Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ And I began to bawl.

       When I begun they all commenced,

       You never heard the like,

       How they all took on and cried

       The day I left old Pike.

      When I got to this here country

       I hadn't nary a red,

       I had such wolfish feelings

       I wished myself most dead.

       At last I went to mining,

       Put in my biggest licks,

       Came down upon the boulders

       Just like a thousand bricks.

      I worked both late and early

       In rain and sun and snow,

       But I was working for my Sallie

       So 'twas all the same to Joe.

       I made a very lucky strike

       As the gold itself did tell,

       For I was working for my Sallie,

       The girl I loved so well.

      But one day I got a letter

       From my dear, kind brother Ike;

       It came from old Missouri,

       Yes, all the way from Pike.

       It told me the goldarndest news

       That ever you did hear,

       My heart it is a-bustin'

       So please excuse this tear.

      I'll tell you what it was, boys,

       You'll bust your sides I know;

       For when I read that letter

       You ought to seen poor Joe.

       My knees gave 'way beneath me,

       And I pulled out half my hair;

       And if you ever tell this now,

       You bet you'll hear me swear.

      It said my Sallie was fickle,

       Her love for me had fled,

       That she had married a butcher,

       Whose hair was awful red;

       It told me more than that,

       It's enough to make me swear—

       It said that Sallie had a baby

       And the baby had red hair.

      Now I've told you all that I can tell

       About this sad affair,

       'Bout Sallie marrying the butcher

       And the baby had red hair.

       But whether it was a boy or girl

       The letter never said,

       It only said its cussed hair

       Was inclined to be red.

      THE COWBOY'S DREAM[2]

      Last night as I lay on the prairie,

       And looked at the stars in the sky,

       I wondered if ever a cowboy

       Would drift to that sweet by and by.

      Roll on, roll on;

       Roll on, little dogies, roll on, roll on,

       Roll on, roll on;

       Roll on, little dogies, roll on.

      The road to that bright, happy region

       Is a dim, narrow trail, so they say;

       But the broad one that leads to perdition

       Is posted and blazed all the way.

      They say there will be a great round-up,

       And cowboys, like dogies, will stand,

       To be marked by the Riders of Judgment

       Who are posted and know every brand.

      I know there's many a stray cowboy

       Who'll be lost at the great, final sale,

       When he might have gone in the green pastures

       Had he known of the dim, narrow trail.

      I wonder if ever a cowboy

       Stood ready for that Judgment Day,

       And could say to the Boss of the Riders,

       "I'm ready, come drive me away."

      For they, like the cows that are locoed,

       Stampede at the sight of a hand,

       Are dragged with a rope to the round-up,

       Or get marked with some crooked man's brand.

      And I'm scared that I'll be a stray yearling—

       A maverick, unbranded on high—

       And get cut in the bunch with the "rusties"

       When the Boss of the Riders goes by.

      For they tell of another big owner

       Whose ne'er overstocked, so they say,

       But who always makes room for the sinner

       Who drifts from the straight, narrow way.

      They say he will never forget you,

       That he knows every action and look;

       So, for safety, you'd better get branded,

       Have your name in the great Tally Book.

      THE COWBOY'S LIFE[3]

      The bawl of a steer,

       To a cowboy's ear,

       Is music of sweetest strain;

       And the yelping notes

       Of the gray cayotes

       To him are a glad refrain.

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