Oklahoma Sunshine.

By Freeman E. Miller,

Author of "Oklahoma and other Poems," "Songs from the South-West Country," etc.

Stillwater, Oklahoma. The Advance Printing Company. 1905.

Copyright, 1905, By Freeman E. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

The Gospel of Sunshine is the one Supreme Evangel, the Religion of Love is Mankind's most Universal Creed. They hold in their divine Baptisms the Winning of the Heart to Happiness, the Wooing of the Soul to Heaven.

The Author.

Beginning with June 9, 1904, there was a column of verse and prose published in "The Stillwater Advance" under the caption "Oklahoma Sunshine." These were written in the moments of a busy life, amid the crowding of sterner things, and many of them found a wide circulation in the fugitive publications of the day. So many persons have offered expressions of being pleased and helped by them that they are here presented in a more permanent form. The following comprise the year from June, 1904, to June, 1905.

CONTENTS.

VERSES.

PROSE.

"What Think Ye, Masters, of These Things?"

(A Poem read on Oklahoma Day, September 6, 1904, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.)

[1]

Dreams.

I.

II.

III.

[2]

Caught on the Fly.

If the girl with a white muslin dress and a picture hat has any troubles in this world she has a wonderful skill in hiding her real feelings.

Somehow, those men who are all the time telling how well money talks, never get well enough acquainted with it to speak with authority.

"De worst objection to de wortersmillion in Oklahomy," said a Mississippi black man, "is de fact dat it gits ripe too late fer de wheat harvest an' too yarly fer de cotton-pickin."

The average man grieves more when he runs out of chewing tobacco and the nearest neighbor who uses the filthy weed is three miles away, than he does when the mortgage takes the farm. Upon what little things doth happiness depend!

[4]

The Kingbolt Philosopher.

"Ive heerd tell," said Uncle Ezra Mudge, "thet every dog has his day. But I'm jest as sartin thet he don't know he's a havin' of it when he has it.

"Now, thar was Bill Smith. Bill was a high-up chap, made money, had a rubber-tired buggy, four girls, and chawed terbacker thet cost a dollar a pound. But he never knowed he was a havin' of his day ontell he went busted on the Board of Trade. But now Bill knows it, and has knowed it ever sence he went busted."

[5]

A Troublesome Set.

"Dese hyar white folks am a troublesome set," said a Guthrie coon. "We hab a great majority ob de city, but on 'lection day we nebber git ober half the city council an 'de school board, and four drinks apiece. We am a-talkin' of sendin' 'em back to Englan' whar dey belong ef dey don't do better!"

[6]

A Little of Love.

I.

II.

III.

[7]

IV.

Caught on the Fly.

It's no use to try to trot in a race where you are out-classed. Better be a good weed-puller at so much per pull, than a member of the legislature without any pull at all.

If a woman's hair is smoothed up, her hat on straight and her belt all right behind, the other cares and responsibilities of this life sink at once and forever into insignificant nothingness.

This thing of "hitching your wagon to a star" may be all right for a steady occupation, but the fellow who plants garden truck in his back-yard nights and mornings will have more on the table at meal-times.

[8].

Don't Frown.

[9]