The Little Log Cabin By the Stream

There was a happy time for me not many years ago,
When the townfolks used to gather on the green.
And the fiddle and the banjo, they could make a forest ring.
In that little old log cabin by the stream.
Chorus: Then hang up the fiddle and banjo on the wall,
And we'll lay aside the bones and the tambourine.
Since death did come and claim my Rose,
The only flow'r that grows,
In that little old log cabin by the stream.

The footpath's all grown over now that leads around the hill
And the fences am a-goin'to decay.
And the brook is all dried up where I used to go to swim,
For in time it's changed its course another way.

The chimbly tumbled down and it killed the brindled cow,
And I'spect to break my head, if I remain.
But the angels they watch o'er me while I lay me down to sleep
In that little old log cabin by the stream.

from Folk Songs out of Wisconsin
Collected from Lester A. Coffee, Harvard, Illinois, 1946
RG