New-York tribune., 1922-08-05
The To.wer
THE MAD TOM ROAD

THE MAD TOM ROAD
THEY want to close the Mad Tom
Road
That climbs the gorge to Derry,
And rnts that knew the logging load
Will SOON grow up with berry.
"a hundred water bars" they say,
ITO keep repaired each melting
spring,
With scarce team from day to day,
Would surely be foolish thing"
Oh, they will not remember long,
When once the road grows lost
and blind,
The haunting spell its mad brooks
song
Could cast upon an errant mind.
The amber pools, as deep as doubt,
Foam-fecked and russell in the
shade,
Where once they sought for lurking
trout
| From rural memories will fade.
And when they hear the storm at
| night,
| And by the fire have dreamed and
dozed,
| They'll stir and think again, how
right,
How fortunate that road is closed.
When apple trees are sweet with
bloom
The wives will talk of bleaching
days."
And stay indoors with mop and
broom
And never see the white birch haze
That stirs against the cloudless sky,
Or pause to hear the distant sound
Of Mad Toms laughter, leaping
high
Across the rocks, with mirth un-
bound.
But I will idle in the sun,
And turn the thought that leases
me,
That constant in my head must run :
Is Mad Tom mad-or is it we?
MARGARET STEEL HARD.
And noa0 they're going to havo an
overlord of literature! With our drinks
and our books and our films and our
baseball and our plays all presided over
By benevolent despots aUe probably wiu
do aWag auth q President in feau
gears and merely select Supreme Lord |
of tho Overlords.
Possibly the standards of humanity
have degenerated to such an extent
that we must be fed only on carefully
supervised information and amusement
Probably we were entirely wrong in
our vague belief that man was strug-
Cling toward a still remote social con-
dition in which he would be permitted
to read and think and see and speak
whatever he pleased and be judged ac-
cordingly by his fellows.
We ara beginning to appreciate our
error. Man is deteriorating, not an
advancing, critter, and the only way
to save him from his backsliding tend
ency is to choose those persons still
bearing a faint resemblance to their
Maker as vice-gods to shepherd the
minds of men and see they feed upon
nothing but the most innocuous ma
terial.
Up through the ages of gold and
bronze and iron and steel we have
come and now are standing upon the
threshold of a new era of predigested
mental fodder - the age of Korn
Peaches.
Yet somewhere in the background of
the race there stands a shadowy host |
that took its food raw and dripping,
when and where it pleased. There
were stomach aches and bilious spells |
and other unpleasant manifestations.
But out of these discomforts there
grew wisdom and inspiration and light.
Perhaps we should have come further
J" 1He HrSt lHhaDlCanC OF Eden mad |
been an overlord of the Tree Of For
hidden Fruit. Yet, as we remember our
Bible, the indications are that we
wouldn't have gone anywhere at all,
but remained quiescent for eternity in
the loins of a docile, meek First Man,
kept from sin by the Original Censor
Sometimes, even here in the dawn
of the Age of Korn Peaches, we seem
to hear far-off murmur arising from
the dim ancestral ranks. 1t sounds
little like ironic laughter.
The fact that only is of Eli "picture
brides" who recently drrived from
Greece haze been married, so far, can