House Carpenter 1- McAllister (VA) 1935 Wilkinson; Bronson 61
[Fragment from Wilkinson's MSS. with music, 1935-36, p.88 (B); also Bronson's TTCB III, 1966, No. 61.
This was the first known version collected from Mary Bird McAllister, who was later recorded by Paul Clayton in 1959. The text Clayton collected is better and included below.
R. Matteson 2013]
Excerpt: From White Hall to Bacon Hollow by George Foss
Marybird McAllister served as my initial point of contact and the focal point of my interest during my first trips into the Brown's Cove area. She is the archetypal mountain woman. Her age (“I'm the oldest one in Brown's Cove.”) and life story have combined to make her almost an anachronism, the last of a species on the verge of extinction. Marybird could neither read nor write. (“Ma and Pap never sent me to school. I wish they had of. I know I could of learnt.”) She was married at fourteen and bore eight children. She was forced to care for her children alone for a long period during the absence of her husband, Lem. She carried in her mind a large repertoire of songs which she constantly added to, and she never grew tired of singing, playing her banjo or listening to others make music.
In her late years she boarded with Hilma Yates, a first cousin once removed, and it was at Mrs. Yates' that I spent many evenings listening and recording the songs Marybird pulled from her long memory. Sometimes Marybird would ask us to write a letter for her. Her dictation would be a blend of personal notes, sayings and homilies quoted verbatim, and rhyming couplets extracted from one or another of her songs. The result was much like a literary crazy quilt like the ones she sewed together from countless scraps and pieces.
Marybird's perfect foil was Hilma's husband, Al. The two spent countless hours in intense bickering. Al, a transplanted northerner from Maine, was not totally attuned to Marybird's Southern mountain ways and beliefs. The constant smoldering feud intensified upon the arrival of a television set at the Yates. Al would become livid when Marybird broke into an old ballad right in the middle of one of his favorite shows. And Marybird resented the intrusion of such a disruptive device (“He turns that thing on and you cain't make music in here.”) She was delighted to point it out to visitors, however, and her concept of its electronic intricacies was startling. “ Watch Al there, he can turn them knobs and make 'em sing or dance or whatever. Makes 'em do whatever he wants.”
Once during a break in singing and recording the TV was playing away. A popular crooner came on the screen in one of those dub-over arrangements where three harmony parts are pre-recorded. So there was the singer mouthing his one melody line as out poured a perfectly blended quartet arrangement of his own voice. Marybird sat bolt upright and her dim old eyes brightened and she sat in rigid attention till the number was over. Then Marybird, who in her youth must have been a magnificent singer sighed, “Lord, I never knew anyone could sing like that.”
House Carpenter [The Daemon Lover]- Sung by Mrs. Mary McAllister, Grottoes, Va., October 30, 1935. m M/D
She taken her little babe on her knee,
The kisses, one, two, three,
Stay home, stay home, my tender little friend,
And keep your papa's company.
She hadn't been a-sailing but the last two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three.
Before this vessel sprung out a leak,
And she wept most bitterly.
She hadn't been a-sailing but the last three weeks,
I'm sure it was not four.
Before this vessel sprung out a leak,
And it sunk to rise no more.
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"House Carpenter"- Sung by Mrs. Mary Bird McAllister, Brown's Cove, Va., October 31, 1959. LCIAAFS, rec. No. 11,868(A5). Collected by Paul C. Worthington (Paul Clayton). Mode M/D
1. I am married to a house carpenter
And he is a fine young man.
2. O will you forsaken your house carpenter
And go along with me?
I'll take you where the grass grows green
0n the banks of sweet Kiddie.
3. She taken her little babe on her knee,
Gave't kisses one two three;
Stay at home, stay at home, my tender little
And keep your pap's company.
Stay at home, stay at home, my tender little
And keep your pap's company.
4. She hadn't been a-trav'lin' but the last two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three,
Before this vessel sprung out a leak,
And she wept most bitterly.
Before this vessel sprung out a leak,
And she wept most bitterly.
5. Or are you a-weeping for your gold,
Are you weeping for your store?
Are you weeping for your house carpenter
'At you never will see no more?
6. I'm neither weeping for my store
Nor neither for my gold.
I'm a-weeping for my tender little friend
That I never will see no more.
I'm a-weeping for my tender little friend
That I never will see no more.
7. She hadn't been sailing but the last three weeks,
I'm sure it was not four,
Before this vessel sprung out a leak,
And it sunk to rise no more,
Before this vessel sprung out a leak,
And it sunk to rise no more.