I've just finished packing for a rendezvous camp, and thought of this song I wrote. With Claywoman as good afriend as she is I can't believe I didn't post it before. I haven't recorded it yet but my friend Susan Chapman has. You can find her at froghopper948.yahoo.com

Down to her last dime in Chicago
Fresh off a boat from off the lake.
And the wind cut to the bone
Through the last dress that she owned
When she saw a chance she thought that she might take.
Just an Ad. in an old, tattered broadsheet.
Saying, "Men out West need a bride!
It don't matter what your age,
And we'll pay for the stage."
So Lucy thought she'd take off for the ride.

Ch:
The women went out West in their thousands.
On mule, Connestoga and pack.
Their story is old, but it's never been told,
And it's time that we gave something back
To mule, Connestoga and pack.

Kurt couldn't find work up in Boston
When he turned to Elena and said;
With his hand on the life
Growing inside his wife
As they lay in their tenement bed.
"There's a wagon train leaves Tuesday for Natchez.
And I think I can learn how to farm...?"
Next week, he' westward bound
With the courage that he found
While laying in sweet Elena's arms.

Silver Moonlight was raped by a soldier.
Clair had a Cherokee's son.
But they both did their chores
While the men did their wars;
And both the boys grew up tall and strong.
But the men's blood is storied in legend
While the womens' is lost in the earth.
But, corn, grown in the soil
Of the fields where they toiled,
Feeds the Nation to which they gave birth.