"Poor Papa, God will take him
To Mama up above;
There is no one left to love me,
There is no one left to love."

The little one was thirteen
And I was twenty-two;
I says, "I'll be your father
And love you just as true."
She nestled to my bosom,
Her hazel eyes so bright,
Looked up and made me happy,--
The close pursuit that night.

One month had passed and Maggie,
We called her Hazel Eye,
In truth was going to leave me,
Was going to say good-bye.
Her uncle, Mad Jack Reynolds,
Reported long since dead,
Had come to claim my angel,
His brother's child, he said.

What could I say? We parted,
Mad Jack was growing old;
I handed him a bank note
And all I had in gold.
They rode away at sunrise,
I went a mile or two,
And parting says, "We will meet again;
May God watch over you."

By a laughing, dancing brook
A little cabin stood,
And weary with a long day's scout,
I spied it in the wood.
The pretty valley stretched beyond,
The mountains towered above,
And near its willow banks I heard
The cooing of a dove.

'Twas one grand pleasure;
The brook was plainly seen,
Like a long thread of silver
In a cloth of lovely green;
The laughter of the water,
The cooing of the dove,
Was like some painted picture,
Some well-told tale of love.

While drinking in the country
And resting in the saddle,
I heard a gentle rippling
Like the dipping of a paddle,
And turning to the water,
A strange sight met my view,--
A lady with her rifle
In a little bark canoe.

She stood up in the center,
With her rifle to her eye;
I thought just for a second
My time had come to die.
I doffed my hat and told her,
If it was just the same,
To drop her little shooter,
For I was not her game.

She dropped the deadly weapon
And leaped from the canoe.
Says she, "I beg your pardon;
I thought you was a Sioux.
Your long hair and your buckskin
Looked warrior-like and rough;
My bead was spoiled by sunshine,
Or I'd have killed you sure enough."

"Perhaps it would've been better
If you'd dropped me then," says I;
"For surely such an angel
Would bear me to the sky."
She blushingly dropped her eyelids,
Her cheeks were crimson red;
One half-shy glance she gave me
And then hung down her head.

I took her little hand in mine;
She wondered what it meant,
And yet she drew it not awa