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TOTE-ROAD AND TRAIL 
 
It's chuck in the day and a bunk in the night 
 
TOTE-ROAD AND 
 TRAIL 
 
 Ballads of the Lumberjack 
 
 By 
 
 DOUGLAS MALLOCH 
 
 ILLUSTRATED IN FULL COLOR BY 
 
 OLIVER KEMP 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Copyright 1917 ^^ '\>' 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company ^^ j^ a 
 
 y^\^'^ 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BFIAUNWORTH & CO. 
 
 BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
 OCT 19 1917 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
 Had heaven a star, a single star, 
 
 A solitary lamp, 
 One beacon-light to shine afar 
 
 And lead me back to camp- 
 That one sure star would bring me to 
 The camp, the waiting fire, and you. 
 
 Had life but one, a single one, 
 
 But you, unchanging still. 
 However far my feet might run 
 
 Down valley or up hill — 
 That one true heart, the heart of you. 
 In good or ill would bring me through. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 facing page 
 It's Chuck in the Day and a Bunk in the 
 Night Frontispiece 
 
 While Us Poor Skates in Regions Cool Go Out an* 
 Make His Money 28 ' 
 
 An' Ev'ry Time You Turn a Bend the Next Bend 
 Looks the Best 56 ' 
 
 For There Are the Woods to People, and There Is 
 the Trail to Make 88 *' 
 
 I'd Like to Just Come Walkin' in an' Find You All 
 A-settin' Here 120 ' 
 
 Worked a Peavey, Pulled a Saw, Rode the River in a 
 Thaw 156 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Afterward 164 
 
 Aspen, The 131 
 
 Bad Man, The 165 
 
 Behind a Spire 132 
 
 Breakup, The 53 
 
 Call Us, America 45 
 
 Calling Up the Crew 3 
 
 Camp in the Woods with a Friend, A 123 
 
 Chalt)iere 69 
 
 Christella 78 
 
 Christina 110 
 
 Cruise, The 170 
 
 Day, a 90 
 
 Discovery 139 
 
 Fall, The 15 
 
 Forty 134 
 
 Fungi 88 
 
 Greater the Heart, The 8 
 
 Hair of the Dog, The 43 
 
 Hero Meddlers, The 67 
 
 His Eyes 125 
 
 Holy Ground 95 
 
 If Fortune Came 119 
 
 In Town on New Year's Eve 36 
 
 Intercession 97 
 
 Interpreters 94 
 
 Irish, The 76 
 
 Just Alive 49 
 
CONTENTS— C(?»^i«M^d 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Keep Your Ears Ahead 149 
 
 Loafer, The 14 
 
 Look Back, A 168 
 
 Love of a Man, The 12 
 
 Man Who Always Won, The 135 
 
 Man Who Could Play, The 86 
 
 Man's Road, The . 107 
 
 Night Like This, A 100 
 
 Oh, To Be a Gypsy 30 
 
 One 122 
 
 One-Spot, The 129 
 
 Pilgrimage, The . 23 
 
 Point of View, The 27 
 
 Price, The 72 
 
 Prosperity 47 
 
 Recruit's Request, The 159 
 
 Retired 153 
 
 Sanctuary 1 
 
 Seed 81 
 
 Self-Made Man, The 83 
 
 Signal, The . • 75 
 
 Simple Life, The 33 
 
 Star Spangled Banner Forever, The 31 
 
 Stony Brook 61 
 
 Superannuated 51 
 
 Tenderhearted Bill 58 
 
 Three Mornings 112 
 
 Times, The 141 
 
COlslTENTS— Continued 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To A Chipmunk 92 
 
 Undergrowth 106 
 
 Up-River 10 
 
 Wedding, The 161 
 
 When the Drive Goes Down 56 
 
 Widowhood of Doubt, The 151 
 
 Widow-Maker, The 40 
 
 Winner, The 64 
 
 Woodland, The 117 
 
 Work in the Woods, The 6 
 
 World, The 7 
 
 Youth Who Wore an "M," The 18 
 
TOTE-ROAD AND TRAIL 
 
Tote-Road and Trail 
 
 SANCTUARY 
 
 When some one has slipped you the dirk in the dark, 
 
 When eyes that are loving are lies, 
 When some one you trusted has made you a mark. 
 
 And somehow the heart in you dies, 
 There's dirt for you, hurt for you, trouble enough 
 
 To shatter the faith of a man ; 
 But don't ever think there is trouble so tough 
 
 That you can't overcome it — ^you can. 
 
 When living is losing its flavor to you. 
 
 When worry is making you old ; 
 When there is no joy in the thing that you do 
 
 Nor truth in the thing you are told. 
 There's balm for you, calm for you, out in the wild, 
 
 There's hope for you up on the hill. 
 Get up in the timber and play like a child ; 
 
 you can overcome it — ^you will. 
 
 1 
 
SANCTUARY 
 
 Get up in the timber ; the trail and the trees 
 
 Will make you a man in a day. 
 The smell of the soil and the breath of the breeze 
 
 Will blow all your troubles away. 
 There's pine for you, wine for you, hope for you 
 there — 
 
 The sun and the moon and the star — 
 If the ways of the city are not on the square, 
 
 Get up in the woods — where they are. 
 
CALLING UP THE CREW 
 
 They'll soon be callin' up the crew to cut the Edwards 
 
 pine; 
 You feel it in the lungs of you, you fill 'em full of 
 
 wine ; 
 The night is full of piney smells, the perfume of the 
 
 North ; 
 An' cold an' clear as icicles the starbeams glitter forth. 
 
 They'll soon be callin' us to come ; they'll need us in the 
 bush — 
 
 The sturdy sons of Scotia some, the old Toronto push. 
 
 The Frenchman with his shinin' saw, the sons of Eng- 
 lishmen — 
 
 They'll need us up the Ottawa to cut their pine again. 
 
 We're getherin' at Wullie's bar, we're settin' in the 
 
 sun. 
 We're waitin' for the private car the old Grand 
 
 Trunk'll run; 
 We're tellin' how we spent our cash, an' braggin' of 
 
 our girls, 
 Whilst from the dirty calabash the blue tobacco curls. 
 
CALLING UP THE CREW 
 
 But where is Dodson? In the trench. MacPherson? 
 Dardanelles. 
 
 Doret? Home fightin' with the French. The list of 
 missin' swells. 
 
 MacCullough ? With the Princess Pats. Oates ? Some- 
 where on the foam. 
 
 Jones? With a bullet through his slats he's invalided 
 home. 
 
 Carruthers? Well, they think he's dead. They lost 
 
 him in Lorraine; 
 Perhaps a prisoner instead ; he may come back again. 
 An' James, the blue-eyed Scottish lad? In Flanders, 
 
 under sod. 
 Remember Hawkins? Just as bad — torpedoed to his 
 
 God. 
 
 They'll soon be callin' up the crew to cut the Edwards 
 
 pine, 
 An' I'll be there my work to do — but not some friends 
 
 of mine. 
 They're sleepin' there in Belgium, they can not hear 
 
 the call 
 That makes the other fellows come, the pine-woods 
 
 an' it all. 
 
 I'll do my bit with ax an' saw, an', be it pine or spruce, 
 I'll put 'em down the Ottawa, an' offer no excuse. 
 
 4 
 
CALLING UP THE CREW 
 
 I'll be the last man in at night, the first man out at 
 
 dawn — 
 I'll do my work, an' do it right, but all the sport is 
 
 gone. 
 
 An' for the lads who died out there, I wish that they 
 
 could sleep 
 Up where the flowin' waters wear their channel to the 
 
 deep. 
 An' for the lads who suffer hell an' drink the cup of 
 
 war, 
 I'll pray a prayer for them as well, who never prayed 
 
 before. 
 
THE WORK IN THE WOODS 
 
 The work in the woods, oh, it's heavy the hurt of it, 
 
 The long day of labor, the short night of rest, 
 The camp, and the tramp, and the damp and the dirt 
 of it. 
 
 Afoot when the stars are still out in the west. 
 The sting of the wind, or the snow and the rain of it, 
 
 The cold sky if clear and the wet sky if gray — 
 And yet there is something, with all of the pain of it, 
 
 That finds us and coaxes and calls us away. 
 
 The work in the woods ! — There is something in spite 
 of it 
 
 That pulls at the heart like a sailor the sea. 
 The gay and the gray and the day and the night of it. 
 
 The smile of the sun and the sob of the tree ; 
 Afar from the forest you hear the loud call of it. 
 
 Then what do you care if the labor be long? 
 For, somehow or other, you sort of like all of it — 
 
 The work and the play and the sigh and the song! 
 
THE WORLD 
 
 The woods world, the man's world, it stretches east 
 
 an' west, 
 A green world, a new world, of all the world the best. 
 There's work there, an' play there, an' shadow there 
 
 an' sun — 
 There's work there, an' play there, an' sleep when you 
 
 are done. 
 
 The old world, the whole world, is like the world of 
 
 wood, 
 A big world, a glad world, an' glorious an' good. 
 There's life there, there's love there, enough for 
 
 ev'ry one — 
 There's work there, an' play there, an' sleep when you 
 
 are done. 
 
THE GREATER THE HEART 
 
 The man with an ax, 
 
 The lad with a saw, 
 Learn numerous facts 
 
 Of natural law. 
 A thing you will see 
 
 As you work at your art : 
 The older the tree, 
 
 The greater the heart. 
 
 There are sorrow and storm 
 
 As the forest grows old ; 
 There are Summers too warm. 
 
 There are Winters too cold. 
 Gray the Autumn may be 
 
 And the sun may depart — 
 But the older the tree, 
 
 The greater the heart. 
 
 Grow old like the pine 
 
 Through the smiles and the tears, 
 Growing better, like wine, 
 
 With the passing of years ; 
 
 8 
 
THE GREATER THE HEART 
 
 Let them say, if they can, 
 When from Hf e you depart, 
 
 "The older the man, 
 The greater the heart l" 
 
UP-RIVER 
 
 Our way to camp we used to drive 
 
 Along about this time of year. 
 A man felt good to be alive 
 
 When it come time again to steer 
 Up-river way. We'd top the hill 
 
 An' then the town would drop from sight 
 An' all the night got calm an' still 
 
 An' all the world got pure an' white. 
 
 You know, when you let loose of men 
 
 An' git up there among the trees, 
 You slip right back to God again 
 
 An' you're a kid on bended knees. 
 Then things you thought you had forgot 
 
 Come back to you by jump an' leap ; 
 You find yourself, as like as not, 
 
 Repeatin' "Lay me down to sleep." 
 
 There ain't no mystery in life. 
 
 There's nothin' you don't understand, 
 
 An' oldtime scraps an' oldtime strife 
 Look foolish in that silent land. 
 
 10 
 
UP-RIVER 
 
 The careless doubt, the wonder, cease. 
 The way is clear that once was dim : 
 
 You know there is a Prince of Peace 
 An' hunger to git back to him. 
 
 11 
 
THE LOVE OF A MAN 
 
 The love of a woman is sweet ; 
 
 In life I have fondled a few, 
 Have felt the red blood as it beat 
 
 The uttermost arteries through. 
 Yet God in His wisdom divine, 
 
 Yet God in His infinite plan, 
 Made nothing as holy and fine 
 
 As the love of a man for a man. 
 
 There was one with the dark in her hair, 
 
 There was one with the dawn in her eyes, 
 There was one who had kisses to spare — 
 
 For never a memory dies. 
 But, maids, you were nothing but maids ; 
 
 You passed, as the waters that ran. 
 For what are the angels or jades 
 
 By the love of a man for a man ? 
 
 The love of a woman is warm. 
 Her kisses as hot as the South, 
 
 And glorious battle to storm 
 The road to her amorous mouth. 
 
 12 
 
THE LOVE OF A MAN 
 
 But what is the nectar you drink, 
 The fragile and beautiful span. 
 
 By one indestructible link, 
 The love of a man for a man? 
 
 For when she has thrown you aside, 
 
 Has passed from embraces a,nd sight, 
 And all of the noonday has died 
 
 And left but the stars and the night. 
 You feel on your shoulder a hand. 
 
 For comfort you come where you can, 
 And deep in your heart understand 
 
 The love of a man for a man. 
 
 He'll go with you over the trail, y 
 
 The trail that is lonesome and long ; 
 His faith will not falter nor fail. 
 
 Nor falter the lilt of his song. 
 He knows both your soul and your sins, 
 
 And does not too carefully scan. 
 The highway to Heaven begins 
 
 With the love of a man for a man. 
 
 13 
 
THE LOAFER 
 
 You can always tell a loafer, if there's loafin* in the 
 
 crew; 
 You can always tell a loafer, for he has so much to do : 
 When the men are in the maintop he is f ussin' with a 
 
 jib; 
 On the drive he's always lookin' for a chance away to 
 
 snib; 
 In the woods the smallest timber is the timber he will 
 
 find; 
 In the yard the twelve-by-twenty is the kind he leaves 
 
 behind. 
 He will fuss an' he will fiddle huntin' up the softest 
 
 snap: 
 Life is one eternal treadmill for the take-it-easy chap. 
 Yes, it takes a lot of trouble skippin' labor day by day ; 
 For a fellah has to figger how to dodge it all the way. 
 On the drive or in the timber, in the mill or in the yard. 
 You can always tell a loafer, 'cause he works so bloom- 
 in' hard. 
 
 14 
 
THE FALL 
 
 The nights are colder than they was, 
 The days are shorter, too; 
 The starry Hght 
 Shines out to-night 
 From skies of deeper blue. 
 The green that lies along the hills 
 Is turning brown an' sear — 
 Yet I don't need 
 No signs to read 
 To know the time o' year. 
 
 An' I don't need no almanac 
 To tell what time it is, 
 
 No Autumn haze 
 
 An' shorter days 
 An' all that kind of biz. 
 Lord ! Don't I know the Fall is here 
 When loud the nightwind groans ? 
 
 Lord ! Don't I know 
 
 The season though? — 
 I feel it in my bones. 
 
 IS 
 
THE FALL 
 
 Fm tuggin' at this city leash 
 Like forty-seven dawgs; 
 I'm wishin' for 
 The shanty floor. 
 The timber an' the lawgs. 
 I'm longin' for the wanigan, 
 The tote-road an' it all — 
 Lord ! Can't the jacks 
 Who swing the ax 
 Remember when it's Fall? 
 
 A little more an* it will snow 
 Up in the woods again ; 
 
 A little more 
 
 The wind'll roar, 
 A little more an' then 
 In Michigan the nights will be 
 All sky an' moon an' stars — 
 
 An' then I'll pack 
 
 A little snack 
 An' hike to beat the cars. 
 
 The woods they call you in the Spring 
 When days are warm an' fair, 
 
 When robins sing 
 
 An' blossoms fling 
 Their perfume on the air. 
 
 16 
 
THE FALL 
 
 They call to you in Summertime 
 When in the town you sweat. 
 
 But in the Fall 
 
 Oh, then they call, 
 They call you louder yet. 
 
 Give me the old October woods 
 When leaves are turnin' brown ; 
 The smell o' pine 
 Is finer wine 
 Than any in the town. 
 Give me the old December snow 
 That turns the world to white 
 Up there in Mich. — 
 Oh, Lord, I wish 
 That I was there to-night ! 
 
 17 
 
THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M'^ 
 
 He was the rawest tenderfoot that ever pulled the 
 briar, 
 A rookey an' an amachure, a dude an' all of that; 
 But we was short of sawyers, an' the head push had to 
 hire 
 'Most anything that happened 'round the place to 
 hang its hat. 
 He was a sort of rah-rah boy, who wore a fancy lid, 
 With blue an' yellah ribbons in a bow-knot on the 
 brim. 
 An' pants that looked a size or more too big for such 
 a kid — 
 If Nature ever made a dub, it certainly was him. 
 
 We made it just as pleasant for His Dudelets as we 
 could : 
 We tossed him in a blanket an' did other little things ; 
 We set a jumper on him, an' the Frenchman soaked 
 him good ; 
 We learnt him penny ante where the deuces beat the 
 kings. 
 He didn't git discouraged an' he stuck right on the 
 job — 
 
 18 
 
THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M" 
 
 He said he got it harder when they took him in the 
 "frat." 
 We didn't ketch his meanin', but we knew he was a 
 lob 
 (That is, until Thanksgiving but things changed 
 some after that). 
 
 It bein' of a holiday, we jumped the bloomin' camp 
 An' mootched it to the city, there to give our proper 
 thanks ; 
 We took the dude along with us upon that jolly tramp 
 To be the central figger in some harmless little 
 pranks. 
 Recollect that little barroom in the hotel on the hill? 
 It was there the party gethered for the doin's of the 
 day; 
 An' we started in with vigor our respective hides to fill 
 With all the burnin' redeye that the gang could put 
 away. 
 
 When the stuf? was flowin' freely, some one spotted 
 Mr. Dude 
 An' he dragged him to the region where the merry 
 glasses clink, 
 An' he ast him, in a manner that perhaps was some- 
 what rude. 
 If, upon this glad occasion, he would ruther fight or 
 drink. 
 
 19 
 
THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M" 
 
 His Dudelets kind of trembled when they offered him 
 "the same" — 
 His face was really funny, 'twas so solemn-like an' 
 white — 
 But he turned to one that called him by a certain ugly 
 name 
 An* remarked in language pleasant that he guessed 
 he'd ruther fight. 
 
 It wasn't fair an' proper for us all to take a hand, 
 But that challenge meant a lickin', if a challenge ever 
 did. 
 We proceeded in a body then to make him understand 
 That a little more politeness was expected of a kid. 
 But he didn't put his dukes up an' he didn't shed his 
 coat — 
 He just sort of hunched his shoulders an' he shouted 
 "U-rah-rah!" 
 Then, with both his arms wide open, through the air 
 I seen him float. 
 An' he struck me in the stomach while I covered up 
 my jaw. 
 
 In the very farthest corner there we landed in a heap — 
 "First down!" was all he hollered, "first down, an' 
 four to gain !" 
 Then he mixed with Mr. Murphy, an' he put the Mick 
 to sleep 
 
 20 
 
THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M" 
 
 When ag'inst the bar he slammed him in a way that 
 give him pain. 
 "Second down!" he yelled, "an' touchdown!" Then 
 he straightened up a bit, 
 
 When the Swede come swingin' at him with hot an- 
 ger in his soul. 
 An' he stuck his toe out forward an' the Svenska's mug 
 he hit 
 
 As he turned to grapple Frenchy, while he yelled, 
 "Rah, rah! A goal!" 
 
 But there come some reinforcements from the man be- 
 hind the bar — 
 With a mallet in his flippers Mr. Barkeep joined the 
 fray; 
 With a brotherly intention Johnny's cranium to jar 
 An' no word of explanation, at his skull he blazed 
 away. 
 Then I knew 'twas all for Johnny, that the crack would 
 make him sick, 
 When the barkeep swung his hammer on our darlin' 
 angel child. 
 It took him in the forehead like half a thousan' brick — 
 But that kid, would you believe it? why, he just 
 looked up an' smiled ! 
 
 21 
 
THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M'* 
 
 Then he *'kicked a goal from placement," made a 
 "touchdown" more, or two. 
 (At least he so announced it ev'ry time he let a yell) ; 
 In the corner of the barroom he piled up that fightin' 
 crew 
 An', to sort of cap the climax, put the barkeep there 
 as well. 
 When he thought they had sufficient then he showed 
 the boys his "M," 
 An' explained the Yost "formations" an' just how 
 the thing occurred ; 
 To drink a toast to "Michigan" he invited me an' 
 them — 
 An', when he ordered soda pop, then no one said a 
 word. 
 
 22 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE 
 
 I've heard of a certain Mohammed who dwelt in a hut 
 on Arabian sands 
 
 And every year of his residence felt that a duty he had 
 on his hands 
 
 To make an excursion his Mecca to seek, a trip to the 
 home of his race, 
 
 A sort of original Home Coming Week, now so com- 
 mon in every place. 
 
 He'd pack up his duffle, his tent and his shrine and 
 
 would beat it back home for a spell 
 To see if the cocoanut harvest was fine and if all of his 
 
 cousins were well. 
 This pilgrimage habit grew rapidly so that it now is the 
 
 regular thing 
 And every season Mohammedans go up to Mecca its 
 
 praises to sing. 
 
 I always have felt sort of kinship to those who go 
 journey to Mecca afar, 
 
 Though I have no Koran concealed in my clothes, nei- 
 ther know what Mohammedans are. 
 
 23 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE 
 
 But every year I am up and away to a Mecca, a shrine 
 
 of my own, 
 That calls me as loudly and as surely as they who are 
 
 called by a city of stone. 
 
 My Mecca's the woods, just the woods in the Fall, 
 when October comes rolling around — 
 
 The camp and the river, the pine and it all, when the 
 frost takes a-hold of the ground. 
 
 It isn't religion that gets me to go and it isn't a psalm 
 or a prayer — 
 
 It's twenty-eight dollars, or thirty or so, they are pay- 
 ing for swampers up there. 
 
 It's chuck in the day and a bunk in the night and the 
 
 stake when we quit in the Spring 
 That coaxes me northward to work and to fight — only 
 
 these are the why of the thing. 
 The folks in the East go to Mecca to lay in a new stock 
 
 of faith for the year, 
 But I, I go up to my Mecca for pay — when I'm busted, 
 
 to get in the clear. 
 
 I guess that's the way of the East and the West, it's 
 
 the way of the new and the old, 
 That they are content on religion to rest, while we 
 
 Yankees are out for the gold. 
 
 24 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE 
 
 You couldn't get Yankees to go on a hike up to any 
 
 Mohammedan shrine, 
 But offer them thirty a month and they'll strike for the 
 
 land of the hemlock and pine. 
 
 They say that we worship the dollar too much, we are 
 
 crazy for riches, they say; 
 They say we are worse than the Scotch or the Dutch, 
 
 that it's quite the American way. 
 If pulling the briar or pounding the plugs for a dollar 
 
 a day is a crime, 
 What's asking three hundred for dirty old rugs that 
 
 were made in your grandfather's time? 
 
 If this is a showdown of Meccas, my friends, of the 
 
 Yank or Arabian kind. 
 We look at the matter from different ends and we each 
 
 have a different mind. 
 The man who looked down on us both from a shelf he 
 
 would say, when he saw how we did,- 
 There's good in a man who will bury himself in the 
 
 woods for the sake of his kid. 
 
 The fellow who diets on cocoanut milk and who spends 
 
 all his moments in prayer 
 Thinks he has a soul that is finer than silk, that is ready 
 
 its winglets to wear. 
 
 25 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE 
 
 But what of the man in a mackinaw shirt, one who 
 
 thinks of the girl that he wed, 
 Who's wilHng to swamp and to dig in the dirt that the 
 
 wife and the kids may be fed? 
 
 I'm thinking my Mecca is moral as his, though it's lit 
 
 by no altars ablaze; 
 I guess my religion is work, all it is, yet I think it 
 
 deserving of praise. 
 Perhaps the good Lord, when before Him I go. He 
 
 will hand me a crown and will say, 
 "This man had to make him a living below and I guess 
 
 was too busy to pray." 
 
 26 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 The man who owns these metes an' bounds an* tim- 
 bered quarter sections, 
 
 Whose hayroads Hnk our campin' grounds in nearly 
 all directions, 
 
 Awoke one mornin* in the town to find a blizzard 
 blowin', 
 
 An' shivered in his dressin' gown to see that it was 
 snowin'. 
 
 Then what did Mr. Main Guy do? He packed his 
 fancy duffle, 
 
 His spiketail coat an' skypiece new an' shirt with pleat 
 an' ruffle, 
 
 An' hopped aboard his special car attached to 'Frisco 
 hummer 
 
 An' hiked for Californya far, the golden land of Sum- 
 mer. 
 
 There, while the snows in Michigan are driftin' high as 
 houses 
 
 An' blizzards hide the Winter sun while Boreas ca- 
 rouses, 
 
 27 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 He*ll play his game of pasture pool upon a meadow 
 
 sunny, 
 While us poor skates in regions cool go out an' make 
 
 his money. 
 
 Each pleasant mornin' he'll git up as soon as he is able 
 An' find beside his coffee cup fresh grapefruit on the 
 
 table, 
 While we will eat at four a. m. beneath a lantern's 
 
 flicker, 
 An' masticate our graham gem some earlier an' quicker. 
 
 An' yet we do not envy you with ev'ry little flurry. 
 
 An' if we git a freeze or two, or blizzard, we should 
 worry. 
 
 We don't mind Wintertime a bit — there's somethin* 
 good about it, 
 
 An' fellahs who are used to it can't git along with- 
 out it. 
 
 Your Californya may be fine with Summer altogether, 
 But I'll take Michigan for mine, in spite of stormy 
 
 weather. 
 There may some pleasure be, perhaps, in little golf 
 
 balls chasin'. 
 An' yet our under zero snaps are twenty times as 
 
 bracin'. 
 
 28 
 
While us poor skates in regions cool go out an' make his money 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 An' I will gamble, in the Spring, when Winter passes 
 over. 
 
 An' little birds begin to sing amid the buddin' clover, 
 
 We'll come a-gallivantin' down like some Kentucky- 
 stepper, 
 
 Prepared to lick up half the town, we'll feel so full of 
 pepper. 
 
 A man requires some kind of change in ev'ry sort of 
 diet. 
 
 His appetite to rearrange an' make his pulses riot. 
 
 An' I would rather be a poor up-river grade of bum- 
 mer 
 
 Than ev'ry week an* month endure your blamed, eter- 
 inal Summer. 
 
 29 
 
OH, TO BE A GYPSY 
 
 Oh, to be a gypsy, and drive a gypsy van 
 Uphill and downhill, and be a gypsy man ! 
 Willow for your whipstock, clover in your hat, 
 Nothing in your pocketbook at all — ^but what of 
 that! 
 
 Tin pans that rattle, tin pails that swing — 
 Uphill and downhill merrily they sing ; 
 Jingle and jangle, clashing out a tune, 
 Making gypsy melody for a gypsy June ! 
 
 Uphill and downhill, a blossom in your mouth. 
 Northward in Summertime, Winter in the South. 
 Just a van to ward you from the heat or cold, 
 No house to shelter you, no house to hold ! 
 
 Money is a burden, dollars are a care, 
 But a gypsy wanders, wanders anywhere ; 
 Uphill and downhill, gypsy, let us roam, 
 Ev'ry night a campfire, ev'ry night a home ! 
 
 30 
 
THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER FOREVER 
 
 If it's men for your ships, if it's men for your shore, 
 
 If it's men for your guns on the borders, 
 If it's guards for your firesides, or fighters for war. 
 
 We are ready and waiting your orders. 
 We will lay down the ax, we will hang up the saw, 
 
 We will come from the rafts on the river; 
 And we'll fight for the land and we'll fight for the law 
 
 And the Star Spangled Banner forever ! 
 
 If it's men for the sea we have river-rats here 
 
 Who are kings of the drive and the water ; 
 If it's men for the line we have swampers to cheer 
 
 All the louder when matters get hotter. 
 If it's over the sea you would have us to go, 
 
 There to conquer the foe our endeavor, 
 We are ready — and only one ditty we know : 
 
 That's the Star Spangled Banner forever ! 
 
 We have handled a saw, we can handle a gun ; 
 
 We have made us a trail through the timber, 
 And we'll swamp you a road to a place in the sun, 
 
 For our arms and our axes are limber. 
 
 31 
 
THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER FOREVER 
 
 The man in the town is a fancier guy, 
 The man in the town may be clever ; 
 
 But we're ready to fight and we're ready to die 
 For the Star Spangled Banner forever ! 
 
 22 
 
THE SIMPLE LIFE 
 
 You skirt in a hammock, you dame in a swing, you 
 
 dude in the stern of a yacht. 
 You think you are hep to this picnickin' thing, an' 
 
 close up to Nature youVe got. 
 You load up a basket with sissified grub, with sand- 
 wiches, olives an' jell. 
 An' travel ten miles on a trolley or tub an' say you 
 
 will rough it a spell. 
 You carry a napkin to wipe off your chin, a tablecloth 
 
 folded an' neat, 
 An' china an' silverware always put in — for otherwise 
 
 how could you eat? 
 You set on the grass an' lay chicken away in under a 
 
 maple or pine 
 An' rave of "the forest primeval" an' say the life that 
 
 is simple is fine. 
 
 The life that is simple? You gimme a pain. You 
 
 think you've a hero behaved 
 If venturin' half of a mile from the train or off of a 
 
 street that is paved. 
 
 33 
 
THE SIMPLE LIFE 
 
 The life that is simple? — With chicken for lunch to 
 
 eat off a genuine plate? 
 You're the funniest, phoniest, buckwheater bunch that 
 
 ever broke loose in the state. 
 I tell you, my friends in the lawn tennis suits an' cute 
 
 little red ribbon lids, 
 To us in the woods in our snowpacks or boots you're 
 
 nothin' but sissies an' kids. 
 The life that is simple? If really you'd like to be a 
 
 real simple life cuss, 
 Along up the river to camp take a hike an' put in a 
 
 Winter with us. 
 
 We'll feed you outdoors all you want to be fed, an' 
 life will be simple enough ; 
 
 We won't give you butter to put on your bread, but 
 stoke you with heartier stuff — 
 
 Pork ribs by the yard that are swimmin' in fat an' 
 other choice cuts of the meat. 
 
 Sow belly an' other such dishes as that, rump roast 
 now an* then for a treat. 
 
 Our beans you will Hke, if a noodle you've got, be- 
 cause that's the easiest way — 
 
 It's better to like 'em, because, like or not, you'll git 
 'em four f eedin's a day. 
 
 34 
 
THE SIMPLE LIFE 
 
 An' dainties we'll give you, of that never fear, along 
 
 with our hunyacks an* coons; 
 Your palate we'll please an' your appetite cheer with 
 
 plenty of pickles an' prunes. 
 
 We won't have no tables or pillows or stools, or wait- 
 ers to pass things around; 
 Tin plates an' tin cups an' steel forks are the tools, 
 
 the grub it is set on the ground. 
 The only request we'll be makin' of you when our 
 
 table de hoty you try 
 Is that you won't grab the best chunks in the stew or 
 
 carelessly step in the pie. 
 You'll have to look out for yourself like the rest, 
 
 there's no one to pour or to carve. 
 Perhaps you can't eat any chuck but the best? Of 
 
 course, if you can't, you can starve. 
 But, if you partake like the rest of the bunch an' 
 
 shovel some food in your phiz, 
 I guess you'll go back to the town with a hunch you 
 
 know what the simple life is. 
 
 35 
 
IN TOWN ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 
 
 I've hit her up a few myself when Winter days was 
 
 done; 
 With twenty million on the shelf a-waitin' for the sun, 
 I've brung my Winter stake to town an' moseyed to be 
 
 first 
 Of all the lumberjacks to drown an 18-karat thirst ; 
 But I renig, an' I give up, an' I lay down an' quit : 
 I thought that I could quaff the cup an' hit it up a bit ; 
 But of my thirst I ain't so proud, an' I just set an' 
 
 grieve — 
 For I ain't in it with your crowd in town on New 
 
 Year's Eve. 
 
 Last year we broke a donkey gear when things was 
 
 goin' fine. 
 The boss he says to me, "Come here. You take the 
 
 Number Nine 
 An' git to town, an' git repairs, an' back here New 
 
 Year's Day 
 Or (sometimes Mister Murphy swears) or there'll be 
 
 hell to pay. 
 
 36 
 
IN TOWN ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 
 
 An' somethin' else, me fine gossoon, to you I would 
 
 confide : 
 If you should see a beer saloon, just tie your thirst 
 
 outside." 
 An' so I rode the Russels down right prompt you may 
 
 believe — 
 That's how I come to be in town last year on New 
 
 Year's Eve. 
 
 An' there a friend met up with me (they're always on 
 
 the spot. 
 Around where you're supposed to be to lead you where 
 
 you're not). 
 He asked me just to have a beer. I said, "Nay, nay, 
 
 Pauline ; 
 I have a solemn duty here to nursemaid this machine." 
 "Well, anyhow," he says, says he, "it wouldn't be 
 
 a sin 
 For you to come along an' see us see the New Year 
 
 in." 
 I knew the time was hours away when Number Nine 
 
 would leave — 
 That's how I come in Smith's Cafe last year on New 
 
 Year's Eve. 
 
 Believe me, Smith's is quite a place, with glitter, glass 
 
 an' gilt, 
 With window curtains made of lace, an' fit for Van- 
 
 derbilt. 
 
 37 
 
IN TOWN ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 
 
 But, fellahs, once inside of there, it wasn't lights an* 
 
 gold i 
 
 That handed me the punch for fair an' knocked me 
 
 stiff an' cold — 
 It was another sort of sight that met my backwoods 
 
 eyes. 
 It was another thing that night that floored me with 
 
 su'prise ; 
 For, while the booze was slippin' down, the thirsty to 
 
 relieve, 
 There set the ladies of the town that night on New 
 
 Year's Eve. 
 
 But some of them they didn't set as much as you 
 suppose ; 
 
 For, when her throttle she had wet, at times a dame 
 arose 
 
 An' led the singin' of a song or startin' of a shout 
 
 To help the merriment along an' see the Old Year out. 
 
 No, these was really ladies, boys, the ladies of the 
 town; 
 
 The wives an' sisters liked the noise an' cries of "Drink 
 'er down." 
 
 An' one who loudest seemed to be, you hardly will be- 
 lieve, 
 
 Had left at home a babe of three, to riot New Year's 
 Eve. 
 
 38 
 
IN TOWN ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 
 
 I don't lay claim to be a saint — in fact, Fm purty 
 
 rough ; 
 An' I ain't never heard complaint that I don't drink 
 
 enough. 
 But I've opinions just the same, old-fashioned though 
 
 they sound ; 
 An' when you try the drinkin' game, an' riotin' around, 
 To me a table an' a bar is much alike, I think, 
 An', it don't matter where you are, a cocktail is a 
 
 drink. 
 So, on occasions such as these, my wife at home I'll 
 
 leave — 
 I'll do the boozin', if you please, that's done on New 
 
 Year's Eve. 
 
 39 
 
THE WIDOW-MAKER 
 
 A loose limb hangs upon a pine three log-lengths from 
 
 the ground, 
 A norway tumbles with a whine and shakes the woods 
 
 around. 
 The loose limb plunges from its place and zigzags 
 
 down below; 
 And Jack is lying on his face — there's red upon the 
 
 snow. 
 
 They'll dress him in a cotton shirt, they'll cross his 
 
 horny hands ; 
 They'll dig a hollow in the dirt within the forest lands ; 
 They'll put him in a wooden box; they'll wonder 
 
 whence he came. 
 And build a monument of rocks without a date or 
 
 name. 
 
 "He got a letter, that I know." "I wonder where it is." 
 "I heard him speak not long ago about a wife of his." 
 "Employment agent shipped him up — he didn't have a 
 
 cent." 
 "He was a most peculiar pup." "He was a gloomy 
 
 gent." 
 
 40 
 
THE WIDOW-MAKER 
 
 And so they'll talk around the fire a little longer yet; 
 But even idle tongues will tire, and even men forget. 
 A season passes, and a year. "Why, yes, now thinkin* 
 
 back, 
 A widow-maker hit him here. We used to call him 
 
 Jack." 
 
 And far away, 'mid city streets Jack staggers down no 
 
 more, 
 A heart, a woman's, madly beats, each knock upon the 
 
 door. 
 She's back with mother in the flat. She thought she 
 
 wouldn't care. 
 Why does she always jump like that, each step upon 
 
 the stair? 
 
 "For anger burns so quick a flame the year that you 
 
 are wed. 
 I said some things just as they came I never should 
 
 have said. 
 It takes a little time, I guess, the married life to live — 
 To want your way a little less, to suffer and forgive." 
 
 They'll dress him in a cotton shirt, they'll cross his 
 
 horny hands ; 
 They'll dig a hollow in the dirt within the forest lands ; 
 
 41 
 
THE WIDOW-MAKER 
 
 They'll put him in a wooden box; they'll wonder 
 
 whence he came, 
 And build a monument of rocks without a date or 
 
 name. 
 
 42 
 
THE HAIR OF THE DOG 
 
 There was a lumberjack who tried 
 
 To break away from booze, 
 An' ev'ry Winter nearly died. 
 
 An' yet the fight'd lose ; 
 All Winter he would go without 
 
 An' never take a thing; 
 An' then would kill himself, about, 
 
 With whisky in the Spring. 
 
 Last Winter up to camp he come 
 
 An', as he always would, 
 Announced that he was through with rum. 
 
 An' through with it for good. 
 He sprung a gold-cure of his own : 
 
 To show that he was strong, 
 That he could leave the stuff alone, 
 
 He brought a quart along. 
 
 He put that whisky in his bunk ; 
 
 He slept with it at night ; 
 But not a drink he ever drunk. 
 
 An' no one saw him tight. 
 43 
 
THE HAIR OF THE DOG 
 
 Each day he said, "All yesterday 
 
 I didn't taste the stuff. 
 I guess, old booze," he used to say, 
 
 "You'll see it ain't a bluff." 
 
 A week, a month, the Winter passed, 
 
 But still it was the same — 
 For he had won the fight at last 
 
 An' proved that he was game. 
 An', when he come to town again, 
 
 He'd lean against the bar 
 An' tell the other drinkin' men 
 
 What omadhauns they are. 
 
 No doubt there are a bunch of things 
 
 That worry us a lot ; 
 But maybe we could pull their stings 
 
 If close to them we got, 
 If we that way of his'd try — 
 
 Just bunked with them a bit, 
 Just looked them squarely in the eye, 
 
 An' showed a little grit. 
 
 44 
 
CALL US, AMERICA! 
 
 Call us, America, 
 
 If you want men ! 
 Sound the loud clarion 
 
 Over the camp ; 
 We shall come merrily 
 
 Marching again 
 Out of the wilderness. 
 
 Out of the damp. 
 To the blue firmament 
 
 Fling the blue flag, 
 Banner of liberty, 
 
 Red, white and blue, 
 High on the mountain-top's 
 
 Uttermost crag — 
 Call us, America, 
 
 Call up the crew ! 
 
 Call us, America, 
 
 Out of the wood, 
 Out of the timberland. 
 
 If it be war ; 
 Call up the lumberjacks, 
 
 They who have stood 
 
 45 
 
CALL US, AMERICA 
 
 On your red battle-line 
 
 Fighting before. 
 When they have challenged you 
 
 We have replied, 
 Men from the lumber camp 
 
 Answered them then — 
 Guarding the Government, 
 
 Guarding the tide, 
 Call us, America, 
 
 If you want men ! 
 
 46 
 
PROSPERITY 
 
 It's easy to haul on the level, 
 
 A tote-road that's smooth as a floor ; 
 You may have to work like the devil 
 
 An' pull till your shoulder is sore ; 
 An' even a hill may not best you, 
 
 A little upgrade now an' then — 
 But there is one road that will test you, 
 
 The test of both horses an' men. 
 
 An' that is the downgrade, my brother, 
 
 The place where you don't have to pull ; 
 The easy road, somehow or other. 
 
 Is one that of trouble is full. 
 The road up the hill you can master. 
 
 The long haul that's level may beat, 
 But when things are pushin' you faster — 
 
 That's when you must keep on your feet. 
 
 Hard luck seldom conquers a fellah, 
 
 A man of the regular kind ; 
 But when you will quit, if you're yellah, 
 
 Is when things are shovin' behind. 
 
 47 
 
PROSPERITY 
 
 Right then is the danger of ditchin', 
 Right then you are wantin' to run — 
 
 So brace yourself back in the britchin' 
 An' keep in the middle, my son. 
 
 48 
 
JUST ALIVE 
 
 A lawg-chain broke, an* a hemlock load 
 Come pourin' down on the open road. 
 
 It caught Red Jones where he stood at, 
 It caught Red Jones before he knowed 
 
 An' it knocked him down an' it rolled him flat. 
 
 We pried 'em loose an' we pulled Red out. 
 
 He was bunged up right, an' there ain't no doubt. 
 
 He had broke one arm, he had broke one laig, 
 He had tore his ear, he had broke his snout, 
 
 An' his ribs was stove like a soft-boiled aig. 
 
 We loaded Red on a lawggin' sleigh 
 
 An' we drove all night an' we drove all day 
 
 Over corduroy, over rut an' rock, 
 Till we fetched at last to old Cloquet 
 
 An' landed Red with the sawmill doc. 
 
 When the doc got through of a-mendin' Red, 
 An' had him put snug in a trundle bed. 
 
 An' he said that Red maybe might survive. 
 Then what do you think that darn fool said ? 
 
 "Well, I'm mighty glad to be just alive !" 
 
 49 
 
JUST ALIVE 
 
 Then I went downstairs an' I says, says I, 
 (To myself, of course), "You're a lucky guy! 
 
 You ain't broke no laig an' ain't broke no rib, 
 An' you needn't lay while the days go by 
 
 An' eat from a spoon with a baby's bib." 
 
 An' it done me good just to swing my stem, 
 An' my arms — well, I tried out both of them ; 
 
 An' I wiggled all of my fingers five. 
 An' I quoted Red's little vocal gem, 
 
 "Well, I'm mighty glad to be just alive !'* 
 
 50 
 
SUPERANNUATED 
 
 We're breakin' camp on Sunday, we're goin' back to 
 
 town, 
 We'll hit the trail on Monday, the last big stick is down. 
 I heard it roar an' rumble, I watched the giant fall ; 
 I saw the pine-tree tumble, the last old boy of all. 
 
 Old pine, the truth I'm learnin' : I, too, have had my 
 
 day; 
 I, too, no more returnin' will come along the way. 
 For Time's keen ax has hit me an' sent me to the 
 
 dump; 
 For Time has come to git me, an' life is but a stump. 
 
 There may come other seasons an' other fightin' men, 
 But I, for Time's good reasons, will not come back 
 
 again. 
 I am a dead pine standin' upon a treeless hill ; 
 Death waits beside the landin' to claim me as he will. 
 
 For forty years I've tramped it by tote-road an' by 
 
 trail ; 
 For forty years I've camped it in rain an' snow an' 
 
 hail; 
 
 51 
 
SUPERANNUATED 
 
 But now my arm no longer will clear away the pine, 
 An* younger men an' stronger will do this work of 
 mine. 
 
 An* yet I will not sorrow, though age is in my veins. 
 Though but a short to-morrow to such as me remains. 
 For, when the strand shall sever, some friend will 
 
 come an' say : 
 "Now give him rest forever — for, God, he worked his 
 
 way 1" 
 
 52 
 
THE BREAKUP 
 
 Now the breakup is here, for the Springtime is near, 
 
 an' the Winter has mootched on its way. 
 We have busted our camp an' are off on a tramp to the 
 
 palaces down on the Bay — 
 Twenty miles by the trail an' a hunderd by rail in the 
 
 dawghouse along with the con. 
 Till we meet up again with them pleasant young men, 
 
 with the lads with the diamonds on. 
 
 Yep, the Springtime is nigh, an' we're sayin' good-by 
 
 to the norway an' pine for a spell ; 
 We have cussed out the boss, fed our favorite hoss, an' 
 
 have kicked the young buUcook farewell. 
 We have squared with the van for the bills that we ran 
 
 for our Peerless an' mittens an' socks. 
 An' we're off for the town with our walks written down 
 
 for the barkeep to change into rocks. 
 
 Twenty miles by the trail an' a hunderd by rail in the 
 
 dawghouse along with the con, 
 Till we meet up again with them pleasant young men 
 
 with the aprons an' diamonds on. 
 
 53 
 
THE BREAKUP 
 
 We've a seven months' thirst to be shortly immersed, 
 for we're rolHn' in easy-got wealth ; 
 
 An* the sissified jay who may git in our way he had 
 better look out for his health. 
 
 For we're lousey with cash an' we're weary of hash an' 
 
 we long for a sight of the suds. 
 We've a campstake to blow with the parties below for 
 
 their licker an' dinners an' duds. 
 We've a campstake to spend at the long Winter's end, 
 
 an' they're waitin' to see us come down : 
 They are crackin' up ice an' are raisin' the price of 
 
 ev'ry old thing in the town. 
 
 But what do we care? We have lucre to spare, an' 
 
 there's nothin' too good for us now. 
 If the limit is ten we will tilt it again, for we're ripe 
 
 for a game or a row. 
 There'll be singin' o' nights an' some beautiful fights 
 
 an' a general raisin' of Ned, 
 An' that little old spot, if it wants it or not, will be 
 
 painted a delicate red. 
 
 When the campstake is gone an' we see the gray dawn, 
 when the fiddles are playin' no more. 
 
 When the pleasure is past an' we're busted at last, with 
 a head an' a heart that are sore, 
 
 54 
 
THE BREAKUP 
 
 With no sighin' or sobs we will hustle for jobs an* will 
 thank the good Lord we're alive — 
 
 For there's work an* there's fun an' white water to 
 run, up the river along with the drive ! 
 
 55 
 
WHEN THE DRIVE GOES DOWN 
 
 There's folks that Hke the good dry land, an' folks 
 
 that like the sea, 
 But rock an' river, shoal an' sand, are good enough 
 
 for me. 
 There's folks that like the ocean crest, an' folks that 
 
 like the town — 
 But when I really feel the best is when the drive goes 
 down. 
 
 So pole away, you river rats. 
 
 From landin' down to lake — 
 There's miles of pine to keep in line, 
 A hunderd jams to break ! 
 
 There's folks that like to promenade along the boule- 
 vard. 
 But here's a spot I wouldn't trade for all their pave- 
 ment hard ; 
 Ten thousand lawgs by currents birled an' waters 
 
 white that hiss — 
 Oh, Where's the sidewalk in the world that's half as 
 fine as this ? 
 
 So leap away, you river rats. 
 
 From landin' down to sluice ; 
 There's lawgs to run, there's peavey fun 
 To break the timber loose ! 
 
 56 
 
An' ev'ry time you turn a bend the next bend looks the best 
 
WHEN THE DRIVE GOES DOWN 
 
 An' ev'ry roUin' of a stick that starts her down the 
 
 stream 
 An' ev'ry bit of water quick where runnin' ripples 
 
 gleam 
 Means gittin' nearer to the end, to wife an' babe an' 
 
 rest — 
 An' ev'ry time you turn a bend the next bend looks the 
 best. 
 
 Then peg away, you river rats. 
 
 From sluiceway down to mill — 
 Each rock you clear will bring you near 
 The house upon the hill ! 
 
 There's folks that like the good dry land, an' folks 
 
 that like the sea. 
 But rock an' river, shoal an' sand, are good enough 
 
 for me. 
 There's folks that like the ocean crest, an' folks that 
 
 like the town — 
 But when I really feel the best is when the drive goes 
 
 down! 
 
 S7 
 
TENDERHEARTED BILL 
 
 The lumberjack he ain't no saint, 
 
 That much I will agree ; 
 There are occasions when he ain't 
 
 Just what he ought to be. 
 At sayin' prayers he's kind of slack, 
 
 An' kind of fond of drink ; 
 An' yet these fellahs ain't as black 
 
 As some folks seem to think. 
 
 Now there was Billy Anderson, 
 
 A jack from Puget Sound, 
 A fellah who could lift a ton 
 
 Like some men lift a pound. 
 An' yet he had the kindest heart, 
 
 As big as kingdom come — 
 You'd always see him take the part 
 
 Of creatures that was dumb. 
 
 Bill never any horse would whip, 
 No matter how he balked, 
 
 An' on an extry longish trip 
 Big Bill got out an' walked. 
 
 58 
 
TENDERHEARTED BILL 
 
 Bill never yet was known to kick 
 
 The meanest yellow cur ; 
 An*, when that spotted calf was sick, 
 
 How Bill took care of her ! 
 
 Why, I remember once we had 
 
 A cat around the camp ; 
 She wandered in so thin an* sad, 
 
 A reg'lar little tramp. 
 Bill fed her meat an' fed her milk 
 
 An* give her half his chuck, 
 Until her coat was fine as silk — 
 
 She surely was in luck. 
 
 Bill Anderson he wouldn't hurt 
 
 (So tenderhearted he) 
 The mole that burrowed in the dirt 
 
 Or bird upon the tree. 
 There's nothin' riled Bill Anderson 
 
 As for some big galoot 
 To start to plaguin', just for fun, 
 
 Some helpless little brute. 
 
 One night the clerk he tied a can 
 
 Upon the kitten's tail 
 An' turned her loose outdoors — an', man, 
 
 You ought to seen her sail ! 
 
 59 
 
TENDERHEARTED BILL 
 
 Then Bill, the tenderheartedest 
 Of men, just give a gulp 
 
 An* jumped upon that joker's chest 
 An' beat him to a pulp. 
 
 60 
 
STONY BROOK 
 
 Oh, the Stony Brook is foamin' where the boulders 
 show their teeth, 
 Just a-waitin' for a chance to start a jam ; 
 There is water white a-combin' on the granite under- 
 neath, 
 There's a lovely chance for trouble at the dam. 
 They will sluice her just at daylight an' they'll let a 
 million through. 
 They will ram her full of timber to the brim, 
 They will sluice her in the gray light, an' there'll be 
 some work to do 
 For Johnny Long an' them along with him. 
 
 Yes, I think it more'n likely that there will, 
 But there's half a hunderd peavies on the hill, 
 
 And there's half a hunderd rats 
 
 That are handier'n cats 
 Just a-longin' for the pond above to spill. 
 
 They have mootched it down from Percy's, they have 
 hiked it from the rear, 
 They have gethered in from ev'ry blasted camp, 
 An' they're ready for the mercies of a brook like this*n 
 here. 
 An' they ain't afraid of bubbles an' of damp. 
 
 61 
 
STONY BROOK 
 
 So it's jam, you norway devils, an' it's jam, you crazy 
 pine — 
 We will show you how a man can be a mink; 
 We will join you in your revels an' we'll whip you 
 into line 
 Or we'll leave our bones to whiten in the drink. 
 
 We may leave our bones below to wash away, 
 We may give the rocks a choicer bit for play, 
 We may die along with you. 
 But we'll drive you, drive you through. 
 An' we'll land you safe an' solid at Cloquet. 
 
 Now a j ill-poke in the alders is a mighty measly 
 thing — 
 It can tie a lot of timber in a knot ; 
 But a pair of granite boulders can a hunderd thousand 
 wing 
 Till there's nothin' that'll budge it but a shot. 
 But, before you try the powder or to break her with 
 the juice, 
 Hand some peavies to the river rats an* jacks. 
 We will roll her an' we'll crowd her an' we'll break 
 the timber loose, 
 We will break her, or a half a hunderd backs. 
 
 62 
 
STONY BROOK 
 
 We may break a half a hunderd men in two, 
 But we'll git that Injun timber safely through ; 
 
 We will pry the Stony Brook 
 
 Wider open than a book — 
 Yes, there's work for Johnny Long an' us to do ! 
 
 63 
 
THE WINNER 
 
 He had come up from the ranks. He drove 
 
 A yoke of steers in the good old days 
 When Michigan all was a treasure trove 
 
 And men made money in various ways. 
 
 He watched his chance and he made his plays 
 And he worked at night till the stars were dim- 
 
 And presently people began to praise, 
 And even at last to envy him. 
 
 Now, that is the mark of a true success : 
 
 When you're doing well and the world is glad 
 You have partly won — but the thing, I guess. 
 
 Is to do so well that the world gets mad. 
 
 When the people talk of the luck you had 
 And begin to wink and to shake the head 
 
 And to hint of ways that were dark and bad, 
 Then youVe won success — so he often said. 
 
 But he, 'way down in his heart, he knew 
 
 What success had cost, how success had come: 
 
 It came on the long trail to the Soo, 
 It came in the timber of the Thumb, 
 
 64 
 
THE WINNER 
 
 It came on nights when his legs were numb 
 With the wear of labor and hurt of cold, 
 
 When he asked the future, and found it dumb, 
 Where the highway lay to the land of gold. 
 
 But he worked and figured and fought and planned, 
 
 He watched his chance as a fighter must, 
 And he hammered fate with a good right hand 
 
 In the Winter snow, in the Summer dust; 
 
 And others might falter and others rust 
 But his will shone on like a shining sword. 
 
 With an endless hope and a tireless thrust. 
 As a yeoman fought for his ancient lord. 
 
 It put the wrinkles upon his brow, 
 
 It put the gray in his yellow hair. 
 It gave him a brand of his own, somehow, 
 
 That none of the envious ever wear. 
 
 For labor had written its record there 
 In his shoulders round and his fingers bent — 
 
 On his face had printed the stamp of care — 
 And something, too, of a great content. 
 
 There is something envy can never reach. 
 There is something envy can never touch 
 
 With its keenest word or its crudest speech, 
 When a man has labored and suffered much. 
 
 65 
 
THE WINNER 
 
 For what are the idle words of such 
 By the glad approval of one's own soul? 
 
 Their words of envy to those who clutch 
 The thing they sought for, the golden goal? 
 
 He is walking down through the final years 
 
 (He passes silently on the way), 
 And the vale behind has been wet with tears 
 
 And the hills behind have been glad with day. 
 
 And do you think that the things we say, 
 The sneer of envy, the laugh of spite. 
 
 Could bow the head of the man of gray 
 That has held erect in the hardest fight? 
 
 For the thing we win in the war of life 
 
 It is not the gold, it is not the fame. 
 But the inner sense that through all the strife 
 
 Unchanged, unfaltering, still we came. 
 
 We have won our own, not the world's acclaim. 
 The thing we wanted to do have done; 
 
 And the world may praise or the world may blame — 
 But our own souls know we have worked, and won. 
 
 (^ 
 
THE HERO MEDDLERS 
 
 So now they are pinnin' of medals on people, I see by 
 
 the news : 
 They're huntin' the highways for heroes an' beatin' 
 
 the byways for clues, 
 An' ketchin', convictin' an' markin', while Andy more 
 
 martyrs pursues. 
 
 That's all very pleasant an' proper, but leads me to 
 
 wonderin' what 
 They figger down east is a hero, they figger is brave 
 
 an' is not ; 
 I bet, while they're huntin' for heroes, a few of our 
 
 own we have got — 
 
 A few of our own on the river, that never no medals 
 
 will wear 
 Because all the things they are doin' they always are 
 
 doin' out there, 
 With no one to 'specially notice an' no one to 'specially 
 
 care. 
 
 67 
 
THE HERO MEDDLERS 
 
 It*s courage to fight the quickwater a moment some 
 mortal to save, 
 
 It's courage the rapids to rassle an' rescue some fool 
 from the grave ; 
 
 But to do it for bread an' for butter all day ain't con- 
 sidered so brave. 
 
 I reckon we won't git no medals up here for the 
 chances we take ; 
 
 It's just for the wife an' the babies, the rent an' a gro- 
 cery stake 
 
 We come at the call of the river, the jam an' the roll- 
 way to break. 
 
 We won't git no thousand a-livin', we won't wear no 
 ornaments dead ; 
 
 There ain't none of us that are heroes — we're rats of 
 the river instead ; 
 
 An' we ain't runnin' rapids for glory — we're just fight- 
 in' trouble for bread. 
 
 68 
 
CHAUDIERE 
 
 From a pathway of quiet unstirred by commotion, 
 
 From the forests of green to the dweUings of brown, 
 In quest of the river, in quest of the ocean. 
 The Ottawa waters come peacefully down 
 
 And, here by the town. 
 
 Throw aside the dull gown 
 
 Of their up-river green 
 
 For the shine and the sheen 
 And the gossamer glory of rapids that run. 
 For the glitter of jewels that flash in the sun. 
 
 Here they leap 
 
 From their sleep 
 
 And in majesty sweep 
 Through a gateway of stone, through the cataract's lair, 
 Where the leonine rocks shake the mist from their hair 
 
 And startle the shore 
 
 With the roar 
 
 Of Chaudiere. 
 
 From the hush of the forest where censers are swing- 
 ing, 
 
 Where the lilies unfold and the wild roses bloom. 
 In quest of the world where the saw-song is singing, 
 
 The Ottawa timber comes down to the boom ; 
 
 69 
 
CHAUDIERE 
 
 And here waits the flume 
 
 Frothing white with the spume, 
 
 Frothing white with the spray 
 
 Of the waters at play. 
 Now the channel is opened that leads to the slide, 
 And now safe by the rapids the timber-cribs glide. 
 
 Just a flash 
 
 And a crash 
 
 And a plunge and a splash 
 In the calm of the stream where the waters run fair — 
 And all vainly the rocks in their mid-river lair 
 
 Shall threaten them more 
 
 With the roar 
 
 Of Chaudiere. 
 
 From the land of the forest, the cabins dim-lighted, 
 From the camp in the woodland asleep in the sun, 
 In quest of the world that in dreams they have sighted 
 The men of the shanties come down for their fun, 
 
 Come down ev'ry one 
 
 When the wild work is done 
 
 As the river at play 
 
 Leaps to ripples and spray 
 When it sniffs the St. Lawrence and glimpses the goal 
 Where the salt breezes freshen and long billows roll. 
 
 To be free 
 
 As the sea 
 
 Ev'ry man longs to be 
 
 70 
 
CHAUDIERE 
 
 'Mid the lights of the town, 'mid the smiles of the fair — 
 Then what shall the sturdy young shantyman care 
 
 Though tremble the shore 
 
 With the roar 
 
 Of Chaudiere? 
 
 But the years hurry by and the years hurry onward, 
 
 The ax-stroke is busy on hill and in glen; 
 As fade the pale stars when the night travels dawn- 
 ward, 
 The trees in the sky tumble earthward again. 
 They shall vanish — and then 
 Shall the shoutings of men 
 Diminish and die 
 Where the waters run high. 
 O you maid in the town, hold your shantyman dear 
 For the men of the river shall vanish from here. 
 They shall sweep 
 To the deep 
 
 Where the centuries sleep 
 And shall leave but a kiss and a memory fair. 
 Like the waters that flow to the mystic Out There, 
 Returning no more 
 To the shore 
 
 Of Chaudiere. 
 
 71 
 
THE PRICE 
 
 The drive it ain't such easy graft that I would recom- 
 mend 
 To any gink to ride the drink, an', least of all, a friend. 
 It's up at four an' sluice a dam or sack a swampy rear 
 Until the sun has got the run an' baby stars appear. 
 
 It ain't no job to recommend 
 
 To anybody that's a friend. 
 
 I've heard some guy from off the plains who'd punched 
 
 the cows a spell 
 Describe the same an' cuss an' claim the cowboy life is 
 
 hell- 
 When cattle beller in the night an' fifty head go down, 
 When bulls stampede an' rivers bleed from trampled 
 banks of brown, 
 
 While gray coyotes wait to browse 
 Upon the flanks of wounded cows. 
 
 But, Mr. Puncher from the plains, you've never tack- 
 led this, 
 
 Have tried to put a Winter's cut to town without a 
 miss. 
 
 12 
 
THE PRICE 
 
 A bughouse bull may scare a herd an' break a hunderd 
 
 bones, 
 An' so a lawg can play the dawg an' snub among the 
 stones 
 
 An' pile a norway drive so deep 
 A crew will lose a week of sleep. 
 
 My puncher friend has seen a man an' boss go out to 
 mill 
 
 The bloodshot eyes an' sweatin' thighs an' flyin' feet 
 that kill, 
 
 Has seen a man an' boss go down before that sea of 
 meat. 
 
 Has seen it pound 'em in the ground beneath a thou- 
 sand feet — 
 
 Has seen the longhorns have their fling 
 An', where a Man was, leave a Thing. 
 
 But I have seen a river-rat, a peavey in his mit, 
 Below a jam the peavey ram beneath the breast of it ; 
 An' I have heard the timber break, have heard it groan 
 
 an' whine, 
 Have heard him cry an' seen him die before a wall of 
 pine — 
 
 Have seen the foam a second red 
 That never yet give up its dead. 
 
 7Z 
 
THE PRICE 
 
 An* so, I guess, it always is : the cowboy or the rat 
 They may be slick, but Death is quick an' cattier than 
 
 that. 
 As long as men must fight for bread, must fight an' 
 
 work an' cuss. 
 Some other guy must go an' die to pay the Price for us. 
 For men who toil on land or tide 
 Have Death, the foreman, at their side. 
 
 74 
 
THE SIGNAL 
 
 The time that Peary found the Pole 
 
 I saw the strangest thing; 
 My blanket 'round me in a roll, 
 
 I camped beside a spring. 
 'Twas when outdoors you like to lay 
 
 These early Summer nights — 
 An' in the north, so far away, 
 
 I saw the Northern Lights. 
 
 I saw the blue sky overhead. 
 
 An' then, in flashin' bars, 
 I saw the stripes of white an' red. 
 
 An', over them, the stars. 
 I saw the red an' white an' blue 
 
 Up there at Peary's goal — 
 I saw the Stars an' Stripes, an' knew 
 
 That he had found the Pole ! 
 
 75 
 
THE IRISH 
 
 The sawln' of lumber, 
 The falUn' of norway, 
 The old occupation 
 Of drivin' the pine, 
 Has brought any number 
 Of men to our doorway — 
 Brought every nation 
 A-crossin' the brine. 
 But, of every faction. 
 
 From swampers to sorters, 
 Who run on the rivers 
 Or work in the mill, 
 The quickest in action 
 In murmurin' waters. 
 The cattiest drivers, 
 Are Irishers still ! 
 
 Folks talk of Quebeckers 
 From Saguenay fountains, 
 They talk of world-beaters 
 From valleys of spruce. 
 They talk of the crackers 
 From Tennessee mountains. 
 The sow-belly eaters 
 An' drinkers of juice, 
 
 76 
 
THE IRISH 
 
 They talk of the Oles, 
 The foreigner stranger 
 
 Who works when the flood of 
 The pine is at hand — 
 But the holy of holies, 
 The altar of danger, 
 Is red with the blood of 
 The emerald land 1 
 
 The hottest in fighting 
 The thirstiest drinkin', 
 The loudest in prayin' 
 When prayin' is due, 
 The slowest in writin', 
 The quickest in thinkin'. 
 The wittiest sayin' 
 
 The thoughts of a crew — 
 When timber is jammin', 
 When trouble is makin'. 
 When water is mirish 
 Or bubbles alive, 
 The universe damning 
 
 The lawg-jam a-breakin' — 
 Oh, there are the Irish, 
 The kings of the drive ! 
 
 n 
 
CHRISTELLA 
 
 I say that I am done with them — 
 
 One memory has turned to gall. 
 I have my little fun with them — 
 
 I have my fun, and that is all. 
 A woman square ? There never was 
 
 A woman who was square to me. 
 Christella — if there ever was 
 
 A living devil, it was she. 
 
 'Twas Winter in the timber yet 
 
 But on the river it was Spring. 
 And, God, how I remember yet 
 
 The woods, the waters, ev'rything. 
 A vale like that one yonder there, 
 
 A road that ran across a hill — 
 We used to come to wander there ; 
 
 'Twas Spring, and it was Winter still. 
 
 One night she picked a flow'r or two, 
 
 These faded red anemones. 
 I think we walked an hour or two — 
 
 That was the night she gave me these. 
 
 78 
 
CHRISTELLA 
 
 She said the same things o'er and o'er, 
 The story that will never tire ; 
 
 And, fool, I worshiped more and more. 
 And all the sky was red as fire. 
 
 They caught them many miles away. 
 
 The woman and the man at last ; 
 But something drove the smiles away 
 
 From that Christella of the past. 
 "You do not know !" she cried to me 
 
 And looked that look of old again ; 
 I guess she would have lied to me. 
 
 If I had let her, even then. 
 
 I struck her — God forgive me that ; 
 
 A woman is a woman still. 
 But God He will believe me that 
 
 I struck when other men would kill. 
 That night, that minute, to the West 
 
 I turned my face forever more ; 
 And not a woman through the West 
 
 Has ever passed my cabin door. 
 
 My name McKInney ? Yes, it was — 
 And many more have done the same. 
 
 How is it that you guess it was 
 Who know me by another name ? 
 
 79 
 
CHRISTELLA 
 
 She said it ? Hold the candle. So 
 Another reaps the wage of sin? 
 
 Be careful how you handle — Go 
 And get the doctor ! Bring her in ! 
 
SEED 
 
 My front yard ain't no garden spot — 
 It's chips an' cans an' other junk, 
 
 A whisky bottle, like as not, 
 
 Smashed on a woodpile by a drunk — 
 
 My front yard is a dumpin' ground 
 
 For all the broken stuff around. 
 
 An' yet the other day I seen 
 
 A crack appear — then peepin' through 
 There come a little leaf of green, 
 
 An' in the mornin' there was two ; 
 An' now to-day looks up at me 
 A smilin' young anemone. 
 
 I never knew that it was there 
 
 All Winter through awaitin' Spring, 
 
 I never thought a place so bare 
 Could ever grow so sweet a thing ; 
 
 Yet all the while the tiny seed 
 
 Was waitin' Springtime to be freed. 
 
 81 
 
SEED 
 
 Last night a preacher come to camp 
 An' sung a song an' read the Word, 
 
 An', underneath the dirt an' damp 
 An' moral junk, a blossom stirred, 
 
 A thing I could not understand : 
 
 I looked — an' Christ held out His hand. 
 
 'Twas not the preacher done it all, 
 'Twas not his sermon or his smile: 
 
 A-listenin' for Jesus' call 
 
 My soul had waited all the while — 
 
 The seed that heard the parson's pray'r 
 
 A word my mother planted there. 
 
 82 
 
THE SELF-MADE MAN 
 
 The yarn is short. Sit down. Fm glad to tell 
 
 The little to be told. Hard work — ^that's all. 
 Self-made ? I guess that fits me pretty well. 
 
 I surely didn't have what you would call 
 A silver spoon in any mouth of mine 
 
 When I was born, for we were poor as mice- 
 A homestead eighty in a land of pine ; 
 
 An even hundred was the purchase price. 
 
 Lord, how my father slaved — my mother, too. 
 
 I was the oldest, and I got a share. 
 How fast the babies came and troubles grew, 
 
 While still in poverty we wallowed there. 
 Yet father was the easy-going kind, 
 
 And scraped along, as happy as could be ; 
 And even mother didn't seem to mind — 
 
 But I said soon and certain, "Not for me !" 
 
 There was a girl — there nearly always is. 
 
 I swore that I would never offer her, 
 My wife, a home like father offered his, 
 
 The dingy shanty of a laborer. 
 
 83 
 
THE SELF-MADE MAN 
 
 They want good clothes, they want a thousand 
 things 
 
 The ordinary man may never guess ; 
 They want some money — it is money brings 
 
 To most of us the most of happiness. 
 
 I left the farm and struck out for myself. 
 
 I never did get back in all the years. 
 Work soon put poor old dad upon the shelf, 
 
 And mother long ago was through with tears. 
 I often used to wonder how things went 
 
 Back there at home — I bet that they were bad — 
 But I worked on with just one fixed intent : 
 
 To have a little more than father had. 
 
 Now, I knew timber — dad had taught me that. 
 
 He never had the gumption, though, to get 
 His hands on any of it. He just sat 
 
 Asleep 'mid riches. He just sat and let 
 No better men grab miles and miles of it, 
 
 Good old cork pine, as good as ever grew ; 
 But when the trail to virgin woods I hit 
 
 I knew the game, and knew just what to do. 
 
 So I got pine — a forty, eighty, then 
 A quarter section. Every copper cent 
 
 That I could save or get from other men 
 Into some little bunch of timber went. 
 
 84 
 
THE SELF-MADE MAN 
 
 I drove a team, I jobbed, I built a mill, 
 And I knew every trick of every trade. 
 
 For thirty years I dug away until 
 I found a little fortune I had made. 
 
 And here I am — not rich as riches go ; 
 
 You've got to have a million in these days 
 To call you rich — ^but, if I had to, though, 
 
 Perhaps five hundred thousand I could raise. 
 Not old — I don't call crowding sixty old ; 
 
 I'm quick and spry as many younger are ; 
 And there is not a luxury that's sold 
 
 I can not buy — ^my club, my yacht, my car. 
 
 The girl ? They're all alike, these women are. 
 
 That's long ago — I neither care nor hate. 
 But he was there, and, while I wandered far. 
 
 She married him, and wrote she could not wait. 
 This life at best is just a rotten game. 
 
 You sometimes wonder why you must exist. 
 I worked, I won — but few the joys that came. 
 
 I guess that there was something that I missed. 
 
 85 
 
THE MAN WHO COULD PLAY 
 
 As reckless an' roarin* a gang of rats 
 
 As ever broke jams or laws 
 That landed the drive at the Sanford flats 
 
 That Spring of the year it was. 
 An*, when it was snug in the sortin' boom, 
 
 The company paid us off, 
 We crowded the bar for to booze consume 
 
 Like pigs at a f eedin* troff. 
 
 I needn't say just where we wound it up, 
 
 That beautiful jamboree ; 
 We'd gargled our thirst with the brimmin' cup, 
 
 As mellah as men could be. 
 They had a pi-anna ag'inst the wall, 
 
 The ladies had brought to town ; 
 A wanderin' boozer whose name was Paul 
 
 In front of the same set down. 
 
 His name it was Paul. That was all we knew, 
 
 Exceptin' his brand of dope : 
 He guzzled enough for a lawggin' crew 
 
 An' pulled at a paper rope. 
 
 86 
 
THE MAN WHO COULD PLAY 
 
 Paul fondled his fingers along the keys 
 
 An' tested her with a chord ; 
 Then lowered his head, an* he bent his knees 
 
 An' started to play — an', Lord ! 
 
 The thunder it roared like a Summer storm. 
 
 Wind whistled among the boughs ; 
 Then skies were blue an' the sun was warm — 
 
 In meddahs we heard the cows, 
 In meddahs we listened to tinklin' bells, 
 
 An' far an' away we heard 
 The drippin' of water in coolin' wells. 
 
 An' somewhere a trillin' bird. 
 
 As soft as the stir of an evenin' breeze, 
 
 As loud as the roar of falls, 
 He fingered all over the ivory keys. 
 
 That boy in the overhalls. 
 And, when he had stopped an' he raised his head 
 
 An' give to his hair a fling. 
 We clapped an' we clapped, but he only said, 
 
 *T used to could play the thing." 
 
 87 
 
FUNGI 
 
 They sit on their silken cushions and say what a terrible 
 
 thing 
 To be the wife of a woodsman, the queen of a jungle 
 
 king- 
 To dwell in an humble dwelling, to live on a shanty 
 
 floor. 
 With nothing but house and husband, and a red rose 
 
 by the door. 
 But I, I am sick of longing, and I, I am dying here 
 For a strong man's home in a clearing and the love of 
 
 a pioneer. 
 
 They prattle of fads and fashions, of dinners and balls 
 and nights, 
 
 These powdered and pretty fungi, these gossiping para- 
 sites ; 
 
 And men who are working wonders and men who are 
 doing deeds 
 
 Must dally and dance attendance, and humor their 
 dainty needs. 
 
 They talk of their virgin virtues, and sell them for 
 clothes and food — 
 
 While some brave heart wants a Woman to battle the 
 solitude. 
 
 88 
 
For there are the ivoods to people, and there is the trail to make 
 
FUNGI 
 
 I'm sick of their silly chatter, the cluck of the idle hen ; 
 
 Is none of the work for women, and all of the work 
 for men? 
 
 They house, and they feed and clothe us, and we who 
 have love to sell 
 
 Are ready to be their women if only they pay us well. 
 
 But not for the highest bidder God ever has made the 
 bride : 
 
 He made us a helpmeet to him, to walk by the work- 
 er's side. 
 
 I long for the tangled forest, I long for the land that's 
 new! 
 
 For there is the work for women, for women and men 
 to do ; 
 ** For there are the woods to people, and there is the 
 trail to make, 
 
 For the sake of the God who made us, for the sake of 
 a good man's sake ; 
 
 For that is the work for doing, and that is the woman 
 of worth — 
 
 And I'd follow my man, if he asked me, to the utter- 
 most ends of the earth ! 
 
 89 
 
A DAY 
 
 This is the end of our day, my dear. 
 
 Nay, I know that the sun is glowing 
 High on the mountain above us here — 
 
 'Tis the smile of a friend in going. 
 Warmer now on your cheek he lingers. 
 
 Warmer now than in day's high noon, 
 Touching your eyes with his tender fingers, 
 
 Knowing the night shall come so soon. 
 
 This is the light of the hour of parting. 
 
 This is the holiest hour of all, 
 When the tears from the heart are starting 
 
 While the shades of the evening fall. 
 This is the hour when we closer cling 
 
 Than in our moment that was the maddest ; 
 This is the fading of everything, 
 
 This is the happiest hour and saddest. 
 
 Nay, you smile and you look to meadows 
 Still a-swim in the shimmering sun ; 
 
 See you not in the woods the shadows, 
 Telling us two that our day is done ? 
 
 90 
 
A DAY 
 
 There are shades in the merriest day, 
 In the woods there are shadows ever ; 
 
 There is an ending to every way, 
 There is an hour for us all to sever. 
 
 Life is a parting and not a meeting, 
 
 A comradeship of a lonely mile, 
 Only an hour for a passing greeting, 
 
 Only a friendship for a while. 
 Surely the God that has brought us twain 
 
 Into the world to walk together 
 Somewhere shall give us two again 
 
 Another day in the Summer weather. 
 
 91 
 
TO A CHIPMUNK 
 
 Now IVe caught you ; hush your squeakin' ; 
 
 Now I've got you with the goods. 
 You're the fellah who's been sneakin* 
 
 To my shanty from the woods. 
 You're the fellah who's been makin* 
 
 Such a nuisance of himself ; 
 You're the fellah who's been takin' 
 
 Soda crackers from the shelf. 
 
 Thought I'd think a rat had done it. 
 
 Thought you fooled me — an' you did. 
 When you heard me comin', run it 
 
 For your burrow an' you hid. 
 But to-day I caught you squarely, 
 
 Caught you with a cracker, too ; 
 But to-day I caught you fairly. 
 
 Now what shall I do with you ? 
 
 Don't you know that diggin' under 
 
 Some one's shanty any time, 
 Totin' off your little plunder, 
 
 Mr. Chipmunk, is a crime ? 
 
 92 
 
TO A CHIPMUNK 
 
 Oh, you're sorry, an' you're squealin'. 
 Now I've got you dead-to-rights ; 
 
 Don't you know it's wicked stealin' 
 Crackers, even little bites ? 
 
 Folks a-swipin' from a cabin 
 
 For their crime had ought to pay, 
 Folks a neighbor's goods a-grabbin' 
 
 Should be punished right away. 
 But it seems there now an' then are 
 
 People like you that I kaow ; 
 Maybe you're no worse tlmi men are— 
 
 So I guess I'll let you go. 
 
 93 
 
INTERPRETERS 
 
 There are some thoughts too sad to put in words, 
 There are some joys too deep for accents gay. 
 
 I think that that is why God makes the birds 
 Such things to say. 
 
 There are some moments full of melodies 
 Too sweet for harps or any human thing. 
 
 I think that that is why God makes the trees 
 Such songs to sing. 
 
 There are some souls that down life's highway pass 
 Too fair to last in hope's bright diadem. 
 
 I think that that is why God makes the grass 
 To shelter them. 
 
 There are some hours too lonely for the light, 
 When laughing sunrays but intruders seem. 
 
 I think that that is why God makes the night. 
 To sleep, and dream. 
 
 94 
 
HOLY GROUND 
 
 You have made holy ground of this wild land amid the 
 hemlock trees, 
 
 On ev'ry flower have left your kiss, have left your 
 voice on ev'ry breeze. 
 
 You came for but a little while ; you went — forever it 
 may be ; 
 
 But now the sunshine is your smile, the stars your ten- 
 derness to me. 
 
 You have made holy ground of all the paths we walked, 
 
 the ways we knew. 
 And pure as Heaven's jasper wall the hills that once 
 
 encompassed you. 
 You have shut sin from out this place, there is no evil 
 
 word nor thought — 
 By your divinity of face have here a holy wonder 
 
 wrought. 
 
 You have made holy ground of life wherever life the 
 
 way may lead, 
 Have taught me honor in the strife and decency in 
 
 ev'ry deed. 
 
 95 
 
HOLY GROUND 
 
 Where'er I go, whatever the goal, however far my feet 
 
 may stray, 
 I feel the presence of your soul and know a saint has 
 
 passed this way. 
 
 96 
 
INTERCESSION 
 
 Come prop me on the pillow, nurse, 
 
 So I can see the sun ; 
 Supposin' it should make me worse. 
 
 My time is nearly done. 
 An' one day more or one day less 
 
 It takes or gives to me 
 1*11 never notice, nurse, I guess. 
 
 In all eternity. 
 
 A fellah never knows how well 
 
 He likes that world out there, 
 That world in spite of all its hell, 
 
 Its work an' pain an' care. 
 Until he lays here white an' weak 
 
 Like me upon a cot, 
 Just startin' out some world to seek 
 
 That he has most forgot. 
 
 How green the trees look ! an' the grass- 
 Yet they are no more green 
 
 Than was the trees I used to pass, 
 I used to pass unseen. 
 
 97 
 
INTERCESSION 
 
 How blue the sky looks ! an' how deep, 
 How far away it seems ! — 
 
 It seems a sort of sea of sleep 
 Beside a shore of dreams. 
 
 An' life seems such a little while 
 
 When you go out to sea — 
 Why, I remember ev'ry smile 
 
 That ever come to me ! 
 You smoothed the pillow where I lay 
 
 A little while ago, 
 An' it was just the other day 
 
 My mother did it so. 
 
 My mother! Girl, I went away 
 
 An' never said good-by. 
 I never watched her hair turn gray, 
 
 I did not see her — die. 
 An' just to think, she laid like me. 
 
 When all her work was done, 
 An' looked acrost that sleepy sea, 
 
 A-wishin' for her son, 
 
 A-longin' for me — an' I know 
 
 She's longin' for me still : 
 Beyond the sea where I must go 
 
 She's standin' on a hill, 
 
 98 
 
INTERCESSION 
 
 She's standin' as she used to stand, 
 When down the path I'd roam, 
 
 To take her baby by the hand 
 Again to lead him home. 
 
 An' God Himself, with all His laws, 
 
 Won't stop me passin' through — 
 I know He'll let me in, because 
 
 My mother ast Him to. 
 I wish I hadn't been so rough, 
 
 With drink an' sin an' oath — 
 An' yet her soul is white enough, 
 
 I know, to save us both. 
 
 99 
 
A NIGHT LIKE THIS 
 
 A night like this, alone beside the fire, 
 
 The world shut out, and by the world shut in, 
 The woods around as vibrant as a lyre, 
 
 Where all sounds end, and where all sounds 
 begin — 
 Ah, then the soul becomes a harp of gold 
 
 That thrills with thoughts as tender as a kiss, 
 With visions, dreams, and memories of old, 
 
 Alone beside the fire a night like this. 
 
 It is so still the very heart may hear 
 
 Its own heart beat : a cricket in the grass. 
 The whisper of the nightwind very near, 
 
 The bending of a bough to let it pass. 
 Then in the deep, mysterious, silent wood 
 
 A sleeping bird stirs softly in its nest. 
 The pine-tree croons a song of motherhood. 
 
 Each fragrant note a lullaby to rest. 
 
 Afar I hear the crystal waters strike 
 
 The little stones, melodiously light. 
 There is, in all the world, no music like 
 
 The sound of waters running in the night : 
 
 100 
 
A NIGHT LIKE THIS 
 
 So clear, so cool, so musical, so sweet, 
 To weary hearts as welcome as the touch 
 
 Of velvet grasses to the weary feet, 
 To weary feet that labor overmuch. 
 
 Above is spread the canopy of stars, 
 
 Resplendent jewels on a robe of blue : 
 The pretty Pleiades, majestic Mars, 
 
 That bathe the earth with silver and with dew. 
 Peace, peace, is written on the azure dome, 
 
 And earth and heaven bridge the old abyss. 
 Alone beside the fire the heart goes home, 
 
 Alone beside the fire a night like this. 
 
 Upon the wall of green the shadows play, 
 
 As dies the fire or rouses into flame. 
 There lies to-morrow's road that leads away, 
 
 And here the tangled trail by which I came. 
 A spark flies upward, glowing in the air, 
 
 To follow it the vision upward turns ; 
 Now it is there, and now it is not there ; 
 
 But still unchanged old Mars above me burns. 
 
 O Memory, you are like my little fire. 
 My lonely fire beside the lonely trail : 
 
 Here are the ashes of the old desire. 
 The old desire enkindled but to fail. 
 
 101 
 
A NIGHT LIKE THIS 
 
 Old thoughts leap up, as flames a moment glow, 
 
 The resurrection of a holy kiss ; 
 Old joys, old pains, of other nights I know, 
 
 Alone beside the fire a night like this. 
 
 Yea, other nights — a night like this in June : 
 
 The same half-silence, same divine repose; 
 Upon the lawn a fountain's tinkling tune, 
 
 And, in the dark, the white face of a rose — 
 A face like hers, a face now white with fear ; 
 
 Upon the rose a diamond of dew. 
 Upon her face the dewdrop of a tear ; 
 
 And I was there, and that white rose was you. 
 
 That is the mightiest moment of a man. 
 
 The most remembered, holiest of all. 
 When doubt withdrew and perfect faith began — 
 
 When first for him he saw a teardrop fall. 
 He shall remember, all the weary miles. 
 
 No idle moment in the happy years 
 When once his laughter laughed her into smiles, 
 
 But some sad hour he talked her into tears. 
 
 Half guilt, half glory, will that moment be : 
 A shame that he had saddened one so fair ; 
 
 Half guilt, half glory that for such as he 
 
 She bared her soul and wept, and did not care. 
 
 102 
 
A NIGHT LIKE THIS 
 
 He would have suffered to have saved her sighs, 
 Yet exquisitely sweet that hour apart ; 
 
 For smiles come lightly to a woman's eyes, 
 But sorrow wells from fountains of the heart. 
 
 You wore a scarf of silver, and I dreamed 
 
 That it was moonlight fallen from the blue, 
 A mantle out of heaven that be-seemed 
 
 An angel out of heaven such as you. 
 It lay across your shoulder. I have seen 
 
 A square of moonlight lying on the grass. 
 And years rolled back that long had rolled between, 
 
 And almost I have thought I saw you pass — 
 
 I saw you pass in your old beauty, as 
 
 I saw you pass my campfire even now ; 
 For this the magic that the moonlight has, 
 
 The moonlight has a night like this, somehow. 
 And once the nightwind touched me on the cheek 
 
 (That other night you touched it with a kiss) 
 And on the wind I heard your whisper speak — 
 
 For such things happen on a night like this. 
 
 And I remember that you looked not down 
 That night in June, but lifted up your face 
 
 Like that white rose imprisoned in the town 
 That made, like you, the town a holy place — 
 
 103 
 
A NIGHT LIKE THIS 
 
 That you looked up at me and at the stars, 
 Not shy with shame but sad with questioning, 
 
 As though you looked beyond their very bars, 
 In search of something there to which to cling. 
 
 I knew, you knew, that here had come the end. 
 
 We heard the step of him of better right; 
 And I could stay and play the part of friend. 
 
 Or I could take the trail I tread to-night. 
 I took the trail — ^there was no more to know ; 
 
 I took the trail — there was no more to do ; 
 But you walk with me every trail I go. 
 
 And every campfire is a dream of you. 
 
 And, if I doubt, yea, I who doubt no more, 
 
 The stars make answer, answer "Do we change ?" 
 The river follows its accustomed shore. 
 
 Unaltered is the granite mountain range. 
 Have I not seen you pour upon the stone 
 
 The sacrifice of sorrow, tenderly? 
 A night like this beside the fire alone 
 
 If my heart ask, my own heart answers me. 
 
 A night like this alone beside the fire 
 
 I look, like you, beyond the wall of trees. 
 
 I ask the stars, the stars that do not tire. 
 For what they wait the weary centuries. 
 
 104 
 
A NIGHT LIKE THIS 
 
 I ask the stars, that wait and alter not ; 
 
 Perhaps they wait, as wait the souls of men, 
 Until some time, some time more long than 
 thought, 
 
 When stars and men may claim their own again. 
 
 105 
 
UNDERGROWTH 
 
 It ain't the trees that block the trail, 
 
 It ain't the ash or pine; 
 For, if you fall or if you fail, 
 
 It was some pesky vine 
 That tripped you up, that threw you down, 
 
 That caught you unawares : 
 The big things you can walk aroun' — 
 
 But watch the way for snares. 
 
 In life it ain't the biggest things 
 
 That make the hardest load ; 
 It ain't the burden big that brings 
 
 Defeat upon the road. 
 Some fault you hardly knew you had 
 
 May hurt more than you think — 
 Some little habit that is bad 
 
 May put you on the blink. 
 
 106 
 
THE MAN'S ROAD 
 
 Let us sit here on the porch, my son. 
 
 Soon the night will come up the valley 
 Lighting her candles one by one, 
 
 Hiding the mill and the lumber alley. 
 Soon the night will come slowly stealing 
 
 Over the housetops and the street ; 
 Soon the night will come gently healing 
 
 All of the hurt of the Summer's heat. 
 
 You are weary, my boy, to-night. 
 
 And I know it is not the working. 
 In your heart that was always light 
 
 There is another sadness lurking. 
 Toil may weary the limbs that bear you, 
 
 Toil may weary the arm that's strong ; 
 But there are other wears that wear you — 
 
 And I have watched you, son, and long. 
 
 Something you wished for, and you lost, 
 Something, sonny, your life and glory ; 
 
 Nothing now but the cruel cost — 
 No, you never need tell the story. 
 
 107 
 
THE MAN'S ROAD 
 
 But my hand, boy, is on your shoulder, 
 Not your father — your elder chum; 
 
 You are but younger, I but older — 
 And on the man's road both have come. 
 
 Son, you weep for your heart's desire ; 
 
 Grief has folded her mantle o'er you. 
 Now where the son stands stood the sire 
 
 Maybe, my boy, long years before you. 
 For the lives that are all around us 
 
 Run like rivers, as still and deep. 
 Many see us, but none may sound us ; 
 
 Each has his secret thought to keep. 
 
 Only the surface we behold — 
 
 If a shadow, a shadow fleeting. 
 Never the story may men unfold 
 
 Far too sacred to bear repeating. 
 Vexed perhaps at a little bother, 
 
 Glad perhaps at a little joy — 
 This the man that you thought your father 
 
 Maybe you did not know him, boy. 
 
 Let us sit here on the porch, my son. 
 
 Soon the night will come up the valley 
 Lighting her candles one by one, 
 
 Hiding the mill and the lumber alley. 
 
 108 
 
THE MAN'S ROAD 
 
 And my hand, boy, is on your shoulder, 
 Not your father — ^your elder chum ; 
 
 You are but younger, I but older — 
 And on the man's road both have come. 
 
 109 
 
CHRISTINA 
 
 Christina don't daintily dress, 
 
 Christina don't giggle an' gush. 
 She ain't got a dollar, I guess; 
 
 Christina slings hash for her cush. 
 
 She sweats in the dinin'-room rush ; 
 She scolds now an' then more or less ; 
 She's boss of the boardin'-house mess 
 
 An' rassles the coffee an' mush. 
 
 But where can you show me the dame 
 
 That has such a hold on a chap? 
 There isn't a guy in the game 
 
 But jumps when she gives him a slap. 
 
 She's queen of the White River map ; 
 She sets all the mill-crew aflame ; 
 For her all the scrappers are tame ; 
 
 For her all the cowards'll scrap. 
 
 Christina has blue in her eyes, 
 Christina has red in her hair; 
 
 It wouldn't cause any su'prise 
 If maybe she happened to swear. 
 
 110 
 
CHRISTINA 
 
 But noodle ? Christina is there ; 
 She's sized up the whole of the guys. 
 Christina is decent an' wise ; 
 
 Christina has gingham to wear. 
 
 Christina, some female in town 
 
 Would pity your lot, if she knew. 
 She wouldn't think much of your gown. 
 
 Think less of the work that you do. 
 
 She'd smile at your gingham of blue ; 
 She'd laugh at your calico brown. 
 But you can look up an' not down — 
 
 Christina, my hat's off to you ! 
 
 Ill 
 
THREE MORNINGS 
 
 You know the kind of morning that it was 
 
 (There are three mornings I remember well — 
 This was the first) : The east a thing of gauze 
 
 Where one by one the filmy curtains fell. 
 So delicately fell, the morning light 
 
 Came now from nowhere, only grew and grew — 
 A little more of day and less of night 
 
 Until the west and east were equal blue. 
 
 That was the morning we came driving home 
 
 After the weekly dance at Coopersville, 
 When first the grayness stole across the dome; 
 
 Remember it was three we danced until? 
 We did not hurry ; up the woodland road 
 
 I let the old horse amble as he would; 
 For driving lovers seldom use the goad. 
 
 And life that morning was so very good. 
 
 There may be mortals who have never seen 
 
 A morning in the wilderness arise. 
 Or learned the hundred shades there are of green, 
 
 The hundred tints of azure in the skies. 
 
 112 
 
THREE MORNINGS 
 
 They may know Nature, but they do not know 
 The inner secrets that she will disclose, 
 
 The thousand little beauties she will show, 
 When turn the walls of black to walls of rose. 
 
 To hear the matin twitter of a bird 
 
 Is sweeter music than his proudest lay ; 
 Some mystery a distant branch has stirred, 
 
 Some woodland signal of returning day. 
 And now another sings a sleepy note. 
 
 Some little hidden singer answers him, 
 The low, hushed music of a waking throat, 
 
 Soft as the singing in cathedrals dim. 
 
 And you were very weary, I recall. 
 
 And I was very silent to your mood, 
 A little closer drew your little shawl, 
 
 And thought the thought a waking pigeon cooed. 
 Then on my shoulder fell a golden head. 
 
 That head you held so proudly other times ; 
 The morning said the things I would have said. 
 
 And said them better than a poet's rimes. 
 
 That was our mating, mating without speech — 
 No pledge, no promise, no vehement vow ; 
 
 The morning seemed into our hearts to reach ; 
 We always after understood, somehow. 
 
 113 
 
THREE MORNINGS 
 
 There are three mornings I remember well, 
 Three mornings that have been the best and 
 worst, 
 When I have sipped of heaven, tasted hell — 
 There were three mornings — this one was the 
 first. 
 
 A year ; another morning ; by a fire 
 
 I woke to feel a shiver in the breeze; 
 Above a pine sighed dismally, the sire 
 
 Of all the circle of his somber trees. 
 An Indian runner loping down the hill, 
 
 Red-visage, sullen, silent, swollen eyes, 
 Fit messenger to carry tale so ill — 
 
 There was no blue that morning in the skies. 
 
 You had grown weary of your wedded life. 
 
 The constant quarrel and the endless hurt. 
 The things I said that cut you like a knife, 
 
 The husband's heel that ground you in the dirt. 
 I might return, but you were through with me, 
 
 The two who had been one again were two. 
 I looked afar above the murmuring tree : 
 
 But in the sky that morning was no blue. 
 
 114 
 
THREE MORNINGS 
 
 Then from the west there came a puff of rain, 
 
 Not rain that comes majestic in its might: 
 The slow, damp fog that hides the hill and plain, 
 
 A wall of gray to bar the morning light. 
 The fire burned sickly, heavy hung the smoke ; 
 
 No bird attempted song in hour so sad ; 
 Beneath its weight of wet a sapling broke, 
 
 And east and west no hope of morning had. 
 
 Forgetting rain, the rain I could not feel, 
 
 I sat me down upon the sodden ground 
 And read your letter like a knife of steel ; 
 
 I turned your knife of steel around, around. 
 The runner took his dollar with no sign 
 
 And left me to my thoughts and dying fire, 
 My dying fire and dying hopes of mine. 
 
 When all things died except the old desire. 
 
 It was not many mornings after that, 
 
 That other morning. All the hours of night 
 The waters rose upon the marshy flat, 
 
 The maddened river, like a horse in flight 
 Rolled down upon the village by the mill. 
 
 Rolled down upon the little sawmill town ; 
 And some there were took refuge on the hill. 
 
 And some there were could only pray and drown. 
 
 115 
 
THREE MORNINGS 
 
 And then I found you, when upon the east 
 
 One trembhng finger wrote a word of dawn 
 And then a sentence, till the torrent ceased, 
 
 The gray sky opened and the night was gone. 
 And this made such a morning glorious. 
 
 The most remembered in my memory, 
 That, while I sought you madly, madly thus, 
 
 I came upon you seeking after me. 
 
 That morn we watched the troubled waters fall ; 
 
 The crest was over and the danger past. 
 That was the morning holiest of all, 
 
 For we had learned the truth of it at last. 
 Each wrong, each right, each foolish in a way, 
 
 We wrote "forgotten" on our ills of old. 
 And saw the sunrays of returning day 
 
 Change skies to blue, and life again to gold.' 
 
 Upon the hill we built our house again. 
 
 The sure, high hill that floods could never touch. 
 And loved a little better ever then, 
 
 Who loved too little when we loved too much. 
 Upon the solid rock of faith we stand, 
 
 And, gray the cloud or sunny blue the skies. 
 We meet them heart to heart and hand in hand — 
 
 For all our mornings three have made us wise. 
 
 116 
 
THE WOODLAND 
 
 If you would love the woodland, it 
 
 Must be a living thing to you — 
 A comrade at whose feet you sit 
 
 And look together at the blue. 
 
 You must love sun as flowers do 
 The god of day ; the kiss of rain 
 
 Must be as healing sweet to you 
 As to the daisy on the plain. 
 
 You must go faring without fear 
 
 The woodland wild, however far — 
 In some new path a pioneer. 
 
 And for your compass but a star. 
 
 You must lie down with door ajar 
 Beside the midnight waters' hem, 
 
 You must lie down where wild things are 
 And feel companionship with them. 
 
 You must delight in that delight 
 The bud enjoys when first it knows 
 
 The passing of the Winter night 
 And wakes to find itself a rose. 
 
 117 
 
THE WOODLAND 
 
 You must feel pleasures such as those, 
 The joy of living in the land, 
 
 And, as the waking leaves unclose, 
 Must feel your petaled soul expand. 
 
 118 
 
IF FORTUNE CAME 
 
 If old Dame Fortune came to-day up in the timber on a 
 
 hike 
 An' told me I could have my way, have any treasure 
 
 that I like— 
 I wonder just what I would say, for just what blessin' 
 
 I would strike. 
 
 Offhand I guess I'd ask for cash, for money is a handy 
 
 thing. 
 I've had enough to make a splash or two myself in 
 
 town in Spring ; 
 I've drawed my stake an' made a flash an' had my 
 
 little yearly fling. 
 
 Offhand I guess I'd ask for dough, for that's what most 
 
 men think of first — 
 The thing that keeps us peggin' so, the thirst that's like 
 
 a whisky thirst; 
 The thing that's helped a few I know, an' twice as 
 
 many others cursed. 
 
 119 
 
IF FORTUNE CAME 
 
 I'd ask a million bucks or two, so I could ditch the tim- 
 ber tall 
 
 An' know that it an' me was through, the corduroy 
 an' four-turn haul — 
 
 That all that I would have to do was spend my money, 
 that was all. 
 
 I'd buy myself a house in town with Brussels carpet 
 
 on the floor ; 
 I'd quit the booze an' settle down an' never hit it any 
 
 more ; 
 I'd put on style, an' do it brown — for that's, I guess, 
 
 what money's for. 
 
 I'd set an' loaf the time away, I'd start again a-livin' 
 
 white ; 
 I'd can this dirty pipe of clay an' get a meersch'um 
 
 that was right; 
 I'd eat my old three squares a day, an' sleep a good 
 
 eight hours at night. 
 
 But some vacation, so to speak, I'd like to have it now 
 
 an' then — 
 To leave my cash an' take a sneak up here along with 
 
 other men 
 An', say, put in about a week in this old lumber camp 
 
 again. 
 
 120 
 
I'd like to just come nvalkin' in an' find you all a-settin' here 
 
IF FORTUNE CAME 
 
 I'd like to just come walkin' in an* find you all a-set- 
 
 tin' here, 
 An' wash in that old pail of tin, an' drink a cup of 
 
 coffee clear. 
 An' then git out an' work like sin, just as I've done 
 
 for forty year. 
 
 I'd like to set beside the fire upon the norway deacon- 
 seat 
 
 An' listen to some sawed-off liar his yarns remarkable 
 repeat ; 
 
 Or maybe go an' pull a briar, an' then come in an' eat 
 an' eat. 
 
 An' let me tell you, my good dame, I'd have you 
 
 clearly understand 
 If I can't mootch it just the same to road an' camp 
 
 an' timberland — 
 I wouldn't take it, if you came with twenty million in 
 
 your hand! 
 
 121 
 
ONE 
 
 There runs a pathway by the hedge 
 
 And up across the clearing, 
 A ribbon through the woodland's edge, 
 
 Appearing, disappearing, 
 That fades beyond the hills of gray 
 
 Where red the west is burning ; 
 And many men have passed this way, 
 
 And few who came returning. 
 
 Full many men have followed it. 
 
 The path beside the shanty ; 
 And some there were with wealth or wit, 
 
 And some who sang a chanty ; 
 And some were sad and some were gay. 
 
 And there were some who flattered ; 
 Yes, many men have passed this way — 
 
 But only one who mattered. 
 
 122 
 
A CAMP IN THE WOODS WITH A FRIEND 
 
 The wealth of a wonderful hall 
 
 With splendors of painting and gold, 
 The pride of a tapestried wall 
 
 Or portraiture faded and old, 
 The treasures of age and of art. 
 
 The luxuries riches can lend, 
 No comfort will bring to the heart 
 
 Like a camp in the woods with a friend. 
 
 The swallows are singing by day. 
 
 The roses are rioting near ; 
 A bob-o-link over the way 
 
 Is adding his carol of cheer. 
 The road may be stony and hot, 
 
 But there is a trail at the end 
 That leads to life's pleasantest spot — 
 
 Just a camp in the woods with a friend. 
 
 And then come the eve and the stars, 
 And then come the dark and the moon ;• 
 
 You've lighted your glowing cigars, 
 You warble together a tune. 
 
 123 
 
A CAMP IN THE WOODS WITH A FRIEND 
 
 The insects are flashing in flight, 
 The branches so tenderly bend — 
 
 And you are at home for the night 
 In a camp in the woods with a friend. 
 
 124 
 
HIS EYES 
 
 Right where you sit she sat 
 
 That last, last night we knew— 
 
 With roses in her hat, 
 
 A dress of blue; 
 
 And, just like you, 
 
 She would not have a light 
 
 But just the fire. 
 
 And all outdoors was night, 
 
 And night a lyre 
 
 That played a hundred tunes. 
 
 Old Junes, 
 
 Old Junes and new. 
 
 It seemed that all the songs I ever heard 
 
 Were echoed in the song of just one bird 
 
 Who would not stop when westward 
 
 sank the sun. 
 Who would not stop until his song 
 
 was done. 
 His singing through. 
 
 But still the musk 
 
 Came to us through the dusk, 
 
 And low we talked about another day 
 
 When she would go away. 
 
 125 
 
HIS EYES 
 
 "To-morrow, I suppose" — 
 And that was far. 
 "To-morrow" — no one knows 
 How near they are. 
 
 The camp 
 
 Was sleeping — hunyack, Injun, tramp 
 And all the crew. 
 And I sat here 
 And she sat there like you — 
 So near, 
 
 And yet so far she seemed to be, 
 For mountains lay between the maid 
 and me. 
 
 There was no light. 
 
 She seemed to fade into the night 
 
 As goes a friend, 
 
 Up hill, beyond the bend. 
 
 And out of sight. 
 
 Then we sat silent ; silent so 
 
 She rose to go. 
 
 We said good-by, 
 
 And I, 
 
 I dared not sigh, 
 
 I dared not speak a word. 
 
 126 
 
HIS EYES 
 
 The valley does not wed the sky, 
 
 The weed the bird. 
 
 Next day her father's car 
 
 Fell like a falling star 
 
 Beyond the hill 
 
 And left me standing still 
 
 With foolish notions thrilling through 
 
 my head — 
 Thank God, unsaid. 
 
 And, as the eve 
 
 Faded that night of nights — 
 
 A warning, I believe — 
 
 A little later came the accident 
 
 And dimmer lights 
 
 And woods that went 
 
 In deeper dark. 
 
 Until the spark 
 
 Fled from my eyes and left on earth 
 
 behind 
 Only her lovely image on my mind— 
 And I was blind. 
 
 I am the filer here, a handy man. 
 
 I can feel 
 
 As few men can 
 
 To sharpen steel- 
 
 127 
 
HIS EYES 
 
 I file the saws 
 
 And play my little part. 
 
 Because 
 
 To file a saw or hang an ax is art. 
 
 I can not see, 
 
 But know the woods, the trees, 
 
 I can not see, 
 
 Yet hear their melodies. 
 
 And so 
 
 I can not see you, girl, and yet you seem 
 
 The living presence of a blind man's 
 
 dream. 
 I can not see — and yet you seem to bring 
 The pulse of old, the pain, and everything. 
 You touch me — kiss me — God, can it be true ! 
 And you are you? 
 
 I can not see. 
 
 Yet see, who could not see before ; 
 
 And you shall be 
 
 My eyes forevermore. 
 
 128 
 
THE ONE-SPOT 
 
 Rusty, an' greasy, an' not very beautiful — 
 
 Holes in her fire-box, an' scale in her tubes — 
 Ready to rock in a manner undutiful, 
 
 RoUin' the rookies an' scarin' the rubes ; 
 Loose in her bearin's, an' loose in her habit, too, 
 
 Shakin', an' quakin', an' rattlety-bang, 
 Needin' some paint an' some bolts, an' some babbitt, 
 too — • 
 
 But she's the pride of the whole of the gang. 
 
 Rusty, an' greasy, an' dirty she maybe is, 
 
 Wantin' some paint an' a week in the shops, 
 Cranky perhaps as a colicky baby is, 
 
 Spittin' exhaust at the track-layin' wops — 
 But she can climb any grade that's in front of her, 
 
 Hold on a hill any train that's behind : 
 Thirty-five loads is the regular stunt of her ; 
 
 Tack on a loader an' she'll never mind. 
 
 Railroadin' here ain't the transcontinental kind — 
 Fifty-pound rail is the best that you get ; 
 
 Bridges up here ain't the nice, ornamental kind — 
 Just a few stringers a-crossin' the wet. 
 
 129 
 
THE ONE-SPOT 
 
 Humps in the track, that has many a crick to it, 
 Rails that are spread, an' old ties that are knurled 
 
 But, turn her loose with a load, an' she'll stick to it, 
 Stick to the rottenest road in the world ! 
 
 130 
 
THE ASPEN 
 
 Where all the rivers northward run 
 
 Beyond the Height of Land, 
 And where the law is just a gun. 
 
 The judge a steady hand, 
 The feeble aspen of the drouth 
 
 Becomes a giant thing, 
 The quivering aspen of the South 
 
 Becomes an arctic king. 
 
 And so the man who journeys where 
 
 The road to Hudson's lies. 
 His wine the sharp Canadian air. 
 
 His compass in the skies, 
 Grows stronger like the aspen tree 
 
 That in the North appears — 
 Takes on the stature presently 
 
 Of arctic pioneers. 
 
 131 
 
BEHIND A SPIRE 
 
 It ain't our wickedness alone 
 
 That keeps us out of church ; 
 An' so, before you cast a stone 
 
 An' leave us in the lurch, 
 Just see if somethin' ain't about 
 
 Besides our mortal sin 
 That keeps us still a-holdin' out 
 
 When preachin' asts us in. 
 
 We used to have (I won't say where) 
 
 An elder in the place 
 Who led so loud in Sunday pray'r 
 
 It shook the throne of grace. 
 But all the week to feed his game 
 
 The busted swampers went ; 
 He hailed the power of Jesus' name 
 
 An' soaked 'em twelve per cent. 
 
 Perhaps if eight had satisfied 
 
 That shoutin' hypocrite. 
 Some scoffin' swamper might have tried 
 
 To straighten up a bit ; 
 
 132 
 
BEHIND A SPIRE 
 
 But we dislike the man who tries 
 
 To give us title clear 
 To any mansion in the skies 
 
 An' grab our title here. 
 
 133 
 
FORTY 
 
 Up the hill to Holton is a merry climb ; 
 I have walked to Holton many is the time : 
 Dew upon the grasses, roses by the road. 
 Till you never notice if you have a load. 
 
 Down the hill from Holton is a merry way, 
 Coming home from Holton at the close of day : 
 Straight ahead the sunset, straight ahead the stars, 
 And the beacon burning at the open bars. 
 
 Up the hill to forty was a merry tramp : 
 Daisies on the hillside, lilies in the damp, 
 Friends to walk beside me all the busy years, 
 Sharing of my laughter, sharing of my tears. 
 
 Down the hill from forty, may it be the best ! — 
 Walking to the refuge waiting in the west : 
 Straight ahead the sunset, straight ahead the stars. 
 And the beacon burning at the open bars. 
 
 134 
 
THE MAN WHO ALWAYS WON 
 
 He 
 
 Was poor as me. 
 
 An* I was poor 
 
 As any beaver workin' in the wet, 
 
 Excursionin' ashore 
 
 His grub to get. 
 
 We dug like beavers, too, 
 
 As workers do. 
 
 But now I know 
 
 That all I worked for was a bed an' food, 
 
 But he had dreams 
 
 An', in the solitude, 
 
 He saw the gleams 
 
 Of golden dollars grow 
 
 To riches even in the long ago. 
 
 The thing success 
 
 That come to many in the wilderness 
 
 Was not the luck that envy says it was — 
 
 It had a cause. 
 
 We both were young. 
 
 We both were young an* strong. 
 
 135 
 
THE MAN WHO ALWAYS WON 
 
 I worked as hard, 
 
 I know I worked as long. 
 
 But dollars clung 
 
 To him. Long afterward 
 
 I knew the reason why : 
 
 He had a dream, an' not a dream had I. 
 
 First thing I knew 
 
 He was the boss. Yet, of the two, 
 
 I was the better cruiser. I could cruise 
 
 A tract of timber an' the sections choose 
 
 Where wealth was waitin' in the hills of pine ; 
 
 So bossin' was his job, an' cruisin' mine. 
 
 I cruised for him an', when my cash was gone, 
 
 Was mighty grateful that he took me on. 
 
 An' then the woman come — they always come 
 
 In each man's life, 
 
 To some a wife 
 
 An' just a dream to some — 
 
 An' that was when 
 
 I started dreamin' dreams like other men. 
 
 She was no timid, blue-eyed, baby thing ; 
 
 She was a queen, fit for a forest king. 
 
 She was a woman big of hip an' arm, 
 
 A farmer's daughter on a buckwheat farm. 
 
 On the trail 
 
 I used to wonder why some fellahs fail 
 
 An' others win ; 
 
 136 
 
THE MAN WHO ALWAYS WON 
 
 An' I made up my mind 
 
 The reason I would find 
 
 An' buckle in. 
 
 But then again 
 
 There was the difference in different men : 
 
 He had the start 
 
 In dreamin' an' in doin' — an' a heart 
 
 Was like a stand of pine, 
 
 To take when I had found it. She was mine, 
 
 My sky, my sun, 
 
 An' yet he won. 
 
 I did not kill him, curse him, even hate — 
 
 For it was fate. 
 
 But sometimes when I leave the woods a spell. 
 
 An' it is seldom, an' the fellahs tell 
 
 How well he's done. 
 
 The man who always won. 
 
 Somehow all right it seems — 
 
 For he had dreams. 
 
 One time I even suppered at his place, 
 
 When in to talk about some timberland, 
 
 A house so grand 
 
 I wondered that I ever had the face 
 
 To think that she 
 
 Would take the likes of me. 
 
 137 
 
THE MAN WHO ALWAYS WON 
 
 Yet all the same, 
 
 There come a thought that took away the 
 
 shame 
 That I had dared 
 To want her, raven-haired — 
 A thought that these, 
 The luxuries, 
 
 The gold, the glass, the auto, an* the fur, 
 The costly goods, 
 An* husband, too, 
 A cruiser in the woods 
 Had given her — 
 Although she never knew. 
 
 138 
 
DISCOVERY 
 
 There lurks in every breast some of the fire 
 
 That sent Columbus daring unknown seas, 
 There lurks in every human heart desire 
 
 To find new continents. To such as these 
 The woodland is a world, and continents 
 
 They who go seeking shall as surely find 
 As he who scorned an earth's experience 
 
 And left established error far behind. 
 
 Let us go forth, as great Columbus sailed, 
 
 And we shall find new archipelagoes — 
 Sequestered paths that only deer have trailed. 
 
 Perhaps another continent, who knows? — 
 Some cloistered valley far from man removed. 
 
 Some fragrant clearing hidden in the firs, 
 Some lily garden man has never loved. 
 
 Waiting our coming, the discoverers. 
 
 We may not find Americas, but we 
 
 Shall feel the thrill that thrilled a greater breast- 
 Perhaps a mountain that will glimpse the sea. 
 
 Beneath a stump perhaps a partridge nest ; 
 
 139 
 
DISCOVERY 
 
 We shall make sail across the trackless green, 
 We shall uncover riches in the flower, 
 
 We shall behold new beauties now unseen — 
 Yea, we shall be Columbus for an hour. 
 
 140 
 
THE TIMES 
 
 You hear a plenty of complaint 
 About the times. Folks say they ain't 
 As good as times had ought to be ; 
 But why they ain't they can't agree. 
 Some blame the trusts, an' others blame 
 The agitation on the same 
 That keeps the public mind aflame. 
 
 An' there's the tariff ; that is what 
 Some say it is, an' some it's not. 
 The customer will tell you why 
 The cost of livin' is so high — 
 The tariff, blame it ! Bye-an'-bye 
 The factory whose trade is slow 
 Will tell you why the price is low — 
 The tariff, blame it ! made it so. 
 
 Well, I dunno. It seems to me 
 
 That somethin' else the cause may be — 
 
 That there may be some reason plain 
 
 Why things cloud up an' look like rain. 
 
 I rather guess that maybe you 
 
 An' me have more or less to do 
 
 141 
 
THE TIMES 
 
 With makin' times. It ain't the chaps 
 In Washington alone, perhaps, 
 That make 'em good or make 'em dull 
 An' money scarce or plentiful. 
 
 Of course they help. When times is good 
 
 They're glad to have it understood 
 
 They fixed things like they said they would. 
 
 Perhaps they did, perhaps they do ; 
 
 Perhaps they did the other, too — 
 
 For hard times never hit the purse 
 
 But some fool law can make 'em worse. 
 
 I rather guess that you an* me 
 Make panics an' prosperity. 
 An', if a quiet time should come 
 An' people have to figger some 
 To make the same old two ends meet 
 An' furnish stuff to wear an' eat, 
 That you an' me an' such as us 
 Made business so, an' matters thus, 
 An' not some legislatin' cuss. 
 
 Now confidentially, my friends. 
 
 Not what he makes but what he spends 
 
 It is that separates the ends 
 
 Man has such trouble makin' meet — 
 
 An' that's the kernel in the wheat. 
 
 142 
 
THE TIMES 
 
 You know it sort of seems of late 
 That we are goin' quite a gait — 
 Are makin' cash hand over fist 
 With ev'ry business on the Hst. 
 An* actin' Hke (an* quite a bit) 
 A drunken sailor spendin' it. 
 
 I know, I know, when men git old 
 They like to set around an' scold 
 An' talk about the good old days 
 When people followed better ways. 
 An' so, whatever I may say, 
 You'll figger it's because the gray 
 Is creepin' slowly through my hair- 
 Because the snow is driftin' there. 
 
 But I remember, when a boy 
 We had a decent share of joy — 
 I'll bet I laffed as often then 
 As do these later gentlemen 
 Who hang around the blazin' bars 
 Or hit it up in auto cars. 
 
 We never seen a cabaret ; 
 We never drunk a night away ; 
 We never gambled till the sun — 
 An' yet, we had a little fun. 
 
 143 
 
THE TIMES 
 
 Why, boy, I look along the years 
 Of childhood with the pioneers. 
 An' memory is sweet with tears. 
 
 I see it now : the little town, 
 A road of plank that wandered down 
 A street we called "The Avenue," 
 A sawdust city through an' through — 
 Oh, it would never do for you! 
 
 The girls wore gingham, calico. 
 
 An' other weaves you never know. 
 
 Their bonnets saved their cheeks from tan, 
 
 But raised the dickens with a man. 
 
 For blue eyes peepin' from a poke, 
 
 A white neck in a modest yoke. 
 
 Were twice as purty, seems to me. 
 
 As laigs that all the world can see. 
 
 At six the sawmill whistle blew ; 
 With swingin' pails the sawmill crew 
 Come walkin' up the sawdust hill 
 From Ryerson's or Mason's mill 
 Or White an' Swan's or anywhere 
 A pathway met the thoroughfare. 
 Soft eyes of blue an' eyes of brown 
 Were watchin' in the windowed town 
 
 144 
 
THE TIMES 
 
 An' blushed, an' pulled the curtains down. 
 An' then the evenin' an' the moon ! 
 Why, anywhere it's night an' June 
 An' moonlight is a place to spoon ! 
 
 They hadn't made the auto then — 
 A lucky thing for common men 
 Like us, with just an envelope 
 Each thirty days, an' love, an' hope. 
 In fact a girl felt purty big 
 Whose fellah hired a liv'ry rig 
 An' drove her to a country dance — 
 That was enough extravagance. 
 
 But, lookin' backward to those nights, 
 They seem as full of love's delights 
 As life could be — perhaps because 
 Man's money don't make lovers' laws. 
 For I have set upon a stump 
 An' heard the heart inside me thump 
 As you who Peacock Alley sweep 
 Have never felt your pulses leap. 
 Or I have let the old horse walk 
 An' took her hand in mine to talk, 
 An' sneaked an arm around her waist 
 An' held her only half -embraced — 
 
 145 
 
THE TIMES 
 
 Yes, half in earnest, half in play, 
 For fear she'd take my arm away. 
 An' I have let the ribbons fall 
 An' never drove the horse at all 
 An' drawn her closer — Why, my boy. 
 Is money all there is of joy? 
 Is love across a glass of wine 
 A better, bigger love than mine. 
 In that old buggy 'neath the pine? 
 
 How I have wandered ! My intent 
 To speak in this here argument 
 Concerned the times. When times is slow 
 It's me an' you that makes 'em so. 
 But people now have come to prize 
 The thing alone that money buys ; 
 We all have learnt to advertise — 
 The more it costs the more we boast. 
 An' he is best who spends the most. 
 We slave to earn like maddened moles ; 
 Within the earth we dig our holes 
 An' wallow there an' sell our souls. 
 We climb the air, we scrape the sky, 
 An' wind an' storm an' God defy. 
 The cottage that we used to own 
 We've traded for a thing of stone. 
 
 146 
 
THE TIMES 
 
 We house our babes in caves of steel 
 An* never teach 'em there to kneel 
 An' love of home an' hearth to feel. 
 
 Why, home meant somethin' in the days 
 Us graybeards love to set an' praise. 
 You can't make homes of city flats 
 With hallway rows an' back yard spats, 
 Where men an' women, kids an' cats, 
 Are huddled on a single floor, 
 With ev'ry noise a call to war. 
 You've got to own the house, the ground, 
 An' everything that grows around. 
 A path that wanders to a gate. 
 Where little children come to wait 
 When father's comin' happens late, 
 That's home — Home ain't in dinin' out 
 An' eatin' ev'ry where about; 
 Home ain't electric lights, the flash 
 Of di'monds, an' the music's crash — 
 For life is somethin' more than cash. 
 
 The times ? Yes, I was talkin' of 
 The times. You sort of laff at love. 
 An' so we'll talk of dollars, friend — 
 A language you can comprehend. 
 
 147 
 
THE TIMES 
 
 Well, times git tighter now an' then — 
 They may git tighter here again ; 
 An* then we pay the price, my boy, 
 For all our artificial joy. 
 The joys of old made no one poor, 
 But made the country more secure. 
 This land was builded on a rock 
 Of corncob pipe an' gingham frock. 
 But now, when trouble comes, my lad, 
 When times git tight an' business bad. 
 We're little fixed in soul or purse 
 To meet conditions that are worse. 
 We've spent our money, spilled our blood. 
 An' built no ark to ride the flood 
 When trouble comes. An' then we quit 
 An' talk about the cause of it. 
 We blame some other fellah's game. 
 When we, ourselves, are all to blame. 
 The times ? It's us that makes the same ! 
 
 148 
 
KEEP YOUR EARS AHEAD 
 
 On the tote-road, on the street, on the trail or tram, 
 I have known a hoss or two, teamster that I am: 
 Steppers with Kentucky blood, ordinary plugs, 
 Ev'ry kind of animile ever wearin* tugs; 
 Mustang pony, Percheron, goer, thoroughbred — 
 But the only hoss worth while kept his ears ahead. 
 
 When a plug becomes a plug ain't when he gits old; 
 For a plug may be a plug from the day he's foaled. 
 When a critter to the back slants them ears of his, 
 Then you know the bloomin' brute, know the brute he is. 
 For he'll either bite or balk, loaf, or bolt instead; 
 Never trust a hoss unless he keeps his ears ahead. 
 
 But a hoss that is a hoss, of the proper kind. 
 Doesn't listen all the while for the whip behind. 
 He is lookin' down the road, sniffin', an' all that — 
 He is takin' interest in the work he's at. 
 Work is joy to such a nag, farm or fancy bred; 
 Life is somethin' to a hoss that keeps his ears ahead. 
 
 149 
 
KEEP YOUR EARS AHEAD 
 
 Man is somethin' like a hoss, with his work to do; 
 On the tough old trail of life how is it with you? 
 Do you put your shoulder then in the collar square? 
 Of the load we have to pull, do you pull a share? 
 Are you full of pep an* steam, or is your spirit dead? 
 Are you livin' in the past, or are your ears ahead? 
 
 150 
 
THE WIDOWHOOD OF DOUBT 
 
 There is a widowhood of doubt, there is a deeper hurt 
 
 than death — 
 A life of always looking out, of listening with halted 
 
 breath : 
 A sudden likeness in the street, a sound familiar in the 
 
 tread 
 Of some one passing — so to meet some daily vision of 
 
 the dead. 
 
 The Missing, dead yet living, they who live no more, 
 and never died : 
 
 How these their widows day by day must bear a grief 
 unsatisfied ! 
 
 Not theirs a great Physician's balm, not theirs to linger 
 by a cross. 
 
 Not theirs the years of sorrow's calm, the blessed certi- 
 tude of loss. 
 
 Still they must wonder if the wood or waters claimed 
 
 him, if the tree 
 It was that made their widowhood — or if unwidowed 
 
 they may be. 
 
 151 
 
THE WIDOWHOOD OF DOUBT 
 
 So many go the woodland trail; the curtains close 
 
 about them; then 
 There comes a rumor or a tale; but they, they come 
 
 not forth again. 
 
 Then the long widowhood of doubt : Perhaps to-night 
 
 he will return; 
 From heart and window shining out the woman's 
 
 sainted candles burn — 
 Each day a disappointment, each new hour a hope, a 
 
 hope to dim, 
 A wish that constant ray would reach around the 
 
 world in search of him. 
 
 Ah, weedless widows, widowed, wed to years of such 
 uncertainty, 
 
 Wan widows of the living dead, earth's saddest mourn- 
 ers, such are ye. 
 
 If they be dead your candles seek, God give you proof 
 and comfort, too; 
 
 But, if they live and do not speak, God punish them 
 and pity you. 
 
 152 
 
RETIRED 
 
 Yes, I've made a little stake 
 
 In the lumber game ; 
 Yes, I've been a lucky jake, 
 Managed in my life to make 
 
 Somethin' from the same — 
 
 Have a mill that's mine. 
 Have some money laid away, 
 Saved ag'inst a rainy day. 
 
 Own a jag of pine ; 
 Fuss around the puttin' green, 
 Travel in a limousine 
 
 With a colored shofer, 
 Have a little cash to give, 
 Have a little time to live — 
 
 Somethin' of a loafer. 
 
 Yep, I am the sort of gink 
 
 People like to knock. 
 People who appear to think 
 That a fellah found his chink 
 Layin' on a rock. 
 
 153 
 
RETIRED 
 
 If I have a bit, 
 Not a dollar that I own 
 But I paid in flesh an' bone 
 
 For the whole of it. 
 An*, I guess, a lot of men 
 People slander now an' then 
 
 Got it on the level. 
 Made the money they possess 
 Like the lumberman, I guess, 
 
 Workin' like the devil. 
 
 Life it wasn't always so — 
 
 Comfort an' content ; 
 There was days not long ago, 
 There was days I didn't know 
 
 Where to raise a cent — 
 
 Figgered, borrowed, saved. 
 Looked for twenty years ahead. 
 Minded not what others said. 
 
 Studied, suffered, slaved; 
 Cruised the timber that was new 
 People said would never do, 
 
 Learnt alone to ramble ; 
 Staked the little all I had, 
 Ventured when the times was bad, 
 
 Bought upon a gamble ; 
 
 154 
 
RETIRED 
 
 Walked the wilderness by day, 
 
 Worried in the night ; 
 With a timid bank to pay, 
 Learnt the one an* only way 
 
 Was to work an' fight. 
 
 Folks who think the pine 
 An* the money easy come, 
 I will gladly tell you some 
 
 Ways I gethered mine : 
 Worked a peavey, pulled a saw. 
 Rode the river in a thaw 
 
 When my legs was limber. 
 Beat the bullies with my fist — 
 Life an' home an* comfort missed 
 
 For the sake of timber. 
 
 Then, at last, I got a mill. 
 With a promise bought; 
 Lord, an* I remember still. 
 An* I guess I always will. 
 Troubles that it brought : 
 Somethin* breakin* loose, 
 Crackin* saws an* fallin* steam — 
 Ev'rything I had would seem 
 
 Goin* to the deuce. 
 Then the price would fade away 
 An* the lumber piles would lay 
 
 155 
 
RETIRED 
 
 Waitin' for a taker; 
 Stumpage droppin' off the earth- 
 All the timber wasn't worth 
 
 Fifty cents an acre. 
 
 Yet it helped to make a man. 
 
 All the trouble did ; 
 For to work an' fret an' plan 
 Is the thing that makes the man 
 
 Out of any kid. 
 
 An' I'm glad the test 
 Come among the snows an' thaws 
 In the wilderness, because 
 
 It was for the best. 
 For I have a notion, too. 
 Woods of green an' skies of blue, 
 
 Snowin', blowin', rainin'. 
 Can not help but make a man 
 Honest, decent, squarer than 
 
 All your city trainin'. 
 
 It's a business that is clean, 
 
 Workin' in the wood ; 
 Skies of blue an' woods of green, 
 Winter storm or summer scene, 
 
 They are plain an' good. 
 
 156 
 
^ \^ 
 
 
 JVorked a pea-vey, pulled a :a-j:, rode the river in a tliaix: 
 
RETIRED 
 
 Timber on the hill 
 Has a flavor sweet as wine. 
 An' the sawdust of the pine 
 
 In around the mill 
 Makes a man as clean inside 
 As the sky that stretches wide 
 
 In the brightest weather. 
 God may walk the city streets 
 But, when man outdoors He meets. 
 
 Then they walk together. 
 
 There folks look you in the face ; 
 
 There a man's a man ; 
 There an ace must be an ace, 
 For the woods it ain't a place 
 
 For shenanigan. 
 
 There is less of law, 
 There is less of preachin' there. 
 But you find a fellah square 
 
 In a mackinaw. 
 Law or creed we mayn't know — 
 Though it's been a year or so 
 
 Since we seen a steeple, 
 When we buy or when we sell 
 Then we stack up purty well 
 
 With your city people. 
 
 157 
 
RETIRED 
 
 So, if somethin' I have made 
 
 For a rainy day, 
 If Fve made a lucky trade. 
 By the rules of Hoyle I played 
 
 All along the way. 
 
 If I have a mill, 
 If I have a jag of pine, 
 Somethin' in the bank that's mine, 
 
 Somethin' in the till, 
 If for me the axes swing. 
 If for me the pulleys sing 
 
 An' the saw is hummin'. 
 If I take a little rest 
 When my sun is in the west — 
 
 Boys, I've got it comin' ! 
 
 158 
 
THE RECRUIT'S REQUEST 
 
 Sing us no song of the stripes an' the stars 
 
 Callin' us heroes an' such; 
 We are plumb sick of the music of wars, 
 Star spangled bannered too much. 
 Give us a hail 
 
 From the tote-road, the trail. 
 Up where the water's alive; 
 Give us Paul Bunyan, or some such a tale- 
 Sing us a song of the drive I 
 
 We aren't specially hymnin' our hate, 
 
 We aren't damnin' the Hun. 
 Let us f orgit it, a while any rate, 
 Nix on the sword an' the gun. 
 Give us a song 
 As we're marchin' along, 
 Somethin' to lighten the tramp; 
 Give us a tune on the old dinner-gong — 
 Sing us a song of the camp ! 
 
 When we go up to the guns of the foe, 
 
 Where there is dyin' to do, 
 Some other song we will warble, I know, 
 
 Never the red, white an' blue — 
 
 159 
 
THE RECRUIT'S REQUEST 
 
 Chokin' a tear 
 
 For some girl who is dear 
 Over the hill an' the foam, 
 We will be lookin' right back over here. 
 Singin' some ditty of home. 
 
 160 
 
THE WEDDING 
 
 I've heard of your wonderful weddin'. 
 
 My faraway, favorite niece ; 
 I've read ev'ry newspaper headin' 
 
 An' ev'ry "Society" piece. 
 I'm glad that your weddin' was quiet, 
 
 An' simple in garb an' in gown, 
 An' no matrimonial riot 
 
 Upsettin' the whole of the town. 
 
 So many there are that are noisy. 
 
 With hunderds to cackle an' stare, 
 Reported from Boston to Boise, 
 
 With lists of the notables there — 
 A church that is crowded with people, 
 
 A street that is busy with din, 
 A fire-alarm rung from the steeple 
 
 To gether the curious in. 
 
 But yours it was quiet an* simple. 
 
 With only your friends an' your folks. 
 
 Who laffed at your daintiest dimple 
 An' smiled at the minister's jokes. 
 
 161 
 
THE WEDDING 
 
 Their greetin* was honest an' hearty, 
 The neighbors who come to the door, 
 
 A sort of a family party 
 Without any riot an' roar. 
 
 I always have thought gittin' married 
 
 Was rather a personal thing ; 
 For why should a couple be harried — 
 
 Two turtle-doves just on the wing — 
 By crowdin' an' talkin' an' shoutin', 
 
 An' hunderds to gossip an' sneer? 
 A weddin's no picnic or outin'. 
 
 As you will discover, my dear. 
 
 If I had the act to do over 
 
 (I speak as a fellah outdoors 
 Who likes to wade meadows of clover 
 
 An' camp by their musical shores), 
 I wouldn't have that for a minute. 
 
 When I an' the girl were made one ; 
 I'd have just the song of a linnet, 
 
 I'd have just the light of the sun. 
 
 I wouldn't care much if the others 
 Should know I got married or not ; 
 
 I'd just want the fathers an' mothers 
 When hitched double-harness I got. 
 
 162 
 
THE WEDDING 
 
 rd just want a preacher who's pleasant, 
 I'd just want a day that is fair ; 
 
 I wouldn't care much who was present 
 As long as the lady was there. 
 
 The throwin* of rice I don't care for, 
 
 I have some old shoes of my own ; 
 I wonder what people are there for 
 
 An' why all the truck should be thrown ? 
 The rice an' the shoes an' the kisses 
 
 May add to the holiday fuss. 
 But they wouldn't please me an' the missus 
 
 By makin' a target of us. 
 
 An' no one would follow the custom 
 
 Of kissin' the lady I chose ; 
 If any one tried it, I'd bust him 
 
 Right there on the spot on the nose. 
 If all of these holiday hooters 
 
 Went kissin' the lady I win, 
 I'd unlimber a pair of six-shooters 
 
 An* the party would really begin. 
 
 163 
 
AFTERWARD 
 
 Well you remember where it was we met : 
 
 A cabin in a valley by a stream ; 
 I can not think you could so soon forget — 
 That I alone remember and regret, 
 
 And dream. 
 
 I was a man of labor in the land 
 
 To which you came upon a holiday ; 
 I was a man of labor, ax in hand, 
 And you a Summer pilgrim, laughing and 
 Away. 
 
 I loved the woodland ways no less than you, 
 
 Than you who spoke of them in rhapsodies- 
 Perhaps their greater beauties better knew 
 And deeper felt the music singing through 
 The trees. 
 
 I wonder if it always shall be so — 
 
 If you look laughing to that year again, 
 Recall a pleasant Summer with a glow. 
 While I remain, remember, only know 
 Its pain? 
 
 164 
 
THE BAD MAN 
 
 There was a gink 
 Blew into camp 
 Not very long ago 
 
 Who'd make you think 
 He had a lamp 
 Like no one here below. 
 He bragged about 
 
 The fights he had, 
 He built up quite a rep ; 
 Without a doubt 
 
 We thought him bad, 
 A party full of pep. 
 
 His laigs, his arms, 
 
 He said were swell. 
 His uppercut a peach ; 
 His other charms 
 
 He used to tell — 
 His footwork an' his reach. 
 He bullied us, 
 
 I must confess ; 
 
 165 
 
THE BAD MAN 
 
 We let him have his way ; 
 An' not a cuss 
 
 But answered yes, 
 Whatever he would sav. 
 
 The matter might 
 Have gone along 
 The way that it had been, 
 But Monday night, 
 
 When feelin' strong. 
 He sort of sauntered in 
 An* made a crack 
 If any hick 
 Should give him any jaw 
 He'd beat him black, 
 For he could lick 
 The whole of Arkansaw. 
 
 I needn't state 
 
 The details now 
 Or which one was the one 
 That couldn't wait. 
 But, anyhow. 
 The jamboree begun. 
 The gang an' me 
 
 Commenced to maul 
 
 166 
 
THE BAD MAN 
 
 An' pound the geezer good. 
 He said that he 
 
 Could lick us all — 
 An', darn the luck, he could ! 
 
 167 
 
A LOOK BACK 
 
 You have packed up your duffle and put out your fire, 
 There is nothing ahead but the trail, 
 
 But the trail that leads up to the hill you desire — 
 You will come nevermore to the vale. 
 
 'Twas a shelter from storm and a home for the night, 
 'Twas a place for a fire and a snack ; 
 
 You are through with it now, you are off with the 
 light- 
 But you stop and you take a look back. 
 
 'Twas a spot for a camp such as seldom you find. 
 
 With a slope that would drain it of wet ; 
 There was green grass in front, there was timber 
 behind. 
 
 And the deadwood was easy to get. 
 'Twas a bed and a roof for the wandering one, 
 
 'Twas a rest and a refuge for Jack ; 
 Now you're oflP to the east and you're up with the sun — 
 
 But you stop and you take a look back. 
 
 168 
 
A LOOK BACK 
 
 And this life is just that from beginning to end 
 
 It's a camp, and a hike, and a camp. 
 It is greeting a stranger, farewell to a friend, 
 
 Ev'ry morning new timber to tramp. 
 For we can not remain and we can not return, 
 
 We must follow old Time in his track; 
 But the campfires of old in our memory burn — 
 
 And we stop and we take a look back. 
 
 169 
 
THE CRUISE 
 
 When all the years are but a year 
 
 Fast drawing to a close, 
 And I am through with cruising here 
 
 Forever, I suppose. 
 Then upward to the final cross 
 
 The last hill I shall climb 
 And stand before the mighty Boss 
 
 Who figures up our time. 
 
 He gave me once a world to cruise, 
 
 He staked me to a life, 
 And left me my own way to choose, 
 
 A path of peace or strife. 
 Across the sky He spread His stars, 
 
 The sun to travel by. 
 His great unchanging calendars 
 
 For pilgrims such as I. 
 
 But there are things He never knew 
 In this great world of His : 
 
 The heavens are not always blue — 
 The hurricane there is, 
 
 170 
 
THE CRUISE 
 
 And nights without a star to shine 
 There are, and sudden snares, 
 
 And tangled ways, and trailing vines. 
 To take men unawares. 
 
 And, if He knew it all the while. 
 
 That things like these are here. 
 The pitfall in the pleasant mile, 
 
 The gray skies with the clear, 
 He knows that I for every rose 
 
 Was punished with a thorn, 
 For every passion red He knows 
 
 Some burden I have borne. 
 
 I did not make a woman's eyes, 
 
 I did not make the brew, 
 I did not make the sweetest lies 
 
 Man ever listened to, 
 I did not make the greed of gold, 
 
 And all of human ills — ■ 
 When I was young these things were old 
 
 As His eternal hills. 
 
 I think He takes men in His hand, 
 
 I and all mortal men, 
 I think that He can understand 
 
 And balance things again, 
 
 171 
 
THE CRUISE 
 
 I think He weighs a man beside 
 The sort of chance he had, 
 
 I think He knows His world is wide, 
 A good world and a bad. 
 
 I think He knows it all along 
 
 When figuring our time, 
 And scratches off the little wrong 
 
 The holy call a crime ; 
 I think that when life's year is past, 
 
 However feet may fail. 
 That He will lead me home at last, 
 
 Although I missed the trail. 
 
 THE END 
 
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