Mary Martin was a schoolgirl just seventeen or so   When she married Billy Archer about fourteen years ago   Not even out of high school folks said, ?It wouldn't last?   But when you grow up in the country you grow up mighty fast      They married in a hurry in March before school was out   Folks said that she was pregnant "Just wait and you'll find out"   It came about that winter one gray November morn   The first of many more to come a baby boy was born      And cattle is their game   And Archer is the name they give to the acres that they own   Well if the Brazos don't run dry and the newborn calves they don't die   Another year from Mary will have flown   Another year from Mary will have flown      And now Billy kept what cattle his daddy could afford   As went bouncing across the cactus in a 1950 ford   But the cows were sick and skinny and the weed was all that grew   But Billy kept the place alive the only thing he knew      And Mary cooked the supper and Mary scrubbed the clothes   And Mary busted horses and blew the baby's nose   And Mary and a shotgun kept the rattlesnakes away   And how she kept on smiling no one could ever say      And cattle is their game   And Archer is the name they give to the acres that they own   If the Brazos don't run dry and the newborn calves don't die   Another year from Mary will have flown   Another year from Mary will have flown      Now the drought of '57 was a curse upon the land   No one in Bosque County could give Bill a helping hand   The ground was cracked and broken and the truck was out of gas   And cows can't feed on prickly pear instead of growing grass      Well the weather got the water and a snake bite took a child   And a fire in the old barn took the hay that Bill had piled   The mortgage got the money and the screw worm got the cows   The years have come for Mary, she's waiting for them now      And cattle is their game   And Archer is the name they give to the acres that they own   If the Brazos don't run dry and the newborn calves they don't die   Another year from Mary will have flown   Another year from Mary will have flown      Six o'clock silence of a new day begin is heard in the small Texas town   Like a signal from nowhere the people lived their   Then up and down moving around   'Cause this began to fry and the biscuits to bake   On the store left the salvation out or you won't take   You open the windows and u turn on the fan   'Cause it's harder then hill when the sun hits the ground