From english folk songs from the southern appalachians, sharp. collected from mary wilson and mrs. townley, kentucky, 1917





Once there was a little tailor boy

About sixteen years of age;

My father hired me to a miller

That i might learn the trade.





I fell in love with a knoxville girl,

Her name was flora dean.

Her rosy cheeks, her curly hair,

I really did admire.





Her father he persuaded me

To take flora for a wife;

The devil he persuaded me

To take flora's life.





Up stepped her mother so bold and gay,

So boldly she did stand;

Johnny dear, go marry her

And take her off my hands.





I went unto her father's house

About nine o'clock at night,

A-asking her to take a walk

To do some prively talk.





We had not got so very far

Till looking around and around,

He stooping down picked up a stick

And knocks little flora down.





She fell upon her bended knees,

For mercy she did cry:

O johnny dear, don't murder me,

For i'm not fit to die.





I took her by her lily-white hands

A-slung her around and around;

I drug her off to the river-side,

And plunged her in to drown.





I returned back to my miller's house

About nine o'clock at night,

But little did my miller know

What i had been about.





The miller turned around and about,

Said:" johnny, what blooded your clothes?"

Me being so apt to take a hint:

By bleeding at the nose.





About nine or ten days after that,

Little flora she was found

A-floating down by her father's house

Who lived in knoxville town.




more