The Texas Cowboy

Found this awesome old book at the antique store a couple weeks ago. I've been wanting to share it all with y'all. It's called COWBOY SONGS AND OTHER FRONTIER BALLADS and was published in 1922. I love the worn cover and pages :) Here is one of the poems/songs that I found in it. I hope that you enjoy!

 

 

The Texas Cowboy

 

Oh, I am a Texas cowboy,

Far away from home,

If ever I get back to Texas

I never more will roam.

 

Montana is too cold for me

And the winters are too long;

Before the roundups do begin

Our money is all gone.

 

Take this old hen-skin bedding,

Too thin to keep me warm,-

I nearly freeze to death, my boys,

Whenever there's a storm.

 

And take this old "tarpoleon",

Too thin to shield my frame,-

I got it down in Nebraska

A-dealin' a Monte game.

 

Now to win these fancy leggins

I'll have enough to do;

They cost me twenty dollars

The day that they were new.

 

I have an outfit on the Mussel Shell,

But that I'll never see,

Unless I get sent to represent

The Circle or D.T.

 

I've worked down in Nebraska

Where the grass grows ten feet high,

And the cattle are such rustlers

That they seldom ever die;

 

I've worked up in the sand hills

And down upon the Platte,

Where the cowboys are good fellows

And the cattle always fat;

 

I've traveled lots of country,-

Nebraska's hills of sand,

Down through the Indian Nation,

And up the Rio Grande;-

 

But the Bad Lands of Montana

Are the worst I ever seen,

The cowboys are all tenderfeet

And the dogies are too lean.

 

If you want to see some bad lands,

Go over on the Dry;

You will bog down in the coulees

Where the mountains reach the sky.

 

A tenderfoot to lead you

Who never knows the way,

You are playing in the best of luck

If you eat more than once a day.

 

Your grub is bread and bacon

And coffee black as ink;

The water is so full of alkali

It is hardly fit to drink.

 

They will wake you in the morning

Before the break of day,

And send you on a circle

A hundred miles away.

 

All along the Yellowstone

'Tis cold the year around;

You will surely get consumption

By sleeping on the ground.

 

Work in Montana

Is six months in the year;

When all your bills are settled

There is nothing left for beer.

 

Work down in Texas

Is all the year around;

You will never get consumption

By sleeping on the ground.

 

Come all you Texas cowboys

And warning take from me,

And do not go to Montana

To spend your money free.

 

But stay at home in Texas

Where work lasts the year around,

And you will never catch consumption

By sleeping on the ground.

 

 

Wasn't that a crazy song?! Love it :) Mainly because I love Texas and I'm so happy that I moved down here!

 

Adios,

Jessie Lou