Fair as a lily, joyous and free,
Light of the prairie home was she.

She's a "granny" now, no doubt -- or dead.

And I remember a poor, brutally ill-used little wife,
wearing a black eye mostly, and singing "Love Amongst the Roses" at her work.
And they sang the "Blue Tail Fly", and all the first and best coon songs --
in the days when old John Brown sank a duffer on the hill.

. . . . .

The great bark kitchen of Granny Mathews' "Redclay Inn".
A fresh back-log thrown behind the fire, which lights the room fitfully.
Company settled down to pipes, subdued yarning, and reverie.

Flash Jack -- red sash, cabbage-tree hat on back of head with nothing in it,
glossy black curls bunched up in front of brim. Flash Jack volunteers,
without invitation, preparation, or warning, and through his nose:

Hoh! --

There was a wild kerlonial youth,
John Dowlin was his name!
He bountied on his parients,
Who lived in Castlemaine!

and so on to --