| | | | | Come and gather round friends and I'll tell you a tale
|** | Of when the red iron ore pits run a-plenty
| | | | | But the cardboard filled windows and old men on the benches
|** Tell ya now that the whole town is empty
In the north end of town my own children are grown But I was raised on the other In the wee hours of youth my mother took sick And I was brought up by my brother
The iron ore poured as the years passed the door The drag lines and shovels, they was hummin' 'Til one day my brother failed to come home The same as my father before him
With a long winters wait from the window I watched My friends, they couldn't have been kinder And my school it was cut as I quit in the spring To marry John Thomas, a miner
Oh the years passed again and the giving was good With a lunch bucket filled every season But with three babies born, the work was cut down To half a day's shift with no reason
An' the shaft was soon shut and my work was cut And the fire in the air, it felt frozen 'Til a man come to speak and he said in one week That number eleven was closing
They complain in the east they payin' to high They say that your ore ain't worth diggin' That it's much cheaper down in the South American towns Where the miners work almost for nothin'
So the minin' gates locked and the red iron rotted And the room smelled heavy from drinkin' When the sad silent song made the hour twice as long As I waited for the sun to go sinking
I lived by the window as he talked to himself The silence of tongues, it was building 'Til one morning's wake, the bed it was bare And I's left alone with three children
The summer is gone, the ground's turning cold The stores one by one they are folding My children will go as soon as they grow For there ain't nothin' here now to hold them
