Slickens
by
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
HAYSEED a Granger
NOZZLE a Miner
RINGDIVVY a Statesman
FEEGOBBLE a Lawyer
JUNKET a Committee
Scene–Yuba Dam.
Feegobble, Ringdivvy, Nozzle.
NOZZLE:
My friends, since ’51 I have pursued
The evil tenor of my watery way,
Removing hills as by an act of faith–
RINGDIVVY:
Just so; the steadfast faith of those who hold,
In foreign lands beyond the Eastern sea,
The shares in your concern–a simple, blind,
Unreasoning belief in dividends,
Still stimulated by assessments which,
When the skies fall, ensnaring all the larks,
Will bring, no doubt, a very great return.
ALL (singing):
O the beautiful assessment,
The exquisite assessment,
The regular assessment,
That makes the water flow.
RINGDIVVY:
The rascally-assessment!
FEEGOBBLE:
The murderous assessment!
NOZZLE:
The glorious assessment
That makes my mare to go!
FEEGOBBLE:
But, Nozzle, you, I think, were on the point
Of making a remark about some rights–
Some certain vested rights you have acquired
By long immunity; for still the law
Holds that if one do evil undisturbed
His right to do so ripens with the years;
And one may be a villain long enough
To make himself an honest gentleman.
ALL (singing):
Hail, holy law,
The soul with awe
Bows to thy dispensation.
NOZZLE:
It breaks my jaw!
RINGDIVVY:
It qualms my maw!
FEEGOBBLE:
It feeds my jaw,
It crams my maw,
It is my soul’s salvation!
NOZZLE:
Why, yes, I’ve floated mountains to the sea
For lo! these many years; though some, they say,
Do strand themselves along the bottom lands
And cover up a village here and there,
And here and there a ranch. ‘Tis said, indeed,
The granger with his female and his young
Do not infrequently go to the dickens
By premature burial in slickens.
ALL (singing):
Could slickens forever
Choke up the river,
And slime’s endeavor
Be tried on grain,
How small the measure
Of granger’s treasure,
How keen his pain!
RINGDIVVY:
“A consummation devoutly to be wished!”
These rascal grangers would long since have been
Submerged in slimes, to the last man of them,
But for the fact that all their wicked tribes
Affect our legislation with their bribes.
ALL (singing):
O bribery’s great–
‘Tis a pillar of State,
And the people they are free.
FEEGOBBLE:
It smashes my slate!
NOZZLE:
It is thievery straight!
RINGDIVVY:
But it’s been the making of me!
NOZZLE:
I judge by certain shrewd sensations here
In these callosities I call my thumbs–
thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins,
Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all
The cuticle and tickling through the nerves–
That some malign and awful thing draws near.