A Mechanic From Lowell

He come out here frum Lowell, where he’d worked six months or more;

Went through some sort uv trainin’ school a year or two before,

An’ called himself a first class man, an’ even more than that,

He had mechanics an’ the arts an’ sciences down pat.

He said he’d studied drawin’, an’ geometry he knew;

There warn’t no crooked labor in the shop he couldn’t do,

Had run a Corliss engine an’ at forgin’ was a “bird”,

In fact he was a “corker”, an’ we took him at his word.

He give us p’ints on plannin’ an’ he showed us how to file,

An’ said the way we chiseled couldn’t help but make him smile.

He said our tools were ancient an’ our methods way behind,

An' he would modernize ‘em if the foreman didn’t mind.

We felt like small pertaters, an’ we asked ourselves if they

Had more like him in Lowell, ‘n why they let him git away.

We thought we were mechanics till he put us in the shade,

And longed to go to Lowell where sech geniuses were made.

Bime’ by the boss had leisure, an’ he listened to his tale;

We thought the Lowell stranger run the limit uv his scale.

He talked an’ spit an’ argered like a man who knows his hold,

An’ thought the boss would figger he was worth his weight in gold.

The boss was dull, however, an’ he couldn’t see his worth,

Tho’ admitted it was in him to revolutionize the earth.

A career like his, he told him, he wouldn’t help to check,

He ought to go to Boston an’ be a president uv “Tech”.

Oct. 13, 1900