“JEST A LIFT”
Feller was far as the foot of the hill in one of
those boggy places,
Had a first-class team,
As strong as a beam,
But the feller had busted his traces;
And the feller gave up when he saw he was
stuck.
He borrowed a chaw and consarned his luck,
—Admitted he didn’t know what to do;
Sat down on a bank and looked so blue
He worried the people that passed, and they
Just turned their noses the other way.
Old Ammi Simmons muttered that he
Was a dite afraid of his whiffle-tree;
It was slivered some, “and there warn’t much
doubt
’Twould bust if he pulled that feller out.”
And Ira Dorsey, regretful and smug,
Would have helped had he brought his heavier
tug,
So he simply beamed a bright “good day”
And clucked to his team and rode away.
So thus they passed for an hour or two;
Many not noticing, while a few
Assured him they’d like to help him out
“If the rigging they had was only stout.”
Feller had thought he was up a stump, when
along drove Ivory Keller;
Saw the sunken hub,
Yelled, “What’s the troub?
Don’t ye want a lift there, feller?”
And the feller said that he did, you bet,
But said he had begged while he’d set and set,
And he hadn’t discovered a single man
Who’d give him a boost with an extra span.
“Why,” Ivory said, “that’s jest my holt.
That off hoss there ain’t more’n a colt,
And it’s hardly an extry pulling pair,
But it’s youm for what it’s worth, I swear.
For I’ve got a home-made sort of a rule
—Won’t kick a cripple nor sass a fool,
And when I find that a feller’s stuck
—A side-tracked chap down on his luck—
Why, bless you, neighbor, in jest about
Two shakes of a sheep’s tail I yank him out.”
And the very next thing that the feller knew
Old Ivory busted a chain or two,
But the horse and the colt and the gay old man
Bent to the job till the clogged wheels ran,
—Tugged and buckled with hearty will
Till the cart rolled over the tough old hill.
Then the feller begged him to take some pay,
But the old man chuckled and shoved him
away;
“Why, bub, see here,” said Ivory Keller,
“I’m a tollable busy son of a gun,
And this is the way I squeeze in fun,
—Grab in same’s this and help a feller.”