Through the tempest-riven sky,

Till it touched us like a blessing

From the Father there on high.

16  

I am standing by her dug-out;

Open swings the sagging door,

Every grassblade speaks of Nancy;

But she's gone, to come no more,

For her father and her mother,

And her brothers, late last night,

Loaded up their prairie schooner,

And vamoosed the ranch, 'fore light.

There's the bed poles and the stove hole;

Not a thing is left for me,

As a keepsake of my Nancy,

Anywhere that I can see.

What! a paper, pinned up yonder,

Kind o' folded like a note!

It has writin', sure as blazes!

It is somethin' Nancy wrote.

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