Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1919 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

They soon must close the ryehouse doors, where men were wont to drink their tea; not all your clamorings or roars can abrogate the stern decree. Not all your frantic kicks or yawps the law of congress can efface; the man who wants his forty drops can’t get them at the old time place. The governor of old S. C. to N. C.’s governor may say, “It is a Long time, you’ll agree, between the drinks we take this day.” They’re boosting now a brand-new drink as destined to accomplish fame; you’ll find ft in the kitchen sink, and water is its

given name. It grows in swamps and creaks and wells, and drips from heaven when it rains; It trickles through the sylvan della, and also through Che city drains. This substance long has been in use in Industry and In the arts; It Is a valued kind of Juice for washing floors and choo-choo carts. We long have used it In the bath, but little did we ever think that we should live to tread a path that brought us to it as a drink. We’ve squirted It through garden hose on garden plots and greens therein, but who among us could suppose that it would take the place of gin? I've hoated down a rippling stream, upon a golden summer day, and murmured, in a waking dream, "This water stuff is all O. K.” 1 meant, as stuff on which to drift "twould do as well as milk or ink, but never thought I yet would lift a goblet of It as a drink. The rparkling drinks of which were find no more shall tempt us to carouse; so come and Join me at the pond, and .let us line up with the cows. No more we’ll lean against the bar, our feet upon the brassy rail, and call for firkin, Jug and jar of old stone fence or Dublin ale. Oh, watchfully we long must wait, and waitfully we long must watch, before we’ll get a bun on straight, that’s based on bitters and Old Scotch. The rum store has a barren look, the barkeep’s lying in his grave; the boys have journeyed to the brook, to drink three billows and a wave. But mirth and glee should know no slump, the life we live is far from stale; the boys have gathered at the pump to throw in slugs of Adam’s ale.