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Cowboy Poetry, Cowboy Music, Country
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Just a Little
Ranch House
Copyright © 2001, Michael S. Robinson
It was just a little ranch
house, built in 1894,
with some hand-hewn logs and chinkin' and a hard caliche floor.
It was Grandpa Heath who built it. He did ev'rything by hand,
in a place that others said was just a worthless piece of sand.
Yet it grew a crop of children, who were proud of what they had;
And that little prairie ranch house was a heaven to my Dad.
It was where he learned his values, and he plucked his first guitar,
and he sample savory morsels out of Granny's cookie jar.
It was where Dad first discovered that a miracle is wrought
by the sweat of honest labor, through the hardships that you've fought.
For, that worthless piece of sand became the center of a spread
full of irrigated clover and the finest Herefords bred.
It was just a little ranch house, built in 1894,
where a family thrived and showed its thanks by openin' up its door
to the lost and weary traveler and a string of folks in need.
There was never scorn or judgement--just another heart to feed.
And the ones, that others turned away, all found the outstretched hand
of a family livin' what they preached, on miles of transformed sand.
There was Hobo Sam and Thelda Simms, a pregnant Sarah Brown--
and the legacy of love, her son's now mayor of the town.
Well my Granny died and Gramps passed on. The ranch house went to Dad.
And, when I look back, I can't help think of all the joy we had,
as our family lived and learned and loved, within those timber walls,
where the air was pure and moonlight brought the strains of coyote calls.
It was just a little ranch house, built in 1894,
but the hand-hewn logs, caliche floor, and ever-open door
were the mem'ries of a bygone day, when life was sweet and soft--
when the smoke curled from the chimney, as we frolicked in the loft.
As the years went by, we used it for a sort of second home,
where the grandkids had a heyday and the chance to ride and roam.
We had picnics and reunions, and we used it in the fall,
as our base of operations, for the annual cattle haul.
Yet, one lightning bolt was all it took, fanned by a summer breeze.
Now I'm standing here, surrounded by those smokin' memories.
I'm remembering how heaven was, inside the fallen door,
of that little prairie ranch house, built in 1894.
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