A Cowboy Is---

“The flower of youth,” that’s what Ma said, the day we packed the wagon. She tussled my hair and planted a kiss on my cheek and tin cans to the tail gate draggin’ My bride, my Peg, she hopped on aboard while her Ma, Nellie, stood by bawlin'. Dad stood by the farm house door and Ole Red stood aside him howlin'. We left from Pennsylvania aimed for Oregon I’m not sure we woulda gone if we’d new, all the loss a comin’ afore the shores of Avalon, land of milk and honey, where apple trees are strewn. Peg-a-my-heart, fair she was, and our baby she was carrying, we’d lose that chil’, I’d lose my Peg, before we hit Missouri . I sold the wagon, and bought them a stone, markin' the place I’d laid them and off I went on a cattle drive a broken man in a hurry. A cowboys life was all I had, a horse and my whiskey and every night afore I’d sleep I’d sing “Oh, Peg-o-my heart…I miss ye” *this was what it was like to be a cowboy