Read Ebook: Rhymes of a Roughneck by Cotter Frank J

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Ebook has 174 lines and 12987 words, and 4 pages

Sam gave us an Army Commission And told it to build us a Trail, But all that Sam gave was permission-- He didn't come thru with the kale. Now a trail in Alaska costs money And when Dick tries to get a bill thru Some jackass from Maine reads the figures And "moves the amount cut in two."

Our Uncle Sam owns all the cables, And the prices he gets are a sin, It costs more for a word to Seattle Than it does from Salt Lake to Berlin. Our coast line is rugged and broken, A menace to each ship that sails, But Sam has no money for coast lights, They get the same treatment as trails.

And Alaska is some husky orphan, We can reach from the Gulf to B.C., We could stand with one foot in Kansas While the other was washed by the sea. We're allowed only one voice in Congress, And that one bereft of a vote, And has to get some one's permission Ere he loose a protest from his throat.

Sam gave us a group legislative, But barred them the making of laws, They could only memorialize Congress And give it the reasons and cause. The cry of the world is for Home Rule Yet imported fools crowd our bench, And some of their mining decisions Send up to high Heaven their stench.

Sam made us quit gambling, that's all right, But one thing that nobody knows Is why he allowed a bone head from Georgia Hang the cr?pe on our own picture shows. We're all hedged about with restrictions And, Sam, won't you in us confide Why some of your damphool ideas Are not tried out on some one outside?

This Land's not the land of the weakling And the men up here know what we need, And we're sick of your bunch from the Outside Who's only incentive is greed. We've stood for Pinchot's conservation And we've stood for your carpet-bag horde Who have grabbed off the jobs in Alaska As a sort of political reward.

But, Sam, take a tip from a Roughneck, Go slow now and don't crowd your hand Or some day you may find that the orphan Has quit creeping and learned how to stand. Don't make us the goat for the theories Advanced by some government cog, And don't use this land as a station For trying things out on the dog.

We gaze o'er the line of the Yukon As we're watching our neighbors at play And we wonder why Our Uncle Sammy Don't treat his Alaskans that way. We look at their broad graded highways And then at our own half blazed trails And, Sam, it comes damned nigh to envy When we think of their thrice a week mails.

They don't know the word conservation, Their resources, all theirs to use, And when they ask their Uncle to help them Their Uncle don't often refuse. Their Uncle has helped them develop, Furnished work there for men who were broke, And, Sam, when it comes to Coast Lights They make ours look like a joke.

But in spite of it all, Sam, we love you, We love every thread in the Flag, We love every stream in Alaska, We love every cliff, every crag. We're not like the Woman or Dog, Sam, And we're not like the Walnut Tree Cause we want to be loved in return, Sam, And, Sam, you are blind, or you'd see.

"A Woman, a Dog, and a Walnut Tree The more you beat them the better they'll be."

WHEN THE WATER STARTS TO RUN

Along in early spring time, as the sun starts swinging North To linger with the land it loves, and violets peep forth, When the water starts to running thru the riffle blocks at noon And you figure that you'll clean up, about the first of June. You've been thru a long hard winter, but you see the end in sight, You don't worry 'bout the cleanup, cause you know the pay is right; But you're feeling sort of restless, as your blood warms with the sun And your heart will start to itching, when the water starts to run.

You may leave your Camp at evening and mush away to Town To dally with the hootch a bit, but the feeling will not down. You may mix up in a poker game, or try the dance hall's lure But you're fighting off a feeling, that the old cures cannot cure. You've got that longing feeling that there's nothing satisfies, And your pard can't interest you, no matter how he tries, You're lonesome, moody, restless, out at Camp, or in the Town Your mind will not rest easy, and your troubles will not drown.

Then memory pulls her picket pins, your thoughts go back thru years To Outside, Home, and Sweetheart, and this last thought sort of cheers; You recollect the days you spent beneath a Southern sky And with regret you now remember they all ended with good-by. It's the same old world-wide feeling that comes to man each year, But it seems to hit us harder, when we're getting in the "clear"; It seems that it grows stronger, each year added to our life-- It's the hankering of the white man for a Pal, a Home, a Wife.

Man was not meant to live alone, why quarrel with Nature's laws, God gave you strength to build a home, wherefor then do you pause? Go forward like your father did, go forth and seek your mate, For till you know a wife and home, you know not Heaven's Gate. It's the deep inherent longing for a baby on your knee, For the sound of children's voices, beneath your own fig tree. The male instinct to have a mate, to love, to guard, to hold, The one instinct that's left to us, that triumphs over gold.

With strength enough to build a home when once you get a wife Bear gently with her follies, but guard her with your life; Crowd full her heart with loving, yet hold a guarded rein, Lest ye two now that rate as one, again be counted twain. And if she come from Outside Camp, remember all is new And give her time to find herself, teach her to lean on you. And should homesickness grip her, and you find your wife in tears Forget the jest and love her, remember your first years.

Then gone that restless feeling, gone all desire to roam, Life's interest all is centered, deep in your Northern home. Life waits in peace the cleanup, you pass up Outside joys, And the tempter's voice is silenced by the music of her voice. Then you're a true Alaskan, with a home won from the North, God grant you children's voices when the violets peep forth, And in the summer evening, beneath the midnight sun, May your heart grow closer to her, when the water starts to run.

THE THROWBACK

He was born far east of the Rockies Of a pet in society's van; A wine-soaked daughter of pleasure Bred back and threw a man; A man-child who grew up a stranger, Who never could learn the way Of a people who gauge their pleasure On a line with the price they pay.

Just a shred of an education-- A few years of college life, A course in the card and wine room, A year with a chorus-girl wife, Then disgust with a life unnatural Spurred on with the curse of the go, He quitted that life forever For the land of the gold and snow.

The Lure of the Land had gripped him, The Land where you die if you fail; The Land of the fabled fortunes, The Land of the endless trail. The Land of the lonely silence, The Land of the cruel cold, The Land of the lost ambitions Alaska, the Land of gold.

There winters of long hungry hardships, Summers of pest-ridden heat; Dicing with death for a grub stake, Risking his life for meat. Tossing away his young manhood, Giving the best of his youth To the holes that he bedrocked on wildcats, Where gold was scarcer than truth.

Ten years spent in Alaska Gray haired, with cheeks all atan, Beaten, but still unconquered. Flat broke, but still a man, Digging and sinking and drifting, Trying to locate the "pay," With each hole a fresh disappointment-- Yet hoping to strike it next day.

Scorning the letters recalling, Forgetting the friends he had known, Turning his back on the Outside, Facing the future alone. A Cabin, a Squaw, and a Fishwheel, A bend in the river's flow, A band of half-naked breed kids-- He stayed there, a sourdough.

THE MALAMUTE

When the stars from the skies have fallen And the smoke of the world's cleared away; When Saint Peter marks "30" in Life's Book And we meet there on Judgment Day; When our trials and troubles are ended And we're wise to the best and the worst; When the time has arrived that the wise ones Have told us the last shall be first;

When the men who've made good are rewarded And the losers are turned loose in Hell; That's the time that a lot will be learning The true reason and cause that they fell. And I wonder when Peter gets busy As he works out the tenement plan, And when Heaven's thrown free for location Will he confine the locations to man?

If he does, my claim's open for jumping For I can't figure Heaven complete, If the dim distant trails of the sky land Are not pattered by malamutes' feet. Cause I know it would never seem home-like No matter how golden the strand, If I lose out that pal-loving feeling Of a malamute's nose in my hand.

And it's that way with lots of Alaskans These men of our own last frontier, Who tear into nature unaided And who scarce know the meaning of fear. Who live on lone creeks all alone here Where the living and dying are hard, And where oft times their only companion Is a malamute pup for a pard.

He's a real chum with things coming easy, He's a pal with things breaking tough, He's a hell-roaring fighting companion When somebody starts something rough. He's a true friend in sorrow and sickness And he doesn't mind hunger or cold, And he's really the only one pardner You can trust when you uncover gold.

He's a guard you can trust at the sluice box, And he'll watch by your cache thru the night, And if some cheechako tries to molest it That cheechako's in for a fight. As a pardner he's silent, but cheerful With never a kick 'bout the trails And if it wasn't for him in the winter There never would be any mails.

He pulls on our sleds in the winter He's first in the rushing stampede He goes where a horse couldn't travel And besides that he rustles his feed. He takes a pack saddle in summer And follows us off thru the hills And when we go short on the grub pile He shares up whatever he kills.

'Twas a malamute first scaled the Chilkoot At the time of the great Klondike charge; 'Twas a malamute first saw Lake Bennett And left his footprints at La Barge; They hauled the first mail into Dawson, That Land of the Old Timer's dream, And when Wada first drove in from Fairbanks He was driving a malamute team.

They broke the first trail into Bettles With no guide save the lone Northern Star; They freighted next year to Kantishna And from there to the famed Chandelar. They know the long trail to Innoko, Tacotna and Iditarod too, For there's never a Camp in the Northland But what these same malamutes knew.

They brought the first sport to the Nome Beach Where they showed up in action and deed That the North dog is game as they make them And besides that has plenty of speed. He came home with the bacon from Candle Like a bat out of Hell, thru the snow, And the plunger that cashed in his "out tab" Was his pardner, the Old Sourdough.

So it seems to me kind of unfair now As we drift toward that permanent Camp Where the angels are running a dance hall And a millionaire grades with a tramp; Where the trails are located on pay dirt And a grub stake can never expire-- Well, if they shut out my dog, they can keep it And I'll "siwash" it, down by Hell's Fire.

They herald the growth of the Northland And progress is marked by their trail; A railroad now goes where they brought out The Seward-Iditarod mail. He's first in the growth of Alaska And without him this land would be lost, For there's never a stream in this country That the malamutes' trail has not crossed.

But you can't tell me God would have Heaven So a man couldn't mix with his friends; That we're doomed to meet disappointment When we come to the place the trail ends. That would be a low-grade sort of Heaven And I'd never regret a damned sin If I mush up to the gates, white and pearly, And they don't let my malamute in.

UNSATISFIED

Some sigh for the breath of the desert Where the stifling heat waves blow; Some pant for the trackless tundra And the sting of the cold and snow; Some long for the wash of a sultry sea As it breaks on a tropic shore; Some pine for the breeze of the northern seas And the sound of the Arctic's roar.

The things that men love be countless But they're seldom the same with two, For the things I care for most of all Might never appeal to you. Some men run to wine and woman, Some long for a wife and a home, And he drifts with the tide, unsatisfied, Who leaves these things to roam.

For he hates the sands of the desert And the slimy tropic south, Or his dreams of a northern fortune Are as ashes in his mouth. He loses the best life holds for man His existence means discontent Still he goes his way, until comes the day When he quits it--a life misspent.

YET

Some sigh for the breath of the desert Where the stifling heat waves blow; Some pant for the trackless tundra And the sting of the cold and snow; Some long for the wash of a sultry sea As it breaks on a tropic shore; Some pine for the breeze of the northern seas And the sound of the Arctic's roar.

THE PROSPECTOR

Where the ragged, snow-capped saw tooth Cuts the azure of the sky And watches o'er the lonely land As ages wander by; Where the sentinel pines in grandeur Murmur to the glacier stream As it, ice-gorged, gluts the canyon, Never brightened by the gleam Of sun at brightest noon day, Nor moon of Arctic night, And whose only link with Heaven Is the fitful Northern Light. Where the Whistler shrills in triumph And the Big Horn dreams in peace, Where the Brown Bear skulks to cover Up where silence holds the lease; Where the land is as God left it Nor has known the tread of man, There's a treasure ledge a-waiting-- Go and find it if you can.

If your heart be steeled to triumph Nor beats less at your defeat; Can you watch your whole world melt away And still smiling, fortune greet? Will your heart and brain and sinew Crowd you on, when hunger's pain Gnaws your belly and you're beaten, Can you lose, and fight again? Can you raise the cup of fortune To your lips and bravely quaff The draught she has prepared for you And win or lose and laugh? Can you see the fruits of hardships Centered on one desperate throw And know Fate's dice are loaded Nor curse to see them go? Then take your burden up again And stagger up the trail, You're bound to make a winning Cause you don't know how to fail.

I, who've spent my youth in following The lure of hidden gold Must pass the buck to Nature And admit I'm growing old. And yet each spring I hear it calling And it's music to my ears, The call of lonely places That I've listened to for years. It's cost me all most men hold dear Some forty years of life, And all the joys that others get In babies, home, and wife. My life's been all to-morrows And my family only dreams And to the average plodder I've missed it all it seems. Still, I've never taken orders And I've always liked the game, And if life could be lived over, Why,--I'd live it just the same.

If you can hit the trail in zero weather And laugh at frozen hand, or foot or face; If you can eat your dogs, and still keep moving And beat the rest, and hold the stampede's pace; If you can stake and dig alone, unaided And hold your ground, if needs be with a gun And find the gold and have some lawyer steal it, And lose, and start again, and call it fun.

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