Joe worked all day with shovel in hand,
\nDigging a hole on the back of our land.
\nBehind our cabin so neat and tight,
\nNow he carries her out and lays her low
\nWith trembling voice and words said slow
\nHe covers her up and goes in for the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
She did not play with me since I don\u2019t know when,
\nJust stayed in the bed and got ever more thin.
\nHe\u2019d stopped taking me with him on his daily run
\nLeaving me here to comfort her some,
\nBut she coughed and coughed while peace would not come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this morn\u2019 she\u2019s out back under a dusting of snow,
\nAnd Joe\u2019s getting food \u2013 I\u2019ll guess we\u2019ll both go.
\nBut first he visits her in her new bed
\nHis face is crunched up and he keeps patting the snow
\nLike he wants to be with her and see her some more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now we head through the woods to old Maco Station
\nI know the path well without hesitation.
\nWe then wait by the tracks for old Number 7
\nTo come rumbling in and lurch to a stop
\nWhen he checks all the bearings and couplings up top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We board the caboose and he stokes up the fire
\nSo we don\u2019t get cold til the sun climbs higher.
\nThe day\u2019s run is quiet and I watch his eyes water
\nAs he sits being rocked by the clickety-clack
\nWhile the big eight-wheeler pounds down the track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s late night now, and we\u2019re on the run back
\nWhen he snatches a lantern from off of the rack.
\nI feel we\u2019re not moving and the engine noise fades
\nSo we must be decoupled and dead on the rail
\nBut the passenger express will soon catch our tail<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Old Joe jumps down and runs down the track
\nTo signal the express to brake fast without slack
\nHe runs quite a ways and I try to keep up
\nAnd the flying express, at last sees his light
\nThe brakes slam on hard, the scene\u2019s such a fright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the very last second old Joe stumbles down
\nAnd the screaming express drowns out his last sound.
\nHelpless I run to see about Joe
\nBut his legs are here and his chest is right there
\nI find his head and get a hank of white hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am sure that he wants to go home for a rest
\nIt\u2019s not far through these woods, I think this is best.
\nI arrive a bit tired carrying Joe by his hair
\nBut the door to our house is locked up so tight
\nThen I get an idea of what he would like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I take him round back where he\u2019d laid her to bed,
\nAnd dig down beside her and drop in Joe\u2019s head.
\nThen I cover them back with the dirt and the snow.
\nNow I crawl under the house to get out of the wind
\nTo wait for the morrow and seek a new friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe worked all day with shovel in hand, Digging a hole on the back of our land. Behind our cabin so neat and tight, Now he carries her out and lays her low With trembling voice and words said slow He covers her up and goes in for the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,1],"tags":[45,53],"class_list":["post-1206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-k-12","category-learning-and-education","category-uncategorized","tag-joe-baldwin","tag-maco-light"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}