Use Your Head

________________________________________________
Title:     Use Your Head
Author: Walt Mason [More Titles by Mason]

If a man would be a winner, whether he's a clerk or tinner, whether he's a butcher, banker, or a dealer in rye bread, he must show his brains are bully, he must understand it fully that a man can't be an Eli if he doesn't use his head.

There was old man Hiram Horner, once located on the corner, where he sold his prunes and codfish and dried apples by the pound; he was always mighty busy; it would fairly make you dizzy just to watch old Uncle Hiram as he chased himself around. He got down when day was breaking, always ready to be raking in the pennies of the people if they chanced to come that way; he was evermore on duty till the midnight whistles, tooty, sent him home, where he'd be fussing to begin another day. Yet old Hiram soon was busted, and you'll see him now, disgusted, whacking mules in worthy effort to attain his daily bread; he was diligent, deserving, from good morals never swerving but he lost his grip in business for he didn't use his head. He was always overloaded with a lot of junk corroded, he was always short of goodlets that the people seem to need; he would trust the dead beat faker till he'd bad bills by the acre, and he's now at daily labor, with his whiskers gone to seed.

There is Theodore P. Tally in his store across the alley; you will see he takes it easy, not a button does he shed; you can hear the wheels revolving in his brow while he's resolving to get rich by drawing largely on the contents of his head.

It is well to use your fingers blithely while the daylight lingers, it is well to use your trilbys with a firm and active tread; it is good to rustle daily, doing all your duties gaily, but in all your divers doings, never fail to use your head.

[The end]
Walt Mason's poem: Use Your Head

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN