Slickens
Hayseed, a granger
Nozzle, a miner
Ringdivvy, a statesman
Feegobble, a lawyer
Junket, a committee
Scene—Yuba Dam.
Feegobble, Ringdivvy, Nozzle.
Nozzle
My friends, since ’51 I have pursued
The evil tenor of my watery way,
Removing hills as by an act of faith—
Ringdivvy
Just so; the steadfast faith of those who hold,
In foreign lands beyond the Eastern sea,
The shares in your concern—a simple, blind,
Unreasoning belief in dividends,
Still stimulated by assessments which,
When the stars fall, upon the backs of toads,
Will bring, no doubt, a very great return.
All
Singing.
O the adequate assessment,
The annual assessment,
The regular assessment,
That makes the water flow.
Ringdivvy
The rascally assessment!
Feegobble
The murderous assessment!
Nozzle
The glorious assessment
That makes my mare to go!
Feegobble
But, Nozzle, you, I think, were on the point
Of making a remark about some rights—
Some certain vested rights you have acquired
By long immunity; for still the law
Holds that if one do evil undisturbed
His right to do so ripens with the years;
And one may be a villain long enough
To make himself an honest gentleman.
All
Singing.
Hail, holy law,
The soul with awe
Bows to thy dispensation.
Nozzle
It breaks my jaw!
Ringdivvy
It qualms my maw!
Feegobble
It feeds my jaw,
It crams my maw,
It is my soul’s salvation!
Nozzle
Why, yes, I’ve floated mountains to the sea
For lo! these many years; though some, they say,
Do strand themselves along the bottom lands
And cover up a village here and there,
And here and there a ranch. ’Tis said, indeed,
The granger with his female and his young
Does not infrequently go to the dickens
By premature burial in slickens.
All
Singing.
Could slickens forever
Choke up the river,
And slime’s endeavor
Be tried on grain,
How small the measure
Of granger’s treasure,
How keen his pain!
Ringdivvy
These rascal grangers would long since have been
Submerged in slimes, to the last man of them,
But for the fact that all their wicked tribes
Affect our legislation with their bribes.
All
Singing.
O bribery’s great—
’Tis a pillar of State,
And the people they are free!
Feegobble
It smashes my slate!
Nozzle
It is thievery straight!
Ringdivvy
But it’s been the making of me!
Nozzle
I judge by certain shrewd sensations here
In these callosities I call my thumbs—
A thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins,
Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all
The cuticle and tickling through the nerves—
That some malign and awful thing draws near. Enter Hayseed.
Good Lord! here are the ghosts and spooks of all
The grangers I have decently interred,
Rolled into one!
Feegobble
Plead, phantom.
Ringdivvy
You’ve the floor.
Hayseed
From the margin of the river
(Bitter Creek, they sometimes call it)
Where I cherished once the pumpkin,
And the summer squash promoted,
Harvested the sweet potato,
Dallied with the fatal melon
And subdued the fierce cucumber,
I’ve been driven by the slickens,
Driven by the slimes and tailings!
All my family—my Polly
Ann and all my sons and daughters,
Dog and baby both included—
All were swamped in seas of slickens,
Buried fifty fathoms under,
Where they lie, prepared to play their
Gentle prank on geologic
Gents that shall exhume them later,
In the dim and distant future,
Taking them for melancholy
Relics antedating Adam.
I alone got up and dusted.
Nozzle
Avaunt! you horrid and infernal shape!
What dire distress have you prepared for us?
Ringdivvy
Were I a buzzard stooping from the sky
My craw with filth to fill,
Into your honorable body I
Would introduce a bill.
Feegobble
Defendant, hence, or, by the gods, I’ll brain thee!—
Unless you saved some turnips to retain me.
Hayseed
As I was saying, I got up and dusted,
My ranch a graveyard and my business busted!
But hearing that a fellow from the City,
Who calls himself a Citizens’ Committee,
Was coming up to play the very dickens,
With those who cover up our farms with slickens,
And make himself—unless I am in error—
To all such miscreants a holy terror,
I thought if I would join the dialogue
I maybe might get payment for my dog.
All
Singing.
O the dog is the head of Creation,
Prime work of the Master’s hand;
He hasn’t a known occupation,
Yet lives on the fat of the land.
Adipose, indolent, sleek and orbicular,
Sun-soaken, door matted, cross and particular.
Men, women, children, all coddle and wait on him,
Then, accidentally shutting the gate on him,
Miss from their calves, ever after, the rifted out
Mouthful of tendons that doggy has lifted out! Enter Junket.
Junket
Well met, my hearties! I must trouble you
Jointly and severally to provide
A comfortable carriage, with relays
Of hardy horses. This Committee means
To move in state about the country here.
I shall expect at every place I stop
Good beds, of course, and everything that’s nice,
With bountiful repast of meat and wine.
For this Committee comes to see and mark
And inwardly digest.
Hayseed
Digest my dog!
Nozzle
First square my claim for damages: the gold
Escaping with the slickens keeps me poor!
Ringdivvy
I merely would remark that if you’d grease
My itching palm it would more glibly glide
Into the public pocket.
Feegobble
Sir, the wheels
Of justice move but slowly till they’re oiled.
I have some certain writs and warrants here,
Prepared against your advent. You recall
The tale of Zaccheus who did climb a tree,
And Jesus said: “Come down”?
junket
Why, bless your souls!
I’ve got no money; I but came to see
What all this noisy babble is about,
Make a report and file the same away.
Nozzle
Ringdivvy
Feegobble
Hayseed
How’ll that help us? Reports are not our style
Of provender!
Junket
Well, you can gnaw the file.
Curtain.