That Letter

I rode to that box a settin’ on a post beside the trail,
That our outfit used fur getting’ all their messages and mail.
There I got a little letter and the envelope was pink,
It shore set me feelin’ better but it soter made me think.
Yes the feelin’ was surprisin’ onderneath my Stetson hat.
I could feel my hair a risin’ like the bristles of a cat.

Well I tore the letter open and I read it through and through.
All the time I was a hopin’ I would savvy what to do.
Men is quick upon the trigger, comes to tangle ups and fights,
But a woman, you can’t figger what she means by what she writes.
It was purty and invitin’ like a sunny day in spring,
She had done a heap of writin’ but she hadn’t said a thing.

Now, when men folks start to writin’ you can mostly onderstand,
And the stuff that they’re a sightin’ stands out plain jest like a brand
They don’t never do no playin’ they’ve a sort of sudden way,
For they start right in by sayin’ what they started out to say.
Men is given to expressin’ what they mean, right then and there,
But a woman keeps you guessin’ till your mind goes everywhere.

Fer a spell I’d do some thinkin’ then I’d start again and read;
I kept frownin’ and a blinkin’ till at last I got her lead.
In that letter there was lurkin’ jest one simple plain idee.
When I got my mind a workin’ it was plain enough to see.
Fer she said her and her mother, come a Saturday next week
Would be over with her brother to the dance on Turkey Creek.

On the start, you see, I never had no notice what she meant.
She had fixed it up right clever in the way the letter went.
Man! I shore did whoop and beller when the idee hit me fair.
She would come without no feller and she aimed to meet me there.
It shore made me like her better for that bashful gal of mine,
Went and built that whole durned letter, jest to write that single line.