_'Tis the mother call that lures you on, As wanderers still you roam, The mother call to the pioneer, Inanimate, sad, alone; 'Tis the mother call, and you follow The men who have wrought and gone; 'Tis the mother lovingly calling The soul of her youngest born._ THE RODMAN'S DREAM I dreamed that the trumpet had sounded, The Judgment we went to on high, By bands of the angels surrounded, We hurried away to the sky; Some fellows wore scared-looking faces, And some had a wondering look, But stood all arranged in our places, And watched as they opened the book. We never had read much about it, And seldom attended the kirk, The judgment we heard, never doubt it, Was, "Man should be judged by his work"; We hadn't done much we were proud of, Except for the road or the mine, But Mac said, if it was allowed of, We'd build them a heavenly line. The draughtsman was fitted with paper They took from the memory book, The transit and stand came from Peter, Who down on the earth used to look: The rod was supplied and a level. With one other thing to get yet, The chain we got loaned from the devil, And hubs we proceeded to set. We hunted the children of Israel, And ordered them out on the line, And Aaron, with Jonah and Ishmael, All helped us to build it on time; We fixed up the Ark for a cookshack, Installing the devil as cook, We knew he could fix up the hard tack, From reading of him in the book. We tore up the golden pavements, And sighted through jasper walls, Upsetting the angels' arrangements, And shocking their ears with our calls. Lot handled a back-flagging picket, The rod Moses used at the rock, And put a B.M. at the wicket, Where incoming pilgrims would knock. Mere Eve watched, with angels beside her, As Adam the foreman we made; And took the Pale Horse and his rider To drive a machine on the grade. I've worked on the C.P. and others, And often seen queer-looking sights; But laughed when the Zebedee brothers Drove mules in the heavenly heights. King Solomon sent us a tender, A house for the agent to build, And Matthew, our legal defender, Saw specifications were filled; We put up a gold cantilever, O'erspanning the Valley of Rest, And hunted up old Shalmanezar, For laying the steel in the West. We worked, for we knew it depended Where we should Eternity spend; Our future we stoutly defended, The line that we made at The End. That grade never needed inspection, Such filling we never had seen; Pure silver and gold for a section, With radium stuffed in between.