The Other Man’s Lot

From the Rock Island Argus, June 9, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 Each day he watched the trains go by;
     He’d pause behind his plow to gaze,
 And many a time he heaved a sigh
     And thought he wasted precious days;
 The breeze blew sweetly from the sky,
     His flocks and herds grazed on the slopes,
 But, turning when the trains went past,
 His countenance was overcast
     And envy blighted all his hopes.
 
 His children played among the trees,
     His fields were wide and rich and green;
 A thousand things were there to please
     By adding beauty to the scene.
 But, longing for the sight of seas
     And far-off mountains looming high,
 A dozen times a day he turned
 And in his bosom envy burned
     What time he watched the trains go by.
 
 He looked across his acres wide
     And saw his billowy fields of wheat,
 And heard the thundering trains and sighed,
     Although the breeze was soft and sweet.
 And many a weary one who spied
     Him standing out there brown and grim
 Thought of his freedom from all care,
 Thought of his independence there,
     And, riding onward, envied him.