The Ladie Bright- two young girls (TN) 1904 Miles
[My location, probably from Tennessee but she also mentions Kentucky and North Carolina. From "Some Real American Music" in Harper's Monthly Magazine, Volume 109 (1904) edited by Henry Mills Alden, Thomas Bucklin Wells, Lee Foster Hartman. With music.
Bio from Wiki follows.
R. Matteson 2015]
Emma Bell Miles (1879–1919) was a writer, poet, and artist whose works capture the essence of the natural world and the culture of Southern Appalachia.
Miles was born in Evansville, Indiana in 1879 and moved to the area that is now Red Bank, Tennessee when she was a young child. Later, she and her family moved to Walden's Ridge (now Signal Mountain), Tennessee. A talented young woman, she left home to study art in St. Louis, Missouri. However, she really missed the mountains and soon returned to Tennessee. After moving back to Walden's Ridge, she fell in love with a young man named Frank Miles and married him. (Shannon Brooks 161)
The Ladie Bright- Miles says, "Here is one exactly as it was sung to me by two young girls in the mountains:"
It was a ladie bright;[1]
Each child she had was three; [2]
She sent them off to a Northern State
For to learn their gramarie.[3]
They had been gone but a little time—
Two months, perhaps, or three—
Till sickness spread all over the land
And swept her babes away.
She prayed if there was a King in Heaven
Who chose to wear a crown,
That He would send them home that night
Or in the morning soon.
Twas twelve long months, about Christmastide,
The night being cold and long,
The three little ones came running home,
And into their mother's arms.
She set a table before them soon,
On it spread bread and wine,
"Now, come along my little babes,
Come, eat and drink of mine."
"I may not eat of your bread, my mother,
Nor drink none of your wine."
She fixed a bed in the back room side,
On it spread a clean sheet,
And over the top spread a golden skirt
For to make a sweeter sleep.
"Awake, awake," said the oldest one,
Now soon the cock will crow.
I see our Saviour smiling down,
And to Him we must go."
1. probably "ladie bride"
2. She had three children
3. grammarie (with 2 m's)