Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 319
The wind-swept picture of the Western farmer is one I have loved to present. It is meant to express, and I hope it does, something of the age-long fascination of the land, and the magic of its ownership. I for one cannot bear to think that the old independent farming is to go: that the breezy call of incense breathing morn is to be replaced by the time-clock of a regimented, socialized, super-mechanized land-factory We must keep the farmers. If they cannot regulate the “how-much” of their production, let them, as they used to, raise all they damn can, and then fire it round anywhere, — pelt one another with new-mown hay and sugar beets. But don’t let’s lose them.
And with that, I put this book as the politicians say, “in the hands of my friends.” At least they will find no ill-nature in it.
3869 Cote des Neiges Road, Montreal April Fool’s Day, 1936 — STEPHEN LEACOCK
THE SOCIAL PLAN
I KNOW a very tiresome Man
Who keeps on saying, “Social Plan.”
At every Dinner, every Talk Where
Men foregather, eat or walk,
No matter where, — this Awful Man
Brings on his goddam Social Plan.
The Fall in Wheat, the Rise in Bread,
The social Breakers dead ahead,
The Economic Paradox
That drives the Nation on the rocks,
The Wheels that false Abundance clogs —
And frightens us from raising Hogs, —
This dreary field, the Gloomy Man
Surveys and hiccoughs, Social Plan.
Till simplier Men begin to find
His croaking aggravates their mind,
And makes them anxious to avoid
All mention of the Unemployed,
And leads them even to abhor
The People called Deserving Poor.
For me, my sympathies now pass
To the poor Plutocratic Class.
The Crowd that now appeals to me
Is what he calls the Bourgeoisie.
So I have got a Social Plan
To take him by the Neck,
And lock him in a Luggage van
And tie on it a check,
Marked MOSCOW VIA TURKESTAN,
Now, how’s that for a Social Plan?
DEAD CERTAINTY
THE HICKONOMICS OF Insurance
This is a Study in the Wonders of Insurance familiar to any one who has ever been cast for the character called a Prospect; and a presentation of the Social Blessing of Salesmanship.
THERE entered an Insurance Man, He looked me in the Eye
And he pointed with his Finger and he said, “Suppose you die?”
I should have answered him, “Hi! Hi! Suppose that it were you!”
But couldn’t find a thing to say or think a Thing to do, —
I merely answered, “Must I die?” He said, “It has to be,”
And then he took a little Book and laid it on his Knee.
“Suppose,” he said, “a Railway Train should spread you out all flat.”
I answered, with a certain Pain, “I never thought of that.”
“Suppose,” he said, “a Motor Truck, —
We’re picturing the worst of Luck, —
One afternoon should run amuck
When you are coming by—”
“The Fault,” I cried, “would all be mine!
Give me the little Book to sign.”
He pointed to the dotted Line
“Thank God, I’m saved!” said I.
He drew a deeper, quiet Breath,
“Let’s talk no more,” he said, “of Death.
Dismiss the Thought of Death, I beg,
But how about a broken Leg?
Or shall we say, a Thigh?
Suppose you get a nasty Fall,
A broken Wrist perhaps is all,
The Cost is relatively small, —
But should you pay it, — why?
And quite apart from City Streets
What wretched Accidents one meets!
What awful Risks one takes!
I do not wish to raise Alarm,
To needlessly suggest a Harm, —
You say you have a Summer Farm,
Now, have you thought of snakes?
Come! give us your unbounded Trust!
If you get physically bust,
As very probably you must,
We take the Loss: it’s only just.”
I turned to the warm-hearted Man,
“Save me,” I said, “while still you can.”
* * * * *
My visitor now settled back in more decided Ease, “And now,” he said, “let’s have a talk on lingering Disease, Shall we, — it’s friendlier by far, — discuss it over a Cigar?
Try one of these.
You’d be surprised,” he said, “the Things our Medical Department brings,
A Case that’s often seen by us, is loss of the Aesophagus,
A wretched Business, which I am convinced affects the Diaphragm
Set’s up a sort of Wheeze,
Coagulates and clots the Blood
And turns the Ductless Gland to Mud.
I merely mention it to you,
Because you seem to show a few
Odd Symptoms such as these.
We had a striking Case last week,
A Mr. Omega, a Greek,
The poor young man could hardly speak
He’d lost his Mesencephalon, —
A thing the Greeks are death upon,
His Omphalos had slowly filled, —
A man of just about your Build.”
I gave him one appealing look
“The Book,” I said, “I’ll sign the Book,”
And murmured as I signed, “Too bad!
Somehow the whole Thing makes me sad.”
“To bad! my dear Sir, not a bit!
The Luck our clients often hit
At times miraculous to reckon,
Take this, — A Scotchman called McMechan —
From Aberdeen perhaps you’d guess,
— no further still, from Inverness, —
Walked in, insured, and said Goodbye,
Slipped on the steps and broke his thigh, —
We paid: Our moral Standard’s high.
Later, — too late for any good —
We found the leg he broke was Wood.”
I shook my head, “I didn’t mean,
‘Too Bad,’ in just that way,
I only meant is saddened me, the kind of Things you say
The Illness and the Accidents as every Day goes by,
With only one dead Certainty, our Certainty to die.”
“Die!” he exclaimed, “My dear good Man!
You don’t know our Endowment Plan,”
His Fingers down the Column ran,
“The Benefits we give.
I’ll reckon it at sixty-eight
And make it fifty thousand straight.
Now then, — suppose you live!
You’ve all your Premiums paid and thus,
From that Day on, you live on us.
A Man can have a lot of Fun
After his working Life is done.
We have a client, — eighty-two, —
Goes out with Girls, drinks, takes a chew, —
In fact, I hear it’s his intent
To join a Nudist Settlement.”
I felt myself convulsed with Joy,
“And can I live till then, Oh Boy!”
“Till sixty-nine” he cried, “Sure Mike,
I’ll make it eighty if you like.”
Excited now and all alive,
I shouted, “Make it eighty-five!”
“Ninety,” he said, “No! Ninety-one!”
I called delirious with Fun.
“One hundred! Going, Going, Done!”
Sobbing I fell upon his Neck, “And now,” he said, “You sign a Check.”
The rest was easier and drier, we put a little Touch on Fire And then a reasonable Sum for Burglars, — let the Fellows come —
For Arson, Bigamy, and Theft Till not a single Thing was left.
Since then I walk the Street erect, of every Fear bereft, If Death is with me on the right, Endowment’s on the left.
A motor Truck I never duck;
The thing could only bring me Luck,
I do not fear a car.
I laugh at Germs, despise Disease.
I eat and drink just as I please,
And smoke in my hilarious Ease
A fifty cent Cigar, —
Danger for me completely floored
Because I’m thoroughly insured.
And now perhaps I may explain the economic Bearing, For Facts without a Theory are wearisome and wearing. I want to give the World a Tip, — I owe all this to Salesmanship.
There is a spiteful School of Thought
That does not judge it as it ought
And says for everything that’s bought
The cost of Sale is half,
But this no longer makes me mad
If anything it makes me glad,
In fact, I only laugh,
I ask, — if I’m inclined to doubt it
Where would I be right now without it?
Extinct, or crumbling with Disease
Like Thanatopsis of the Knees.
Earning our Money doesn’t end it,
We need the Salesman’s help to spend it
Fair and above board, nothing shifty
We split it with him, fifty-fifty.
* * * * * *
So anytime I chance to meet my Benefactor on the Street, We stop and have a Chat,
On Group Insurance and Tontine,
And why a Rate based on a Mean
Is better than a flat.
I sometimes take him out to Tea, and he explains it all to me.
* * * * * *
I dropped in there the other Day
And found that he had gone away;
In fact, a thing I hate to say —
They told me he was dead.
His Death they said, was much deplored.
I ventured an Enquiry toward
A courteous Member of the Board, —
“No doubt he’s thoroughly insured,”
“He carried none,” he said.
THE RANCHMAN’S REVERIE
THE HICKONOMICS OF Planned Production
This is a study of the newer and higher Agriculture.
THE Farmer is a broad, substantial Man, heavy and slow with Pride
Of Economic Status.
Westward he lives, towards the Great Divide,
Wherever that is, —
Out near the Platte
He’s at,
And from his Porch he sees his Herd each Day
In Hairy Undulation far away.
His work is never done,
Not even with the Sun,
Because it’s not begun.
He hasn’t got to;
We pay him not to.
Knee-deep in Fragrant Deficit,
His kine
Are yours and Mine.
See where he sits in his cane-bottomed
Chair, broad-based in Thought, full-beamed in Reverie.
Wide and complacent is his
Face and, so it ought to ever be.
The Pain, the Effort from the Face is gone,
The furrowed Brow is wrinkled not with Care,
It may have been a little time ago, but now
It’s Hair.
And whiles he walks o’er his broad Acres, lazy,
Dreaming, why not? He’s nothing else to do.
And whiles he drops a tear on some wee Daisy,
Seeming to lift his Shoe.
He will not plough thee under, little Flower,
Not such as thou.
He has not met thee in an evil Hour, —
He doesn’t plough.
Bloom on, ye Flowers of the Savannahs, do not fear to bloom,
For Man towards your Bowers has changed his Manners: there’s lots of room.
Gone from the field is the commerical Hoe Crop: it’s left for you,
Of the vain-glorious Wheat there now is no crop: it’s up the Flue,
Under the Western Sun the Harrows Corrode to Dust.
The Sucker on the Field Pump slowly narrows Until it’s bust.
Well may the Western Farmer say, Gone are the Pumps of yesterday.
Thus once again the Prairie turns to Meadow,
And on its Sod
Unvexed by Man, in Wind and Sun and Shadow,
The Blossoms nod.
The Land Man will not fructify lies fallow,
Goes back to God.
Over the wide Savannahs all the bees are humming,
And by-the-bye we pay him by the Bee, —
And musing as he walks what thoughts are coming
And what may be the Ranchman’s Reverie?
He’s thinking with a vague sense of Alarm,
How different it was on Father’s Farm.
The Homestead Farm, way back upon the Wabash,
Or on the Yockikenny,
Or somewhere up near Albany, — the Charm
Was not confined to one, for there were many.
There when the earliest Streak of Sunrise ran,
The Farmer dragged the Horses from their
Dream With “Get up, Daisy” and “Gol darn yer, Fan,”
Had scarcely snapped the Tugs and Britching than The furious Hayrack roared behind the team.
All day the Hay
Was drawn that way
Hurled in the Mow
Up high, — and how!
Till when the ending
Twilight came, the loaded Wain
With its last, greatest Load turned Home again.
The Picture of it rises to his Eye
Sitting beside his Father, near the
Sky.
* * * * *
Down on the Heat of Harvest beat the Sun,
The Reaper clicked until the Day was done, —
Four Men to bind the Corners, one by one,
He sees himself, a little Elf In a blue Smock,
Bearing a Wheat-sheaf, bigger than himself
To make a Shock.
Winter stopped not the Work; it never could.
Behold the Furious Farmer splitting Wood.
The groaning Hemlock creaks at every Blow
“Hit her again, Dad, she’s just got to go.”
And up he picks The Hemlock sticks Out of the snow.
And yet not all was Toil, oh, no siree,
You mind the Dancing at the Paring Bee?
O, Hear the Fiddlers, Boys! oh, listen, say!
Hear the two Fiddlers tuning up their A!
What toneless Radio can make you feel
The old-time joy of the Virginia Reel, —
When in and out the dancers go
With “for’d and Back” and uDo-ce-do,”
And the Fiddlers say that we never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood.
“Set your Banners.”
“Swing again,”
“All get ready for the last grand Chain.”
For — it’s O-Dear-what-Can-the-matter-be-
Johnny’s-so-long-at-the-Fair.
* * * * *
Upon his dreaming Ear the Accents die,
The Farmer groans: he looks up to the Sky
To where the Prairie Hawk is poised on high
As motionless as he, —
All Nature idle, Wind and Flowers asleep
What can the matter be?
The shy Coyotes from their Burrows peep,
In their dumb Sympathy beside him creep,
And rub against his Knee.
The Farmer stands in Thought: lifts his clenched
Hand And flings it in a Gesture of Command “This must not be.”
“This shall not be.” He calls, the Heavens repeat it;
It echoes wide. All the Coyotes “beat it.”
“No dole! No quota! Give me back my Fork.
You hear me, you, who took away my work,
I want it now.
Give me my Plough My ‘Whoa! there, Dan, and Gee up, Fan,’
I want, I want to be a Man.”
And even as he lifts his Voice to speak
A stronger, cooler Wind strikes on his Cheek.
Such winds as reach the Prairie, so they say,
When Storms are on the Ocean far away —
With Ozone from the Ozarks, while the roll
Of dull, far-distant Thunder soothes his Soul
As if, the Moment that he ceased to brood,
Something in Nature answered to his mood,
And cast its Idleness aside to pass
An angry Hand across the Prairie Grass,
To toss the stricken Flowers and far on high
Gather the Tempest in the darkening Sky.
Fierce and impulsive in the western
Wind That gives its Temper to the Western Mind;
Sudden and swift, no warning of Alarm
Sudden and swift, thus comes the Western Storm.
* * * * *
The Farmer turns to make for Home again
About him gather now the Wind, the Rain
Falling in slanting Sheets that tear the Soil, —
What once were Rivulets as Rivers boil,
And the dry Land, on which the Farmer stood,
Turns into yellow Foam and moving Mud.
In growing Darkness for his Path he gropes
And stands, like Ajax, in the Lightning strokes,
Scarce can the Farmer tell where he is at
It all seems River, — well, you know the Platte.
But not the flashing Storm, the foaming
Flood Abate his angry rage, his heated blood;
His hands are clenched, he murmurs
“I’ll begin For Man or Nature, Idleness is sin.”...
With Hands tight clenched, “I mean it, yes, I will.”
And then the Lightning got him. He lay still.
They found him in the Morning, laid out flat
Among the broken flowers beside the Platte.
The Waters gone, all Nature calm again,
