  LORING and Ives and Phelan went off to Colon last night, And the women on Fourteenth street are sad, and the kids are filled with fright! At eight last evening Loring came to bid his child “good-bye”; He picked her up and he kissed her, and you ought to hear him sigh. “Gee! you’re a pretty kid,” says he, in a tone of voice that was sad; “Your lips and your skin are mighty good; it’s a pity your hair is bad.” Then he looked in the baby’s eyes a while, and he says in a voice of despair: “I hate to leave this poor little child; there’s my mother’s image there!” The brown one was crying to beat the band, And Loring, he looked wild, And says he to her, a kind of off-hand, “Woman! look after your child! This is no time for sentiment; bring the money you’ve kept for me; And God help you if you have it spent,” says he, as he winked at me. He counted the money out to her—five hundred and forty-five, And says he, “If you divvy this up with a guy I’ll come and skin you alive. Take the kid from this place of stench, for I’m coming back some day— Not to see you, you doggone wench—to take my child away.” Two Voodoos were sitting and looking on; they intended to give him some dope That would make him sleep till the train had gone, After that there’d be little hope That he’d ever wake to things again—that are wholesome and clean and good. He’d thirst for low life without twinge of pain, if the Voodoos got dope to his blood. Well, then we went out to Corozal, where the others were taking the train, And a white girl waited for Loring there, and her tears fell down like rain. He didn’t seem to mind it at all; in fact, he looked rather proud, When a married woman ran up to him and kissed him before the crowd. Then Phelan and Ives, in an awful fright, got into the train mighty quick, For their women from Fourteenth street were there, and each had a gun and a brick. Gee! it’s the limit, the way we guys will tamper with women’s lives, When we have nothing in mind but to leave them behind, like Loring and Phelan and Ives. |
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