Ventures Into Verse / Being various ballads, ballades, rondeaux, triolets, songs, quatrains, odes and roundels, all rescued from the potters' field of old files and here given decent burial

by H. L. Mencken

THE TRANSPORT GEN'RAL FERGUSON[^[2]]

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she left the Golden Gate,

With a thousand rookies sweatin' in her hold;

An' the sergeants drove an' drilled them, an' the sun it nearly killed them,—

Till they learned to do whatever they were told.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she lay at Honolu',

An' the rookies went ashore an' roughed the town,

So the sergeants they corralled them, and with butt and barrel quelled them,—

An' they limped aboard an' set to fryin' brown.

The transport Gen'ral Ferguson, she steamed to-ward the south,