Ballad of Ozy B. Orr

Here's a plain and straight story of Ozy B.
Orr--
A ballad unvarnished, but practical, for
It tells how the critter he wouldn't lie down
When a Hoodoo had reckoned to do him up brown.
It shows how a Yankee alights on his feet
When folks looking on have concluded he's beat
Now Ozy had money and owned a good farm
And matters were working all right to a charm.
When he "went on" some papers to help his son Bill
Who was all tangled up in a dowel-stock mill.
Now Bill was a quitter, and therefore one day
Those notes became due and his dad had to pay.
So he slapped on a mortgage and then buckled down
To pay up the int'rest and keep off the town.
Oh, that mortgage, it clung like a sheep-tick in wool,
And the more she sagged back, harder Ozy would pull;
But a mortgage can tucker the likeliest man,
And Ozy he found himself flat on hard pan.
He dumped in his stock and his grain and his hay,
He scrimped and he skived and endeavored to pay;
He sold off his hay and his grain and his stock
Till the ricky-tick-tack of the auctioneer's knock
Kept up such a rapping on Ozy's old farm
That the auctioneer nigh had a kink in his arm--
And it happened at last,'long o' Thanksgiving time,
Old Ozy was stripped to his very last dime.
And he said to his helpmeet: "Poor mummy,
I van
I guess them 'ere critters have got all they can.
For they've sued off the stock till the barns are all bare,
'Cept the old turkey-gobbler, a-peckin' out there;
They'd'a' lifted him, too, for those lawyers are rough,
But they reckoned that gobbler was rather too tough.
So they've left us our dinner for Thanksgivin'
Day;
Just remember that, mummy, to-night when you pray.
Now chirk up your appetite, for, with God's grace,
We'll eat all at once all the stock on the place."
But Ozy he was a cheerful man,
A goodly man, a godly man--
He didn't repine at Heaven's plan, but he took things as they came;
And cheerfully soon he whistled his tune
That he always whistled-- 'twas Old Zip
Coon,
And he whistled it all the afternoon with never a word of blame.
While all unaware of his owner's care,
The gobbler pecked in the sunshine there,
With a tip-toe, tip-toe Nancy air, and ruffled like dancing dame;
Till it seemed to Ozy, whistling still
To the ripity-rap of the turkey's bill,
That the prim old gobbler was keeping time
To the sweep and the swing of the wordless rhyme:
Pickety-peck,
With arching neck,
The turkey strutted with bow and beck.
And a Yankee notion was thereby born
To Ozy Orr ere another morn.
A practical fellow was Ozy B. Orr,
As keen an old Yankee as ever you saw
A bit of a platform he made out of tin,
With a chance for a kerosene lantern within;
He took his old fiddle and rosined the bow
And took the old turkey--and there was his show!
You don't understand? Well, I'll own up to you
The crowds that he gathered were mystified, too.
For he advertised there on his banner unfurled
"A Jig-dancing Turkey--Sole one in the
World."
And the more the folks saw it, the more and the more
They flocked with their dimes, and jammed at the door;
For it really did seem that precocious old bird
At sound of the fiddle was wondrously stirred.
In stateliest fashion the dance would commence,
Then faster and faster, with fervor intense,
Until, at the end, with a shriek of the strings
And a furious gobble and whirlwind of wings,
The turkey would side-step and two-step and spin,
Then larrup with ardor that echoing tin.
And widely renowned, and regarded with awe,
Was the "Great Dancing Turkey of Ozy B.
Orr."
And the mortgage was paid by the old gobbler's legs--
Now Ozy is heading up money in kegs.
He would calmly tuck beneath his chin
The bulge of his cracked old violin,
He sawed while the turkey whacked the tin, the people they paid and came;
For swift and soon to the lilting tune,
When he fiddled the measure of Old Zip
Coon,
The gobbler would whirl in a rigadoon--or something about the same!
While under the tin, tucked snugly in,
Was the worthless Bill, that brand of Sin;
And'twas Bill that made the turkey spin with the tip of the lantern flame;
For, as ever and ever the tin grew hot
The turkey made haste for to leave that spot,
Till it seemed that the gobbler was keeping time
To the sweep and the swing of the fiddle's rhyme.
Pickety-peck,
With snapping neck,
The gobbler gamboled with bow and beck!
Does a notion pay? It doth--it doth!
Just reckon what O. B. Orr is "wuth."