Off for the Lumber Woods
The duffle is packed, and the babies are smacked, and the wife has a buss and a hug;
And she’s done it up brown in a-loading me down with about all the grub I can lug,
So long! Good-by!
I’m off! Don’t cry!
—Just about a month of Sundays and you’ll see my homely mug.
Now look ye, ye towzled-haired son of a gun,
Be good to your mother or you’ll see some fun
When your daddy comes down on the drive in the spring
And fetches a withe with a hornetty sting.
Ha! ha! you young rascal, you’d rather have gum?
Well, be a good baby and pa’ll fetch you some.
Yes, mother, you’re right, it does seem kinder wrong
To leave you alone here the whole winter long.
And it’s tough that I have to pack dunnage and break
For the big timber wrassle at Chamberlain lake.
But folks are a-waiting for lumber and boards,
They’ve picked up their saws, now they’ve laid down their swords.
They’re wanting the timbers for new city domes,
They’re wanting the shingles for humble new homes.
The hammers are waiting, the nails are on end,
And the chorus of clatter’ll commence when we send
A billion of lumber down race-way and sluice,
From the lonesome dominions of gloomy King
Spruce.
The men who print papers are wanting fresh sheets,
The folks who build ships will be launching new fleets,
For, mark me, no matter what Uncle Sam planned,
He finds he can’t reach his new back lots by land.
Don’t smile at me, wife, but I feel when I swing
That sweaty old axe from the fall to the spring,
That I hear one grim cry swimming up on the air
Through the dim, silent forest,—a pleading prayer.
The clank of the press, and the scream of the saws.
The grunt of the grinder that slavers and chaws
At the fibre of pulp wood; the purr of the plane
Are blent in one chorus, attuned to one strain,
—That sighs in the breezes or throbs in the roar
Of the tempest; and ever the cry is for “More.‘’
And we men with our axes and horn-covered palms
Hear the call as a man hears the summons “To arms,”
And forward we plunge with no quarter, no truce,
With axes a-gleam in the realms of King Spruce.
The duffle is packed, and the babies are smacked; now wife, for a buss and a hug.
Save a smile ’gainst the spring, for I’m going to bring just all the spruce gum I can lug.
I’m off! Good-bye!
So long! Don’t cry!
In about a month of Sundays you will see my homely mug.