Acres of Clams (Rosin The Beau) (chrom)

ACRES OF CLAMS (Rosin The Beau)
19th C. American folk
Key: D

 -3  -5   -5   -5 -6* 6   -5  -6*  -7
I've wan-der’d all ov-er this coun-try
 -8   -7  -6* -5  -5   6   -6*  -4
Pros-pect-ing and dig-ging for gold
-3   -5   -5    -5  -6*   6    -5  -6*  -7
I've tun-neled, hy-drau-licked and cra-dled
-8   -7 -6* -5    6   -6* 6   -5
And near-ly was froze in the cold

-7   -7-6*-7  -7  -8  8* -9 -8   -9
And  so I de-part-ed for Pu-get Sound
-8 -7  -6* -5 -5    6  -6*  -4
A-way from a world full of shams
-3 -5  -5 -5 -6* 6  -5 -6*  -7
I sing of my hap-py con-di-tion
-8   -7  -6* -5 6 -6*  6   -5
Sur-round-ed by a-cres of clams

For each man who got rich by mining
Perceiving that hundreds grew poor
I made up my mind to try farming
The only pursuit that was sure

So, rolling my grub in my blanket
I left all my tools on the ground
I started one morning to shank it
For the country they call Puget Sound

Arriving flat broke in midwinter
I found it enveloped in fog
And covered all over with timber
Thick as hair on the back of a dog

When I looked on the prospects so gloomy
The tears trickled over my face
And I thought that my travels had brought me
To the end of the jumping-off place

I staked me a claim in the forest
And sat myself down to hard toil
For two years I chopped and I struggled
But I never got down to the soil

I tried to get out of the country
But poverty forced me to stay
Until I became an old settler
Then nothing could drive me away

And now that I'm used to the climate
I think that if a man ever found
A place to live easy and happy
That Eden is on Puget Sound

No longer the slave of ambition
I laugh at the world and its shams
As I think of my pleasant condition
Surrounded by acres of clams