Prospecting Dream
Air: Susannah 
Put's Original California Songster
Sacramento: Gardiner & Kirk, 1854
I dreamed a dream the other night, when everything was still,
I dreamed that I was carrying my long-tom down a hill;
My feet slipp'd out and I fell down, oh, how I jarr'd my liver,
I watched my long-tom till I saw it fetch up in the river,
Chorus:
Oh, what a miner, what a miner was I,
All swelled up with the scurvy, so I really thought I'd die.
My matches, flour, and Chile beans, lay scattered all around,
I felt so bad I wished to die, as I lay on the ground;
My coffee rolled down by a rock, my pepper I could not find,
'Twas then I thought of Angeline, the girl I left behind.
Oh, what a miner, what a miner was I,
All swelled up with the scurvy, so I really thought I'd die.
I took my shovel, pick and pan, to try a piece of ground,
I dream'd I struck the richest lead that ever had been found;
Then I wrote home that I had found a solid lead of gold,
And I'd be home in just a month, but what a lie I told!
Oh, what a miner, what a miner was I,
All swelled up with the scurvy, so I really thought I'd die.
I dug, I panned and tommed awhile, till I had but a dollar,
I struck it here, and right down there, I could not raise the color;
John Chinaman he bought me out, and pungled down the dust,
Then I had just an ounce in change to start in on a"bust"
Oh, what a miner, etc.
I went to town and got drunk; in the morning, to my surprise,
I found that I had got a pair of roaring big black eyes.
And I was strapp'd, had not a cent, not, even pick or shovel,
My hair snarled up, my breeches torn, looked like the very d---l.
Oh, what a miner, etc.
I then took up a little farm, and got a señorita,
Grey-eyed, hump-backed, and black as tar—ner name was Marguerita;
My pigs all died, hens flew away, Joaquin he stole my mules,
My ranch burnt"down" my blankets"up" likewise my farming tools.
Oh, what a miner, etc.
I left my farm, and hired out to be a hardware clerk,
I got kicked out,"cos" couldn't write, so again I went to work;
But when they caught me stealing grub, a few went in to boot him,
And others round were singing out,"Hang him, hang him, shoot him"
Oh, what a miner, etc.
Score from Library of Congress
Score from Lester S. Levy Collection
MIDI file of "Oh Susanna" (Used by permission of B. R. Tubb from his website at Public Domain Music.)