Bill's in Trouble-Anonymous

                                         Bill's in Trouble
I've got a letter, parson, from my son away out West,
An' my ol' heart is heavy as an anvil in my breast,
To think the boy whose futur' I had once so proudly planned,
Should wander from the path o' right an' come to sich an end?
I told him when he left us only three short years ago,
He'd find himself a-plowin' in a mighty crooked row-
He'd miss his pather's counsel, an' his mother's prayers, too,
But he said the farm was hateful, an' he guessed he'd have to go.
I know that's big temptation for a youngster in the West,
But I believed our Billy had the courage to resist,
An' when he left I warned him o' the ever-waiting' snares
That lie like hidden serpents in life's pathway everywheres,
But Bill he promised faithful to be keerful, an' allowed
He'd build a reputation that'd make us mighty proud.
But it seems as how my counsel sort o' faded from his mind,
An' now the boy's in trouble o' the very wusted kind!
His letters came so seldom that I somehow sort o' knowed
That Billy was a-trampin' on a mighty rocky road,
But never once imagined he'd bow my head in shame,
An' in hte dust'd waller his ol' daddy's honored name,
He writes from out in Denver, an' the story's mighty short;
I just can't tell his mother; it'll crush her poor ol' heart!
An' so I reckoned, parson, you might break the news to her-
Bill's in the legislatur' but he doesn't say what fur.