We have things with cogs and pulleys that will stack and bale the hay,
we have scarecrows automatic that will drive the crows away; we have
riding cultivators, so we may recline at ease, as we travel up the corn
rows, to the tune of haws and gees; we have engines pumping water,
running churns and grinding corn, and one farmer that I know of has a
big steam dinner horn; all of which is very pleasant to reflect upon, I
think, but we need a good contrivance that will teach the calves to
drink.
Now, as in the days of Noah, man must take a massive pail, loaded up
with milk denatured, with a dash of Adam's ale, and go down among the
calfkins as the lion tamer goes 'mong the monarchs of the jungle, at
the famous three-ring shows; and the calves are fierce and hungry, and
they haven't sense to wait, till he gets a good position and has got
his bucket straight; and they act as though they hadn't e'en a
glimmering of sense, for they climb upon his shoulders ere he is inside
the fence, and they butt him in the stomach, and they kick him
everywhere, till he thinks he'd give a nickel for a decent chance to
swear; then they all get underneath him and capsize him in the mud, and
the milk runs down his whiskers and his garments in a flood, and you
really ought to see him when he goes back to his home quoting divers
pagan authors and the bards of ancient Rome. And he murmurs while he's
washing mud off at the kitchen sink: "What we need is a contraption
that will teach the calves to drink!"
We've machinery for planting, we've machines to reap and thrash, and
the housewife has an engine that will grind up meat for hash; we've
machines to do our washing and to wring the laundered duds, we've
machines for making cider and to dig the Burbank spuds; all about the
modern farmstead you may hear the levers clink, but we're shy of a
contrivance that will teach the calves to drink!
THE STRONG MEN
Behold the man of muscle, who wears the victor's crown! In gorgeous
scrap and tussle he pinned the others down. His brawn stands out in
hummocks, he like a lion treads; he sits on foemen's stomachs and
stands them on their heads. The strong men of all regions, the mighty
men of note, come here in beefy legions to try to get his goat; with
cordial smiles he greets them, and when we've raised a pot, upon the
mat he meets them and ties them in a knot. From Russia's frozen acres,
from Grecian ports they sail, and Turkey sends her fakers to gather in
the kale; old brooding Europe breeds them, these mighty men of brawn;
our Strong Man takes and kneads them, and puts their hopes in pawn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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