Closer to Lewiston

We were finishing supper whensomebody pulled up Winter was turning to spring Two young salesmen in a brand new truck From the York Pickle Comp'ny There was nobody else in the market up here They were the only ones There wasn't an outfit bigger than theirs Closer to Lewiston These two guys said we had a helluva place A lot of opportunity They were looking for growers and we stood to make two grand, maybe three That field had been empty a long time So mom and dad agreed If we tended the crop the comp'ny would plow Fertilize and seed Mom and Dad only had nine years of school But they didn't suffer no one Still they figured better to be somebody's fool Than never to trust anyone We worked that crop from dawn to dusk In the summer of '49 It didn't rain for ten weeks straight Everyone else's crop died But our land intersected the Worthley Brook On the eastern side We brought buckets of water from the brook for a week, and our cucumbers survived It was a bumper crop bigger than we hoped When all was said and done There wasn't a small farm that even came close Closer to Lewiston The letter came in November, On company stationary An accounting of all their time and expense The phosphate, the lime and the seed It said we didn't have any money Coming to us coming to us It said that they had money coming to them We owed thirty-seven dollars and best of luck Pay by November the 10th There was even a charge for baseball hats With the company name on the front But the hours we spent with the sun on our backs They didn't count even one The next year came the communist scare It didn't worry us none We knew now that there were other dangers Closer to Lewiston