The Momma 'n' Daddy Collection 38

I'm staying with Lyle Lovett and in Texas for the latest instalment. The lyrics for this particular song are not the singer's own; they're by Steven Fromholz. But Lyle sings them on his album Step Inside This House, the third part of Fromholz's 'Texas Trilogy'. The song might be thought to be only borderline Momma 'n' Daddy, but hey, they're my rules here: although it isn't about the children harking back, it's about... well, you'll see what it's about. 'Bosque County Romance', people, as sung by Lyle Lovett:

Mary Martin was a schoolgirl just seventeen or so
When she married Billy Archer about fourteen years ago.
Not even out of high school. Folks said it wouldn't last.
But when you grow up in the country, you grow up mighty fast.

They married in a hurry in March when school was out.
Folks said that she was pregnant, "You just wait and you'll find out."
It came about that winter, one gray November morn,
The first of many more to come, a baby boy was born.

Chorus
And cattle is their game.
And Archer is the name
They give to the acres that they own.
And if the Brazos don't run dry
And the newborn calves they don't die,
Another year from Mary will have flown.
Another year from Mary will have flown.

Now Billy kept what cattle his daddy could afford,
As he went bouncing 'cross the cactus in a 1950 Ford.
But the cows were sick and skinny and the weeds was all that grew.
But Billy kept the place alive, the only thing he knew.

And Mary cooked the supper and Mary scrubbed the clothes.
And Mary busted horses and she blew the baby's nose.
And Mary and a shotgun kept the rattlesnakes away.
And how she kept on smiling no one could ever say.

Repeat chorus

But now the drought of '57 was a curse upon the land.
No one in Bosque county could give old Bill a helping hand.
The ground was cracked and broken and the truck was out of gas.
And cows can't feed on prickly pear instead of growing grass.

Well, the weather got the water, and a snake bite took a child.
And a fire in the old barn took the hay that Bill had piled.
The mortgage got the money and the screw worm got the cows.
The years have come for Mary. She's waiting for 'em now.

Repeat chorus

[The Momma 'n' Daddy Archive, containing all the details of the series, is here.]