Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads

If I were back in Cottonwood, I wouldn't go at all.

Now, when we got to Sand Ridge, we couldn't go at all,
Old Jim and old Baldy began to puff and loll,
I cussed and swore a little, for I couldn't make the route,
For the team and I and Betsy were all of us played out.

At length we got to Washington; I thought we'd stay a while
To see if the flowers would make their virgin smile,
But I was much mistaken, for when we went away
The red hills of September were just the same in May.

It is so very dreary, there's nothing here to cheer,
But old pathetic sermons we very often hear;
They preach them by the dozens and prove them by the book,
But I'd sooner have a roasting-ear and stay at home and cook.

I am so awful weary I'm sure I'm almost dead;
'Tis six long weeks last Sunday since I have tasted bread;
Of turnip-tops and lucerne greens I've had enough to eat,
But I'd like to change my diet to buckwheat cakes and meat.

I had to sell my wagon for sorghum seed and bread;
Old Jim and old Baldy have long since been dead.
There's no one left but me and Bet to hoe the cotton tree,—
God pity any Mormon that attempts to follow me!

THE BUFFALO HUNTERS

Come all you pretty girls, to you these lines I'll write,
We are going to the range in which we take delight;
We are going on the range as we poor hunters do,
And the tender-footed fellows can stay at home with you.

It's all of the day long as we go tramping round
In search of the buffalo that we may shoot him down;
Our guns upon our shoulders, our belts of forty rounds,
We send them up Salt River to some happy hunting grounds.

Our game, it is the antelope, the buffalo, wolf, and deer,
Who roam the wide prairies without a single fear;
We rob him of his robe and think it is no harm,
To buy us food and clothing to keep our bodies warm.

The buffalo, he is the noblest of the band,
He sometimes rejects in throwing up his hand.
His shaggy main thrown forward, his head raised to the sky,
He seems to say, "We're coming, boys; so hunter, mind your eye."

Our fires are made of mesquite roots, our beds are on the ground;
Our houses made of buffalo hides, we make them tall and round;
Our furniture is the camp kettle, the coffee pot, and pan,
Our chuck it is both bread and meat, mingled well with sand.

Our neighbors are the Cheyennes, the 'Rapahoes, and Sioux,
Their mode of navigation is a buffalo-hide canoe.
And when they come upon you they take you unaware,
And such a peculiar way they have of raising hunter's hair.

THE LITTLE OLD SOD SHANTY

I am looking rather seedy now while holding down my claim,
And my victuals are not always served the best;
And the mice play shyly round me as I nestle down to rest
In my little old sod shanty on my claim.

The hinges are of leather and the windows have no glass,
While the board roof lets the howling blizzards in,
And I hear the hungry cayote as he slinks up through the grass
Round the little old sod shanty on my claim.

Yet, I rather like the novelty of living in this way,
Though my bill of fare is always rather tame,
But I'm happy as a clam on the land of Uncle Sam
In the little old sod shanty on my claim.

But when I left my Eastern home, a bachelor so gay,
To try and win my way to wealth and fame,
I little thought I'd come down to burning twisted hay
In the little old sod shanty on my claim.

My clothes are plastered o'er with dough, I'm looking like a fright,
And everything is scattered round the room,
But I wouldn't give the freedom that I have out in the West
For the table of the Eastern man's old home.

Still, I wish that some kind-hearted girl would pity on me take
And relieve me from the mess that I am in;
The angel, how I'd bless her if this her home she'd make
In the little old sod shanty on my claim.

And we would make our fortunes on the prairies of the West,
Just as happy as two lovers we'd remain;
We'd forget the trials and troubles we endured at the first
In the little old sod shanty on my claim.

And if fate should bless us with now and then an heir
To cheer our hearts with honest pride of fame,
Oh, then we'd be contented for the toil that we had spent
In the little old sod shanty on our claim.