FAMILY HISTORY: POETRY Collection written by Elsie Strawn ARMSTRONG
  
  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Les Howard Strawn
  
  Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
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  My uncle Letts was telling me,
         It was not long before,
  He saw him at a raising,
      And saw him lifting more,
  
  Than any other man
      That was upon the ground,
  Where a hundred men were
      There a standing round.
  
  A heavy, large log barn,
      A neighbor wished to raise,
  That kept us all to work
      The best part of two days.
  
  He said some stout young men
      Were trying of their strength,
  At the end of a green barn log
      That as fifty feet in length.
  
  The end lay on a log
      Not far from where they stood,
  It lay up fair and handy
      So they could take hold, good.
  
  Some of them could not move it,
      Some raised it but a mite,
  When father came to feel of it
      He lifted it upright.
  
  He seemed to lift it easily,
      Raised it more that a foot high,
  And then he let it fall,
      And it seemed to take their eye.
  
  Some said, "What is he made of?
      It can't be flesh and blood,
  He is not made of soft metal,
      He is neither lead nor wood.
  
  "He must be made of brass or iron,
      Or some other kind of metal,
  I wonder now how old he is,
      And then he is so little."
  
  He spoke to one William Wilkie,
      "Come and sit upon it,"
  He came and sat upon the log.
      He raised it with him on it.
  
  This Wilkie called a stout young man
      Twenty-five years of age,
  And in the sport of lifting
      Then he did engage.
  
  Wilkie was rather large,
      And weighed at least two hundred pounds,
  And thought he could lift more
      Than any man upon the ground.
  
  But when my father lifted him,
      Sitting on his load,
  He thought it was time now
      For him to take the road.