When my mind gets to recalling
All the happy times we had,
Good red liquor and tobacco
Gets to tasting kind o’ bad.
You remember on your birthday
How I drove ‘round kind o’ late,
And we went to Donkey Collins’
To a dance, to celebrate?
When you got up in my wagon,
Bless my heart, you sure was sweet!
You was bound that you’d go barefoot,
’Cause your new shoes hurt your feet.
Well, I tell you, pretty Nancy,
Every minute of that ride
Seemed like floating through the heavens,
’Cause you set there by my side.
When we pulled up at old Collins’,
Quite a bunch was there before,
You could hear the fiddler calling,
And the scraping on the floor.
Through the dingy sodhouse window
Gleamed a sickly yellow light,
Where I helped you from the wagon,
Holding you so loving tight.
Then they called out, “Choose your pardners,
Numbers five, six, seven, and eight,”
And we hustled up to join in,
For we knew that we were late.
After starting up the music
Something happened—you know what—
All because I loved you, Nancy,
And their manners made me hot.
I just glanced around the circle,
When we came to “Balance, all;”
To that mess of cowhide-covered
Feet that stomped at every call.
Sure enough, the thing I looked for
Come to pass when Aleck Rose
Tried to dos-a-dos by you, dear,
And, instead, waltzed on your toes.
Recollect? I stopped the fiddler,
And I stopped that stomping crowd,
Using language that was decent,
But was mighty clear and loud:
“Now, you fellers from the Sand Hills,
Fight me, or if you refuse
You don’t dance with me and Nancy
While a one of you wears shoes!”
Yes, they took them off, Miss Nancy,
In respect for you and me,
Putting all on equal footing,
Just the way it ought to be.
And we went through all the figures
That we knew in that quadrille,
But it didn’t seem like dancin’,
Steppin’ round so awful still.
Fiddler, even, did his calling
In a sort of quiet hush—
“Swing your pardners,” “Back to places,”
“Sounds to me like paddlin’ mush.”
“Man in center,” “Circle round him,”
“All join hands,” and “’Way you go,”
“Wait fur Betsy, she’s in trouble,
With a splinter in her toe.”
When I took you home, towards morning,
Such a night I never saw.
How the Kansas wind was blowing!
Swift and keen and kind o’ raw.
Blew more furious every minute,
Blew a hole clear through the skies;
Blew so loud, like demons hissing,
That the moon was ’fraid to rise.
Got so fierce it blew the stars out,
Saw them flicker, then go dead,
While the blackness, mad and murky,
Rolled in thunder overhead.
Goin’ with it, durn my whiskers!
Hind wheels riz plumb off the ground;
Goin’ ’gainst it, you and me, dear,
Had to push the hosses down.