O Robert Pulliam!

He had facial hair cut like a dragon,
a coonskin cap, and a peg-a-leg like a
rum-guzzling pirate.

Among the sugar maples and the fire red
leaves of fall, he took a seat on a
fallen log and had himself a think.

Grapevines grew wild everywheres and
birds sang and the stream babbled
endlessly with cold, clear water.

"Jim, Red," he said, "Lash the stocks,
don't hobble 'em too tight!" and "Tomorrow
we'll fell some trees, build ourselves a cabin!"

O Robert Pulliam!

You left only Mary behind and five
little whelps. "They'll all love it here!"
you told yourself and slept with a smile.

"The prairie can't be broken," you'd been told,
but you refused to listen. The next day you
felled trees and notched the ends.

You took the work of corner man for your very self,
making sure each log was whittled just right,
notching away with a handax and a knife.

Long and hard were the days while you built your
cabin on the creek, but not as hard as when you had
your leg sawed clear off, you man among men!

O Robert Pulliam!

You were the father of the development, the man who
sought to notch homes out of the logs of wilderness,
who sought to break the hard earth with oxen and iron.

The saw cut too slowly through your leg, and Governor
Reynolds watched, proclaimed it the most gruesome thing
he'd ever seen, but you just walked away a man.

And then when that cabin was built, you made your way back
to St. Clair land to find your family again, braving the
Indians and the wild along the way.

Nothing scares a man who's faced life on the frontier,
much less death, and to sit still for the saw when
no drug was in your reach, not even red-eye whisky.

O Robert Pulliam!