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Written by Author Unknown.
Bill Brown made a million,
Bill Brown, think of that.
That boy you remember,
As poor as a rat.
He hoed for the neighbors,
Did jobs by the day.
And Bill made a million,
Or near it they say.
He worked for my father,
You'll maybe recall.
He wasn't a wonder,
Not that, not at all.
He couldn't out-hoe me,
Or cover more ground,
Or hoe any faster,
Or beat me around.
In fact, I was better
In one way that I know.
One toot from the kitchen
And home I would go.
But Bill Brown always hoed
To the end of the row.
We used to get hungry
Out there in the corn.
You talk about music,
What equals a horn?
A horn yellin' dinner,
And tomatoes and beans,
And pork and potatoes,
And gravy and greens.
I ain't blamin' no one
For quittin' on time.
To quit with the whistle,
That ain't any crime.
But as for the million,
Well, this much I know.
Bill Brown always hoed
To the end of the row.
We are all blind until we see
That in the human plan
Nothing is worth the making if
It does not make the man.
Why build these cities glorious
If man unbuilded goes?
In vain we build the work, unless
The builder also grows.
I saw them tearing a building down, a group of men in my hometown.
And with a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.
And I asked of a foreman standing there,
Is this skilled labor that you have here?
Oh no indeed, just unskilled labor is all that I need.
With these I can tear down in a day or two,
what it takes craftsmen years to do.
And I thought to myself as I walked away,
Which of these life roles have I chose to play?
Am I a builder, building with care, measuring life by rule and square,
carefully following a well made plan,
steadfastly doing the best that I can?
Or am I a wrecker, walking the town,
Content with the business of just tearing down?
Try to leave this world a little better than you found it and, when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best
The great thing that strikes you on looking back is how quickly you have come-how very brief is the span of life on this earth. The warning that one would give, therefore, is that it is well not to fritter it away on things that don't count in the end; nor on the other hand is it good to take life too seriously as some seem to do. Make it a happy life while you have it. That is where success is possible to every man.
Happiness is not mere pleasure not the outcome of wealth. It is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of pleasure.
Look wide, and even when you think you are looking wide - look wider still.
No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way.