THE AXE-HELVE
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've known ere now an interfering branchOf alder catch my lifted axe behind me.But that was in the woods, to hold my handFrom striking at another alder's roots,And that was, as I say, an alder branch.This was a man, Baptiste, who stole one dayBehind me on the snow in my own yardWhere I was working at the chopping-block,And cutting nothing not cut down already.He caught my axe expertly on the rise,When all my strength put forth was in his favor,Held it a moment where it was, to calm me,Then took it from me--and I let him take it.I didn't know him well enough to knowWhat it was all about. There might be somethingHe had in mind to say to a bad neighborHe might prefer to say to him disarmed.But all he had to tell me in French-EnglishWas what he thought of--not me, but my axe;Me only as I took my axe to heart.It was the bad axe-helve some one had sold me--"Made on machine," he said, ploughing the grainWith a thick thumbnail to show how it ranAcross the handle's long drawn serpentine,Like the two strokes across a dollar sign."You give her one good crack, she's snap raght off.Den where's your hax-ead flying t'rough de hair?"Admitted; and yet, what was that to him? "Come on my house and I put you one inWhat's las' awhile--good hick'ry what's grow crooked,De second growt' I cut myself--tough, tough!"
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