Bluegrass Messengers

Ballad of the Butcher Boy- Billy Hartman (PA) 1899

[From: Keystone folklore quarterly, Volume 2, no. 1, p. 26; Spring 1957. The use of 'flesh house' in stanza two is appropriate but unique. The last stanza is a variant of "Must I Go Bound?":

"Must I go bound while he goes free,
Must I love a boy who won't love me,

It also has apple ending. See for example Jane Hicks Gentry's version.

R. Matteson 2017]

V. THE BALLAD OF THE BUTCHER BOY From the singing of Billy Hartman, aged wandering farm hand, at Speedwell Mills, Lancaster County, August 7, 1899.

In Lancaster City, where I did dwell,
A Butcher Boy I loved so well;
He courted me my life away
And with him I could not stay.

There is a flesh house in the town,
On German Street, where he is known,
He takes the girls upon his knees,
Sometimes one, or two and threes.

I have to grieve, I tell you why,
 He tells them things, I get "go bye."
He makes the gold and silver go;
Some day he'll need it, that I know.

I went upstairs to make my bed,
And nothing to my mother said.
She said, "My girl, you're acting queer;
What's on your mind, my daughter dear."

"Oh, Mother, 'twould grieve you so,
yo tell you all the things I know;
Give me a chair, I'll sit me down,
With pen and ink my sorrows drown.

"Dig me a grave both wide and deep,
Place marble slabs at head and feet;
Place on the stone a snow-white dove,
To show the world I died for love."

 When Daddy from his work came home,
"Where has my dearest daughter gone?"
He went upstairs, the door he broke,
And found her hanging to a rope.

He took his knife and cut her down,
But her fair spirit it had flown;
 A letter fluttered from her dress,
"I hanged myself, for love, I guess,

"I'm bound, my Butcher Boy goes free
I love a boy who won't love me,
Alas, alas it can never be,
Till oranges grow on an apple tree."