Old Christmas Morning: A Kentucky Mountain Ballad

OLD CHRISTMAS MORNING A Kentucky Mountain Ballad by Roy Helton rrhere you coming from, Lomey Carter, So airly over the snow? And what's them pretties you got in your hand, And where you aiming to go? Step in, Honey: Old Christmas morning I ain't got nothing much; Maybe a bite of sweetness and cornbread, A little ham meat and such. But come in, Honey! Sally Anne Barton's Hungering after your face. Wait till I light my candle up: Set down! There's your old place. Now where you been so airly this morning? Graveyard, Sally Anne. Up by the trace in the salt lick meadows Where Taulbe kilt my man. Taulbe ain't to home this morning . . . I can't scratch up a light: Dampness gets on the heads of the matches; But I'll blow up the embers bright. Needn 't trouble. I won 't be stopping Going a long ways still. You didn't see nothing, Lomey Carter, Up on the graveyard hill? 6 What should I see there, Sally Anne Barton"? Well, sperits do walk last night. There were an elder bush a-blooming While the moon still give some light. Yes, elder bushes, they bloom, Old Christmas, And critters kneel down in their straw. Anything else up in the graveyard? One thing more I saw: I saw my man with his head all bleeding Where Taulbe's shot went through. What did he say? He stooped and kissed me. What did he say to you? Said, Lord Jesus forguv your Taulbe; But he told me another word; He said it soft when he stooped and kissed me. That were the last I heard. Taulbe ain't to home this morning. / know that, Sally Anne, For I kilt him, coming down through the meadow Where Taulbe kilt my man. I met him upon the meadow trace When the moon were faintingfast, And I had my dead man 's rifle gun And kilt him as he come past. But I heard two shots. 'Twas his was second: He shot me fore he died: You 'Il find us at daybreak, Sally Anne Barton: I'm laying there dead at his side. 7 ...