Bruce Kiskaddon

Summer Time

There's a heap of times when ridin' after cattle shore is tough.
When every thing is goin' wrong, or else the weather's rough.
The whole world seems ag'in you. You can do yore level best,
But you ain't a gittin' nowheres and yore nearly dead for rest.
But it's purty in the summer when yore ridin' through the hills.
Where the tall green grass is growin' and the air is soft and still.
Cows and calves is fat and gentle. They jest look at you and stare.
You can hear the little insecks go a buzzin' in the air.
You may run onto some places that is mighty steep to climb,
But you ain't in any hurry, and you give the hoss his time.
You figger that it ain't so bad, a bein' a cow poke,
And you feel so plum contented you don't even want to smoke.
No, a cow boy's life ain't easy when you git it figgered down.
He don't have a lot of comforts that the people have in town.
But he don't deserve no sympathy fer how his life is spent.
Fer there's times he's jest a bathin' in a ocean of content.
There is nothin' there to bother him, he doesn't have to hurry.
He is doin' what he wants to do, he isn't in a hurry.
Yes, it pays up fer the frost bites, all the falls and all the spills,
On them lovely days in summer when he's ridin' in the hills.