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260 Ballads and Songs of Michigan
104 THE SHANTY BOYS
For more complete versions of this lumber song see Eckstorm and Smyth, pp. 25-27; Greenleaf and Mansfield, pp. 321-322; Rickaby, pp. 69-75; and Shoemaker, pp. 93-95. All these texts have parts similar to the Michigan version, but with many additions, omissions, and variations.
The present version was sung in 1935 by Mr. Oh\ er Simpson, Saranac, who learned the song about 1895 in a lumber camp in Kalkaska County.
1 If you will listen to me, boys, I will sing to you a song; Tis all about the pine woods boys, and how they get along. They were as jolly a set of fellows as ever you will find; They spend the winter pleasantly in cutting down the pine.
2 The chopper and the sawyer they lay the timber low; The skidder and the swamper they pull it to and fro. And then comes the loader before the break of day, And, "Load up the teams, boys, to the river haste away."
3 When noontime rolls round and the foreman loudly screams, "Lay down your tools, boys, and haste to pork and beans." Then arriving at the shanty the mashing does begin,
The rattling of the dinner pail, the bangmg of the tin.
4 "Come hurry up, Ben; come Dick, come Jim, come Joe, Or you will have to take a pail and for the water go." When dinner it is ready, you will hear the cook cry,
And then you'll see them jump and run for fear they'll miss the pie.
5 When dinner it is over, they to the shanties go,
And load up their pipes and smoke till everything is blue. |
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