Gabe Perkins’s Hoss Trade

                                                      (ain't got hoss sense )

“I hear you’ve traded hosses Gabe,

     Got stuck, too, so they say,”

Said ol’ Bill Jones, the grocer-man,

     To Gabe the other day.

“I traded hosses, yes,” said Gabe,

     In his slow, drawlin’ way;

“But as for me a-gittin’ stuck,

     Hain’t no one heard me say.”

“I traded nags with Cyrus Bean,

     You got that straight enough,

But as for Cyrus stickin’ me

     I tell you, it’s a bluff.

Warn’t neither hoss what you could call

     Letter perfect, you bet,

But that there thing I swapped on him

     Warn’t worth the grass he et.”

“One you’ve got now ain’t over much

     To brag about,” said Bill;

“Heerd someone say you had to stop

     An’ push him down the hill.”

“May be,” said Gabe, “but if he’s wuss

     Than what I swapped away

I’m gosh-derned proud to own him, Bill,

     That’s all I’ve got to say.”

                                               

March 19, ‘09