We slept that night among the granite shelves, and the pine-roots roared as they burned, and the great rocks beside the fire cracked under the heat with a sort of earthquake thud which registered a buffet on our bodies ten yards away.
We stayed four days in this wonderful spot, and I became fascinated with log-rolling. Even Vachel, with his ankle, hobbled after me and tried to do it too. We talked of political and literary log-rolling, log-rolling for one’s friends. “I’m all for it,” said the poet. “Log-rolling is a virtue.”
Then he recounted to me the origin of the expression—log-rolling. “It is a Western term,” said the poet. “It also comes from the life of the pioneers. You know how it was; the settler chose the site of his log-cabin or of his new barn, and then went into the forest and felled the number of trees necessary, and he left them lying where they had fallen, and then called his friends together for a festive occasion. They all worked together for him, and rolled his logs to the most convenient spot where they could be piled to make his home. Of course he always gave his friends a luncheon first, and then they went off and rolled his logs home for him.”
“And I like that,” said the poet. “No man can hope to do much in this world without the help of friends. And I for one would not want to.”
Go to it then, ye log-rollers of the literary world, ye friends, we’ll lunch ye, we’ll give you, coffee with a kick of a mule in it, and fried corned-beef hash fit for the best friend of the Grand Vizier’s cook. And he, as you know, fares better than the Sultan himself.
Who rolled home Shakespeare’s logs?
We did: we helped to do it.
All the world has given a hand.
Were they lunched first?