Butcher Boy- Mrs. M.E. Warner (OH)
[From: Ballads and Songs from Ohio, 1939 by Mary Eddy. Her notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
This song is widely known in Ohio. I am including only a few of those that have been contributed.
Other Texts-- Cox, No. 145, p. 340. / Dunstan, p. 42, under the title of "Betsey Watson" prints a song which, though unrelated a "Jersey City," makes use in its third stanza of the following:
There is a house in our town
Where my love goes, and sits him down,
And takes another girl on his knee;
Oh! don't you think its grief to me!
B. THE BUTCHER'S BOY-- From Mrs. M. E. Warner, Melco, Ohio.
1. In Jersey City where I did dwell
A butcher's by I loved so well,
He courted me my heart away,
And now with me he will not stay.
2. There is an inn in that same town,
Where he goes and sits himself down;
He takes a strange girl on his knee,
Tells things to her that he once told me.
3. It's joy of grief, I'll tell you why,
Because she has more gold than I;
But her gold will melt and silver fly,
In time of need she'll be as poor as I.
4. I went upstairs to make my bed,
And nothing to my mother said;
My mother came upstairs to me,
Saying, "What is the matter, daughter dear?"
5. "Oh, mother dear, you do not know
The grief and pain and. sorrow woe;
Go get a chair and set it down,
With pen and ink to write it down."
6. On every line she dropped a tear
That's calling back her William dear,
. . . .
. . . .
7. My father came home and said
"Where has my darling daughter gone?"
He came upstairs, the door he broke,
He found her hanging by a rope.
8. He took his knife and cut her down,
And on her breast these words he found:
"Oh, what a silly maid am I
To hang myself for a butcher's boy."
9. "Go, dig my grave both wide and deep,
Place a marble stone at my head and feet,
And on my breast a turtle dove
To show this world I died for love."