and gore; and loudly I lament and grieve that I can’t go and slay a score. I tell the neighbors what I’d do, if I were not so old and fat; the fleeing Hun I would pursue, and cleave his head and spoil his. hat. And as I talk of battle’s din, of honor’s call and glory’s charm, my wife, she listens with a grin—she knows I am a false alarm. She knows I hate to move a step. I’m wedded to my easy chair; she knows I hardly have the pep to comb the sandburs from my hair. She hands me now and then a glance that’s loaded down with meaning deep; it seems to say, “Were you in France, you’d hunt a quiet place to .sleep.” The neighbors hear my warlike spiel, and seem to think I am old Mars; they hear me talk of blood and Steel, of death and bones and wounds t nd scars. I slip things over on the rubes, and make them think 1 yearn for strife; a man may Tool a bunch of boobs —alas! he cancr t fool his wife. Oh, now and then she hands me one, q glance that says, “I’d bet a farm you lack ‘he vim to fire a gun;” she knows that I’m a false alarm.