My 73 year old mother remembers the words (to the cow version) this way. She learned them in camp in Maryland.

In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
Stood a cow on a railroad track
She was a good ole cow, with eyes so kind,
But you can't expect a cow to read a railroad sign,
She stood in the middle of the track,
Came a train, hit her right in the back.
Now her bones are in the mountains of Virginia,
And her tail's on a lonesome spine.