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When Charlie he worked out Old Jack it caused him for to boast,
He really thought that he did have the racer of the coast;
He really thought if he should race he'd win a silver cup,
So he got his sister Isabel to help him drive Old Jack up.
When Charlie he drove Old Jack home he tied him to the fence,
The poor beast had been hungry and to eat he did commence;
He ate Dan Pelley's moccasins, chewed off a garden rail,
And was making for Jim's whiskers when Charlie caught him by the tail.
Charlie's a handsome fellow, he is proper, tall, and thin,
Aunt Pelley is his proper aunt, his father's name is Jim;
For howling and for fighting he's an awful lad to boast,
But you will not find a smarter lad than Charlie up the coast.
Old Jack's body is like a matchbox a-standing on four pegs,
Jack's ribs are long and wiry and he's got four hairy legs;
Jack's tail is just as frizzy as a sweet forget-me-not,
And his face is just the color of a darn old rusty pot.
And now to tell the teamster's name to bring it all in rhyme,
Young Jim sits on and takes the whip and old Jim sits on behind;
They'll let him trot and walk along till he gets up on their back,
Then hard as the Lord can give them strength they'll have to pull Jack back.
Oh, Alec in the race with Charlie gave to him no slack,
Until he saw it was no use for him to chase Old Jack;
To chase him any farther Alec saw it was no use,
And the next one he is going to race it will be Simon Bruce.
Old Jim is a smart old chap he never shaves his rails,
But his whiskers they are all knocked off by the wind from Old Jack's heels;
Since old Jim lost his whiskers it's true so I've heard,
All up and down the road, my boys, you'll pick up tufts of hair.
Kenneth Peacock noted that Sam House, who composed this native diddy about a horse, lived on Newfoundland's northwest coast where fences are often made from small spruce stakes nailed upright to cross boards. The sharp tips are sometimes left unsawed like Old Jim's in the last verse of this song ("never shaves his rails").
