Dispatch

“Don’t waste your time on the branches small,”
Said the farmer to his son,
“But lay your axe at the root of the tree,
So your work is sooner done.”

Then, like a good and obedient boy,
Not a word back did he say,
But he laid his axe at the root of the tree,
And went off and fished all day.

— Newton Mackintosh, Precious Nonsense!, 1895