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332 Ballads and Songs of Michigan
135 WAKKEN
Communicated in 1916 by Miss Mildred Pahl, a student in Michigan State Normal College, Ypsilanti. She obtained the song from her grandfather, who had learned it in the sixties, while he was gold mining in California. Reprinted from Gardner, JAFL, XXVII, 93.
1 I suppose you have heard of all the talking Of that noted horse thief, Wakken;
He was caught in Calaveras, And he couldn't stand the joke; So the rangers cut his head off; They've got it now in soak.
Chorus
Now I warn everybody not to ramble,
Nor to fight nor steal nor gamble,
For you'll never have a cent,
All your money will be spent
And you to Sacramento in the chain gang be sent.
2 Just before Wakken was taken
He killed a Chinaman and stole his bacon; Then he went to Sonora Where he killed eleven more, And a big digger Injun Which made the twenty-four. |
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