from
Pogo
books by
Walt Kelly

Deacon Mushrat:
Finally we have a cryptic bit written by Turtle that reeks of guilt.

Seminole Sam (reading):

  “Smile, wavering wings,
Above rain’s pour,
While hopefully sings
Love of shorn shore.
Shore shorn of love
Sings hopefully while,
Pour rains above,
Wings wavering, smile.”

Miz Beaver:
I don’t git it.

Wiley Catt:
That’s the clever part. It’s gotta be read backward.

Albert:
If I had this to do over again I wouldn’t consider it a-tall.

Porky Pine:
Well, that’s life . . a fleeting shadow, darksome seen, as in a rear-view mirror.

Albert:
If that’s advice you can sort it out yourself.

Pogo:
[...] Y’know, chile, critters is nice, but human beans still makes the best people.

Rackety-Coon Chile:
Now, you got no call to be talkin’ cranky jes’ ’cause you is fresh woke.

Pogo:
I repeats what somebody else says... “If nominated I will not run . . If elected I will not serve.”

Porky Pine:
You live up to that an’ mebbe you’s jes’ the type man we been needin’ all along . .

Porky:
Pogo got a campaign platform full of promise in case he ever git caught in another election.... If nominated, he won’t run; if elected, he won’t serve.

Bun Rabbit:
That’s not zackly a change – we’s had public officials in our time what dee-livered that an’ never even promised it.

Porky:
I just thunk of the thing you can say when you is ee-lected. “You can believe in some of the people most of the time and in most of the people some of the time.... But you’ll never believe all of the people you can believe in all of the time.”

Pogo:
Sometimes we’d jes’ as leave plain fish an’ not mess around with catchin’ anything.

Churchy la Femme:
Yonder is my fav’rite secret un-fishin’ hole . . I kin guarantee you won’t git a bite from a skeeter even.

Churchy:
Three votes? That don’t hardly constitute no tidal wave of popular support.

Bat boy:
The way we votes, it does . . We votes early, often an’ louder’n anybody..

Churchy:
There ain’t hardly nothin’ cuter nor a sleepin’ baby tad lessen it’s a pork chop.

Howland Owl:
[...] I hear you is presidential timber, and, ’fore you knows it, li’l’ things like laundry will be done by the (heehee) first lady...

Pogo:
Mm... Wull, that’d be nice... but what will Mister Jefferson Davis say?

[...]

Owl:
When I says the first lady might be soon doin’ yo’ laundry, I din’t mean Miz Davis.

Pogo:
I thunk you must of was foolin’.

Owl:
Miz Davis ain’t first lady no more anyways..

Pogo:
My sakes! She get defeated?

Owl:
To be egg-zack she never got ee-lected.

Pogo:
Well, now, that’s too bad... That why she got to take in washin’?

Owl:
No first lady never gits ee-lected!

Pogo:
Then what good did it do to give women a vote if they don’t git to elect theirselfs?

Owl:
[...] I happens to represent Pogo in his quest for a first lady. Livin’ in the White House an’ all like that there ain’t to be sneezed at.

Miz Beaver:
I din’t so much as say ka-choo.

Ma’m’selle Hepzibah:
Me, I am no understood these business. Like as four year agoes I ask whom is these second, third, fifth lady and-cetera?

Owl:
It don’t work like that! You makes it soun’ like we was choosin’ up a basketball team.

Ma’m’selle:
That’s what I am mean.... Marriage is a different sport.... a two handed game of solitaire.

Miz Beaver:
Well.. we was to be married next day so naturally I got to the preachers real bright an’ early.. We waited an’ waited an’ waited an’ waited–

Ma’m’selle:
For the preacher?

Miz Beaver:
Naw.. fer my mister.. That weevil never did show up.. So I was a widder even afore the weddin’ so to speak an’ been a widder ever since.

Ma’m’selle:
He was dead?

Miz Beaver:
Don’t b’leeve so.. but he be dead iffen he do show up....

Albert:
It’s too bad a feller like Owl ain’t a opponent... He don’t lend hisself to bein’ for him.. I kin think of things agin him by the barrel.

Pogo:
Well, he allus got a ready answer.

Porky:
Wrong, but ready.

Albert:
Oh.. he got a answer fer everythin’.. ’cept questions.

Miz Beaver:
[...] But the way to a man’s heart is thru the soft underbelly..

Bun Rabbit:
Actually, Albert, the way to figger yo’ inkum tax is to be as honest as the law allows.

Albert:
I allus figgered gittin’ it in on time was the big i-dee.

Albert:
I is had enough.... I din’t have no inkum las’ year an’ I ain’t gone pay no tax.... so there.

Bun Rabbit:
Of course! Why is you been figger’n yo’ tax on nothin’?

Albert:
A citizen kin only do his doody as he sees it... Besides, payin’ taxes is all the rage.

Owl:
We’ve got to use the old savvy, the know-how, the moxie, the mother-wit, ars celare artem!

Churchy:
You said it!

Owl:
Thank you.

Churchy:
I’m behind him at least one hunderd poor cent.

Seminole Sam:
I’m behind him about seven miles.. What’d he say?

Churchy:
Who knows...? It was in Latin an’ that is recommendation enough for me.

Sam:
Wonder what language the Romans used for the old 14 karat bamboozle?

Owl:
We, as true patriots, true knight errants, blue blooded boys of red, white an’ true stripe, we gotta put a bloom on our candidate... We got to sell our man..

Churchy:
Why!? Why!? We only jes’ got him.... He run once an’ never got to set off his alarm, he jes’ stopped.... Considerin’ how he was wound up, he wound up good.... jes’ barely last. Besides it’s agin the law to sell, give away or allowed to be consumed on the premises anybody what’s a citizen of these here states.

Owl:
Lessee, Churchy figgers he likes our man... Churchy repersents half the population of Fort Mudge, a typically typical type of a town.... Now the rest of Fort Mudge might not vote... least not all of it. We can safely presume that a good third of the balance, or a sixth of the total is under age, not interested or undetermined.... Figures will prove that of the remaining two sixths at least one quarter will be infirm and unable to reach polls or out of town buying peaches. Another quarter, constituting the now one half, (or another sixth in all) will reach the voting booths too late or too empty, become discouraged, inasmuch as rain is one third likely to occur... This means that Churchy repersents half the voting public and will vote our way... Nationally, that’s roughly 31,000,000 votes for our fellow... and only one sixth will be in opposition, say a measly eight point three million... It all makes a man stop an’ sorta think like...

Owl:
S’pose we wanna know how you feels about doin’ away with February... or mebbe Tuesday...

Pogo:
Wull, I’d feel it’d leave a sorta hole.

Owl:
Tut-tut-tut-shh! You don’t answer a thing! We got turtle’s answer... As the averagest citizen we knows how he feels... He’s for it! An’ that means you, bein’ 8/9^ths normal, more or less, you is for it too, mostly.

Pogo:
But I ain’t! I’m dead against the whole idea.

Owl:
You tryin’ to tell me that figures lie? You tryin’ to buck a trend? Tryin’ to scuttle the sentiment of a nation?

Churchy:
Yeah!

Albert:
I tell you, it’s enough to make a man think before he votes...

Howland Owl:
Don’t go flyin’ off the handle, now.

Owl:
When the clamor of the public, the popular clamor calls a man, he knows he’s been called!

Albert:
My sakes! I din’t know we had a public clammer. How about a popular oysterer... Kin the popular oysterer be heard, too?

Owl:
Huh? Well, sure, our roisterers can be heard, but the voice of the vulgar ain’t got as much oomph... More people dig the popular clamor.

Albert:
They digs the clammer?

Owl:
Sure, they digs the clamor... That’s why the clamor is so popular.

Albert:
By George Y. Wells! I always thought it was the other way around.

Basil McTabolism:
Gack! The worst coffee I ever tasted.

Churchy:
That there is paint.

Basil:
That so? Oh, well, for paint it ain’t bad at all.