Useful Girl
Richard Dobson

The wind blew from the mountains
And the clouds were sweeping low
As a ragged band 
Of Cheyenne Indians
Stopped along the road
Among them was a young girl
Who lay dying of fever
Just about a hundred years ago
A hundred years ago

The light was swiftly fading
And the night it promised snow
So they wrapped her in an army coat
To keep her from the cold
Placed silver thimbles on her fingers
So someone's God would know
She was a useful girl, who could sew
She could sew

Then darkness swirled around them
Like a curtain on a stage
Like the closing of a door
The turning of a page

They say a lifetime's over 
In a twinkling of an eye
And it hardly counts for nothing
As the ages roll on by
Kings and Queens and Pharaohs
Have left mighty works in stone
Just to let someone know

That's how the workmen found her
They were widening the road
Wrapped in an army coat
Where they left her long ago
With silver thimbles on her fingers
She slept beneath the snow
A useful girl
Who could sew