I went to see Gonzales, my pard who deals in tack,
and there I spied a ragged ewe in a far corral out back.
She was docile, yet, looked lonesome as she chewed upon her cud,
there shackled to a buckboard, bog-axeled in the mud.
We dickered on a saddle with inlay an' a hackamore,
then I says to my ol' pard, 'That ewe looks mighty poor.'
Gonzales then related a sad and woeful tale,
pert' near poetic, 'bout that sheep to me n' Nell.
He'd run across that ewe "at a bankrupt rancher's sale...
whose granary was empty an' hay down to the last bale."
That sheep was so danged hungry her eyes glazed like milk glass
an' so lean her woolly hide hung pert' near off her ass.
"That ewe will surely die," he said real mournful to my wife,
"Unless some kind soul, such as you, can save that old girl's life."
That was all the talk it took for Nell, with tearful eye,
to up and volunteer my soul so Damn-ewe wouldn't die.
We haven't always called her Damn-ewe, right at first her name was Free
cause that's what she had cost us. But that changed quick, you see,
as soon as Damn-ewe's belly was full and plump and round
she butted my prize bull into the quicksand, where he drowned.
That day was hardly over when my Thoroughbred stud was found
throat-cut by a barbwire fence, layin' in wool tufts on the ground.
Then Damn-ewe ate the garden that was to be that winter's storage,
but me and Nell survived that year on bacon, eggs, and porridge
Till the day the hogs stampeded, tramplin' all the hens,
then ran into the river and ain't been seen again.
When Damn-ewe kicked a lantern the barn burned, but that's all right
cause that was perfect timin' ... the day after the night
The cows drank all the sheep dip. So much to my surprise
we don't need a barn nohow, cause they're droppin' jus' like flies.
I guess the fatal straw that finally broke this rancher's back
was when that cur Gonzales came to repossess that tack.
He toted out that saddle and then took back that hackamore
then says to me, "Why, ain't that Free shittin' on your floor?"
I grabs my trusty shotgun and swears, 'I'll kill that ewe!'
But by mistake I hit the still. That's when the chimney blew.
My house is now a pile of ashes black and charred,
when suddenly I spot Damn-ewe out grazin' in the yard.
I ponders then my future. No cows, no pigs, no bull;
no chickens, horse or garden; no house, no barn; just ... wool.
Then I wrote to that old rancher who at his bankrupt sale
Gonzales spied old Damn-ewe, as skinny as a rail.
Says: 'My bankrupt trial is over and I hate this freezin' weather...
but, Lord, I thank Gonzales and Damn-ewe for this Free sweater.'
When my good friend George Wolfe, owner of a small ranch and at that time still head of a local meat department, told me his story of woe after acquiring a "FREE" sheep, I laughed until I cried. I knew I had to write something. Guess it goes to show ya, there is no such thing as a "free lunch".
And that's the story ol' George Wolfe told me.