Piller Fights by D.A. Ellsworth

Piller fights is fun, I tell you;
There isn’t anything I’d rather do
Than get a big piller and hold it tight,
Stand up in bed and then just fight.

Us boys allers have our piller fights
And the best night of all is Pa’s lodge night.
Soon as ever he goes, we say “Good night,”
Then go right upstairs for a piller fight.

Sometimes maybe Ma comes to the stairs
And hollers up, “Boys, have you said your prayers?”
And then George will holler “Yes, Mamma,” for he always has;
Good deal of preacher about George, Pa says.

Ma says “Pleasant dreams,” and shuts the door;
If she’s a-listenin’ both of us snore,
But as soon as ever she goes we light a light
And pitch right into our piller fight.

We play that the bed is Bunker Hill
And George is Americans, so he stands still.
But I am the British, so I must hit
As hard as ever I can to make him git.
We played Buena Vista one night—
Tell you, that was an awful hard fight!

Held up our pillers like they was a flag,
An’ hollered, “Little more grape-juice, Captain Bragg!”
That was the night that George hit the nail—
You just ought to have seen those feathers sail!

I was covered as white as flour,
Me and him picked them up for ‘most an hour;
Next day when our ma saw that there mess
She was pretty mad, you better guess;

And she told our pa, and he just said,
“Come right on out to this here shed.”
Tell you, he whipped us till we were sore
And made us both promise to do it no more.

That was a long time ago, and now lodge nights
Or when Pa’s away we have piller fights,
But in Buena Vista George is bound
To see there aren’t any nails anywhere ’round.

Piller fights is fun, I tell you;
There isn’t anything I’d rather do
Than get a big piller and hold it tight,
Stand up in bed, and then just fight.