Nancy MacIntyre

Excerpt

BILLY'S REVERY

1

No use talking, it's perplexing,

Everything don't look the same;

Never had these curious feelin's

Till those MacIntyres came.

Quit my plowing long 'fore dinner,

Didn't hitch my team again;

Spent the day with these new neighbors,

Getting 'quainted with the men.

Talk about the prairie roses!

Purtiest flow'rs in all the world,

But they look like weeds for beauty

When I think of that new girl.

Strange, she seems so kind of friendly

When I'm awkward, every way,

And my tongue gets hitched and hobbled,

Everything I try to say!

2

There's one person, that Jim Johnson,

That there man I can't abide;

He's been milling around near Nancy,--

Durn his dirty, yaller hide!

Never really liked that Johnson;

Now, each time I hear his name,

Feel this state's too thickly settled,--

That is, since that new girl came.

If this making love to women

Went like breaking in a horse,

I might stand some show of winning,

'Cause I've learned that game, of course;

But this moonshine folks call 'courting,'

I ain't never played that part;

I can't keep from talking foolish

When I'm thinking with my heart.

3

Now, those women that you read of

In these story picture books,

They can't ride in roping distance

Of that girl in style and looks.

They have waists more like an insect,

Corset shaped and double cinched;

Feet just right to make a watch charm,

Small, of course, because they're pinched.

This here Nancy's like God made her,--

She don't wear no saddle girth,

But she's supple as a willow,

And the purtiest thing on earth.

I'm in earnest; let me ask you--

'Cause I want to reason fair--

What durn business has that rope-necked

Johnson sneaking over there?

4

Hands so soft and strong and tender,

When I shook a "how de do,"

They was loaded sure with something

Seemed to thrill me through and through;

Hair as black as fire-burnt prairie;

Eyes that dance and flash and flirt;

Every time she smiled she showed you

Teeth as white's my Sunday shirt.

Baked us biscuits light as cotton;

I can't eat mine any more,--

I must get some better breeches,--

Kind o' 'shamed of those I wore;

But I'm goin' there to-morrow,

Like enough I'll stay all day,

Seems to me too dry for plowing--

Durn that Johnson, anyway!

5

I ain't much on deep-down thinkin',

Reasoning out the way things go,

So I s'pose I'll keep on foolin'

Till in time I get to know.

I've had chills and fever 'n' ague;

Suffered till their course was run.

Maybe love just keeps on runnin',

Till a man has lost--or won.

One thing certain: I have got it;

Seems to struck in good and hard.

Makes me sometimes soft and tender;

Next thing I would fight my pard.

Appetite is surely failing,

Sometimes I don't eat a bite;

Dream of Nancy all the daytime,

That durn Johnson, half the night.

6

I've just got to get to plowin',

Break a fire-guard 'round my shack,

Plant my sod corn, fix my garden;

Everything is goin' to rack.

I can't work the way I used to;

Got to quittin' early now,

Since a little thing that happened,

I can't just remember how.

I was takin' leave of Nancy,

Standin' out there in the night,

And I put my arms around her--

Heart stopped beatin', just from fright....