Lletres: Lyle Lovett. Step Inside This House. Texas Trilogy: Bosque County Romance.

(Steve Fromholz)

Mary Martin was a schoolgirl
Just seventeen or so
When she married Billy Archer
About fourteen years ago
Not even out of high school
Folks said it wouldn't last
But when you grow up in the country
You grow up mighty fast

They married in a hurry
In March before school was out
Folks said that she was pregnant,
"Just wait and you'll find out."
It came about that winter
One gray November morn
The first of many more to come
A baby boy was born

And cattle is their game
And Archer is the name
They give to the acres that they own
If the Brazos don't run dry
And the newborn calves don't die
Another year from Mary will have flown
Another year from Mary will have flown

Now Billy kept what cattle
His father could afford
Bouncing across the cactus
In a 1950 Ford
The cows were sick and skinny
And the weed was all that grew
But Billy kept the place alive
The only thing he knew

And Mary cooked the supper
And Mary scrubbed the clothes
And Mary busted horses
And blew the baby's nose
And Mary and a shotgun
Kept the rattlesnakes away
How she kept on smiling
No one could ever say

Now the drought of '57
Was a curse upon the land
No one in Bosque county
Could give Bill a helping hand
The ground was cracked and broken
And the truck was out of gas
And cows can't feed on prickly pear
Instead of growing grass

Well the weather got the water
And a snake bite took a child
And a fire in the old barn
Took the hay that Bill had piled
The mortgage got the money
And the screw worm got the cows
The years have come for Mary
She's waiting for them now