Butcher's Boy- Dora Blanton (SC) c. 1930 Lunsford B
[No date, estimated from age of MSS in collection. From: Bascom Lamar Lunsford Collection, Box 69, Folder B; Southern Appalachian Archives, Liston B. Ramsey Center for Regional Studies, Mars Hill University; Identifier mh00019,
R. Matteson 2017]
The Butcher's Boy- contributed by Dora Blanton of Gaffney, Rt. 3, Cherokee County, South Carolina.
1. In London City where I did dwell
Lives the butcher's boy I loved so well,
He courted me my life away,
And then with me he would not stay.
2. There's a strange house in this town,
He goes up and sits right down,
He takes another girl on his knee,
He tells her things that he won't tell me.
3. I have to grieve I'll tell you why,
Because she has more gold than I,
her gold will melt and silver fly,
In time of need, she'll be poor as I.
4. I went upstairs to go to bed,
And nothing to, my mother said I,
Mother dear, she did seem to day,
"What is the trouble with my daughter dear?"
5. "O mother dear you need not know,
The pain and sorrow, grief that flows
Give me a chair and sit me down,
With pen and ink to write words down.
6. And when her father first came home,
Where is my daughter, where has she gone?
He went upstairs and the door he broke,
And found her hanging to a rope.
7. He took his knife and cut her down
And in her bosom these words he found
What a silly girl I am, you know
to hang myself for the butcher's boy.
8. Must I go bound while he goes free?
Must I love a boy when he don't love me?
Alas! Alas! it'll never be
Till life is grown from apple trees.