The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1875-08-30
POETRY.
THE DEFECTIVE NAIL.
By THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.


BY THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.
Hooked at carpenter mailing one day :.
Some weatheIboards on in workmanlAke
way,
To q nail, which the moment before he had
And drawing it out, threw it by with jerk;
Took another instead, and went on with his
work.
aWhat's that for ?' asked him. "Haye nails
grown SO cheap
That you toss them away as TO worthless to
keep"
.'No." he answered, sit bent in the driving,
and SO,
Lest it make bad job, to the ground it must
draw while we're able,'' he said, with a
grin. :.
'.For we can't pull it out, once We hammer it
inn
When the nail had been followed by one that
was good,
Inoticed beside it dent in the wood.
The mark had been made by the base Of the
Through the strong force exerted the bent nail
to draw;
And there the depression, to eyesight quite
plain,
Though twice painted over, will doubtless re-
main.
No marvellous incident certainly; still
1t set me to thinking, as little things will,
How habits, like nails, be they wrong ones or
right.
Can't be drawn from their places when nam
mered in tight
And, though drawn ere they sink Ito the head,
leave behind
By their drawing, some traces on body and
mind.
When y young man seeks money, and nothing
And, quoting Ben Franklin his meanness to
hide,
Does small things for pelf and, with muck
rake in hand,
Shows the crown overhead, petty gains to COM
mand.
Though it end in that wealth he is anxious to
He has struck a bent NAIL and has hammered
itin..
When a dashing young man, at the outset Of
life,
Who has won some pure maiden, and made
her his wife,
Leaves his home and his wife for some low,
murky den,
When he drinks and carouses with dissolute
men,
1 The nail he is driving may crooken to sin;
Better pull it out quickly not hammer it in.
when some neighbor of those sees their faults
through glass,
That makes them too large for the censor TO
pass,
Ind, with sense of tn FIR wickedness, right
eously hot,
Calls one a mere miser, the other sot-
L. Al. l.
Like corkscrew twilltwist if he hammer it in.
When girl shows the world that she surely
thinks less
OF her culture and conduct than gadding and
dress;
When she, she eagerly seeks for confab with
Whose talk solely runs upon dresses and
beauX,
Neglecting home duties some street yarn to
spin
That nail will give trouble if once hammered
When wife finds her temper grow peevsh
and sour,
And the tones that once charmed her have lost
all their power;
When she scolds till her husband, in fury and
pain,
Like fool, in whisky seeks oblivion to gam
( 1WtIe OttteE ny laT uiu she never DeSlu
+ To tap on that nail, much less hammer it in.
When some woman-wife, widow or spinster
: the same
Too eager to blow the dull Goals to flame,
The faults OF her sisters brings closer to view
Calling this one street gadder, and that one s
shrew,
Her nail has flaw, is ill-shapen and thin,
As she'll find to her cost when she hammers i
in.
Enough for the lesson. The nails that ",
drive,
Not through boards that are pulseless, bu
frames that are live,
Examine them WE'LL closely scan ere too late;
Should they prove Of firm mental, well.
and quite straight,
Regardless OF sneering, or clamor. or din,
Place each where itshould be, and hammer