Huldah Lucile Winsted

“ Gifts the most precious, and gold cannot pay
For friendship once broken.
It’s vanished for aye!—
Keep clear the path to your friend’s heart, I pray!
Weeds of forgetfulness soon choke the way;
Pass that way often; keep polished, I pray,
The flagstones that guide you down friendship’s own way! ”

“ They put them discreetly away.
They’re the workers, the lifters of burdens,—who dare
To fight for the right if need be,
Alone ’gainst a world—
And defiance they hurl
To all tyrants wherever they be.
You have met these three classes of people, I’m sure,
As you’ve traveled adown life’s way—
The folks with their wish-bone enormously grown,
And the “jaw-bones,” who talk all the day.—
And I know you have shunned them,
As others have done
From the day that time began,
But you’ve hailed with delight,
And you’ve longed for the sight
Of the steady, quiet, “back-boned” man. ”

“ The tepee’s gone, the peace pipe and the dance,
Gone, gone, alas! forever,
The Red Man’s fighting chance.
[Pg 17] For pale face came, and from Dakota’s plain
The Red Man drove, and claimed his vast domain;
No power on earth could stay the Viking’s son,
For “iron men” are born
In the land of midnight sun.
* * * *
Onward they came, these Northmen, feared of old,
Bold pioneers, to wrest the hidden gold
From North Dakota’s hills and virgin sod;
The ploughshare won the land
For these “master men” of God. ”