Read "Billy Bird's Celebration" by Kate Simpson Hayes online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Billy Bird was know'd as a bar-room bum; / Be'n a trader out on th' plains; / Be'n a timber rafter, a fourth-ward grafter, / Hadn't no conshunce, hadn't no brains; / But was well perserv'd in Rum.
He hailed frum Mi-sou-ri 'r Michi-gan; / Was cook in a lumber camp; / Run a Wild West show, then turn'd hobo, / Was an all-roun' fu'st class tramp; -- / 'N y' couldn't call him a "man."