The Old Farmer in the Countree, Waters (Missouri), 1903. Published 1906 Belden B, 1940
[Belden B, Ballads and songs collected by the Missouri Folklore Society; 1940, with music, informant was a fiddler named Tom Waters.
The ballad was listed, untitled in Old-Country Ballads in Missouri I by H. M. Belden; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 74 (Jul. - Sep., 1906), pp. 231-240. In the JAFL, Belden gives some of the changes:
(b) A version of this ballad taken down by Mr. W. S. Johnson of Tuscumbia, Miller County, from the singing of a local fiddler and ballad-singer named Waters, differs but slightly from the Clinton County version; instead o f the archaic," saucy brimside" of the fifth stanza it has "As they went round the river bend," and it preserves a stanza that has dropped out of the Clinton County version, closing thus:--
He robbed her of her golden ring
And plunged her in the brook again.
They hung him on his own mill-gate
For drownding of poor sister Kate.
R. Matteson 2011, 2014]
The Old Farmer in the Countree- Sung by Tom Waters (Missouri), 1903
There was an old farmer lived in the countree,
Bow down, bow down
There was an old, farmer lived in the countree,
The bow has been for me
There was an old farmer lived in the countree,
He had the charming daughters three,
If you'll ever be true, truly my love,
O lover, be true to me.
There was a young man went courting there,
He courted there the oldest fair.
He gave the youngest a diamond ring,
The oldest not a single thing.
He gave the youngest a beaver hat;
The oldest she got mad at that.
'O sister, O sister, let us walk out,
And view the boats sailing about.'
As they went round the river bend,
The oldest shoved, the youngest in.
'O sister, O sister, lend me your hand,
To help me to the native land.'
'I will neither loan you my hand nor glove,
But I'll take from you your own true love.'
'O miller, O miller, yonder comes a swan,
A-swimming down the old mill pond." [1]
The miller threw out his old grab hook
And brought her safely from the brook.
He robbed her of her golden ring
And plunged her in the brook again.
They hung him on his own mill gate
For drownding of poor sister Kate.
1. Another reading -
Poor Kate went floating down the pond
But though her life was almost gone.