| |
| THE BUZZ-SAW snarled and rattled in the yard | |
| And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, | |
| Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. | |
| And from there those that lifted eyes could count | |
| Five mountain ranges one behind the other | 5 |
| Under the sunset far into Vermont. | |
| And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, | |
| As it ran light, or had to bear a load. | |
| And nothing happened: day was all but done. | |
| Call it a day, I wish they might have said | 10 |
| To please the boy by giving him the half hour | |
| That a boy counts so much when saved from work. | |
| His sister stood beside them in her apron | |
| To tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw, | |
| As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, | 15 |
| Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap— | |
| He must have given the hand. However it was, | |
| Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! | |
| The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh, | |
| As he swung toward them holding up the hand | 20 |
| Half in appeal, but half as if to keep | |
| The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all— | |
| Since he was old enough to know, big boy | |
| Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart— | |
| He saw all spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off— | 25 |
| The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!” | |
| So. But the hand was gone already. | |
| The doctor put him in the dark of ether. | |
| He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. | |
| And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright. | 30 |
| No one believed. They listened at his heart. | |
| Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it. | |
| No more to build on there. And they, since they | |
| Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs. | |
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