(time is for four marked versed)
A Celebrated Workingman
Ed Foley 1892
* I’m a celebrated workingman, my duties I don’t shirk,
I can cut more coal than any man from Pittsburgh to New York,
It’s a holy terrogation, boys, how I get through my work
While I’m seated at my glory in the barroom.
* I can stand a set of timber, post, and bar or single prop.
I can throw a chain on the bottom or I can throw it up on top.
O, give me a pair of engines and be jeepers I’ll not stop,
Till I land me triple wagons through the barroom.
I’ll go down and work upon the platform or go out and run the dump
I can put in pulleys on the slope or go down and clean the sump.
I can run a 20,000 horse-power steam engine pump –
That’s providing that I have it in the barroom.
* I’ll go down and work the flat vein; I’ll go up and work the pitch.
I can work at the Potts or Newside – I don’t care the devil which.
I can show the old track layer how to decorate the ditch –
Now haven’t I often proved it in the barroom?
Now at driving I’m a daisy; just give me a balky team,
When I’ll beat the spots off and evening run, be it water, wind or steam,
With your balance planes, and endless chains; they’re nowhere to be seen,
When I pull me trip of wagons through the barroom.
Now at bossing I’m a daisy, and I know I’m no disgrace,
For I could raise your wages, boys, just twelve cents up the l’ast,
Now didn’t the Reading Company miss me when they didn’t make their haste,
And capture me, before I struck the barroom?
I can show the boss or super how the air should circulate,
I can show the boss fireman how the steam should generate
Now the trouble at the Pottsville shaft, sure I could elucidate,
Now haven’t I often proved it in the barroom?
And now my song is o’er and I haven’t any other,
For heaven’s sake don’t fire no more or else we’ll surely smother;
The landlord would rather throw us out the go to the bother
Of putting up a ventilator in the barroom.
* And now my song is ended and I hope you’ll all agree,
That if you want any pointers you’d better send for me,
But I’m not worth a good gol darn till I empty two or three
Of the very biggest schooners in the barroom
