“Treat My Daughter Kindly (The Little Farm)”

Description

The singer meets and falls in love with a girl. Her father asks him to "Treat my daughter kindly, never do her harm. When I die I'll leave you my little house and farm." The two are happily married and live a contented life

Supplemental text

Treat My Daughter Kindly (The Little Farm)
  Partial text(s)

          *** A ***

From Anne Warner, Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne &
Frank Warner Collection, #77, p. 184. From the singing of
Lena Bourne Fish of New Hampshire. Collected 1941.

While traveling down in Yorkshire
Not very long ago,
I chanced to fall in love,
With a girl you all must know.
I told her if she'd come with me,
I would see her on her way,
And when I took her to her home
I heard her father say,

  Chorus,
  Treat my daughter kindly,
  Never do her harm.
  When I die I'll leave you
  My little house and farm,
  My horse, my cow, my pig and plow,
  And all my cocks and hens,
  And all yon little chickens in the garden.

(2 additional stanzas)

Broadsides

• NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(62a), "The Chickens in the Garden," Poet's Box (Dundee), c. 1890

Recordings

• Riley Puckett, "Farmer's Daughter" (Columbia 15686-D, 1931; rec. 1928)
• Arthur Smith Trio, "The Farmer's Daughter" (Bluebird B-7893, 1938)

References

1. Gardner/Chickering 119, "I Once Did Know a Farmer" (1 text plus an excerpt)
2. Randolph 668, "The Little Chickens in the Garden" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
3. BrownII 175, "The Farmer's Daughter" (1 text)
4. Warner 77, "Treat My Daughter Kindly (or, The Little Farm)" (1 text)
5. McBride 68, "Treat My Daughter Kindly" (1 text, 1 tune)
6. ST R668 (Partial)
7. Roud #2552
8. BI, R668