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Now in the Print Shop, there is a bunch,
Who seem to think they have a hunch,
To every thing the writer knows,
Both in poetry and in prose.
To tell the truth they are quite rank,
Their heads remind us of an old tin tank,
When rainy seasons fail to come,
And the water tank is on the bum.
They are a lot of big shot crooks,
What they don’t is not in the books,
They will tell you of the dough they've made,
While out in the free world they stayed.
But I don’t think they are so smart,
To tell the truth right from the heart,
They are just a lot of country boys,
Not used to all the big noise.
There’s Rough-House Reynolds who hails from Chi—
And started telling tellers to heist them high,
He is a bandit brave and bold,
If all is true that he has told.
Then there’s Bert and J.D. Starnes,
Who dings back doors and sleeps in barns,
But talk to them when all alone,
They are First Lieutenants of Al Capone.
And you all have heard of Charlie Perry,
The boy from the wild and woolly prairie,
When he arrived in Wichita Falls,
He began to make his mid-night calls.
He started in to burglarize,
A trade that don’t pay to advertise,
But he left a clue which the coppers found,
And ere long he was Huntsville bound.
Of the bookbinders there’s not much to tell,
Just Leon Lassiter and Pinky Rischel,
Neither of them amount to much,
They’re crippled where they can’t use a crutch.
And Francisco Garza, the Mexican lad,
Who says he never did anything bad,
Cheer up Garza and dry your tears,
You can try it again in ten more years.
The foreman is quite a respectable person,
Whose only fault is work desertion
He has the habit of always seeming,
To be half asleep and fondly dreaming.
Of the days to come when he himself,
Will have some shekels on the shelf,
And will not have to work no more,
But Lay on his couch and snore and snore.
Also the porter Vincent Broussard,
He just came in while the times are hard,
That’s all but me, who wrote these lines,
Number Seven, Two, Six, One, Nine.
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She knows my sins are red,
That if were better I were dead;
But her teachings oft times said
Out of thy mercy oh Lord “Though
His sins be as scarlet—even so,
—And my sins are scarlet I know—
“They shall be made as white as
snow.”
Each and every night I know she’ll
pray
Through all the night and all the
day
Since from her sight I’ve been a-
way
Praying for me as I stroll life[‘]s
street
Amid myriads of other tramping
feet.
Down its rough roads, easing a
weary task
A favor of our Lord she’ll ask;
As she lays her head to rest in a
weary bed,
Until the gray of dawn glows red;
Tho none may guess, her plea is
Oh Mighty One,
Father above, deal gently with my
son.
She knows the law itself does say,
For each sin some soul must pay—
But as she recalls clinging baby
hands,
Childhoods tenderness, big eyes
with tears wet,
From above it seems, in heavenly
lands;
Her prayers are for her baby yet;
So, if a payment there must be,
For one so dear and sweet as she,
Exact it, Oh my god, from me!
—Puddin Head
QUIT “YER CRABBIN’”
There ain’t no use crabbin’, friend
When things don’t come your
way;
It does no good to gloom around,
And grumble night and day.
The thing to do is curb your grief,
Cut out your little whine;
And when they ask you how you
are,
Jest say, “I’m feeling fine.”
There ain’t no man alive but what
is
Booked to get his slap;
There ain’t no man what walks but
what
Fro[m] trouble gets his rap.
Go mingle with the bunch, old boy,
Work hard and don’t repind;
And when they ask you how you
are,
Jest say, “I’m feeling [f]ine.”
—Exchange
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You’re subject to falls, and a trip to the Walls,
If you’re leading the life of a
crook.
If you’re dealt in a hand, with
some crooked band,
You’ll probably wind up with
the book.
You may steal in the night, or the
brightest of light,
And get by for one year or more.
The first sentence you get, may be
a small bit,
So that wont burn to the core.
Then you’ll land back out there,
with only your fare,
To the village they sent you up
from.
Then you say to yourself, it’s
either the shelf,
Or the life of a common bum.
I’ll make one good haul, and that
will be all,
Then I’ll put up my pistol for
good.
That might be okay, you might
get away,
And still settle down, if you
would.
You pull this one job and split
with the mob,
Then hit the high lights for
awhile.
Your money runs low, you go for
more dough,
For some dame who gave you a
smile.
A cops whistle will blow, the end
of the show,
You’ve had your last pistol to
tote.
Just one more crook, wound up
with the Book,
And that is all she wrote.
THE HAIR-PIN
What is home without a hair-pin,
When the glove hook can’t be
found,
And the street car is approaching,
To the northern depots bound?
Or the paper cutter’s missing,
As the thrilling tale she reads;
And the hero’s planned elopement
On an uncut page succeeds?
What is home with out a hair-pin
Deftly bent upon the floor;
When one finds it, walking barefoot
Hark, was that a voice that swore,
Sending echoes through the darkness,
With a swift profane dispatch,
Till they swarmed upon a toothpick
And became a parlor match?
Oh! the wicked little hair-pin—
Treacherous wire of dual point—
You were better hid in tresses
Than in wrenching out a oint!
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