Miss Ruth Ferris and Captain C.W. Stoll

Now, I had a teacher when I went to school.
She loved the river and she taught about it, too.
I was a pretty bad boy, but she called my bluff,
With her great big collection of steamboat stuff. Oh-yeah.

She had log books and bells and things like that,
and she knew the old captains and where they were at.
She rode the Alabama and the Gordon C. Greene,
As the Cape Girardeau, she was later renamed. Uh-huh.

But her very favorite, as you all know,
Was the Golden Eagle, Captain Buck's old boat.
This old sternwheeler sank and went to heaven,
When I was in the four grade in 1947. Uh-huh.

Well, the fashionable St. Louis society
A-takin' a trip on the Mississippi
Asleep in their bunks with an after dinner drink.
They didn't think that the boat would sink. Oh-no.

Well, I know Captain Buck was a very sad man,
When that old wood hull went into the sand.
And Miss Ferris, she was sad for sure,
but immediately her mind went to work. Oh-yeah.

Well, she did some politicking that was tricky and hard,
And she got the pilothouse for the school house yard.
And so instead of studyin' I became a dreamer.
Dreamin' about boats on the Mississippi River. Uh-huh.

Now the St. Louis levee was a-way downtown.
It was the loset, and the funkiest, and the furthest down.
With an elevated track, and a cobblestone grade,
You could go down there and get a-hit in the head. Uh-huh.

But the river was life, it was a-changin' all the time.
It was the street, it was the sluice, it was the old main line.
And I started readin' the Waterways Journal and all.
Followin' Captain Fred Way and C. W. Stoll. Uh-huh.

I had to work real hard to get my schoolwork done,
'Cause you couldn't fool Miss Ferris none.
And if I went to sleep, or I weren't supposed to talk,
Oh, she was a dead shot with a little piece of chalk. Uh-huh.

Oh me oh my, how the time does fly!
The time and the river keep a-rollin' on by.
Now I'm not a student, and she's not a teacher,
But we both still love the Mississippi River. Uh-huh.

Well, I went to see her, this Christmas last.
And we took a little trip back through the past.
From an easy rocker, we looked at pictures,
And dreamed our dreams of the Mississippi River. Uh-huh.

Oh me oh my, how the time does fly!
The time and the river keep a-rollin' on by.
Now I'm not a student, and she's not a teacher,
But we both still love the Mississippi River. Uh-huh.

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