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GOLD RUSH BRIDES |
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Follow the typical signs, the hand-painted lines, down prairie roads. |
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Pass the lone church spire. |
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Pass the talking wire from where to who knows? |
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There's no way to divide the beauty of the sky from the wild western plains. |
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Where a man could drift, in legendary myth, by roaming over spaces. |
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The land was free and the price was right. |
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Dakota on the wall is a white-robed woman, broad yet maidenly. |
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Such power in her hand as she hails the wagon man's family. |
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I see indians that crawl through this mural that recalls our history. |
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Who were the homestead wives? |
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Who were the gold rush brides? |
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Does anybody know? |
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Do their works survive their yellow fever lives in the pages they wrote? |
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The land was free, yet it cost their lives. |
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In miner's lust for gold. A family's house was bought and sold, piece by piece. |
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A widow staked her claim on a dollar and his name, so painfully. |
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In letters mailed back home her eastern sisters they would moan |
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As they would read accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief. |