I RECKON I git your drift, gents— | |
| You ’low the boy sha’n’t stay; | |
| This is a white man’s country: | |
| You ’re Dimocrats, you say: | |
| And whereas, and seein’, and wherefore, | 5 |
| The times bein’ all out o’ jint, | |
| The nigger has got to mosey | |
| From the limits o’ Spunky P’int! | |
| |
| Let ’s reason the thing a minute; | |
| I ’m an old-fashioned Dimocrat, too, | 10 |
| Though I laid my politics out o’ the way | |
| For to keep till the war was through. | |
| But I come back here allowin’ | |
| To vote as I used to do, | |
| Though it gravels me like the devil to train | 15 |
| Along o’ sich fools as you. | |
| |
| Now dog my cats if I kin see | |
| In all the light of the day, | |
| What you ’ve got to do with the question | |
| Ef Tim shall go or stay. | 20 |
| And furder than that I give notice, | |
| Ef one of you tetches the boy, | |
| He kin check his trunks to a warmer clime | |
| Than he ’ll find in Illanoy. | |
| |
| Why, blame your hearts, jist hear me! | 25 |
| You know that ungodly day | |
| When our left struck Vicksburg Heights, how ripped | |
| And torn and tattered we lay. | |
| When the rest retreated, I stayed behind, | |
| Fur reasons sufficient to me,— | 30 |
| With a rib caved in, and a leg on a strike, | |
| I sprawled on that cursed glacee. | |
| |
| Lord! how the hot sun went for us, | |
| And broiled and blistered and burned! | |
| How the rebel bullets whizzed round us | 35 |
| When a cuss in his death-grip turned! | |
| Till along toward dusk I seen a thing | |
| I couldn’t believe for a spell: | |
| That nigger—that Tim—was a-crawlin’ to me | |
| Through that fire-proof, gilt-edged hell! | 40 |
| |
| The rebels seen him as quick as me, | |
| And the bullets buzzed like bees; | |
| But he jumped for me, and shouldered me, | |
| Though a shot brought him once to his knees; | |
| But he staggered up, and packed me off, | 45 |
| With a dozen stumbles and falls, | |
| Till safe in our lines he drapped us both, | |
| His black hide riddled with balls. | |
| |
| So, my gentle gazelles, thar ’s my answer, | |
| And here stays Banty Tim: | 50 |
| He trumped Death’s ace for me that day, | |
| And I ’m not goin’ back on him! | |
| You may rezoloot till the cows come home, | |
| But ef one of you tetches the boy, | |
| He ’ll wrastle his hash to-night in hell, | 55 |
| Or my name ’s not Tilmon Joy! | |
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