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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Deacon's Masterpiece Or, The Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay": A Logical Story</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, <br>That was built in such a logical way<br>It ran a hundred years to a day,<br>And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay,<br>I'll tell you what happened without delay,<br>Scaring the parson into fits,<br>Frightening people out of their wits, --<br>Have you ever heard of that, I say?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.<br>Georgius Secundus was then alive, --<br>Snuffy old drone from the German hive.<br>That was the year when Lisbon-town<br>Saw the earth open and gulp her down,<br>And Braddock's army was done so brown,<br>Left without a scalp to its crown.<br>It was on the terrible Earthquake-day<br>That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,<br>There is always somewhere a weakest spot, --<br>In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,<br>In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,<br>In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, -- lurking still,<br>Find it somewhere you must and will, --<br>Above or below, or within or without, --<br>And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,<br>A chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,<br>With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou")<br>He would build one shay to beat the taown<br>'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';<br>It should be so built that it could n' break daown:<br>"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t 's mighty plain<br>Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;<br>'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,<br>Is only jest<br>T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">So the Deacon inquired of the village folk<br>Where he could find the strongest oak,<br>That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, --<br>That was for spokes and floor and sills;<br>He sent for lancewood to make the thills;<br>The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,<br>The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,<br>But lasts like iron for things like these;<br>The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," --<br>Last of its timber, -- they could n't sell 'em,<br>Never an axe had seen their chips,<br>And the wedges flew from between their lips,<br>Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;<br>Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,<br>Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,<br>Steel of the finest, bright and blue;<br>Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;<br>Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide<br>Found in the pit when the tanner died.<br>That was the way he "put her through." <br>"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Do! I tell you, I rather guess<br>She was a wonder, and nothing less!<br>Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,<br>Deacon and deaconess dropped away,<br>Children and grandchildren -- where were they?<br>But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay<br>As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; -- it came and found<br>The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.<br>Eighteen hundred increased by ten; --<br>"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.<br>Eighteen hundred and twenty came; --<br>Running as usual; much the same.<br>Thirty and forty at last arrive,<br>And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Little of all we value here<br>Wakes on the morn of its hundreth year<br>Without both feeling and looking queer.<br>In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,<br>So far as I know, but a tree and truth.<br>(This is a moral that runs at large;<br>Take it. -- You're welcome. -- No extra charge.)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">FIRST OF NOVEMBER, -- the Earthquake-day, --<br>There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,<br>A general flavor of mild decay,<br>But nothing local, as one may say.<br>There could n't be, -- for the Deacon's art<br>Had made it so like in every part<br>That there was n't a chance for one to start.<br>For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,<br>And the floor was just as strong as the sills,<br>And the panels just as strong as the floor,<br>And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,<br>And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,<br>And spring and axle and hub encore.<br>And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt<br>In another hour it will be worn out!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">First of November, 'Fifty-five!<br>This morning the parson takes a drive.<br>Now, small boys, get out of the way!<br>Here comes the wonderful one-horse shay,<br>Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.<br>"Huddup!" said the parson. -- Off went they.<br>The parson was working his Sunday's text, --<br>Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed<br>At what the -- Moses -- was coming next.<br>All at once the horse stood still,<br>Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.<br>First a shiver, and then a thrill,<br>Then something decidedly like a spill, --<br>And the parson was sitting upon a rock,<br>At half past nine by the meet'n-house clock, --<br>Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!<br>What do you think the parson found,<br>When he got up and stared around?<br>The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,<br>As if it had been to the mill and ground!<br>You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,<br>How it went to pieces all at once, --<br>All at once, and nothing first, --<br>Just as bubbles do when they burst.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=472549" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.<br>Logic is logic. That's all I say.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Oliver+Wendell+Holmes">Oliver Wendell Holmes</a></strong></div>