Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp Part 17

For you're just silly, on'ry brutes And I look like distress, And my pipe ain't the kind that toots And there's no "shepherdess."

Yet 'way down home in Kansas State, Bliss Towns.h.i.+p, Section Five, There's one that's promised me to wait, The sweetest girl alive; That's why I salt my wages down And mend my clothes with strings, While others blow their pay in town For booze and other things.

A-a! ma-a! ba-a! eh-eh-eh!

My Minnie, don't be sad; Next year we'll lease that splendid piece That corners on your dad.

We'll drive to "literary," dear, The way we used to do And turn my lonely workin' here To happiness for you.

Suppose, down near that rattlers' den, While I sit here and dream, I'd spy a bunch of ugly men And hear a woman scream.

Suppose I'd let my rifle shout And drop the men in rows, And then the woman should turn out-- My Minnie!--just suppose.

A-a! ma-a! ba-a! eh-eh-eh!

The tune would then be gay; There is, I mind, a parson kind Just forty miles away.

Why, Eden would come back again, With sage and sheep corrals, And I could swing a singin' pen To write her "pastorals."

I pack a rifle on my arm And jump at flies that buzz; There's nothin' here to do me harm; I sometimes wish there was.

If through that brush above the pool A red should creep--and creep-- Wah! cut down on 'im!--Stop, you fool!

That's nothin' but a sheep.

A-a! ma-a! ba-a!--h.e.l.l!

Oh, sky and plain and bluff!

Unless my mail comes up the trail I'm locoed, sure enough.

What's that?--a dust-whiff near the b.u.t.te Right where my last trail ran, A movin' speck, a--wagon! Hoot!

Thank G.o.d! here comes a man.

_Charles Badger Clark, Jr._

[3] Only such cowboys as are in desperate need of employment ever become sheep-herders.

A COWBOY AT THE CARNIVAL

YES, o' cose it's interestin' to a feller from the range, Mighty queerish, too, I tell you,--sich a racket fer a change; From a life among the cattle, from a wool s.h.i.+rt and the chaps To the biled s.h.i.+rt o' the city and the other tony traps.

Never seed sich herds o' people throwed together, every brand O' humanity, I reckon, in this big mountain land Rounded up right here in Denver, runnin' on new sort o' feed.

Actin' restless an' oneasy, like they threatened to stampede.

Mighty curious to a rider comin' from the range, he feels What you'd call a lost sensation from sombrero clar to heels; Like a critter stray that drifted in a windstorm from its range To another run o' grazin' where the brands it sees are strange.

Then I see a city herder, a policeman, don't you know, Sort o' think he's got men spotted an' is 'bout to make a throw Fer to catch me an' corral me fer a stray till he can talk On the wire an' tell the owner fer to come an' get his stock.

Yes, it's mighty strange an' funny fer a cowboy, as you say, Fer to hit a camp like this one, so unanimously gay; But I want to tell you, pardner, that a rider sich as me Isn't built fer feedin' on sich crazy jamboree.

Every bone I got's a-achin', an' my feet as sore as if I had hit a bed o' cactus, an' my hinges is as stiff From a-hittin' these hot pavements as a feller's jints kin git,-- 'Taint like holdin' down a broncho on the range, a little bit.

I'm hankerin', I tell you, fer to hit the trail an' run Like a crazy, locoed yearlin' from this big cloud-burst o' fun Back toward the cattle ranches, where a feller's breath comes free An' he wears the clothes that fits him, 'stead o' this slick toggery.

Where his home is in the saddle, an' the heavens is his roof, An' his ever'day companions wears the hide an' cloven hoof, Where the beller of the cattle is the only sound he hears, An' he never thinks o' nothin' but his grub an' hoss an' steers.

_Anonymous._

THE OLD COWMAN

I RODE across a valley range I hadn't seen for years.

The trail was all so spoilt and strange It nearly fetched the tears.

I had to let ten fences down,-- (The fussy lanes ran wrong) And each new line would make me frown And hum a mournin' song.

Oh, it's squeak! squeak! squeak!

Hear 'em stretchin' of the wire!

The nester brand is on the land; I reckon I'll retire.

While progress toots her bra.s.sy horn And makes her motor buzz, I thank the Lord I wasn't born No later than I wuz!

'Twas good to live when all the sod, Without no fence nor fuss, Belonged in partners.h.i.+p to G.o.d, The Government and us.

With skyline bounds from east to west And room to go and come, I loved my fellowman the best When he was scattered some.

Oh, it's squeak! squeak! squeak!

Close and closer cramps the wire!

There's hardly play to back away And call a man a liar.

Their house has locks on every door; Their land is in a crate.

There ain't the plains of G.o.d no more, They're only real estate.

There's land where yet no ditchers dig Nor cranks experiment; It's only lovely, free and big And isn't worth a cent.

I pray that them who come to spoil May wait till I am dead Before they foul that blessed soil With fence and cabbage head.

Yet it's squeak! squeak! squeak!

Far and farther crawls the wire!

To crowd and pinch another inch Is all their heart's desire.

The world is over-stocked with men, And some will see the day When each must keep his little pen, But I'll be far away.

When my old soul hunts range and rest Beyond the last divide, Just plant me in some stretch of West That's sunny, lone and wide.

Let cattle rub my tombstone down And coyotes mourn their kin, Let hawses paw and tramp the moun',-- But don't you fence it in!

Oh, it's squeak! squeak! squeak!

And they pen the land with wire.

They figure fence and copper cents Where we laughed round the fire.

Job cussed his birthday, night and morn In his old land of Uz, But I'm just glad I wasn't born No later than I wuz!

_Charles Badger Clark, Jr._

THE GILA MONSTER ROUTE

THE lingering sunset across the plain Kissed the rear-end door of an east-bound train, And shone on a pa.s.sing track close by Where a ding-bat sat on a rotting tie.

He was ditched by a shock and a cruel fate.

The con high-balled, and the manifest freight Pulled out on the stem behind the mail, And she hit the ball on a sanded rail.