Debra Cowan - McGinnis Gets a Job (trad) lyrics

Last winter was a hard one Mrs. Riley did you hear? It's well you should have known it It's been for many a day Your husband wasn't the only one Who sat beside the wall My old man McGinnis Couldn't get a job at all Chorus: So rise up, Mrs. Riley Don't give away to blues You and I will cut a shine In bonnet and new shoes Hear the young ones cry Neither sigh nor sob We'll wait til times get better And McGinnis gets a job The politicians promised them Work on the boulevard To work with pick and shovel Load stone on the cart Six months ago they promised them This work we'd surely get I tell you my good woman They are promisin' it yet Bad luck to them Eyetalians I wish they'd stayed at home We've plenty of our own kind To eat up all our own They come like bees in summertime Swarmin' here to stay And contractors they hire them For forty cents a day They work upon the railways They shovel snow and slush There's one thing in their favor Eyetalians never get lush They bring their money home at night Take no dinner wine That's one thing I wish I could say For your old man and mine Now, springtime is a-comin' And work we'll surely get My man'll get his job again He makes a handsome clerk I'll see him climb the ladder As nimble as a fox Yes he's the one to handle That old three cornered box