Part 1 (2/2)

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That was for spokes and floor and sills; He sent for lancewood to make the thills; The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese, But lasts like iron for things like these; The hubs of logs from the ”Settler's ellum,”-- Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em, Never an axe had seen their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lip Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died.

That was the way he ”put her through.”

”There!” said the Deacon, ”naow she'll dew.”

Do! I tell you, I rather guess She was a wonder, and nothing less!

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[Ill.u.s.tration: ”She was a wonder, and nothing less”]

Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, Deacon and deaconess dropped away, Children and grandchildren--where were they?

But there stood the stout old one-hoss-shay As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

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Eighteen Hundred;--it came and found The Deacon's Masterpiece strong and sound.

Eighteen hundred increased by ten;-- ”Hahnsum kerridge” they called it then.

Eighteen hundred and twenty came;-- Running as usual; much the same.

Thirty and forty at last arrive, And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

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Little of all we value here Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer.

In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth.

(This is a moral that runs at large; Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.)

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First of November,--the Earthquake-day.-- There are traces of age in the one-hoss-shay, A general flavor of mild decay, But nothing local, as one may say.

There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art Had made it so like in every part That there wasn't a chance for one to start.

For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, And the floor was just as strong as the sills, And the panels just as strong as the floor, And the whippletree neither less nor more, And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, And spring and axle and hub _encore_, And yet, _as a whole_, it is past a doubt In another hour it will be _worn out_!

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