Butcher Boy- Jennie Devlin (NY) c.1936 Lomax
[My date, probably learned in 1800s. Fragment from: Never without a Song: The Years and Songs of Jennie Devlin, 1865-1952 by Newman/Lomax. This is rare version with apron stanza, at least one other has been collected in NY [see Butcher Boy in the Rampano Mountains].
R. Matteson 2017]
The Butcher's Boy
In Jersey City where I did dwell,
The Butcher's Boy I loved so well,
He courted me both night and day,
He courted my young heart away.
I used to wear my aprons low,
He followed me through frost and snow,
But now I wear them to my chin,
He oft passes by, but never calls in.
Grandma Deb (Devilin): "You know, that means she's goin' to have a baby. She don't have no waist no more. There's something, too, about diggin' her grave because he's broken her heart."
Few of the "Butcher's Boy" Songs contain Jennie Devlin's terse description about pregnancy: "I used to wear my aprons low . . . but now I wear them to my chin Belden calls this the "apron-high motif, "l but even his examples subordinate the facts about the unwanted pregnancy in order to emphasize the treachery of the male. Why did Jennie Devlin not use the more common motif of the rich girl who steals the weak-kneed boy from the poor girl? Perhaps this is the way the song was passed on to her, but there is always the possibility that her own observations-- and Aunt Eva's warnings abut the seduction and abandonment of poor girls by rich boys - may have conditioned her memory. Would that real butcher's boy, who wanted to court her when she was a girl in Wellsville, have been as cowardly as this if he had made her pregnant? Grandma Deb's version was a strong warning against losing your character.