13. The Two Brothers (Child 49)
Another of the ballads that are better preserved in America than in Great Britain. For its range see BSM 33, and add to the references there given Massachusetts (FSONE 278-80), North Carolina (FSRA 17), Tennessee (SFLQ 11 66), Florida (SFLQ VIII 141-2), Arkansas (OFS i 76-7, 79-80), Missouri (OFS i 77-8), Ohio (BSO 26-8), Indiana (BSI 55-7), and Wisconsin (JAFL LII 35). It is not clear from the text given below whether the killing is accidental or intentional.
'Two Little Boys Going to School.' Contributed, probably in 1923, by Mildred Peterson from Bladen county.
I Two little boys a-going to school,
Two little boys they be.
Two little boys a-going to school
To learn their A-B-C.
2 One says, 'Johnnie, will you toss a ball?
Or will you throw a stone?
Or will you wrastle along with me
As we are going home?'
3 'Oh, no,' says Johnnie, 'I'll not toss a ball,
Nor either throw a stone;
But I will wrastle along with you
As we are going home.'
4 So they wrastled up and they wrastled down
And they wrastled all around;
A little p>en-knife ran in Johnnie's heart,
Which gave a deadly wound.
5 'Oh, pick me up, my dearest little brother,
And carry me to yonder tree.
There I may lie, there I may die;
Contented I shall be.'