Three years I work’d hard in the gold mines— ’Way out in the mountains, ye see, Whar a feller don’t have sich comforts As a wife and a boy on the knee!
Wal, at last I grew rather homesick, And, ’thout writin’ Polly a word, I ti’d up my kit for a journey, And—slop’d for the home I prerferr’d?
Forty days I war comin’ ter Clark’s: A week brought me here ter the door, When I peek’d through a hole in the wall: “Little Boots” war squat on the floor!
The supper war spread on the table, And Polly war pourin’ the tea For Tom Smart, who had dropp’d in jist then Ter hear if she’d got word from me.
Now, Tom Smart war an old friend of our’n, Who had shown much friendly corncern In Polly and me, and, heaps of times, Had render’d a neighborly turn!
But, ter come ter the pint; I cornfess, I chuck’d my rerligion erside! And when they decla’r’d this boy war mine, I cussed ’em, and told ’em they lied!
For, strenger, I’d been away three years From Polly and home, yet, forsooth, The youngster they tried ter palm on me, Had only jist cut his first tooth!
But Polly, she kiss’d me so kind-like, And prertested that she had been true, That I tuk “Little Boots” ter my arms,— Why, strenger, what else could I do?