Q: I found it: on Richard Dyer-Bennet 12, the song is called "Plain Language from Truthful James." I found it in a search, here is the Bartleby link. It looks like the Bret Harte poem (not story) was simply put to music. I don't know if Dyer-Bennet did the tune; I don't have liner notes handy for this one (I may have it elsewhere around the house, but it's too late to start looking for that tonight). This isn't in the DT.

Of course, at this point, this is total thread creep, as it has nothing to do with oaks or Robin Hood.

SRS

Thomas R. Lounsbury, ed. (1838–1915). Yale Book of American Verse. 1912.
Francis Bret Harte. 1839–1902

200. Plain Language from Truthful James

Table Mountain, 1870

WHICH I wish to remark,   
And my language is plain,   
That for ways that are dark   
And for tricks that are vain,   
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,          5
   Which the same I would rise to explain.   
   
Ah Sin was his name;   
And I shall not deny,   
In regard to the same,   
What that name might imply;   10
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,   
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.   
   
It was August the third,   
And quite soft was the skies;   
Which it might be inferred   15
That Ah Sin was likewise;   
Yet he played it that day upon William   
And me in a way I despise.   
   
Which we had a small game,   
And Ah Sin took a hand:   20
It was Euchre. The same   
He did not understand;   
But he smiled as he sat by the table,   
With the smile that was childlike and bland.   
   
Yet the cards they were stocked   25
In a way that I grieve,   
And my feelings were shocked   
At the state of Nye's sleeve,   
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,   
And the same with intent to deceive.   30
   
But the hands that were played   
By that heathen Chinee,   
And the points that he made,   
Were quite frightful to see,—   
Till at last he put down a right bower,   35
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.   
   
Then I looked up at Nye,   
And he gazed upon me;   
And he rose with a sigh,   
And said, "Can this be?   40
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,—"   
And he went for that heathen Chinee.   
   
In the scene that ensued   
I did not take a hand,   
But the floor it was strewed   45
Like the leaves on the strand   
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,   
In the game "he did not understand."   
   
In his sleeves, which were long,   
He had twenty-four jacks,—   50
Which was coming it strong,   
Yet I state but the facts;   
And we found on his nails, which were taper,   
What is frequent in tapers,—that 's wax.   
   
Which is why I remark,   55
And my language is plain,   
That for ways that are dark   
And for tricks that are vain,   
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,—   
Which the same I am free to maintain.   60