Just a little box all covered with blossoms white as snow
Chinese red and made of brass that he gave her long ago
Like the red dirt Oklahoma hills and the springtime flowering trees
That she kept with all the love they shared inside her memories
She got it from her captain when he sailed around the horn
Bringing gifts from China to their Oklahoma home
There were fancy silks and carved wood chests from the places he had gone
She kept them all until she died, but this was her favourite one
Just a little box all covered with blossoms white as snow
Chinese red and made of brass that he gave her long ago
Like the red dirt Oklahoma hills and the springtime flowering trees
That she kept with all the love they shared inside her memories
And she kept it on her dresser filled with gold and silver rings
Necklaces of turquoise beads and other things
It filled her heart with the mystery and the magic of the day
When he gave it to her for her own, in his quiet loving way
Ten years they spent together, he'd come home and then he'd leave
One day while she waited, he disappeared at sea
No one knew how she called his name to the silent rocks and stones
Or how she'd sit and hold that little box, so she would not feel alone
Just a little box all covered with blossoms white as snow
Chinese red and made of brass that he gave her long ago
Like the red dirt Oklahoma hills and the springtime flowering trees
That she kept with all the love they shared inside her memories
No, she never was a dancer or wrote a fancy line
The treasures of her life, were the things she left behind
They buried her without them, where the prairie grasses grow
In China or a woman's heart, there are places no one knows
Just a little box all covered with blossoms white as snow
Chinese red and made of brass that he gave her long ago
Like the red dirt Oklahoma hills and the springtime flowering trees
That she kept with all the love they shared inside her memories
They buried her without them where the prairie grasses grow
In China or a woman's heart, there are places no one knows