Easter At Cactus Center Poem by Arthur Chapman

You kin talk about your racin' with your horses neck and neck--
We have had one here in Cactus that's the high card in the deck.
It was when a bunch o' punchers--must have been an even score--
Were competin' fer a sky-piece down in Morris Levy's store.
It was decked with loads o' flowers, and a full-grown tree or two,
With a string of clingin' ivy windin' up and down and through;
It had come clean from Las Vegas, fer old Levy had a hunch
That the school teacher would get it from the Cactus Center bunch.
Bud Ender reached the counter, in about one rabbit jump,
With others clost behind him, in a howlin', cussin' lump;
Bud had paid two shinin' twenties, but he let it go at that,
Fer some hombrey broke the winder and stampeded with the hat.
Well, our shins was cruel punctured with each other's flyin' spurs
As we rushed out of the doorway fer to make that bonnet hers;
You could see the flowers noddin' on the head o' Skinny Sam,
And it looked like coin to doughnuts he'd be first to that schoolma'am.
But we heard a pony comin', and it passed us on a lope,
With Bear Hawkins in the saddle and a-swingin' of his rope;
He made a heel-cast perfect and old Skinny dropped, kerthud!
With his head, in that there bonnet, buried deep down in the mud.
We are fine at mendin' saddles, and we're pretty fair on pants,
But on patchin' millinery we don't stand a two-spot chance;
So we chipped in, after seein' that we needed somethin' new,
And we sent two boys to Vegas jest to rush another through.
They killed off six cayuses, but they got back jest in time
With a sky-piece flower garden any girl'd think was prime;
But they spent all Easter cussin'--and small wonder that they did--
Fer the teacher'd gone a-visitin', and her mother got the lid.