THE EGG AND THE MACHINE

He gave the solid rail a hateful kick.

From far away there came an answering tick; 

And then another tick. He knew the code:

His hate had roused an engine up the road.

He wished when he had had the track alone

He had attacked it with a club or stone

And bent some rail wide. open like a switch 

So as to wreck the engine in the ditch.

Too late, though, now to throw it down the bank;

 Its click was rising to a nearer clank.

Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts.

(He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.)

 Then for a moment there was only size, 

Confusion, and a roar that drowned the cries

He raised against the gods in the machine. 

Then once again the sand-hank lay serene. 

The traveler's eye picked up a turtle trail, 

Between the dotted feet a streak of tail,

And followed it to where he made out vague, 

But certain signs of buried turtle egg;

And probing with one finger not too rough, 

He found suspicious sand, and sure enough

The pocket of a little turtle mine.      

If there was one egg in it, there were nine,

 Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather

All packed in sand to wait the trump together. 

"You'd "better not disturb me any more,"

He told the distance. "I am armed for war.

 The next machine that has the power to pass 

Will get this plasm in its goggle glass."

SAND WILL DO IT

I observed a locomotive in the railroad yards one day,

It was waiting in the roundhouse where the locomotives stay;

It was panting for the journey. it was coaled and fully manned,

And it had a box the fireman was filling full of sand.

It appears that locomotives cannot always get a grip

On their slender iron pavement, 'cause the wheels are apt to slip;

And when they reach a slippery spot their tactics they com­mand,

And to get a grip upon the rail, they sprinkle it with sand.

It's about the way with travel along life's slippery track;

If your load is rather heavy you're always slipping back;

So, if a common locomotive you completely understand,

You'll provide yourself in starting with a good supply of sand.

If your track is steep and hilly and you have a heavy grade,

If those who've gone before you have the rails quite slippery made,

If you ever reach the summit of the upper table land,

You'll find you'll have to do it with a liberal use of sand.

If you strike some frigid weather and discover to your cost,

That you're liable to slip up on a heavy coat of frost,

Then some prompt decided action will be called into de­mand,

And you'll slip 'way to the bottom if you haven't any sand.

You can get to any station that is on life's schedule seen

If there's fire beneath the boiler of ambition's strong machine,

And you'll reach a place called Flushtown at a rate of speed that's grand,

If for all the slippery places you've a good supply of sand.

                                                In Richmond (Ind.) Register.