Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, July 1921 · page 53 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #22 — page 53: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a humorous love letter parody, likely from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang*, a post-WWI American satirical magazine known for irreverent humor and ribald jokes. The text mockingly exaggerates romantic sentiment through absurdly crude and rustic comparisons. Rather than conventional poetry, the writer compares his beloved's laugh to a "windharp's strain" and "stray lamb's bleat," her dimples to "hollows in cakes of home-made sugar." His love is compared to a "kitten's first catterwaul" and a "mean pup" wanting milk. The satire targets overly sentimental love letters and flowery Victorian courtship language by replacing refined metaphors with farmyard imagery—doughnuts fried in molasses, muscovy ducks, stage horses in pastures. The crude vernacular humor suggests the writer is an unsophisticated rural figure attempting (and failing) at romantic eloquence. This represents the magazine's populist, anti-pretentious comedic style.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 51 parents' nest. Your laugh rings in my ears like the windharp's strain, or the bleat of a stray lamb on a bleak hillside. The dimples in your cheeks are like bowers in beds of roses—hollows in cakes of home-made sugar. I am dying to fly to thy presence, and pour out the burning eloquence of my love, as thrifty housewives pour out hot coffee. Away from you I am as melan- choly as a rat. Sometimes, I can hear the June bugs of despon- dency buzzing in my ears, and feel the cold lizards of despair crawling down my back. Uncouth fears, like a thousand minnows, nibble at my spirits; and my soul is pierced with doubts, as an old cheese is bored with skippers. My love for you is stronger than the smell of pat- ent butter, or the kick of a young cow, and more unsel- fish than a kitten's first catterwaul. As a song bird hankers for the light of day, the cautious mouse for the fresh bacon in the trap, as a mean pup hankers after new milk, so I long for thee. You are fairer than a speckled pullet, sweeter than a Yankee doughnut fried in sorghum molasses, brighter than the top knot plumage of muscovy ducks. You are candy, kisses, raisins, pound-cake and sweetened toddy altogether. If these few remarks will enable you to see the inside of my soul, and me to win your affection, I shall be as happy as a woodpecker on a cherry tree, or a stage horse in a green pasture. If you cannot recipro- cate my thrilling passion, I will pine away like a poi-