Oh, he gits his meals wherever he can, So natchurly he's a handy man-- He's a handy man both day and night, And he's always blest with an appetite! {31} [Illustration: And so likewise do the farmhands stare] {33} A tin o' black coffee, and a rhuburb pie-- Be they old and cold as charity-- They're hot-stuff enough for the pore hobo, And it's "Thanks, kind lady, for to treat me so!" Then he fills his pipe with a stub cigar And swipes a coal from the kitchen fire, And the hired girl says, in a smilin' tone,-- "It's good-by, John, if you call that goin'!" Oh, the hobo's life is a roving life, It robs pretty maids of their heart's delight-- It causes them to weep and it causes them to mourn For the life of a hobo, never to return. [Illustration: A hobo voluntary--tailpiece] {34} [Illustration: Be our fortunes as they may--headpiece] BE OUR FORTUNES AS THEY MAY Be our fortunes as they may, Touched with loss or sorrow, Saddest eyes that weep to-day May be glad to-morrow. Yesterday the rain was here, And the winds were blowing-- Sky and earth and atmosphere Brimmed and overflowing. {35} But to-day the sun is out, And the drear November We were then so vexed about Now we scarce remember. Yesterday you lost a friend-- Bless your heart and love it!-- For you scarce could comprehend All the aching of it;-- But I sing to you and say: Let the lost friend sorrow-- Here's another come to-day, Others may to-morrow. [Illustration: Be our fortunes as they may--tailpiece] {36} I SMOKE MY PIPE I can't extend to every friend In need a helping hand-- No matter though I wish it so, 'Tis not as Fortune planned; But haply may I fancy they Are men of different stripe Than others think who hint and wink,-- And so--I smoke my pipe! A golden coal to crown the bowl-- My pipe and I alone,-- I sit and muse with idler views Perchance than I should own:-- It might be worse to own the purse Whose glutted bowels gripe In little qualms of stinted alms; And so I smoke my pipe. {37} [Illustration: And wrapped in shrouds of drifting clouds] {39} And if inclined to moor my mind And cast the anchor Hope, A puff of breath will put to death The morbid misanthrope That lurks inside--as errors hide In standing forms of type To mar at birth some line of worth; And so I smoke my pipe. The subtle stings misfortune flings Can give me little pain When my narcotic spell has wrought This quiet in my brain: When I can waste the past in taste So luscious and so ripe That like an elf I hug myself; And so I smoke my pipe. And wrapped in shrouds of drifting clouds I watch the phantom's flight, Till alien eyes from Paradise Smile on me as I write: And I forgive the wrongs that live, As lightly as I wipe Away the tear that rises here; And so I smoke my pipe.