LOOK OUT FOR YOUR THUMB
Hindsight is clearer than foresight,
But foresight is better and safer, old chap.
Experiment teaches, but common sense reaches
And tests the bright baubles in Dame Future’s
lap.
I’m telling you what Eph Landers did
The time that the critter lost his fid.
He was sort of a quick, impulsive man;
—When others walked, he always ran.
He never waited to calmly view,
But he got right up and slam-banged through.
Believed that the moments a feller took
To give the future a good square look
Was simply so much wasted time;
His plan was, “Never look up; just climb.”
He was yankin’ boulders a week ago
And things got balky and movin’ slow.
He strung the chain ’round a good big rock
And found that he lost the little block
To catch the link; it’s used instid
Of a hook and link, and it’s called a fid.
And Eph, he held the unhooked chain
By the ends, and he looked and he got profane.
But he couldn’t find it and wouldn’t wait,
—He was mad as a bug and desperate,
And the crack-brained critter—what do ye
think?
Why, he stuck his thumb in the unhooked link.
He didn’t consider that ’twarn’t his fid,
But the oxen started—and then he did!
He see’d his mistake, as most men do,
When the deed is done and the thing is through:
You stick your thumb where it don’t belong
And the world will yank it, good and strong.
Hindsight is clearer than foresight,
But you’d better ask foresight to give ye a
point;
Or, first thing you’re knowin’, Old World will be
goin’,
And he’ll laugh while you howl with your thumb
out of joint.