Four Marys- Horn (CA) 1891 Loud
[From Santa Catalina Island 1887-1915 by Catherine Maclean Loud. Her notes follow. The two stanzas are part of the print version which is usually 5 stanzas long.
R. Matteson 2015]
Early Spring – April, 1891
Mrs. Mary Horn, a small wiry woman, made her home with the Wheelers. She was the widow of Capt. Horn and had sailed with her husband from England to New Zealand and India through many years. She had been loyal help in the Wheeler’s California Bakery, “Cape Ann Bakery” in Oakland, and continued to serve her best in Avalon in their rental rooms and baker. While she worked she sang countless Scotch songs which she had learned in her home on the Shetland Islands. Two songs were sung endlessly, “Four Marys” and “No, John, No.” The Four Marys was a Scotch ballad of the attendants of Mary, Queen of Scots.
1st Stanza –
“Last nicht there were four Marys,
This nicht there’ll be but three,
There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton
and Mary Carmichael and me.
4th Stanza -
But little care I for a nameless grave
If I’ve hope for eternity
And I’ll pray that the Faith of the dee’in thief
May be granted through grace to me.”
Note: Recalled by Geneva Wheeler who heard Mary Horn sing.