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Men at Work |
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3 Oh, say, little dogies, when you goin? to lay down And quit this forever siftin' around?
My limbs are weary, my seat is sore;
Oh, lay down, dogies, like you've laid before—
Lay down, little dogies, lay down.
4 Oh, lay still, dogies, since you have laid down, Stretch away out on the big open ground 3
Snore loud, little dogies, and drown the wild sound That will all go away when the day rolls round— Lay still, little dogies, lay still.*
* Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, pp. 60-61 (revised and enlarged ed., New York, Macmillan, 1938). |
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GIT ALONG, LITTLE DOGIES*
The old blind man shuffled along beside me, clasping his guitar as I guided him over the rough places in our path. We were headed for the trees that fringed the West Fork of the Trinity River near Forth Worth, Texas. Often I stumbled, for I was carrying a heavy Edison recording machine. They built them strong in 1908.
Out on a busy corner near the cattle pens of the Stockyards I had found my companion that morning twanging his guitar while he sang doleful ditties and listened for the ring of quarters in his tin cup.
"I don't know any cowboy songs," he had explained to me. "But lead me home to lunch. My wife can sing you a bookful."
We found her out behind a covered truck, a forerunner of the trailer, seated in front of a gayly colored tent. She wore a gypsy costume, richly brocaded, and she had used paint and powder with skillful discretion on a face naturally comely. While I chatted with her, the old man disappeared into the tent. In a few minutes, out he came. Gone were the round, humped shoulders, the white hair, the shambling gait, the tottering figure. Before me stood a handsome, dark-eyed man, alert and athletic. He made no explanation. He was a perfect faker.
"My wife shakes down the saps who like to hold her hand while she reads their fortunes in the stars. All the self-righteous fools go away from
* See Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, pp. 4-7 (Macmillan, 1938). |
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