Chapter 33
Whoop-a-tie-ye-yo, get along, little doggies. Collected by John Lomax. Read for LibriVox.org. As I walked out one morning for pleasure, I spied a cowpuncher all riding alone.
His hat was thrown back and his spurs was a-jingling as he approached me, singing this song. Whoop-a-tie-ye-yo, get along, little doggies. It's your misfortune and none of my own. Whoop-a-tie-ye-yo, get along, little doggies, for you know Wyoming will be your new home.
Early in the spring we round up the doggies, mark and brand and bob off their tails, round up our horses, load up the chuck wagon, then throw the doggies upon the trail. It's whooping and yelling and driving the doggies, oh how I wish you would go on. It's whooping and punching, and go on, little doggies, for you know Wyoming will be your new home. Some boys goes up the trail for pleasure, but that's where you get it most awfully wrong,
for you haven't any idea the trouble they give us while we go driving them all along. When the night comes and we hold them on the bed ground, these little doggies that roll on so slow roll up the herd and cut out the strays, and roll the little doggies that never rolled before. Your mother, she was raised way down in Texas,
where the jimson weed and sand burrs grow. Now we'll fill you up on prickly pear and chola till you are ready for the trail to Idaho. Oh, you'll be soup for Uncle Sam's engines. It's beef, heap, beef, I hear them cry.
Get along, get along, get along, little doggies. you're going to be beefsteers by and by. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.
