| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
frontier Ballads
Well, I swan, if that there shack had gathered up an' r'ared An' galloped off across the street, we'd not been more knocked out
Than when we seen that little girl, blue-eyed an' curly-haired, A-standin' in the bar-room, half-way 'twixt a smile an' pout.
Say, we ducked them guns o' ours underneath our hats 'S if the Sheriff's deputies had just come jumpin' in.
We sure was worse kerflummuxed than a lot o' sneakin' rats, Caught a-stealin' barley in some feller's stable-bin.
That there little lady stood an' looked around a spell,
Then she toddled to Lemar an' looked up in his eyes:
"Oo's the big, long-whiskered man I'se heard my Mama tell, 'At brings nice fings to everyone what's good an' never cries.
"Mama's good; I'se tried to be"—her eyes began to fill —
"But she says 'at Santa Claus can't come this Christmas Day.
I don't see why; since Papa's in that still place on the hill She never gets no p'itty clo'es, nor me nice toys for play.
"She told me, though, 'at Santa Claus was here in town to-night An' so I fought I'd dess slip out an' find him if I could
An' see if he's dot sump'n left — I fought, perhaps, he might — An', mister, if you's Santy, tan we have it, if we's good?"
I've seen "Doc" get ditched an' wrecked with forty cars o' steers An' take it like a mallard duck, paradin' in the rain;
Never thought he'd learned to know there was such things as tears, Which shows it's hard to figger how a feller works his brain.
He turned round an' raked his stakes from off that roulette board. An' the whiskey wasn't guilty for his huskiness o' voice:
"Boys," says he, "I pass this deal right here an,' by the Lord, I blow my wad on somethin' else — you all kin take yer choice. |
||
|
56 |
||