Original Postal Locations of Harding County - Buffalo, SD - South Dakota Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

In the "good old days" of long ago, life was wild and rough.
We rustled for jobs wherever we could, and the rustling was plenty tough;
We saved our money in summer time, as the squirrel stores up nuts,
For in winter time it took cash to eat, no if's, or and's, or but's.

The mailman's life was a rouged one, but those were rugged days,
Sans unemployment , or social help, each earned their seperate ways,
In summer's wind, and dust, and heat, and flooded creeks, and hail,
With mud and wrecks and runaways, he followed the routed trail.

He'd talk to his horses and talk to himself, to wile the time away.
He'd sit and dream of his lady-friend and the things he wished she'd say,
For the winter winds were bitter cold, and they chilled him to the bone.
For hours and hours of the winter days, he sat in the rig alone.

Now few indeed were the ranches then, and miles and miles apart,
And being lost in an ocean of snow, would try the strongest of heart
No fences or lanes to mark his way, no roads but trails worn deep,
And if perchance, they were filled with snow, it might mean the last long sleep.

'Twas up in the morning to feed at five, the team he'd drive that days
To give them water and oats and then, to fill the manger with hay.
Then 'twas on the raod at seven a.m., when it's half an hour 'til day
And when the sun shows over the hill, he's a long mile upon his way.

At times when the blizzard winds blew high, and the air was a blinding maze,
He'd stare for hours for a fleeting glimpse, of trail-sign thru the haze.
He staked his life on the instinct true, of a good and faithful team,
To follow the drifted path 'til at night, they caught the lanterns gleam.

And oh, the joy when he's reached the goal, with food and heat and light,
He'd thank the fates that brought him thru, for another fateful night.
many the man,, wo drove the lines, was caught in the blizzard's grip
And found by friends in an icy death, and the record said: "... the trip"