Come all you jolly freighters That has freighted on the road, That has hauled a load of freight From Wilcox to Globe; We freighted on this road For sixteen years or more A-hauling freight for Livermore,-- No wonder that I'm poor.
And it's home, dearest home; And it's home you ought to be, Over on the Gila In the white man's country, Where the poplar and the ash And mesquite will ever be Growing green down on the Gila; There's a home for you and me.
'Twas in the spring of seventy-three I started with my team, Led by false illusion And those foolish, golden dreams; The first night out from Wilcox My best wheel horse was stole, And it makes me curse a little To come out in the hole.
This then only left me three,-- Kit, Mollie and old Mike; Mike being the best one of the three I put him out on spike; I then took the mountain road So the people would not smile, And it took fourteen days To travel thirteen mile.
But I got there all the same With my little three-up spike; It taken all my money, then, To buy a mate for Mike. You all know how it is When once you get behind, You never get even again Till you damn steal them blind.
I was an honest man When I first took to the road, I would not swear an oath, Nor would I tap a load; But now you ought to see my mules When I begin to cuss, They flop their ears and wiggle their tails And pull the load or bust.
Now I can tap a whiskey barrel With nothing but a stick, No one can detect me I've got it down so slick; Just fill it up with water,-- Sure, there's no harm in that.
Now my clothes are not the finest, Nor are they genteel; But they will have to do me Till I can make another steal. My boots are number elevens, For I swiped them from a chow, And my coat cost dos reals From a little Apache squaw.
Now I have freighted in the sand, I have freighted in the rain, I have bogged my wagons down And dug them out again; I have worked both late and early Till I was almost dead, And I have spent some nights sleeping In an Arizona bed.
Now barbed wire and bacon Is all that they will pay, But you have to show your copper checks To get your grain and hay; If you ask them for five dollars, Old Meyers will scratch his pate, And the clerks in their white, stiff collars Say, "Get down and pull your freight."
But I want to die and go to hell, Get there before Livermore and Meyers, And get a job of hauling coke To keep up the devil's fires; If I get the job of singeing them, I'll see they don't get free; I'll treat them like a yaller dog, As they have treated me.
And it's home, dearest home; And it's home you ought to be, Over on the Gila, In the white man's country, Where the poplar and the ash And mesquite will ever be Growing green down on the Gila; There's a home for you and me.