Boston Girl- Mac Hardin (TN) 1929 Henry C
[From Mellinger Henry's "Folk Songs from the Southern Highlands," J.J. Augustin, 1938. His notes follow.
This version is different than B, the last stanza which is incomplete is not found in B.
R. Matteson 2016]
64 THE WEXFORD GIRL (THE CRUEL MILLER) See Cox, No. 90 {A "The Tragedy;" B "Johnny McDowell"); Hudson, Journal, XXXIX, 125 {A and B "The Oxford Girl;" C "The Expert Girl;" D "The Shreveport Girl"); Belden, Journal, XXV, 11; Henry, Journal, XLII, pp. 247, 290; Mackenzie, Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, No. 115; R. W. Gordon, New York Times Magazine, June 19, 1927. Hudson's version is included also in his Specimens of Mississippi Folk-Lore, Ann Arbor, 1928, No. 24. See also Flanders and Brown, p. 88.
C. "The Boston Girl." Obtained from Mac Hardin, Sevierville, Sevier County, Tennessee, August, 1929. This is the same version as B, so far as it goes, with only a few slight verbal changes.
1. I courted a girl in Boston,
A girl that loved me well;
And every Sunday afternoon
Together we would dwell.
2. We took a walk one Sunday eve;
We walked a mile or more;
I drew a stick from under a tree
And knocked the merry girl down.
3. Down on her knees she bended
A-pleading for her life,
Says, "Willie, dear, don't kill me here;
I'm not prepared to die."
4. 1 listened to her pleading not;
I beat her o'er and o'er
Till all the ground there all around,
Was in a bloody glow[1].
5.1 took her by the yellow hair
And drug her down the road.
I threw her in the river
That runs through Boston town.
6. "Lie there, lie there, you Boston girl,
With your dark and rolling eye;
Lie there,"..[2].....................
1. gore.
2. [ends] lie there, you Boston girl,
You'll never be my bride.