Katie's Secret
For some account of the currency of this stall ballad see BSM
215, and add to the references there given the Ozarks (OFS iv
293-4) and Michigan (BSSM 480). Randolph (OFS in 114) re-
ports stanza 7 of our text as a fragment of a drinking song from
Missouri.
'Song Ballad, Kate Seacret.' So labeled in the "faded old MS. dated
April 22nd, 1865" from which this text is taken. It was given to Dr.
Brown by someone whose name he forgot to record, "by whom it was
found in an old arithmetic."
1 The sunlight is beautiful, mother.
And sweetly the flowers bloomed today,
And birds in the branches of hawthornes
Are carolling ever so gay.
2 And down by the brook in the meadow
The rill ripples by with its song ;
And, mother, I too have Ijeen singing
The merriest all the day long.
3 Last night I was weeping, dear mother,
Last night I was weeping alone.
The world was so dark and so dreary ;
My heart it grew heavy as stone.
4 I thought of the lone and the loveless,
All lonely and loveless as L
I can scarce tell why it was, mother,
But oh, I was wishing to die.
5 Last night I was weeping, dear mother.
When Willie came down to the gate
And whispered, 'Come out in the moonlight;
I've something to say to you, Kate.'
6 Oh, mother, to him I am dearer
Than all in this world besides.
He told me so out in the moonlight.
He called me his darling bride.
7 So now I will gather me roses
And twine in my long braided hair,
And Willie will come in the evening
And smile when he sees me so fair.
8 And out in the moonlight we'll wander
And down by the old hawthorne tree.
Oh, mother, I wonder if any
Were ever so happy as we.