THE GRINDSTONE OF FATE.
By Roy Farrell Greene
[Roy Farrell Greene, in November Success.] ONE day when I, a boy, bewailed the wealth to me denied,
I recollect my Uncle Hiram taking me aside
To chide me for my petulance, and whisper in my ear
A bit of homespun logic and some facts designed to cheer. "My boy," he said, "in after years you'll recognize that strife,
Unceasing toil, and poverty equip one best for life;
For men, like tools, don't get an edge on things as smooth as wax,
It's just the grindstone's roughness, lad, that sharpens up the ax. " 'Twas Lincoln's task of splitting rails, his buffeting by fate
In early life, that made him fit to steer the Ship of
State.
A tow-path life proved Garfield's steel, a tan-yard's pleasures scant
And weary round of work brought out the best there was in Grant.
If each had held within his mouth, when born, a silver spoon,
And had not been so ground by fate the whole of life's forenoon,
Their brains that keenness would have lacked to probe prosaic facts,—
It's just the grindstone's roughness, lad, that sharpens up the ax. "If things went always smooth with you," my Uncle Hiram vowed,
"You'd go through life unknown and undistinguished from the crowd,
More apt than not; while rasping want and grinding work, I've found,
Will sharpen wits that steps may cleave to fortune's higher ground.
The wearing stones of fate that seem your progress to retard
You'll some day bless, and thank the world for bearing down so hard.
The grit that puts an edge on is just what success exacts,—
It's just the grindstone's roughness, lad, that sharpens up the ax!"