Property:Has text

<div class="poem"> <p>My father had played the violin and for years I had accompanied him on the piano, so it was a real pleasure for me. The old man's face was serenely happy as I followed him in some of the same pieces I had played with my father, but this man put in his own improvisations and kept perfect time. Presently some men rolled the piano into the empty dining room, and I discovered a crowd had gathered there for a dance, and from then on the old violinist and I were busy while feet kept time to our music, the piano having taken the place of the usual mouth harp. Between dances the old man told me had been a prospector for years, and that someday he would find a gold mine and become rich. His daughter and grand-daughter were dancing on the floor, but the miner's hope of gold still lived in his heart and anticipation showed in his eyes. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>We got stuck, just as the young man feared, and our shovel work could not extricate us, so out came the block and tackle. Hitched to the root of a big sagebrush, it slowly inched us up and over the bank of a deep, slippery ditch. This delay cost us an hour or more. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>Our first thought was about equipping our car, because as long as we could keep it moving, we would be safe. The next thing was to make sure we would keep warm and comfortable ourselves so we could endure the hardships we were bound to encounter for several weeks along the way. We had to use our own judgment in selecting what to take, as no one we knew ever had made this sort of trip. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>Some Indians hooted and jeered at us, getting a great kick out of seeing us work, but we laughed with them because we were making slow but sure progress and would soon be gone. We were two days in this valley, turning west at Coyote Park to go over a low range of mountains. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>After the man was paid and given a cigar, he beamed all over and said, "I'll go back and tell the boys I've had an automobile ride." It was an eventful day for him, making extra money, getting a good cigar and having his first automobile ride even if the car didn't run under its own power. Being on the right side of the stream to suit us, we enjoyed a good laugh as he and his team waded back through the water. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>Among his discoveries, he found that there was one piano in the town, and the owner and his daughter invited us to their home for the evening for some music. We went, but the piano was so out of tune it could not be used. A tuner from Ogden, across Salt Lake, would cost forty dollars, and since the girl did not play anyway, they had done nothing about it. The middle C was down a tone, and others nearly as bad. The owner loved music, and we sat there rather dejected when Fred, a resourceful chap, suggested we tune the piano with his monkey wrench. I was used to tuning a violin. I objected at first to what seemed like a ridiculous idea, but the man was delighted and urged so insistently that I finally relented. The front of the piano was off in no time, and I warned Fred to turn the pegs that held the wires very carefully as I plucked the strings. I was fearful of a wire breaking, but after the third tuning the pegs held and the instrument sounded fine. The man was delighted, and brought in a box of candy from his store, and we played and sang what could be remembered, there being no sheet music. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>Fred got out in water above his knees and cranked the car over and over but it would not start, so he called to me that he would walk back a half mile to a construction camp we had passed, and get a man and team to pull the car out of the river. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>We reached Lucin, at the west end of the railroad across Salt Lake, for a late lunch. In a small restaurant with uninviting food, the waitress warned me several times, in a very low voice, about a high, pointed rock in the middle of the road and hidden by weeds, that had proved most disastrous to a local automobile party the week before. I thanked her silently many times afterward for her warning, though I paid little attention to it at the moment. </p> </div> +

D

Dawn in New York +

<div class="poem"> <p>The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes<br /> Out of the low still skies, over the hills,<br /> Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!<br /> The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills.<br /> Almost the mighty city is asleep,<br /> No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet.<br /> But here and there a few cars groaning creep<br /> Along, above, and underneath the street,<br /> Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by,<br /> The women and the men of garish nights,<br /> Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry,<br /> Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights.<br /> The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York.<br /> And I go darkly-rebel to my work. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>We trudge along wearily,<br /> Heavy with lack of sleep,<br /> Spiritless, yet with pretence of gaiety. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>The sun brings crimson to the colourless sky;<br /> Light shines from brass and steel;<br /> We trudge on wearily—<br /> Our unspoken prayer:<br /> "God, end this black and aching anguish<br /> Soon, with vivid crimson agonies of death,<br /> End it in mist-pale sleep." </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>The grim dawn lightens thin bleak clouds;<br /> In the hills beyond the flooded meadows<br /> Lies death-pale, death-still mist. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>If you are inclined to lament and say,<br /> There are no opportunities found today,<br /> With the rest of the world you're out of step,<br /> Your body and mind are short on pep. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>Today is the golden day of days,<br /> Opportunity all around you plays,<br /> Much depends that you keep on a-trying,<br /> If you climb like Studebakers people are buying. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>Opportunities once flew thick and fast,<br /> In years far in the distant past,<br /> You'll know they are here today, instead,<br /> If you read the lives of men that are dead. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>Read Abraham Lincoln, American,<br /> Enshrined in the heart of every man.<br /> He was born honest in humble obscurity,<br /> He made for himself his opportunity. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p>To the White House and the President's chair,<br /> No American boy need have despair,<br /> There is nothing a boy can't overcome,<br /> With talent and energy making the run. </p> </div> +

<div class="poem"> <p><span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 11em;"> <i>—The Car with Character.</i></span> </p> </div> +