Eliphalet Jones--Inventor

Inventor Jones--Eliphalet Jones,

Ah, he was the fellow for schemes!

Though critics might carp and his rivals throw stones,

They never vexed Uncle Eliphalet Jones,

Or troubled his radiant dreams.

He calmly asserted that every day One hundred inventions, or so, came his way; They flocked through his mind in such myriad rout

He hadn’t the leisure to figure them out.

But he said if a fellow should chase him around With a pencil and notebook’twould surely be found

That projects prolific were shed from his brain As a wet bush, when shaken, will scatter the rain.

When he plowed, when he hoed, when he sowed, when he mowed He was steadily throwing off load after load Of notions, he stated--each notion a mint For the chap who would take and develop the hint.

But Eliphalet Jones--Eliphalet Jones Was so busy with farmwork and clearing off stones,

So busy with milking and errands and chores He scattered inventions by dozens and scores With a liberal hand, but with barren effect, For they dried on the cold, arid sands of neglect.

But for all he forgot he would cheerfully say There were always as many the very next day. And he figured it up; though enormous it seems

He had fashioned and fired some ten thousand schemes.

Now, out of that number a limited few Eliphalet tackled and engineered through;

A few little notions right out of his head To help out the farmwork, he carelessly said. One patent, a holder to hitch a cow’s tail So she couldn’t keep swatting the man with the pail;

A few dozen scarecrows of hellish design,

Real impish constructions to jig on a line That was jerked by a water-wheel down in the brook;

All the horses that passed, if they got a good look

Tumbled down stiff and dead or else, frantic with fear,

Kicked the wagon in bits and spun’round on one ear.

And he rigged a contrivance by which ev’ry morn

His old Brahma rooster descending for corn, Stepped down on a lever that flipped up a lock

And down came the fodder in front of the stock.

Still, these were but puerile notions beside

The thing that he hoped for--his spur and his pride,

His climax of schemes ere he went back to dust--

For he vowed that he’d fathom the secret or “bust;”

That if motion perpetual ever could be

Discovered by mortal, that man should be he.

So he fussed with his springs and his wee-jees and wings

And all sorts of queer little duflicker things,

And he builded queer whiz-a-jigs, then with a frown

He ruthlessly, scornfully cuffed them all down.

Well, the years hurried by, as the years surely will,

But Eliphalet Jones he was confident still,

For he constantly vowed that some thingumy spring

Put somewhere “would settle the dad-ratted thing.”

Yet the years skittered past and his head was snow-white

And he almost had solved it, but never “jest quite;”

So the neighbors employed some satirical tones

When they chanced to refer to Perpetual Jones.

But hail to his name and remember his fame!

At the last--at the last, friends, he won the great game!

He died at the birth of his triumph,’tis true,

And he left only words--yet I give them to you,

Convinced they’re a gift to the world, without doubt,

Or will be as soon as the thing is worked out.

He sat in his chair by the window one day

While his grandson was out with a puppy at play;

And the boy hitched some meat to the tail of that pup,

Then he gave him a twirl and the puppy “gee- ed up,”

And he spun and he spun and he spun and he spun

Just as fast at the last as when he begun,

But the tail and the meat ever kept just ahead

Of the clamorous jaws as the puppy dog sped.

“There she is,” cried Eliphalet, “darned if she ain’t!

There’s perpetual motion!” and pallid and faint

He fell prone and dying. They lifted him up

And his eyes, glazed with death, looked their last on that pup.

And through the dark shade of mortality’s fog

He gasped, “All you need is the right kind of dog.”

Inventor Jones--Eliphalet Jones,

Ah, he was the fellow for schemes;

Though critics might carp and his rivals throw stones

They never vexed Uncle Eliphalet Jones,

Or troubled his radiant dreams.