Bluegrass Messengers

He's Young- Charlotte Decker (NL) 1958 Peacock

[From: Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 3, pp.677-678, by the National Museum of Canada (1965). The ballad is known in Newfoundland. Karpeles collected 2 versions in 1929.

R. Matteson 2016]

"He's Young but He's Daily Growing." Collected in 1958 from Mrs Charlotte Decker [1884-1967] of Parson's Pond, NL, by Kenneth Peacock.

The tree was growing tall and the leaves were growing green,
They grew all about the place oh where we have often been;
But now they all have fallen on a cold winter's e'en,
He's young but he's daily growing.

"Oh, father, oh, father, so cruel to me you've been,
You have a-married me to a boy so young and green;
While I am twice twelve, he is only thirteen,
He's young but he's daily growing."

"Oh, daughter, dear daughter, I have done no such thing,
You're a-married to a noble boy, and you wear his noble ring;
And if you'll only wait upon him he will be a royal king,
He's young but he's daily growing."

"Oh, father, oh, father, I tell you what we'll do,
We'll send him out to college all for a year or two;
And all around his waist we will bind a ribbon blue,
To let the girls know he's married."

As she was a-sewing all in her father's hall,
'Twas there she saw the schoolboys a-tossing up a ball;
And 'twas there she saw her own true love, the flower of them all,
He's young but he's daily growing.

He was a married man at the age of thirteen,
His only son was born when he was just fourteen;
But at the age of fifteen oh his grave was growing green,
And that put an end to his growing.