Three Pore Little Children- Woodie (NC) c.1920 Sutton /Brown F
[From the Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Vol. 2, 1952 with supplementary music in Vol. 4. Their notes follow. Associated with the Brown Collection are the Abrams Collection and the I.G. Greer collection. Greer has nearly a dozen music sheets of this ballad - mostly they are rewrites of one or two versions. Greer and his wife sang a version recorded in 1929 (unissed) and 1941.
R. Matteson 2015]
25. The Wife of Usher's Well (Child 79)
This admirable ballad has lasted better in America, for some reason, and especially in the South, than in the land of its birth. See BSM 55-6, and add to the references there given Florida (SFLQ VIII 152-3), Missouri (OFS I 122-4), Ohio (BSO 46-7), Indiana (BSI 97), and Michigan (BSSM 146). All American texts belong to one version, with a strong religious coloring. The North Carolina collection has nine texts, but not all need be given here.
F. 'The Three Pore Little Children.' This Mrs. Sutton got from "Old Man Woodie" at Jonas' Ridge, Burke county, "a sort of preacher-blockader, who will argue his right to make whiskey all night." He was reputed to have been "a famous feudist just after the war, and probably a bushwhacker." Here again the return of the children is only dreamed.
1 There was a lady lived near by,
And babies she had three.
She sent 'em away to a cold, cold land
For to learn their grammaree.
2 They had not been gone but about three months,
I'm shore it was not four,
Until there came a sickness to that cold, cold land
And the babes rose no more.
3 She prayed to Jesus in the heavens up above —
He is wearin' of a golden crown —
That he would send her three babes home
Tonight or in the morning soon.
4 It was about one Christmas time,
When the night was long and cool.
She dreamed she seen her three little babes
Come running to their mother's room.
5 She fixed the table with a fair white cloth
And set on it bread and wine.
'Come set you down, my little babes,
And eat and drink so fine.'
6. 'We cannot eat your bread, our maw.
Nor can we drink your wine.
King Jesus won't let us go back
To live up in heaven so fine.'
7. She fixed a bed in the other room.
On it was a clean white sheet,
And on the top was a fancy quilt
For to make them babies sleep.
8. 'Wake up! Wake up!' says the oldest one,
'Wake up, for it's near 'bout day;
And we must leave our mother's house
And to Jesus fly away.
9. 'Green grass grows on our head, my maw.
And green moss at our feet.
The tears you've cried for us three babes
Won't wet our windin' sheet.'