HARDWOOD RECORD 





old mill dam 

 years ago? 



pond mmense, 

 so slow? 



, ^v, j„„ .....w...„^. _,„_r swimming, 



^ And on a rail, how hard you tried — 



Your elation and pride that first time 

 When you swam to the other side? 



Don't you remember the cat tails, 

 And in the rushes a big bull-frog— 

 That green, yellow=throated old fellow 

 Who sat on a half sunken log ? 

 How hard you tried to catch him 

 Hook baited with flannel of red. 

 But with croak and leap he'd elude you 

 As he plunged to his watery bed. 



Do you remember the old time sawmill 

 Which ran with a wheel for its power. 

 Propelled by the dammed up waters, 

 And sawed up a log in an hour? 

 How they'd roll a log on the carriage 

 And with crow-bar straighten it out, 

 Then hammer in dogs at both ends 

 To keep it from shifting about? 



You surely remember those whistles |5 

 From the branch of a willow tree, >n 



How you pounded hard with a jack knife 

 To loosen the bark good and free. 

 Have you ever since heard music, 

 Chord responsive — 'tuned to joy — 

 That could compare in melody 

 With the whistles made when a boy? 



Recall when you went out fishing 

 On your head an old straw hat. 

 With a two pronged stick for a stringer 

 Filled with sun=fish, perch and cat; 

 Then perchance you had an eel. 

 If allowed to stay out at night; 

 The old mill dam had most everything 

 That would give a boy delight. 



But don't go back to see it again. 

 You should rather to memory trust 

 And live over again your boyhood days. 

 In soliloquy, if you must. 

 Things that seemed big to you years ago 

 Will have shrunken, seem small to=day- 

 The frogs, the fish, the old mill dam. 

 Where a boy you loved to play. 



The green, yellow-throated old bull=frog 



You tried your best to hook. 



Will now sit under a sapling 



At the edge of a narrow brook. 



The dam you managed to swim 



With the help of a rail to ride. 



Will have shrunken so that nowadays 



You could leap to the other side. 



Instead of a stick for a stringer 



That held your fish when a boy. 



It's a nickled thing at the end of a string 



That nowadays you'll employ; 



And the willow tree of your whistles 



Long fallen from age and decay. 



As well as the old-time sawmill 



Have both been taken away. 



Van B. Perrine. 



