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The Emu Run

Edward S. Sorenson

They called him Herr Von Bremendine—
    ‘Twas something like his name,
But none had crossed his boundary line,
    And none knew whence he came.
His run was far from every track
    That wandering swagmen know;
His lonely hut was planted back
    Where sheltering quondongs grow.

With one hare-lipped Mongoli-an,
    He worked through rain and shine;
A fuzzy, fierce, eccentric man
    Was Herr Von Bremendine.
Though short, he had no modicum
    Of size the other way,
If hairless was his cranium,
    His beard was long and grey.

He kept no sheep, he browsed no kine,
    And nary horse had he;
He bred no goats, nor grunting swine,
    Nor owned one honey bee;
In short, the stock that swelled his purse
    Were emus big and fat—
No squatter in the universe
    Had ever dreamed of that.

Four thousand birds were on his land,
    ‘Twas grand to see them play,
While Bremen and his station hand
    Among them worked by day.
They gathered eggs of noble size
    (They lived upon them too),
And home in baskets bore the prize,
    Full trot as Chinese do.

Within their domicile of bark,
    And by the firelight’s glow,
They sat together after dark,
    Upon the floor to blow;
They drilled the ends, then grasped the eggs,
    And with cyclonic blast,
They blew and blew them into kegs
    Until they’d blown the last.

The egg, preserved, was carried down,
    Through miles of silent trees,
In baskets to the raliway town,
    Consigned to bakeries.
The shells were sold at prices, too,
    That would astonish hens,
And Bromendine and Wonky Boo
    Amassed some million yens.

But riches brought “tired feelings” on—
    Von Bremen caught it bad,
And he confessed to China’s son
    That lumping made him sad.
He wondered where his emus fed,
    He studied emus long;
He measured them, and scratched his head,
    And swore those birds were strong.

Then Bremen bought a waggon light,
    And special harness, too—
‘Twas taken out one starry night
    By him and Wonky Boo.
And though the birds at first would strike,
    And plunge and peck and scream,
They learned to pull in traces like
    An ordinary team.

They loaded up with egg and shell,
    And started off for town;
They struck the road, when, sad to tell,
    A motor car came down.
The emus heard the roar, and shied,
    Their marrow seemed to freeze;
They stood and panted, stared—and spied
    The monster through the trees.

Just then it tooted; panic-sent
    The feathered team sprang round,
And o’er the whole caboodle went,
    Ker-plunk upon the ground.
Still to the reins clung Bremendine,
    Although the pace was strong,
While Boo turned cartwheels eight or nine,
    And talked both loud and long.

The waggon smashed against a tree
    (And broke an emu’s neck),
And soon the frantic team got free
    From Bremen and the wreck.
They bolted o’er a mountain side,
    Not many miles away,
And you may see their bones astride
    A giant limb to-day.

But what became of Wonky Boo
And Herr Von Bremendine,
I’ve never found a soul who knew
Along the Western line;
Though where the homestead used to be,
When all the run is dry,
They say at midnight you can see
A phantom team go by.

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