Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads

My soul now feels its mental hell
And soon with demons I will dwell.

The sheriff cut the slender cord,
His soul went up to meet its Lord;
The doctor said, "The wretch is dead,
His spirit from his body's fled."

His weeping mother cried aloud,
"O God, do save this gazing crowd,
That none may ever have to pay
For gambling on the Sabbath day."

LITTLE JOE, THE WRANGLER

It's little Joe, the wrangler, he'll wrangle never more,
His days with the remuda they are o'er;
'Twas a year ago last April when he rode into our camp,—
Just a little Texas stray and all alone,—
On a little Texas pony he called "Chaw."
With his brogan shoes and overalls, a tougher kid
You never in your life before had saw.

His saddle was a Texas "kak," built many years ago,
With an O.K. spur on one foot lightly swung;
His "hot roll" in a cotton sack so loosely tied behind,
And his canteen from his saddle-horn was swung.
He said that he had to leave his home, his pa had married twice;
And his new ma whipped him every day or two;
So he saddled up old Chaw one night and lit a shuck this way,
And he's now trying to paddle his own canoe.

He said if we would give him work, he'd do the best he could,
Though he didn't know straight up about a cow;
So the boss he cut him out a mount and kindly put him on,
For he sorta liked this little kid somehow.
Learned him to wrangle horses and to try to know them all,
And get them in at daylight if he could;
To follow the chuck-wagon and always hitch the team,
And to help the cocinero rustle wood.

We had driven to the Pecos, the weather being fine;
We had camped on the south side in a bend;
When a norther commenced blowin', we had doubled up our guard,
For it taken all of us to hold them in.
Little Joe, the wrangler, was called out with the rest;
Though the kid had scarcely reached the herd,
When the cattle they stampeded, like a hailstorm long they fled,
Then we were all a-ridin' for the lead.

'Midst the streaks of lightin' a horse we could see in the lead,
'Twas Little Joe, the wrangler, in the lead;
He was riding Old Blue Rocket with a slicker o'er his head,
A tryin' to check the cattle in their speed.
At last we got them milling and kinda quieted down,
And the extra guard back to the wagon went;
But there was one a-missin' and we knew it at a glance,
'Twas our little Texas stray, poor Wrangling Joe.

The next morning just at day break, we found where Rocket fell,
Down in a washout twenty feet below;
And beneath the horse, mashed to a pulp,—his spur had rung the knell,—
Was our little Texas stray, poor Wrangling Joe.

HARRY BALE

Come all kind friends and kindred dear and Christians young and old,
A story I'll relate to you, 'twill make your blood run cold;
'Tis all about an unfortunate boy who lived not far from here,
In the township of Arcade in the County of Lapeer.
It seems his occupation was a sawyer in a mill,
He followed it successfully two years, one month, until,
Until this fatal accident that caused many to weep and wail;
'Twas where this young man lost his life,—his name was Harry Bale.

On the 29th of April in the year of seventy-nine,
He went to work as usual, no fear did he design;
In lowering of the feed bar throwing the carriage into gear
It brought him down upon the saw and cut him quite severe;
It cut him through the collar-bone and half way down the back,
It threw him down upon the saw, the carriage coming back.
He started for the shanty, his strength was failing fast;
He said, "Oh, boys, I'm wounded: I fear it is my last."

His brothers they were sent for, likewise his sisters too,
The doctors came and dressed his wound, but kind words proved untrue.
Poor Harry had no father to weep beside his bed,
No kind and loving mother to sooth his aching head.
He was just as gallant a young man as ever you wished to know,
But he withered like a flower, it was his time to go.

They placed him in his coffin and laid him in his grave;
His brothers and sisters mourned the loss of a brother so true and brave.
They took him to the graveyard and laid him away to rest,
His body lies mouldering, his soul is among the blest.

FOREMAN MONROE

Come all you brave young shanty boys, and list while I relate
Concerning a young shanty boy and his untimely fate;