Texas and Southwestern Lore Page: 194

                                
Texas and Southwestern Lore

We are out to the roundup to brand the sucking calves;
The stranger gets the bucking horse and how we all laugh.
He throws his arms into the sky, his legs get in a jam,
And he turns a flying somersault on the grass of Uncle Sam.
The angry bull takes after him with blood in both his eyes.
We run, but when his back is turned, he gets a big surprise;
Our ropes jerk out his feet behind and down he goes kerslam,
And we drag the fighting out of him, on the grass of Uncle Sam.
Sometimes the horse thief comes around to steal our horses true;
We are always looking out for him and sometimes get him too.
We ask him if he is ready, and when he says, "I am,"
The bottom of his feet they itch, for the grass of Uncle Sam.
And when pay day comes around, to town we go for fun;
The dollars we have hoarded up are blowed in every one.
Then broke we hit the trail for camp, but we don't care a damn,
For wages are good when the grass is good, the grass of Uncle Sam.
PRETTY LITTLE MAIDEN
I have found a few cowboy love songs that, I think, have
not appeared    in print.   "Pretty  Little  Maiden,"2 found    in
Arizona, expresses the cowboy's idea of what he admires in a
sweetheart.
Pretty little maiden out in the garden,
Cowboy up by her side did ride,
Saying, "Pretty little maid, won't you marry me?
Oh, come, little one, and be my bride."
Oh, no, oh, no," this maiden answered.
"How can you impose on a girl like me?
2This song has had a wide vogue in America as well as in England,
where it originated as "The Sailor's Return." The details changed to
make the cowboy fit into the sailor's part are hardly so vital as those
wrought on "The Ocean Burial," for a consideration of which see ante,
p. 194 ff. Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, give a full discussion of
"Pretty Little Maiden" and two versions, under the title of "A Pretty
Fair Maiden," p. 316ff.-Editor.

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