Maude K. Backlund
Perched on a high spring wagon-seat,
I have driven to town with a load of wheat,
On a hayrack heaped with coarse slough hay;
Over the rangeland, far and wide
On a tricky bronch the herd I’d ride.
But I rode to the county seat in state
In the red caboose of the local freight
And watched the track slip out and away,
With the telegraph poles, across the plain;
Praire and track and the moving train
All the a searching human eye
Could see in the circle beneath the sky.
I may travel long and may travel far
In liner or clipper or palace car,
But never so long that I could forget
Coming in from the dark and wet
To the shelter and warmth of the rough clean shack
At the end of a freight on the track;
Never so far that my dreams turned loose
Would not carry me back to the old caboose.