The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (read novels website TXT) 📖
- Author: Marshall P. Wilder
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With the pickpole for a goadstick, down the brimming streams we go;
They are hitching, they are halting, and they lurk and hide and dodge,
They sneak for skulking-eddies, they bunt the bank and lodge;
And we almost can imagine that they hear the yell of saws
And the grunting of the grinders of the paper-mills, because
They loiter in the shallows and they cob-pile at the falls,
And they buck like ugly cattle where the broad dead-water crawls;
But we wallow in and welt 'em, with the water to our waist,[Pg 1215]
For the driving pitch is dropping and the drouth is gasping "Haste"!
Here a dam and there a jam, that is grabbed by grinning rocks,
Gnawed by the teeth of the ravening ledge that slavers at our flocks;
Twenty a month for daring Death—for fighting from dawn to dark—
Twenty and grub and a place to sleep in God's great public park;
We roofless go, with the cook's bateau to follow our hungry crew—
A billion of spruce and hell turned loose when the Allegash drive goes through.
Has a cattle-ranch bronco to bust;
A thousand of Texans to wheedle and wheel
To market through smother and dust;
But I with the peavy and pole
Am driving the herds of the pine,
Grant to my brother what suits his soul,
But no bellowing brutes in mine.
But we stand the kings of herders—he for There and I for Here;
Though he rides with Death behind him when he rounds the wild stampede,
I will chop the jamming king-log and I'll match him deed for deed;
And for me the greenwood savor, and the lash across my face[Pg 1216]
Of the spitting spume that belches from the back-wash of the race;
The glory of the tumult where the tumbling torrent rolls,
With half a hundred drivers riding through with lunging poles;
Here's huzza, for reckless chances! Here's hurrah for those who ride
Through the jaws of boiling sluices, yeasty white from side to side!
Our brawny fists are calloused, and we're mostly holes and hair,
But if grit were golden bullion we'd have coin to spend and spare!
Death we clinch and Time we fight, for behind us gasps the Drouth;
Twenty a month, bateau for a home, and only a peep at town,
For our money is gone in a brace of nights after the drive is down;
But with peavies and poles and care-free souls our ragged and roofless crew
Swarms gayly along with whoop and song when the Allegash drive goes through.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From "At the Sign of the Dollar," by Wallace Irwin. Copyright, 1905, by Fox, Duffield & Co.
[2] Lippincott's Magazine.
[3] From "Mixed Beasts," by Kenyon Cox. Copyright 1904, by Fox, Duffield & Co.
[4] From "Mixed Beasts," by Kenyon Cox. Copyright 1904, by Fox, Duffield & Co.
[5] From "Mixed Beasts," by Kenyon Cox. Copyright, 1904, by Fox, Duffield & Co.
[6] Lippincott's Magazine.
[7] From "Mixed Beasts," by Kenyon Cox. Copyright 1904, by Fox, Duffield & Co.
[8] From Double Trouble. It should be explained that Mr. Amidon is suffering from dual consciousness and in his other state is known as Eugene Brassfield. As the supposed Brassfield he has gone, while in his Amidon state of consciousness, to a meeting of the lodge to which as Brassfield he belongs.
[9] From "Mixed Beasts," by Kenyon Cox. Copyright 1904, by Fox, Duffield & Co.
[10] Lippincott's Magazine.
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