Our Good Man- Grooms (MO) 1937 Belden B
[From: Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Song Society; edited Belden, 1940. His notes follow. The title is not a local title and probably was supplied by Robert Geist.
R. Matteson 2013]
Our Goodman (Child 274)
For the range of this piece of folk humor see Child's headnote. He seems to have thought that the Gaelic, Flemish, and German forms of it were derived from the English, and the Scandinavian and Magyar from the German. Gaston Paris (Origines de la Podsie lyrique en France 34) uses the French form of it in his argument for the origin of folk-song from the May-day rites of the
middle ages. There are in English two forms of it, represented respectively by Child's A (which happens to be Scotch, but is the type followed by most regent texts in both Great Britain and America) and B (a London broadside, in which the woman has three lovers in the house at once, as is the case also in Williams's Berkshire text and in one of the Virginia copies). It continues to hold the interest of folk singers, and can be heard on the phonograph and the radio.
It has been reported since Child's time from Aberdeenshire (LL 214-6) and Berkshire (FSUT 188-90), from the Bahamas (MAFLS XIII 162-3) and Nova Scotia (BSSNS 62-3), and in the United States from Maine (BBM 315-7), Massachusetts (JAFIL XVIII 294-5), Virginia (TBV 485-94, SCSII 234-6), West Virginia (FSS 154-8), Kentucky (SharpK I 269-70), Tennessee (FSSH
121-3, SFLQ II 76-7), North Carolina (JAFL XXX 199, SSSA 14-6, SharpK I267-9, BMFSB 14-5, FSSH 119-21, 123-4, SCSM 232-g), South Carolina (SCB 159-61), Mississippi (FSM 122-3, SCSII 236), the Ozarks (OMF 225-7), Ohio (JAFL XXXV 348, text not given), Michigan (KNR 301), Iowa (MAFLS XXIX 13-4), and Kansas (JAFL XXIX 166, from Scotland).
B. 'Our Good Man.' Written out for Mr. Robert Geist in 1937 by one of his students in a class in English literature, Mrs. Jewell Grooms, who notes: 'Handed down by my grandmother, eighty-seven years old. She was born and raised in Maries County, near Meta and Vienna, Missouri.'
The old man came home, for his home he loved to be,
Found a horse in the stable where his own horse should be.
'Ha, ha, my dearest dear, how comes this to be,
A horse in the stable where my own horse should be?'
'You old fool, you blind fool, you surely cannot see;
'Tis nothing but a milk cow that mamie* sent to me.'
'Miles I have traveled, ten thousand miles or more,
A saddle on a milk cow I never saw before.'
The old man came home, for his home he loved to be,
Found boots in the hall, where his own boots should be.
'Ha, ha, my dearest dear, how comes this to be,
Boots in the hall, where my own boots should be?'
'You old fool, you blind fool, you surely cannot see I
'Tis nothing but some pudding bags that mamie sent to me.'
'Miles I have traveled, ten thousand miles or more,
Spurs on pudding bags I never saw before.'
The old man came home, for his home he loved to be,
Found a hat on the rack, where his own hat should be.
'Ha, ha, my dearest dear, how comes this to be,
A hat on the rack where my hat should be?'
'You old fool, you blind fool, you surely cannot see I
'Tis nothing but a dish pan that mamie sent to me.'
'Miles I have traveled, ten thousand miles or more,
A dish pan with a brim I never saw before.'
The old man came home, for his home he loved to be,
Found a coat on the bed, where his own coat should be.
'Ha, ha, my dearest dear, how comes this to be,
A coat on the bed where my own coat should be?'
'You old fool, you blind fool, you surely cannot see;
'Tis nothing but a bed quilt that mamie sent to me.'
'Miles I have traveled. ten thousand miles or more,
Buttons on a bed quilt I never saw before.'
The old man came home, for his home he loved to be,
Found a man in the room where he himself should be.
'Ha, ha, my dearest dear, how comes this to be,
A man in the room where I myself should be?'
'You old fool, you blind fool, you surely cannot see?
'Tis nothing but a baby that mamie sent to me.'
'Miles I have traveled, ten thousand miles or more,
But whiskers on a baby I never saw before.'
*Whether 'mamie' for 'mammy' is intended for a phonetic spelling I do not know.