Natalie Kammerer
Erastus Benson was born in Iowa in 1854, and came to Omaha as a young man. Over the course of his life, he practiced law, taught school, edited a newspaper, was an important investor in Thomas Edison’s early inventions, and was one of the largest real estate developers in early Omaha. We wrote a blog post last year detailing some of his financial and real estate endeavors (notably, the founding of Benson).
A recent acquisition has inspired a second post—in addition to Benson’s civic pursuits, he also dabbled in creative writing! It would appear that, in 1921, “during a term of enforced idleness” Benson was moved to type up a selection of his musings and assemble a book, which he then sent to various friends and family. DCHS recently received an original copy, which was sent to a personal friend of Mr. Benson named Wilbur Crutchfield.
In honor of this unique donation and Erastus Benson’s lasting Omaha legacy, this week’s blog will feature a selection of his writings.
On Reading Newspaper Account of Roosevelt Shooting Big Game In Africa.
T. ROOSEVELT
I.
The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Afric jungle passed
A lion with strange conceit,–
He’d have a picnic when he’d meet
T. Roosevelt.
II.
In new-made camp he saw the light
Of pine knot fires gleam warm and bright;
“I will have my mane close shorn
If I don’t get before the morn
T. Roosevelt.”
III.
“Try not to pass,” the tiger said,
For I have heard it “on the dead,”
But Leo shook his frame with rage,
He’s seen a lion in a cage,
T. Roosevelt.
IV.
“Stay,” the baboon said, “and rest,
I really think it would be best.”
But Leo roared with beastly pride:
“I’m bound to have in my inside
T. Roosevelt.”
V.
All night he wandered in the brake;
He passed by game of lesser stake;
His mind was fixed, his purpose set,
He’d show the timorous beasts he’d get
T. Roosevelt.
VI.
At break of day a sound was heard,
It came from waking beast and bird,
And echoed, “What is coming there?”
A voice rose on the startled air,
T. Roosevelt.
VII.
Leo at the startling sound
Went surging forward with a bound;
He saw before him on the heath
A broad smile and a set of teeth,
T. Roosevelt.
VIII.
He lashed his sides with furious ire
His eyes stood forth like balls of fire.
He crouched him for a furious rush
And with a single blow to crush
T. Roosevelt.
IX.
There in the daylight cold and gray,
Lifeless but beautiful he lay,
And on his shaggy form there sat
A hunter with adhesive hat,
T. Roosevelt.
GHOSTS
Our dreams are to what we call out sterner thoughts what our ghosts are to our forms of flesh and blood. You ask if I believe that there are ghosts. Yes, I know that there are ghosts. I would have to doubt my own existence, if I doubted the existence of these shadowy forms.
In silence at night I hear their footsteps on the stairs and in the halls. I listen to the rustle of their garments, and when I walk beneath the stars at night, they often come and walk and talk with me, and even when I tread the busy streets beneath the noontime sun, they sometimes come and take my arm, and I am oblivious to the forms of flesh and blood about me.
Not long ago I visited the place where I first attended school. The old school house had been replaced, but the trees were there and though more than fifty years had been added to their growth they looked so low. I knew but I never felt before what the poet meant when he said:
I remember, I remember, the fir trees dark and high,
It seemed to me their slender tops were close against the sky;
It was a childish fancy, but now it’s little joy,
To know I’m further off from Heaven, than when I was a boy.
School had been dismissed and I was alone. I sat down beneath a tree, and presently I was surrounded by a bevy of boys and girls. I knew them every one. They laughed and shouted and played tag and hide-and-go-seek.
Among the rest was a little chap with tanned cheeks and disheveled hair. His little hands were chapped and none too clean, and as I looked at those soft chubby little hands that my mother called her pincushions, I wondered how they could have ever grown into these hard and bony ones. And he knew me. He looked and smiled and then the smile faded into a look of disappointment and reproof, such as I hope never to see again.
That night in the little tavern in the little town (we always called it the Tavern, although no liquor was ever sold), by the side was a grapevine arbor where the people used to gather and gossip and talk over the news and happenings of the day, in my honor the landlord gave me the spare room, and built a blazing wood fire on the hearth. Did you ever stop to think of the influence the open fire has had upon our art and upon our literature, both prose and poetry, that some of your most exquisite books never would have been written but for the open fire, and if you would remove from your shelves every book where some scene was laid before the open fire, you would have little left except your dictionary and books of reference? It would require a bold artist to picture a social group gathered about a steam radiator, or a family kneeling in solemn prayer before a hot air register. (But this is only by way of parenthesis.)
As I sat in my fire-lit room it came to me that some place, sometime I had read a rhyme on “The Little Old Town That I Left One Day,” and I reconstructed a verse or two to suit myself:
The little old town that I left one day,
Because it was quiet and slow,
Bears the name it bore when I went away
In the days of long ago.
But those who I knew in the little old town,
With its one wide street running up and down,
No longer gather at the tavern where
The grape vines used to climb.
They have ceased to gather and gossip there
As they did in the dear old time.
The little old town that I left one day,
Because it was quiet and slow,
Seems as free from care as it used to be
In the days of long ago.
But the friends I had in the dear old days
Have wandered forth in a hundred ways,
And none that I knew remain;
But as I sat in my chair in the tavern there,
In my fire-lit room in the evening’s gloom,
They were all there again.
Yes, we know that there are ghosts. You cannot see my ghost and I cannot see yours, but I know they are all about you. Some are gray and lay their loving hands upon your head to bless you; some are young and ready for any game or sport; and some have little fingers that are tangled in your hair.
Yes, ghosts there are and ghosts there always have been since the brand was put upon the brow of Cain, and ghosts there always will be as long as we turn to white memories, as long as the cold gray stones lie heavily upon the breasts of those we love.
DID YOU NEVER BUY A GOLD BRICK?
Did you never buy a gold brick,
Now honest, cross your heart?
Did you never get against it,
When you thought you were pretty smart?
Did you never give your money
To a man who put on airs,
And find that all he’d left you
Was certificates of shares?
Did you never buy a guy’s land,
And think you’d drawn a prize,
And find out that all he’d sold you
Was a right to fertilize?
Did you never take a section,
Just in time to catch your train,
And find the one thing lacking
Was the element of rain?
Did you never send your money
Way down to Mexico,
The only thing you’re sure about
Is that you saw it go?
Did you never put your earnings
In a rich old Spanish hole,
And when they’d pumped the water out,
They’d shovel out the gold?
Did you never try a “diggins”
That was so rich with ore,
You’d spend your life in luxury
For ever, ever more?
Did you never try an orchard
Of apple, peach or plum,
And never could exactly find
What put it on the bum?
Did you never buy a city lot
And pay a dollar down,
And find it in a corn field
A dozen miles from town?
Did you never put your money
In a lease with oil to burn,
And find you’d better spent it
On an apple butter churn?
Did you never trade your Liberties
For something paying more,
And find it safely anchored
A hundred miles from shore?
Can you say you never witnessed
A fool and money part?
Did you never buy a gold brick?
Now, honest, cross your heart?
