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American Ballads and Folk Songs |
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He hung thorns and brambles on all of the trees, He mixed up the dust with jiggers and fleas j The rattlesnake bites you, the scorpion stings, The mosquito delights you by buzzing his wings. The heat in the summer's a hundred and ten, Too hot for the Devil and too hot for menj And all who remained in that climate soon bore Cuts, bites, stings, and scratches, and blisters galore.
He quickened the buck of the bronco steed, And poisoned the feet of the centipede} The wild boar roams in the black chaparral j It's a hell of a place that we've got for a hell-He planted red pepper beside of the brooks j The Mexicans use them in all that they cook. Just dine with a Greaser and then you will shout, "I've hell on the inside as well as the out!"
Concerning this song George E. Hastings, Professor of English in the University of Arkansas, writes: *
"Between 1904 and 1909, while living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I frequently attended dinners and smokers given by the Princeton
Club. , f , - .
«At one of these reunions, held in 1908 or 1909, I heard for the first time a song delineating in spirited style the creation of the and regions of the Southwest. My recollection is that the singer called the song 'Arizona.'
"Among my friends in the Princeton Club there were four young men, Lloyd Smith, '08, William S. Houston, '08, Alfred C. Boswell, '05, and John J. Heard, '04, who so much enjoyed singing that they not only made a joyful noise at the smokers, but frequently met in private session for the purpose of holding 'song services.' I am not sure who it was that sang <Arizona' on the occasion mentioned above, but I know that it was one of these four. Whoever the singer may have
* Publications of the Texas Folk-Lore Society, Vol. IX (1931).
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