Honest Working Man

chorus:
'Way down in East Cape Breton, where they knit the sock and mitten
Chezzetcook is represented by the husky black and tan.
May they never be rejected, and home rule be protected
And always be connected with the honest working man!

1. What raises high my dander, next door lives a Newfoundlander
Whose wire you cannot stand her, since high living she began,
Along with the railroad rackers, also the codfish packers,
Who steal the cheese and crackers from the honest working man.

2. When leaves fall in the autumn and fish freeze to the bottom,
They take a three-ton schooner and go round the western shore;
They load her with provisions, hard tack and codfish mizzens,
The like I never heard of since the downfall of Bras d'Or.

3. The man who mixes mortar gets a dollar and a quarter,
The sugar-factory worker, he gets a dollar ten,
While there's my next-door neighbor, who subsists on outside labour,
In the winter scarcely earns enough to feed a sickly hen.

4. They cross the Bay of Fundy, they reach her ona Monday:
Do you see my brother Angus? Now tell me if you can.
He was once a soap-box greasman, but now he is a policeman
Because he could not earn a living as an honest working man.

From the Penguin Book of Canada Folk Songs, Fowkes
RG