BETSY AND I ARE OUT.[¹]

RAW up the papers, lawyer, and make ’em good and stout,

For things at home are cross-ways, and Betsy and I are out,—

We who have worked together so long as man and wife

Must pull in single harness the rest of our nat’ral life.

“What is the matter,” says you? I swan it’s hard to tell!

Most of the years behind us we’ve passed by very well;

I have no other woman—she has no other man;

Only we’ve lived together as long as ever we can.