Bill made a faithful promise to be keerful, an’ allowed
He’d build a reputation that’d make us mighty proud,
But it seems as how my counsel sort o’ faded from his mind,
An’ now the boy’s in trouble o’ the very wustest kind!
His letters came so seldom that I somehow sort o’ knowed
That Billy was a-trampin’ on a mighty rocky road,
But never once imagined he would bow my head in shame,
An’ in the dust’d waller his ol’ daddy’s honored name.
He writes from out in Denver, an’ the story’s mighty short;
I just can’t tell his mother; it’ll crush her poor ol’ heart!