Songs of a Sourdough Part 3

THE SONG OF THE WAGE-SLAVE

When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay, I hope that it won't be h.e.l.l-fire, as some of the parsons say.

And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met-- All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.

Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands; Master, I've done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands-- Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich; I've done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch.

I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not s.h.i.+rk; Threescore years of labour--Thine be the long day's work.

And now, Big Master, I'm broken and bent and twisted and scarred, But I've held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou wilt not judge me hard.

Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool-- Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil's tool.

I was just like a child with money: I flung it away with a curse, Feasting a fawning parasite, or glutting a harlot's purse, Then back to the woods repentant, back to the mill or the mine, I, the worker of workers, everything in my line.

Everything hard but headwork (I'd no more brains than a kid), A brute with brute strength to labour, doing as I was bid; Living in camps with men-folk, a lonely and loveless life; Never knew kiss of sweetheart, never caress of wife.

A brute with brute strength to labour, and they were so far above-- Yet I'd gladly have gone to the gallows for one little look of Love.

I with the strength of two men, savage and shy and wild-- Yet how I'd ha' treasured a woman, and the sweet, warm kiss of a child.

Well, 'tis Thy world, and Thou knowest. I blaspheme and my ways be rude; But I've lived my life as I found it, and I've done my best to be good; I, the primitive toiler, half naked, and grimed to the eyes, Sweating it deep in their ditches, swining it stark in their styes, Hulling down forests before me, spanning tumultuous streams; Down in the ditch building o'er me palaces fairer than dreams; Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen, Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men.

Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands; Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.

Master, I've done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west, And the long, long s.h.i.+ft is over ... Master, I've earned it--Rest.

GRIN

If you're up against a bruiser and you're getting knocked about-- Grin.

If you're feeling pretty groggy, and you're licked beyond a doubt-- Grin.

Don't let him see you're funking, let him know with every clout, Though your face is battered to a pulp, your blooming heart is stout; Just stand upon your pins until the beggar knocks you out-- And grin.

This life's a bally battle, and the same advice holds true, Of grin.

If you're up against it badly, then it's only one on you, So grin.

If the future's black as thunder, don't let people see you're blue; Just cultivate a cast-iron smile of joy the whole day through; If they call you "Little Suns.h.i.+ne," wish that _they'd_ no troubles, too-- You may--grin.

Rise up in the morning with the will that, smooth or rough, You'll grin.

Sink to sleep at midnight, and although you're feeling tough, Yet grin.

There's nothing gained by whining, and you're not that kind of stuff; You're a fighter from away back, and you _won't_ take a rebuff; Your trouble is that you don't know when you have had enough-- Don't give in.

If Fate should down you, just get up and take another cuff; You may bank on it that there is no philosophy like bluff And grin.

THE SHOOTING OF DAN MCGREW

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was. .h.i.tting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare, There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty and loaded for bear.

He looked like a man with a foot in the grave, and scarcely the strength of a louse, Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.

There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue; But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell; And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in h.e.l.l; With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done, As he watered the green stuff in his gla.s.s, and the drops fell one by one.

Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do, And I turned my head--and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze, Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.

The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool, So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.

In a buckskin s.h.i.+rt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands--my G.o.d! but that man could play!

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could _hear_; With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold; While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars-- Then you've a haunch what the music meant ... hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans; But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means; For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above; But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love; A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true-- (G.o.d! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,--the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear; But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear; That some one had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie; That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.

'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through-- "I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood; And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.

The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash, And the l.u.s.t awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash,

And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way; In a buckskin s.h.i.+rt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm; And, "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a d.a.m.n; But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true, That one of you is a hound of h.e.l.l ... and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark; And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark; Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew, While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know; They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.

I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two-- The woman that kissed him and--pinched his poke--was the lady that's known as Lou.

THE CREMATION OF SAM MCGEE

_There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee._

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam round the Pole G.o.d only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in h.e.l.l."

On a Christmas Day we were mus.h.i.+ng our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze, till sometimes we couldn't see; It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe, He turned to me, and, "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess; And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no: then he says with a sort of moan: "It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet 'taint being dead, it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains: So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail; And we started on at the streak of dawn, but G.o.d! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee; And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror driven, With a corpse half-hid that I couldn't get rid because of a promise given; It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains, But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.