Can you imagine
bein’ just fourteen
with a real fast horse,
an’ sure enough green? 

Well, those were the boys
who would volunteer
to ride like the wind
for just past a year.

It all got started
with the civil war
contactin’ with the West
for recruits, an’ more.

The mail was the reason
eighty boys would ride
crossin’ east an’ west
to the other side.

Their pouches an’ bags
were filled to the brim—
California to Missouri
riskin’ life an’ limb.

Thru’ Indian country,
an’ treacherous land,
those boys never stopped
with mail in hand.

Only one hundred stations
where they’d get a fresh mount—
those eighty swift riders,
saddle-sore, an’ worn out.

It took twenty hours
crossin’ two hundred miles.
Exchangin’ horse an’ riders
was done in style.

Much courage an’ stamina
from each boy it took,
beyond one’s belief,
but recorded in books.

Only one mail delivery
was lost to view,
for those young boys
determined to get thru’.

In storm, an’ fever,
or Indian attack,
they rode like the wind—
there was no turnin’ back.

But in late October—
fall of sixty an’ one,
the telegraph replaced
what these boys had done.

Thus ended an era
of nineteen months—
ne’er to be forgotten,
I’ve got a hunch.

     
    Tamara Hillman
 ©2011