Whittling

John Pierpont (1785–1866)

A National Portrait

THE YANKEE boy, before he ’s sent to school,

Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool,

The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye

Turns, while he hears his mother’s lullaby;

His hoarded cents he gladly gives to get it,

Then leaves no stone unturned till he can whet it;

And in the education of the lad

No little part that implement hath had.

His pocket-knife to the young whittler brings

A growing knowledge of material things.

Projectiles, music, and the sculptor’s art,

His chestnut whistle and his shingle dart,

His elder popgun with its hickory rod,

Its sharp explosion and rebounding wad,

His cornstalk fiddle, and the deeper tone

That murmurs from his pumpkin-stalk trombone,

Conspire to teach the boy. To these succeed

His bow, his arrow of a feathered seed,

His windmill, raised the passing breeze to win,

His water-wheel, that turns upon a pin;

Or, if his father lives upon the shore,

You ’ll see his ship, “beam ends upon the floor,”

Full rigged with raking masts, and timbers stanch,

And waiting near the wash-tub for a launch.

Thus by his genius and his jack-knife driven,

Erelong he ’ll solve you any problem given;

Make any gimcrack musical or mute,

A plough, a couch, an organ or a flute;

Make you a locomotive or a clock,

Cut a canal, or build a floating-dock,

Or lead forth Beauty from a marble block;—

Make anything in short, for sea or shore,

From a child’s rattle to a seventy-four;—

Make it, said I?—Ay, when he undertakes it,

He ’ll make the thing and the machine that makes it.

And when the thing is made,—whether it be

To move on earth, in air, or on the sea;

Whether on water, o’er the waves to glide,

Or upon land to roll, revolve, or slide;

Whether to whirl or jar, to strike or ring,

Whether it be a piston or a spring,

Wheel, pulley, tube sonorous, wood or brass,

The thing designed shall surely come to pass;

For, when his hand ’s upon it, you may know

That there ’s go in it, and he ’ll make it go.