"cramped" or "busted"; or
I never knew one yet,
When I had plenty in my purse,
To make the least invasion,--
As I, accordingly perverse,
Have courted no occasion.

Nor do I claim to comprehend
What Nature has in view
In giving us the very friend
To trust we oughtn't to.--
But so it is: The trusty gun
Disastrously exploded
Is always sure to be the one
We didn't think was loaded.

Our moaning is another's mirth,--
And what is worse by half,
We say the funniest thing on earth
And never raise a laugh:
Mid friends that love us overwell,
And sparkling jests and liquor,
Our hearts somehow are liable
To melt in tears the quicker.

We reach the wrong when most we seek
The right; in like effect,
We stay the strong and not the weak--
Do most when we neglect.--
Neglected genius--truth be said--
As wild and quick as tinder,
The more you seek to help ahead
The more you seem to hinder.

I've known the least the greatest, too--
And, on the selfsame plan,
The biggest fool I ever knew
Was quite a little man:
We find we ought, and then we won't--
We prove a thing, then doubt it,--
Know _everything_ but when we don't
Know _anything_ about it.

BUDD WILKINS AT THE SHOW

BY S.E. KISER

Since I've got used to city ways and don't scare at the cars,
It makes me smile to set and think of years ago.--My stars!
How green I was, and how green all them country people be--
Sometimes it seems almost as if this hardly could be me.

Well, I was goin' to tell you 'bout Budd Wilkins: I declare
He was the durndest, greenest chap that ever breathed the air--
The biggest town on earth, he thought, was our old county seat,
With its one two-story brick hotel and dusty bizness street.

We'd fairs in fall and now and then a dance or huskin' bee,
Which was the most excitin' things Budd Wilkins ever see,
Until, one winter, Skigginsville was all turned upside down
By a troupe of real play actors a-comin' into town.

The court-house it was turned into a theater, that night,
And I don't s'pose I'll live to see another sich a sight:
I guess that every person who was able fer to go
Jest natchelly cut loose fer oncet, and went to see the show.

Me and Budd we stood around there all d