Traditional Maine
I found
this song in that fine old book, The Minstrelsy of Maine, but Fannie
Hardy Eckstorm and Mary Winslow Smythe. They explain that song was collected in
1925 from Horace E. Priest of Sangerville, who learned it 45 years before in
the woods on the Penobscot. Many lumberman came into Bangor help build the dam
and Water Works in 1875-6. His stamps,
or caulks, were his hobnailed boots. The
saddest part of this story was that he came out of the woods to take a
"civilized" job for awhile.
He ended up building the Water Works without pay, having lost his most
important possessions, his logging boots.
To Bangor City last year I came; to the town I took a fancy
I enlisted a job in the Water Works, 'long of my friend Jim Clancy
Jim, he didn't stay but a day or two while I stuck on
like a daisy
Bad luck to me soul, had I gone with Jim my poor heart
would-a been easy.
One Saturday night I got my stamps – for Brewer town I
started
I sent a man and he asked me to drink – says I,
"You're very kind hearted."
I took a drink of the lay-down punch – which laid me out
completely
Sometimes I get a little mite drunk, but that night I got
beastly.
When I awoke me stamps was gone, in another hotel I was
setting
My bag and baggage was my only chum, and my bedroom door
was a-grating.
I loudly for the Boss did call, my stomach bein' in want
of a diet
When a man with a star did to me appear, sayin'
"Damn your eyes, keep quiet!"
I was taken to court that very afternoon and charged for
Creating a Riot
They said I knocked a policeman down while trying to keep
being quiet.
I told the story to the Judge – to the best of my
recollection
He fined me 50 cents and costs… of six months in the
House of Correction.
My stamps was gone so I had to go too, a makin' brick for
the stack, boys;
And all on account of the lay-down-punch and the meetin'
of the hoboes.
And now young men when you do go out, if you have got any
money
Keep away from the lay-down-punch, and the hoboes for
their cunning.
Jim Clancy is recorded on the album In
the Kind Land