, 1925-12-02
THE EPIC OF THE WHITE
Dedicated to an Honest Truck and Its Determined Owne
Ned Frost

Let others tune their Tyres to Helenrs nuptial wrong.
Or brave Ulysses honor in glorious ode and song;
Recount the far flung wanderings of Aeneas the bold
And sing a note to Genghis. he, of heroic mould.
Let bards crate of Arthur. his knights and famous table.
of Hercules. Horaius, and Hecter known in fable;
1 sing of lesser folk, a simple, humble White,
Proud victor for over ten years against the mountain might.
And all who would this gallant story hear
Draw round, and praise the White that knew n o fear.
A simple tale of quiet men and things,
A truck well buckled by barbed wire and strings;
No tires. batteries. spark plugs. air. oil or gas,
Facing alone and unafraid. a hideous morass.
Equipment shattered, carbureator, headlights gone;
Fighting the deadly gumbo from night until the morn.
Eight valiant cars had started-now sunk and out of sight.
Losers in one short battle on dark Meeteetse's height.
All passed by White, a s headlong to the fray she sped:
Unmindful of eight skeletons, dread spectrals of the dead.
Myself have witnessed one fierce, headlong, reckless charge,
Accomplished by the White. that oh, most valiant barge.
AS from the towering heights where genial Hadley holds full sway
The dreaded winter SHOWS, wind scum and filth and mire,
The White emboldened battle. log chains o n every tire.
Up eerie mountain tops, the home of tabled sheep.
Struggling inch by inch her way, the noble White did creep.
Then into murky canons. the den of speckled trout
The White ploughed through and over while Frost gave forth a shout
The. whtte'd d. "r unc and N groan insured W Frost.s cusses.
At last the z Bar T is won, three hours full n noon.
The White here pants and STAINS and falls into a swoon.
The willy Frost, undaunted, does then her grief assuage
By gas enveigled somehow, from a cowhand of great age.
Again she's off and battling, a easy victory now
To gain far off Meeteetse, beloved of every COW;
And here an hour rest is made, before the heights W e soar,
While thru the air comes hurting, the dreaded gumbos roar.
On every ORR out tire, ten brand new Tugs r clamped.
And footbrake, spark plug. gas feed, r. and Ill revamped.
With face grim pale. determined. Ned Frost now takes his seat
And cries aloud to heaven I'VE must king gumbo beat"
The Ancients scon and jer him we've heard such prayers before,
Old gumbo ure will down you, just hear the critter roar,
Soon, soon, with arms that throttle, old gumbo will sink your tub
A fate that's overtaken full many a nerveless dub"
But now the White once more surcharged, with water, gas and oil,
Makes light of every mountain and mincemeat of the soil.
Up and down about, around, leapng from crag to crag,
She makes her way to Dry Greek, near where they make the jag.
And there energies valiant, but tired. worn and dry.
While Frost again doth water, and her bullying sides retie.
Again with din and rattle. and crunch and groan. and clank,
She charges down the hillside. and rushes up a bank.
King gumbo now is desperate, and the craft and studied guile,
He makes Frost turn from a detour, while ahead the road doth smile
And now with motor roaring. White PUSHES to her fate,
A bottomless pit is yawning, W stop, Re grind, we crate;
No earthly power al saw her, old gumbo has her tight
And even Frost is ratified. though working with all his might.
Axes, spades and shovels. prove useless and thrown away,
Only a jack ca save her-it does-hooray! hooray!
Past Nash and Chevie, now vanquished, she storms into the night,
With nary a tire solid, and not one nut real tight;
And now into fair Cody. the diadem of the West,
The gallant White comes rushing, of all good trucks, the best.
A. P. o.