Old “Ten Per Cent”

His mouth is pooched and solemn and he’ll never squeeze a smile,

He’s yeller ’em saffron bitters’cause he’s col- ored so by bile;

No organ in his system seems to run the way it should,

--He never has a hearty shake or says a word of good.

He’ll soften, though, a crumb or so if money’s to be lent

And some poor strugglin’ devil comes to time with ten per cent.

He is flingin’ and is dingin’ first at this and then at that,

And to ev’ry reputation gives a cuff or kick or slat;

Pretty lately he was spewin’ sland’rous gossip he had heard,

And our minister was passin’. Wal, the elder he was stirred

And he says, “Ah, Brother Bowler, if you’d lived in Jesus’ time

When they brought to him the woman whom they’d taken in her crime,

That story in the Scriptures would have took a diff’rent tone,

For I s’picion if you’d been there you’d’a’ up and thrown the stone.

Yes, I reckon that the woman would have sartin been a goner,

For you’d thrown the rock--and that hain’t all! You’d’a’ thrown one with a corner!”

Wal, ye’d think a dig of that sort would have shamed him ha’f to death,

But, Land o’ Goshen, neighbor,--hain’t no mor- tifyin’ Seth!

--Jest a waste of breath To jab at Uncle Seth,

He’s holler where the soul should be--hain’t got no human peth.

He’s deef to ev’ry cry of want and don’t know what is meant,

But--bet he’ll hear for ha’f a mile the whisper, “Ten per cent!”

It took a lot of practicin’ to work his hearin’ down

To where he’s never bothered by the troubles in our town.

He never hears the sorrows of some woman who is left

With orphans and a morgidge’bout a thousand times her heft.

He hain’t the one that worries when she says she cannot pay,

The morgidge holds her anchored--the farm can’t git away.

Upon the shattered door-steps of his racked old tenements

He crowds the wolf of hunger when he goes to git his rents.

But he never hears the wailin’ of the troubled folks within,

He simply wants his money and’tis tenant, trot or tin!

He never hears entreaties of his neighbors in the lurch

Unless there’s good endorsers. He never hears the church,

He never hears the knockin’ of a fist upon his door

Unless he knows the thuddin’ means his ten per cent--or more.

(His auditory organs sense no waves from wails of sorrow

But they hear the faintest zephyr from the man who wants to borrow.)

Now, with ears in that condition, when they’re extry dulled by death,

On the Resurrection mornin’ I’ll have fears for Uncle Seth.

When Gab’rel toots his trump And risen spirits jump,

And up before the Throne of Light forthwith proceed to hump,

I reckin Seth will slumber on, not knowin’ what is meant ‘Cause Gab’rel won’t take’special pains to hol- ler, “Ten per cent!”