The Unhappy Miner.
[Air: Old Dog Tray]

1
My happy days are past,
The mines have failed at last,
The cañons and gulches no longer will pay,
There's nothng left for me,
I'll never, never see
My happy, happy home far away.

CHORUS
Oh, happy home, now where art thou,
Friends that were kind and sincere?
Alas, I do not know, my heart is full of woe,
Thinking of loved ones so dear.

2
I mine from break of day,
But cannot make it pay,
Disheartened return to my cabin at night,
Where rattlesnakes crawl round
My bed made on the ground,
And coiling up, lay ready to bite.

CHORUS- Oh, happy home, &c.

3
My poor old leaky lamp
Is always cold and damp;
My blanket is covered with something that crawls;
My bread will never rise,
My coffee-pot capsize.
I'd rather live inside of prison walls.

CHORUS- Oh, happy home, &c.

4
My boots are full of holes,
Like merchants, have no soles;
My hands, once so soft, are harder than stone;
My pants and woolen shirt
Are oily rags and dirt;
And must I live and die here alone?

CHORUS- Oh, happy home, &c.

5
I know how miners feel
When pigs begin to squeal,
Or hens on their roosts to cackle and squall;
It makes my blood run cold
To think it's all for gold,
And often wish that Gabriel would call!

CHORUS- Oh, happy home, &c.

6
It's "Starve or pay the dust,"
For merchants will not trust,
And then in the summer the diggings are dry;
Of course then I am broke,
Swelled up by poison oak;
It's even so, I really would not lie.

CHORUS- Oh, happy home, &c.

7
I've lived on pork and beans,
Through all those trying scenes,
So long I dare not look a hog in the face;
And often do I dream
Of custard pies and cream;
But really it is a quien sabe case.

CHORUS- Oh, happy home, &c.

8
If I were home again,
To see green fields of grain,
And all kinds of fruit hanging ripe on the trees;
I there would live and die,
The gold mines bid good-by-
Forever free from bed-bugs and fleas.

CHORUS- Oh, happy home, &c.

Put's Golden Songster, pages 36-38
Tune and lyrics in Dwyer & Lingenfelter, The Songs of the Gold Rush, pp. 153-154
Music: "Old Dog Tray," Minstrel Songs [Steven C. Foster]
______________________
A YANKEE and a Frenchman owned a pig in copartnership. When killing time came, they wished to divide the meat. The Yankee was very anxious to divide so that he would get both hind quarters, and persuaded the Frenchman that the proper way to divide was to cut across the back. The Frenchman agreed to it on condition that the Yankee would turn his back and take choice of the pieces after it was cut in two. The Yankee turned his back accordingly.
Frenchman- "Vich piece will you have- ze piece wid ze tail on him, or ze piece vat haint got no tail?"
Yankee- "The piece with the tail on." Frenchman- "Zen by gar, you can take him, I take ze ozer one." Upon turning round, The Yankee found that the Frenchman had cut off the tail and stuck it into the pig's mouth!

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Click to play (joeweb)

[Additional links by Artful Codger]
Sheet music [PDF] (1853) in the Lester S. Levy Collection.
Digital Tradition: Old Dog Tray
Mudcat thread: Old Dog Tray
Mudcat thread: The Happy/Unhappy Miner (Old Put)
YouTube: Carroll Clark: Old Dog Tray

I suspect that Foster's inspiration for the song was an older song from about 1800, "My Poor Dog Tray" [PDF (Levy)] [click to play (pdmusic.org)], by T. Campbell (text) and James Hewitt (music).

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