Digital Tradition Mirror

Old Grandma

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Old Grandma

1.  Old Grandma when the west was new
    She wore hoop skirts and bustles too
    When infants came and times got bad,
    She stuck right on to old Granddad.

2.  She worked hard seven days a week
    To keep Granddad well-fed and sleek
    Twenty-one children came to bless
    Their happy home in the wilderness.

3.  Twenty-one boys, oh, how they grew!
    Big and strong, on bacon, too
    They slept on the floor with the sheep and the goats
    And they hunted in the woods in their oilskin coats.

4.  Twenty-one necks grandma would scrub
    Twenty-one shirts in the old washtub
    Twenty-one meals three times a day -
    It's no wonder Grandma's hair turned grey.

5.  Old [Great] Granddad was a busy man
    He washed his face in the frying pan
    He shaved his beard with a hunting knife
    And he wore the same [one] suit all his life.

6.  Old [Great] Grandma had a broody hen
    She got it from her cousin Ben
    In a pair of pants she made a nest
    And the hen hatched out a coat and vest.

7.  She could make good mountain dew
    Homebaked beans and Irish stew
    Old granddad [Great Grandpa] once killed a goat
    And Grandma made a new fur coat.

8.  And what she did was quite all right,
    She worked all day and slept all night
    But young folk [girls] now they're [are] the other way
    They're up all night and they [] sleep all day.

from Fowke, "based on one Kenneth Peacock collected in Newfoundland."
A later re-write of "Great Grand-Dad".
JB
apr97

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!