Bonita and Bill Butler

I grew up in the scantling yards of wheeling West Virginia A wheelhouse cub looking for an open door In the packet way is a sweeney wed the keel of my bonita Just two months from her timbers 'til she moored I paid the fare in Billet on her maiden voyage to Vicksburg And talked my way to hand the tiller on the course In her planks, I carved a notch and sealed the vow "Be my Bonita" And her dowry was my life between the shores I was born with rouging ways, and she steered me like a woman From the port calls and the bawds that lead me stray The calliope serenades, made the old towns come running And the boys would gamble shards to pull her chains The striker's boast would fain me loss, about the wrecks the shoals were keeping And how the old girl's got poor Billy's ransom saved On the lake at Bistineau, she set the wharf at Dixie With a thousand bales of cotton on her mane As the great raft disappeared, the watermark went sinking And she was stuck right hard, a listing on the bank With the furnace still ablaze, I stood my last upon her Then climbed the prow and took a landsman's trade "A derelict now my lady," said the watch log I've concorded "Have the bosun sound us eight bells for the change" 'Cause I was born with rouging ways, and she steered me like a woman From the port calls and the bawds that lead me stray The calliope serenades, made the old towns come running And the boys would gamble shards to pull her chains And I would take to weeder walks, so the gin I stopped a drinking At three scores aloft this crooked frame The striker's boast would fain me loss, about the wrecks the shoals were keeping And how the old girl's got poor Billy's ransom saved