The Farmer's Wife- Hubbard (VA) 1939 Halpert
Herbert Halpert recorded African-American songster Joe Hubbard (Listen: The Farmer's Wife) in Wise Virginia, 1939 for the Library of Congress. The song appeared on the compilation, Virginia Traditions: Ballads From British Tradition.
The first stanza is similar to Poor Old Anthony Rolly taken from Fuzzy Barhight who learned it pre-1920 probably in PA.
So he hitched the pig with his old cow
And plowed the corn, the Devil knows how.
[Recorded by Stekert, Songs of a New York Lumberjack 1958]
Both versions would be improved with the stanza from Graham recorded in 1938 in CA:
There was an old man lived down at the barn.
(whistles)
He had no horses to plow up his corn.
Come-a-tou-ra-nan-nan-nan-neer-o.
He saddled his hogs, all ready to plow,
(whistles)
And turned up the furrow; the devil knows how.
Refrain: [md] Come-a-tou c.
He turned up the furrow, the devil knows how.
Refrain: [md] Come-a-tou c.
The last stanza recalls the end of the Scottish text in Child (version B), [refer: Kittredge 1917 JOAFL]
She was seven year gaun, and seven year comin,
And she cried for the sowens she left in the pot.
Miss Josephine McGill, in a brief paper on the "Survival of the English Folk Ballad" (in the Louisville "Courier-Journal" for Jan. 14, 1917), quotes a similar concluding stanza from a Kentucky version:
She was seven years going, and seven coming back,
But she asked for the baccy she'd left in the crack.
R. Matteson 2013]
THE FARMER'S WIFE- Sung by Joe Hubbard. Hamiltontown, near Wise, Va; Herbert Halpert, 1939.
(Listen: The Farmer's Wife)
I hooked up a hog and I went out to plough,
And how I got along I don't know how.
I seen Mr. Devil come slippin' through the field, says,
"One of your family I wish to steal."
"It's neither your daughter it's neither your son,
It's the old woman for the crimes she's done."
He picked up her up all on his back,
He looked like a pedlar with the pack on his back.
He took on to the forks in the road and he said,
"Old Woman, you're a terrible load."
He picked her up to feed it, and took on to the Devil's den,
And out run devils, nine or ten,
One little devil come climbing up the wall says,
"Take her back daddy she's a-gonna kill us all."
Seven years forward and seven years back,
He looked for the baccy she'd left in the cracks.
[Spoken: He musta had a terrible time wid her. . .]