We’ve come a good long way, my hat and I, Since then, a pretty lengthy piece of road, Uphill and down but mostly with a pack. Years of law-business, years of cracking jokes, And watching Billy Herndon do his best To make me out, which seemed to be a job; Years trying how to learn to handle men, Which can be done, if you’ve got heart enough, And how to deal with women or a woman And that’s about the hardest task I know. For, when you get a man, you’ve got the man Like a good big axehandle in your fist, But you can’t catch a woman like an axe. She’ll run like mercury between your hands And leave you wondering which road she went, The minute when you thought you knew her ways.