Dear miss:

For this pink stationery

Forgive me; it's all I could find

In Buck Dalton's store at the Ferry,

So I took it—I hope you won't mind.

For it's Christmas good wishes I'm sending,

Though in words not the best ever slung,

To you, where the Tiber is wending.

From me, on the banks of the Tongue.

Perhaps you've forgotten the morning

When your car of the Overland Mail

Broke loose on a curve, without warning,

And was ditched by the spread of a rail?

I was herding near by in the valley,

And I pulled out your father and you,

And I found that your name, Miss, was Sallie,

And—well, I remember. Do you?

You were there for five hours at least, Miss,

Then the whistle, a smile, a last word,

And you rolled away to the East, Miss,

While I galloped back to the herd.

You back to your world and its beauties.

New York, Paris, Rome, and all those,

I, back to a cowboy's rough duties

In sunshine and rainstorm and snows.

But to-night I'm alone in the shack here

On my quarter-square Government claim,

While coyotes are yelping out back here—

You'd be scared, Miss, I guess, by the same.

The moonlight is white on the river,

And the long, frozen miles of the plain

Seem to shrink in the north wind and shiver

And wish it was summer again.

It's different where you are, I reckon,

Leastways from the books it must be,

Where the green hills of Italy beckon

And the Tiber sings down to the sea;

Where the red roses always are climbing

And the air smells of olives and pines,

And at evening the vesper bells' chiming

Floats up toward the far Apennines.

You like it, no doubt, and you'd never

See beauties that nature can hold

Where the snow lies in drifts on the river

And the prairies are empty and cold.

But somehow I wouldn't forego it

For all of those soft, southern lands.

I breathe it and feel it and know it;

It grips me as if it had hands.

The stars in the night, how they glisten!

The plains in the day, how they spread!

There's room to stand up in, and listen,

And know there's a God overhead.

And then, when the summer is coming

And the cattle start out on the trails,

And you hearken at dawn to the drumming

Of prairie-hens down in the swales.

Why, Italy simply ain't in it!—

But, Miss, here I'm talking too free.

Excuse me; my thoughts for a minute

Got sort of the better of me.

It was just about Christmas I started;

To me, it was only a name

Till that day when we met, talked and parted,

But since it has not been the same.

For you gave me a new kind of notion

Of the countries and people and such

On the trails that lie over the ocean—

I guess we don't differ so much.

And Christmas is chuck full of spirit

That everywhere under the sun

Warms up anyone who comes near it

And fills them with good-will and fun.

So I want you to know from this letter

That the time by the train wreck with you

Made me know all humanity better

And like the whole bunch better, too.

And I hope, if it seems like presuming

That a letter shall come to your door

In the land where the roses are blooming

From me, on the Tongue's icy shore,

You'll forgive, Miss, an uncultured party

In the spirit of Christmas, and take

These thanks and good wishes, all hearty,

From

Your most sincere

CHEYENNE JAKE.