Hoosier Lyrics. Field Eugene

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      Lo, as these mighty prodigies the westerner relates,

      Her pretty mouth falls wide agape – her eyes get big as plates;

      And when he speaks of varmints that in the Rockies grow

      She shudders and she clings to him and timidly cries "Oh!"

      And then says he: "Dear Susie, I'll tell you what to do —

      You be my wife, and none of these 'ere things dare pester you!"

      And she? She answers, clinging close and trembling yet: "I will."

      And then he gives her one big kiss, does Penn-Yan Bill.

      Avaunt, ye poet lovers, with your wishywashy lays!

      Avaunt, ye solemn pedants, with your musty, bookish ways!

      Avaunt, ye smurking dandies who air your etiquette

      Upon the gold your fathers worked so long and hard to get!

      How empty is your nothingness beside the sturdy tales

      Which mountaineers delight to tell of border hills and vales —

      Of snaix that crawl, of beasts that yowl, of birds that flap and trill

      In the wild egregious altitude of Penn-Yan Bill.

      Why, over all these mountain peaks his honest feet have trod —

      So high above the rest of us he seemed to walk with God;

      He's breathed the breath of heaven, as it floated, pure and free,

      From the everlasting snow-caps to the mighty western sea;

      And he's heard that awful silence which thunders in the ear:

      "There is a great Jehovah, and His biding place is here!"

      These – these solemn voices and these the sights that thrill

      In the far-away Montana of Penn-Yan Bill.

      Of course she had to love him, for it was her nature to;

      And she'll wed him in the summer, if all we hear be true.

      The blue grass will be waving in that cool Kentucky glade

      Where the black-eyed Susans cluster in the pleasant walnut shade —

      Where the doves make mournful music and the locust trills a song

      To the brook that through the pasture scampers merrily along;

      And speechless pride and rapture ineffable shall fill

      The beatific bosom of Penn-Yan Bill!

      Ed was a man that played for keeps, 'nd when he tuk the notion,

      You cudn't stop him any more'n a dam 'ud stop the ocean;

      For when he tackled to a thing 'nd sot his mind plum to it,

      You bet yer boots he done that thing though it broke the bank to do it!

      So all us boys uz knowed him best allowed he wusn't jokin'

      When on a Sunday he remarked uz how he'd gin up smokin'.

      Now this remark, that Ed let fall, fell, ez I say, on Sunday —

      Which is the reason we wuz shocked to see him sail in Monday

      A-puffin' at a snipe that sizzled like a Chinese cracker

      An' smelt fur all the world like rags instead uv like terbacker;

      Recoverin' from our first surprise, us fellows fell to pokin'

      A heap uv fun at "folks uz said how they had gin up smokin'."

      But Ed – sez he: "I found my work cud not be done without it —

      Jes' try the scheme yourself, my friends, ef any uv you doubt it!

      It's hard, I know, upon one's health, but there's a certain beauty

      In makin' sackerfices to the stern demand uv duty!

      So, wholly in a sperrit uv denial 'nd concession

      I mortify the flesh 'nd fur the sake uv my perfession!"