An Idyl of Cold Weather
When all the sky seems blazing down, and sun-
shine curls the bricks,
And General Humidity puts in his biggest licks,
I welcome with a moist and dripping palm,
A placid old philosopher who runs a little farm,
Who says imagination helps a deal in keeping cool,
And who to comfort other men makes this his simple rule:
To talk of piping, biting days, and drifting winter storm
Whene ’er the weather pipes it up and gets too thunderin’ warm.
They’re better far than fizz or smash or juleps, sure’s you’re born,
—The honest little narratives of Frigid Weather
John.
For though the sizzling summer time may boil and steam and hiss,
Who’d ever, ever think of it while listening to this?
“I never see’d a winter have a durnder, sharper aidge
Than in the year of Sixty-one, the year that I drove stage.
I never had so hard a job attendin’ to my biz,
For everything was frizable, that year you bet was friz.
At last I done a caper that I hadn’t done for years:
I got a little careless and I friz up both my ears.
The roads was awful drifted and I trod ten miles of snow,
And all the time that zippin’ wind did nothin’, sah, but blow.
Them ears of mine was froze so hard, stuck out so bloomin’ straight,
I thought the wind would snap ’em off, it blew at such a rate.
And when at last I hauled up home, the missus bust in tears
And hollered, ‘John, oh, massy me, you’re going to lose your ears.’
But I—why, land o’ goodness, I was cooler’n I be now,”
—And he passed his red bandanna up across his steaming brow,—
“I jest got out my hatchet and I chopped two cakes of ice
And held ’em on my friz-up ears—’twas
Granpy Jones’ advice.
I didn’t dast go in the house, but set there in the shed
A-holdin’ them two chunks of ice to either side my head.
The chunks weighed fifty pounds apiece—that doctorin’ didn’t cost—
And so I got ’em big enough to take out all the frost.
My wife came out at last to see what made me keep so still,
And there I was, sound asleep and snorin’
fit to kill.
She got me in and gave me tea and helped me inter bed,
With that ’ere ice a-frozen tight and solid to my head.
’Twas sort of curi’s, I confess, but still I slept complete,
A crystal palace on my head and soapstones on my feet.
It wasn’t really what you’d call a calm and rest-
ful night,
But when the ice peeled off next day them ears come out all right.”
They’re better far than fizz or smash or juleps, sure’s you’re born,
—These honest little narratives from Frigid
Weather John.