The Castration of Sam McGee
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who mole for gold
There are stories there
That will curl your hair
And make your blood run cold
But the strangest sight
In the arctic night
I ever chanced to see
Was that night on the varge of Lake LaBarge
We castrated Sam McGee
It was well into fall as I recall
And the weather was starting to blow
The chill in the air
Would freeze in our hair
And turn it white as snow
And the pecker-poll trees
With icicles for leaves
Had bent their backs with the strain
And the search for gold had left us as cold
As the freezing, drizzling rain
It was late one night by an oil lamp's light
With only the stars on guard
In a leaky old tent
With the center pole bent
We all were playing cards
There was Tommy Glen, from Oregon
And, as best I can recall,
A man named Kent,
Who did relent
He had no home at all
There was Tom Cartee from Tennessee
But the man I remember best
Was Injin Joe, who, wouldn't you know
Was worst than all the rest
Some said his home
Was way up in Nome
Where he took him an Eskimo wife
And then one day
Or, so they say,
He killed her with an Ulu knife
As I started to say, on that fateful day
Sam's luck was running bad
Which he proclaimed
With heart-felt pain
"The worst he'd ever had"
He bet his Soul
And all his gold
On the last hand he could play
And Injin Joe smiled, oh so slow
And said, "I think I'll raise"
Old Sam turned pale and started to wail
"I've nothing left to bet!"
And Injin Joe, with his eyes aglow
Said, "You ain't finished yet"
He picked up his pile
And, all the while
He slowly let it fall
And my blood ran cold
When he said, "All my gold,
I'll bet against your Balls"
Sam started to sweat and with deep regret
Took a sneek-peak at his hand
As Injin Joe let his thumb run slow
On the Ulu knife, and then
Sam McGee
Sitting next to me
Said, "By God, I'll Call"
Then giving a nod
And caressing his cods
Said, "Let them pasteboards fall"
"Take it slow," cried Injin Joe
"It's a serious game we play
You called my bet
But I do regret
I haven't seen your stakes!"
"For goodness sakes, It's not his stakes,"
Cartee said to us all
"He won't relent
I do lament
He wants to see Sam's Balls!"
Breathes there a man with steady hand
Who has wagered both his Cods
Who won't complain the petty pain
Of peeks and pokes and nods
In spite of his fright
He was quite a sight,
But the gold shown in his eyes
Sam swallowed hard
And dropped his cards
As he began to rise
He slipped the rope with feverent hope,
That held his baggy jeans
We started to stare
As he trembled there,
His pants around his knees
The lump in his throat was tight as a rope
As he let his underwear fall
And Injin Joe
Leaned forward, slow,
To inspect Sam's dangling Balls
"It's a marvelous pair that you’ve got there"
Injin Joe exclaimed
Then he started to cry
With a tear in his eye
As he told us of his pain
"I was drunk one night and started a fight
With my wife, as I recall,
And I paid the price
From her Ulu knife
When she cut off both my Balls!"
"With this same knife I killed my wife"
Said Injin Joe to Sam
"And I’ll confess
I can not rest
Without a pair of them.
So I’ll bet my Soul and all my gold
And if you lose this time,
I want you to know
I'll still have my gold
And your Balls will then be mine!"
What a gruesome sight in the Arctic night
Sam's Balls were hanging low
Then he swallowed hard
And picked up his cards
And spread 'em out—reeeal slooooow
The Injin grinned and spread his—then,
As quick as a deer in the fall
He made a slice
With the Ulu knife
And cut off both Sam’s Balls
Sam screamed and cried, I thought he'd died
The way he carried on
And all that night
By the oil lamp's light
He cursed and kicked and moaned
But Injin Joe
Was all aglow
As he stroked Sam's grizzly Cods
With a far-away stare that would chill the air
Said, "I've got a pair, By God!"
The weeks went by and the Arctic sky
Began to lighten slow
Our band turned west to Sam's protest
With thoughts of Spring and gold
Sam's Balls were dried
And securely tied
Round the neck of Injin Joe
And they dangled there,
That gruesome pair,
Wherever he would go
Old Sam would stare at the severed pair
A teardrop in his eye
And he swore to God
He'd get some Cods, someday, by and by
Now, the trail was rough
And the men were tough
But the mountains reached the sky
And as we climbed
Sam fell behind
And then we heard him cry
On a weathered knoll that was far below
We saw his face turn pale
Then he fell on his knees
By a pecker-poll tree
That grew beside the trail
We ran below in the knee-deep snow
To Sam's persistent call
And we found a cave
On that fateful day
With an entrance exceedingly small
As we peered in the hole, that was dark and cold
We saw an Eskimo's bones
And we wondered there
In the cold, still air
If this had been his home
But Injin Joe, who was in the know
Said this was a burial place
Then he gave out a groan
That was sort of a moan
And a smile came on his face
At the back of the hole was a pile of gold
That was all a man could haul
And Injin Joe
Crawling forward slow
Got stuck and started to squall
He squirmed and tried to get inside
The gold shown in his eyes
But, try as he might
The hole was too tight
To admit his massive thighs
We called on Sam to make the try
Since he was exceptionally small
But we failed to spy
The gleam in his eye
That said he'd have it all
Now some might say
It was just his way
Of getting even and all
And who could blame him, after all,
We'd cut off both his balls
The last we heard of Sam that day
As he slipped through a back hole in the cave
Was his rounding laugh
As he made his dash
And drug the gold away
Twas not a place
To say the least
For a righteous man to be
And we all swore to hunt him down
He'd never more be free
It was early fall, as I recall
Before we chanced to meet
We'd stumbled down
To a Gold Rush town
To Libate our defeat
In the back of the saloon
On a fancy chair
Surrounded by ladies of the night
Sat Sam McGee from Tennessee
What a magnificient sight
We found him in the Golden Spur
Surrounded by wealth untold
The opulence there
Still curls my hair
And makes my blood run cold
We could only stare at his flipitant aire
With all the wealth we'd dreamed
Then he opened his coat
And around his neck
Two Golden Balls swung free
On that fateful night we paid the price
For Castrating Sam McGee
And I wonder now
Just who has the pair
The Castrated, or the Cas-tra-tee
Still, all in all
It was quite a haul
But I remember the way he'd squalled
He may have got the best of us
But at least I still have my balls
