Butcher's Boy- A. Lauterbach (IO) c.1931 Stout I
[Short version from Folklore from Iowa, collected and edited by Earl J. Stout, 1936. His notes follow. Practically all of the material in this collection was gathered during the fall and winter of 1931.
R. Matteson 2017]
I. "The Butcher's Boy." Contributed by Anna Marie Lauterbach, Reinbeck. Given here verbatim as contributed.
1. In Jersey City, where I did dwell,
A butcher's boy I loved so well;
He courted me, my life away,
And then with me he would not stay;
2. I went upstairs to go to bed;
And nothing to my mother said;
But mother said you're acting queer;
What is the trouble my daughter dear?
3. Oh mother dear, you need not know;
The pain and sorrow, grief and woe;
Give me a chair and set me down;
With pen and ink to write words down;
4. Oh dig my grave, both wide and deep;
And place a marble at my feet;
Upon my breast, a snow white dove;
To show the world that I died for love;
5. And when her father first came home,
Where is my girl, where has she gone?
He went upstairs, the door he broke;
And found her hanging to a rope.
6. He took his knife, and cut her down;
And in her bosom, these words he found;
A silly girl, am I you know;
To hang myself for a butcher's boy