Waxfort Girl- Mrs. Donia Cooper (AR) 1959 Parler Q
[Ozark Folk Song Collection- online; Reel 287-288, Item 19. Collected by Mary Celestia Parler.
Listen: http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/4132/rec/24
R. Matteson 2106]
The Waxfort Girl- sung by Mrs. Donia Cooper of West Fork, Ark. on August 14, 1959.
’Twas in the town of Waxfort
I used to live and dwell,
’Twas in the town of Waxfort
I ran a flour mill.
I fell in love with a pretty little girl
With a dark and rolling eye.
I told her that I’d marry her
If me she’d never deny.
I asked her to take a walk with me
Down by the river so gay;
I asked her to take a walk with me,
We’d appoint our wedding day.
We walked along, we talked along,
Till we came to level ground.
I picked up a stick of hedge
And I knocked that poor girl down.
She fell upon her bending knees,
For mercy she did cry:
O Willie, O Willie, don’t murder me here,
I’m not prepared to die."
I heeded not a word she said,
But I beat her all the more;
I beat her till the ground all around
Was flooding in a bloody gore.
I picked her by the long yellow locks
And I swung her around and around;
I threw her in the river that runs through
That runs through Waxfort town.
When I got home in the evening
About twelve o'clock in the night,
I caused my aged old mother
To wake up in a fright.
”O son, O son, what have you done
That’s bloodied your hands and clothes?”
The answer that I made to her was
Was ’’bleeding at the nose.”
I called for a candle
To light me off to bed;
I called for a handkerchief
To bind my aching head.
I rolled and I tumbled,
No rest there could I find,
The gates of hell were open
And in my eyes did shine.
They took me on suspicion,
Locked me up in Waxfort jail;
No one to be a friend to me,
No one to go my bail.
About a week or later
This pretty fair maid was found,
A-floating down by the river
That runs through Waxfort town.
Her sister swore my life away
Without a fear or doubt;
She swore I was the very same boy
That took her sister out.