Butcher Boy- Lorraine Purvis (IO) c.1870 Stout H
[Full version from Folklore from Iowa, collected and edited by Earl J. Stout, 1936. His notes follow. Practically all of the material in this collection was gathered during the fall and winter of 1931.
R. Matteson 2017]
THE BUTCHER BOY. For reference, see Cox, No. 145; Mackenzie, Quest of the Ballad, p. 9; Pound, No. 24; Sandburg, p. 324; Hudson, p. 31; Journal, XXIX, 169; XXXI, 73; XXXV, 360; XXXIX, 122; XLV, 72.
H. "The Butcher Boy." Contributed by Lorraine Purvis, Grundy Center, as sung by older members of her family about 1870.
1. In Jersey City where I did dwell,
A butcher boy I loved so well;
He courted me my heart away,
And now with me he will not stay.
There is an inn in that same town,
Where my love goes and sits him down;
He takes a strange girl on his knee
And tells her what he can't tell me.
2. It's a grief for me, I'll tell you why:
Because she has more gold than I;
But her gold will melt and her silver fly;
In time of need, she'll be poor as I.
I go upstairs to make my bed,
But nothing to my mother said;
My mother comes upstairs to me
Saying, "What's the matter, my daughter dear?"
3. "Oh! mother, mother! you do not know
What grief, and pain, and sorrow, woe -
Go get a chair to sit me down,
And a pen and ink to write it down."
On every line she dropped a tear,
While calling home her Willie dear;
And when her father he came home,
He said, "Where is my daughter gone?
4. He went upstairs, the door he broke -
He found her hanging upon a rope;
He took his knife and he cut her down,
And in her breast those lines were found:
"Oh! what a silly maid am I!
To hang myself for a butcher boy!
Go dig my grave, both long and deep;
Place a marble stone at my head and feet;
And on my breast a turtle dove
To show the world I died for love!"