The Sedalia Weekly Bazoo

Written for the Bazoo's Ground-Hog Edition,
THE FLOPPER.
Bill Rye was saying in a store, one day at Baxter Springs,
That in the future every man would be a wearing wings.
Of course I took the statement as a hard-shell Baptist might,
And whacked him on the shoulder and observed "you're mighty right."
This happened Friday afternoon; on Saturday, a week,
I met Bill prancing down the street a looking like a freak.
He said: "I want to shake your hand for you're the only man
That ever said a kindly word to me about my plan.
You said that I was 'mighty right;' and I am here, to say,
I give an exhibition on the public square to-day.
I'm going for to take these wings and climb into the sky.
For I have solved the problem, and my name is William Rye."
Bill was a combination of despondency and hope,
At times he grew gregarious; at times he used to mope.
There wasn't any office that he thought he couldn't fill;
He hooked on each new-ism, and embraced it with a will.
He entered all new parties. He pioneered new creeds,
He ran for sheriff, then he flopped to register of deeds.
And then he tried for probate judge; but none of it would work;
He tried to be a minister,--then flopped to postal clerk.
I liked Bill's multiplicity: I liked his gall and sense,
I went down to the public square and sat upon the fence.
And there was Bill upon a box surrounded by a crowd,
A showing wings, and talking fast, and feeling very proud.
I can't repeat the speech he made; in substance it was this:--
"Oh here is an occasion that a person shouldn't miss,
I'll show you something finer than you ever yet beheld;
For I'm a flying lu-lu, and I've got this thing corralled."
He spread his wings, he mounted up, mile after mile the same,
Then all at once he flopped and turned, and head first, down he came;
So great was his velocity that every one turned pale,
He went through soil, eight feet of clay, and sixteen feet of shale.
A dozen men who knew Bill well, said, when they saw him drop,
That William always seemed to try to get a chance to flop
He flopped just once too often. The Baxter people went
And filled the hole with cinders, and raised a monument.
They carved a line:--"Down in the shale reposes William Rye--
He didn't have the thing corralled, and hence he got too fly."
And then the Daily Pioneer observed with seeming scoff,
"Soar disappointment was the cause that took the brother off."
Eugene F. Ware,
Fort Scott,
Kan.