Daily Growing- James Atwood (VT) 1919 Sturgis
[From: Songs from the Hills of Vermont- edited by Edith Barnes Sturgis, 1919. Her notes follow. Most of Atwood's ballads and song date back to the 1800s. This version was covered by Joan Baez with editing.
R. Matteson 2016]
Daily Growing (sung by James Atwood) is a version of a ballad often recorded in Scotland and England but apparently never before recorded in this country. Johnson's "Scots Musical Museum" gives a version communicated by Burns, "Lady Mary Ann," based on "Craighton's Growing," from a MS. collection of Ancient Scottish Ballads owned by the Rev. Robert Scott, Glenbucket Parish. See Johnson's "Scots Musical Museum," ed. Stenhouse, vol. iv, pp. 349, 388, 389; vol. ii, p. 390 (No. 377). "Craighton's Growing," like the majority of the old ballads, relates an incident which actually took place. Sir Robert Innes obtained the guardianship of the young Lord Craigston, or Craigstoun, upon the death of the latter's father in 1631, and soon afterwards married him to his oldest daughter, Elizabeth Innes. The young husband died in 1634. See Maidment's "A North Countrie Garland," 1824, pp. 12-14 (ed. Goldsmid, 1884, pp. 2124); Maidment's "Scottish Ballads and Songs," 1859, pp. 232-235; Finlay's "Historical and Romantic Ballads," 1808, vol. i, pp. 179-180; Motherwell's "Minstrelsy," 1827, pp. 86-87; Charles Mackay's "Legendary and Romantic Ballads of Scotland," 1851, pp. 196-197; R. Ford's "Vagabond Songs of Scotland," vol. ii, pp. 183-184; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vol. i, p. 214; vol. ii, pp. 44, 95, 206, 274; vol. v, pp. 190-193; Sharp's "One Hundred English Folksongs," pp. 58-59 (No. 25). This ballad has been printed in broadsides, as by H. Disley, London, and, about 1880, by H. J. Wehman, New York (No. 756).
Daily Growing- sung by James Atwood, a farmer and mason in West Dover, Vermont. Collected and published by Helen Sturgis, 1919.
The trees they are tall and the leaves they are green
Many a time my true love I've seen,
Many an hour I've passed all alone,
My bonnie lad's a long time a- growing.
Oh father, oh father, you've done me great harm
You have married me to a boy that's too young!
For I'm twice twelve and he is but fourteen
He's young, but he's daily growing.
My daughter, my daughter, I've done you no harm,
I've married you to the rich lord's son
And he'll make a lord for you to wait upon,
He's young, but he's daily growing.
Oh father, oh father, if you see fit
I'll send him to college for one year yet
I'll bind a blue ribbon all about his hat
To let the maids know he is married.
And as I looked down from my father's castle[1] wall
There I saw the boys a-playing with their ball
My own true love was the flow'r of them all
He's young, but he's daily growing.
I made a shirt of the finest holland[2]
And sewed it up with my own lovely hand
And with every stitch the tears came flowing down,
He's young, but he's daily growing.
At the age of fourteen, he was a married man
At the age of fifteen, the father of a son
At the age of sixteen, his grave it was green
And that put an end to his growing.
1. variation of "looked over the college wall"
2. originally "finest of lawn" probably misheard by Sturgis.