Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, January 1922 · page 42 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #29 — page 42: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a serialized poem titled "Captain Billy's Whiz Bang," a satirical ballad mocking melodramatic narratives popular in early 20th-century literature and pulp fiction. The poem parodies morality tales by presenting absurdly exaggerated scenarios: a virtuous maiden from Keokuk, Iowa attempts missionary work in the Alaskan frontier (Nome), shipwrecks at Shark Tooth Shoal, and encounters a hermit ("Yukon Jake") living in depraved isolation. The satire targets several elements: overwrought Victorian moral language ("Original Sin," "immortal soul"), religious hypocrisy (the Baptist Church's duplicitous righteousness), frontier mythology, and crude characterizations of Alaskan life as lawless and depraved. The comedy derives from clashing registers—genteel religious language juxtaposed with crude frontier behavior—and the deliberate undermining of sentimental rescue narratives. Jake's betrayal and sale of Ruth to "Dan Megrew" (a character likely referencing Robert Service's popular frontier poetry) completes the cynical deflation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
40 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Of all but wild animals. So he bought him the whole of Shark Tooth Shoal, A reef in the Bering Sea, And he lived by himself on a sea lion's shelf In lonely iniquity. But, miles away, in Keokuk, Ia., Did a ruined maiden fight To remove the smirch from the Baptist Church By bringing the heathen Light. And the Elders declared that all would be squared If she carried the holy words From her Keokuk Home to the hell-town Nome To save those sinful birds. So, two weeks later, she took a freighter, For the gold-cursed land near the Pole, But Heaven ain't made for a lass that's betrayed— She was wrecked on Shark Tooth Shoal! All hands were tossed in the Sea, and lost— All but the maiden Ruth, Who swam to the edge of the sea lion's ledge Where abode the love of her youth. He was hunting a seal for his evening meal (He handled a mean harpoon) When he saw at his feet, not something to eat, But a girl in a frozen swoon, Whom he dragged to his lair by her dripping hair, And he rubbed her knees with gin. To his great surprise, she opened her eyes And revealed—his Original Sin! His eight-months' beard grew stiff and weird And it felt like a chestnut burr, And he swore by his gizzard—and the Arctic blizzard, That he'd do right by her. But the cold sweat froze on the end of her nose Till it gleamed like a Teckla pearl, While her bright hair fell, like a flame from hell, Down the back of the grateful girl. But a hopeless rake was Yukon Jake The Hermit of Shark Tooth Shoal! And the dizzy maid he rebetrayed And wrecked her immortal soul! Then he rowed her ashore with a broken oar, And he sold her to Dan Megrew For a huskie dog and some hot egg-nog— As rascals are wont to do.