The Broken Wheel
We found the car beneath a tree.
"The steering knuckle broke," said he;
"The driver's dead; they say his wife
Will be an invalid for life.
I wonder how the man must feel
Who made that faulty steering wheel."
It seemed a curious thought, and I
Sat thinking, as the cars went by,
About the man who made the wheel
And shaped that knuckle out of steel;
I tried to visualize the scene—
The man, the steel and the machine.
Perhaps the workman never saw
An indication of the flaw;
Or, seeing it, he fancied it
Would not affect his work a bit,
And said: "It's good enough to go—
I'll pass it on. They'll never know."
"It's not exactly to my best
But it may pass the final test;
And should it break, no man can know
It was my hand that made it so.
The thing is faulty, but perhaps
We'll never hear it when it snaps."
Of course the workman couldn't see
The mangled car beneath the tree,
The dead man, and the tortured wife
Doomed to a cripple's chair for life—
His chief concern was getting by
The stern inspector's eager eye.
Perhaps he whistles on his way
Into the factory to-day
And doesn't know the ruin wrought
By just one minute's careless thought.
Yet human life is held at stake
By nearly all that toilers make.
The Tender Blossoms