University of Missouri College of Engineering - Shamrock Yearbook (Columbia, MO)

Page 33 text:

' W shmoe? ' ' The car is smashed to splinters, which pleases the engineer, While you stand and swear in chorus, but only the night winds hear. So you shoulder the blasted transit, the picket, axe and chain, And start to tramp it homrewards, a dozen miles in the rain. At last, when the stars are shining, and the moon is swinging low, You reach the cars on the siding, foot-sore and full of woe, You kick while you eat your supper, you'grouse when you go to bed, And curse all night at the chap who snores, and wish that you were dead. But somehow, in the morning, you wake as .fresh as paint, e Although last night you thought the life would demoralize a saint: ' And you gather the junk together, and out on the line you go, For another day's hard labour, in rain, or sun, or snow. But to-day is no track traverse, it's Township lines in the bush, . And your axe bites deep of the cedar, and down she comes with a rush. You splash your way through the muskeg, you 'Hounder across the creek And flies and skeeters drink -their fill till you feel .too mad to speak. But it's not bad work in the summer, it's rather finein the fall, ' . But in the good old winter it's the greatest job of all, ' With frozen ears and fingers, and nose that you cannot feel, You laugh aloud with your stihfened lips, for your doing the work that's real. And so it was in the Beginning, and so it is to-day, And so it shall be to the end of things, when you are taken away, Until you are made into Angels, with transit, and tape and chain, You will work for the dame-d'old C. P. R., World without End. - ' Amen. ' Thirty-Three

Page 32 text:

' ' JXQN ---XQQL-'E F iw x, Xxiixigfe e' shigqiofk reserve The Rhymes of the Re-Survey By R. Sidney Bartram. PART I. g Now this- is the tale of the labours performed by a survey gang Away in the back of the wild lanes, where nobody cares a hang! . Where the brown bear prowls in the thicket, and the screech owl splits the night, u . And skunks and other blossoms sweet, yield scents of rare delight. When grey the dawn is breaking, your duties 'are begun, Throughout the hours of daylight you labor with the sung And when the shadows lengthen, and the stars are shining bright, You take a shot at the polar star in the middle of the night. You sleep in a dis-used box car, on a bed of boughs of spruce, But there's nothing to get by kicking, so what in hell's the use? You dine on pork and cabbage, 'on pork and beans you sup, And there's pork next day for a breakfast, dish, to clear the remnants up. You pump a rusty hand-car for seven miles down the track, And the sweat runs into your eyebrows, and you long to ease your back. With picket, chain and transit, you run the traverse through For seven miles, or maybe ten, as much as you can do. You sit on a rotting deadfall, and open a can of pork, And eat a hasty dinner, with fingers for a fork.,' Then on you go with the traverse, as hard as you can push, ' Till the shades of night are falling fast, o'er swamip and track and bush. And then you hurry homeward, to the supper waiting-there, And think of your lousy spruce-bunk, and the sleep that knows no care: But, swinging round a rock-cut, you 'make a meet with a freight, And Safety First is a maxim sound, so you leave the Cal- to its fate Ill!

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ln' PART II. T The Next World T Now this is the fate of surveyors, who love their beerbtoo well, They must do their work in Hades, surveying the bounds of hell, . They must blaze their trail through the darkness, they must run the Line of Regret, ' ' Till the Hubs of Hell are planted well, and the Devil's Corner set. And this is the fate of the Draughtsman, a -red hot compass and pen And a red hot clraughting table, for ever 'and ever. Amen. He must draw the Things as he sees It, with a Flag on every Hub, Till a white hot print of the Bounds of Hell is passed by Beegelbub. And the Picketmen and Chainmen must set a witness stake, Well squared and truly numbered, in the midst of the Burning Lake They must drag the chain forever, and .measure every lot Through bush that burns but never wastes, and swamp that's always hot. And the Cook who cooked their dinner, oh! what shall be his fate? Shall he stand beside the furnace door, and fill a fiery plate? Oh, no, he shall stand in the corner, away from- the furnace heat. He had it hot on the cook car, so now he shall cool his feet. For surveyors and all their outfit are sinners ,beyond recall, They hold no law but the law of might, which gives to the mightiest all. So he who has learned his lesson, who has served his year and a day May sin to the full of his heart's content, and none shall say him lNlay. But the Devil stands in the Gates of Hell, to see who each may be, When an O. L. S. is sighted, he rubs his hands with glee, He calls aloud to his stokers, Ha, stoke the furnace- Wejj Here's another surveyor coming along, we must make him ,hot in hellf' ll 1 3 'l 6