A Trip on the Erie

You can talk of your picnics and trips on the lake,
But a trip on the Erie you bet takes the cake!
With the beef steak as tough as a fighting dog's neck,
And the flies playing tag with the cook on the deck.

cho: Haul in your towlines and take in ther slack
Take a reef in your britches and straighten your back,
Mind what I tell you and don't you forget
To tap the mules gently when the cook's on the deck.

Now the cook she's a daisy, she's dead gone on me
With her fiery read head, and she's twice twenty-three
She's knpck-kneed and freckled, a dumpling and a pet
And we use her for a headlight at night on the deck.

From Traditional American Folk Songs, Anne and Frank Warner
Collected from John Galusha, 1941
RG
oct96