“All right,” Ikey replied, “I’ll take it.”
She hangs out in our alley, but oh! what she hangs out.
“See here, I will not let you go out in a frock like that.”
“Don’t be an ass, Jack. I’m not going out—I’m going to bed.”
_“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet.”_
Although tradition holds the devil was masculine, there is at least one person in the world who would dispute tradition and stamp the evil one a woman. You may not agree with him, but then again you may, so here’s the poem:
As the story is told, in the ages of old, The devil, a spirit, was free, To wander at will, mid the good and the ill, So the devil a roaming went he. In a garden he met an old man and his pet, And straightway enamored was he With Eve, young and cute, so he gave her some fruit, For the devil a serpent could be.
Then she put on a skirt and made Adam a shirt— A cunning young vixen was she— Concealing her charms, yet displaying her arms, Till the devil he chuckled in glee. For he saw at a glance that his charms would enhance If only a female were he; So, donning her clothes, through creation he goes, And the devil a woman is she!
“_Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber,_ _Holy angels guard thy bed,_”
were the soft sweet words I heard as I passed by a little cottage home. Glancing in the open doorway, I saw a young mother rocking her baby to sleep. It recalled the voice of my mother who sings to me across the years of babyhood, youth and manhood.
In memory’s light I see the old cradle. It was a homely thing. The sides sloped, it was just wide enough for a baby’s arms to reach across, high enough for the little sister to look over, and the brother to learn to walk by. It was shaped like a kind of Noah’s Ark, but in it we children rocked and rode safely over all the storms of early years.
It had a wooden canopy at the head. As we looked up, it must have seemed like the edge of the world, or a dark background on which to paint awful childish fancies. Sometimes a loud man or an ugly woman looked over it into our faces, spoke, and we were frightened and cried, but mother came and smiled the tears away.
The rockers were curved and turned over at the end, and were worn smooth and gray. Weary with work, mother sat by our side, placed her tired foot on the rocker, and to the time beat of a loving heart, rocked us to sleep as she knitted, sewed, mended, thought or prayed.