that the earnings should fall on an average below one million a year seems quite inconceivable. The natural growth of the country through which it passes is certain to keep its earnings up. Just at present they are exceeding those under the receivership, and the management of the road anticipates that the earnings for the current year will in all probability establish a new high mark.

The foregoing takes into consideration simply the earnings of the road as it stands at the present time. In addition, there should be considered the earnings which may be expected from the new money as it is put in, that is, from the new equipment and the new feeders, and, more important, from the additional business which the feeders are certain to bring to the main line.

Another element in connection with the new company, which, it seems to me, should not be omitted from consideration, is the character of its operating and managing organization. Naturally, I know it well. It is thoroughly loyal and efficient, and has the decided advantage of familiarity with the property and its problems. The receivers made very few changes in the personnel which they found. Those that were made were solely for the benefit of the service and, I may say, had that effect. They appointed as their general manager Mr. Charles M. Levey, who had been in charge of the operating department from the beginning. Whatever success in the receivers' administration is due to good administration is very largely due to him. He is the president of the new company, a deserved recognition of the ability he has shown.

The final element of which I wish to speak is the physical condition of the road. Any impression to the contrary notwithstanding, it is excellent. As might be expected of a property in difficulties, where each of the various interests naturally desires first-hand independent information, and all want to know what the matter is, the road has been experted until the operating officials have well-nigh expired. Expert after expert has gone over it and reported.

All, however, have commended its physical condition. Many of them have freely expressed their surprise at what they found in this respect.

To sum up the present condition of the new company and its prospects: It begins upon a sound financial basis, with money for its needs and development, and with fixed charges which its earnings should easily meet. It begins with an independence of any outside interest which might be tempted to use it for its own advantage. It begins with a good railroad, one in good condition, well located, and well suited in all respects to serve the public, and as to grade and snow difficulties, with decided advantages over its competitor. It begins with a competent and loyal organization, familiar with its duties and the difficulties to be overcome. It would seem as if there were every prospect of its proving to be an efficient instrument of service to the public, on the one hand, and a source of profit to its owners on the other.

EMILY CHAMBERLAIN COOK PRIZE POEM, 1916

THOMAS GORDON LUKE

THE FREEHOLDER*

I. HARVEST

In the gray dawn, out to the harvest field
The busy wagons rattle, one by one,

Along the roads, and when day has begun.

To warm the hills, where sheaves lie packed and sealed
With sparkling frost, the shouting farmers wield

Their bending forks; until the laden sun

Turns down the broad, gleaned sky, and homeward run
The wagons down the roads. So meadows yield
Their harvests, till the hay is stacked, and grain
Heaps at the bin's high level, and the loft
Holds the red apples, where the sun slants still
And golden through a web-lined window-pane.
At last, like small white hands, the flakes rest soft
Upon the borders of the wind-swept hill.

This poem was awarded the Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize for 1916 by a committee consisting of Professor Edward Bliss Reed, Professor Cornelius Beach Bradley, and Mr. Robert Frost.

II. INDIAN SUMMER

Weary with toil, I stroll beside a stream

Beneath the birches' gold and white, and pass
By winding eddies, and a pool's green glass,
Where startled trout dart swift, with flashing gleam
Of silver. Here on holidays I dream,
Until the sunset burns the meadow-grass
And the far-spreading forest is a mass

Of shadows. In the rising moon's white beam
Homeward I ride, and watch the mountain height
Grow brighter, while the breezes sing a psalm
And silver-floods surround the elm-tree grove;
And, in the darker hours of the night,

Through fields where gently flows the river, calm
As the peace of snows when skies are still above.

III. SEASON'S END

The harvesters have scattered, and the days
Are quiet. Long the first white flakes have fled
Across the fields, with willow leaves, sun-bled;
And sunsets burn the peaks with flaming haze.
The river-flecking birches are a maze

Of fluttering golden leaf-hearts, where the red
Stems of the willows by their spring-sides thread
And hold till dusk the auburn sunset's blaze.
With brooding forests rolling dark behind
And the deep valley spreading wide before,
Here at the borders of the woods, I dwell
In a small cabin, waiting for the wind
To drive the snowstorms to the valley floor
And charm the forest with enchanting spell.

IV. STORM WIND

At dusk the wind from cloudy skylines swept
And sobbed and murmured in the elm-trees round
My shaded cabin, shaking to the ground
The aged leaves. And all the night it kept
The branches tapping at the logs, which wept
With giant tears; and lines of mist-web wound
Across the hills. At dawn, with sudden pound,
It rushed, and swung the cabin door, and leapt
Into the room where like a creature wild
It battered at the walls, and screamed, and broke
Clay from the logs, and in the rafters crept;
Then dropped to silence, like a sobbing child.
That day the winter in the mountains woke ;
And long the fields in cloaks of snow have slept.

V. THE WIZARD

Old Winter is a wizard. First he turns

The leaves to flakes of gold, then blows them down
And rolls them up in heaps of sodden brown.
Then, down the chimney, where my pitch-fire burns,
He puffs the rising smoke, and swiftly churns
The snowflakes past the panes. And like a clown
He laughs and sings and dances through the town,
A high, white whirlwind; till the rover yearns
To seek the valley where the white streams run
Beneath their floors of ice, to glide and track
On smooth steel runners, while the sportive wind
Snaps at his cheeks. At last the heavy sun

Grins red through bars of trees, and birch limbs crack,
And mountains shine like steel, with night behind!