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Archiver > VERMONT > 1999-05 > 0925676428


From: "Jackie M. Botala" <>
Subject: [VERMONT-L] more old papers...
Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 13:20:28 -0700


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These are autographs written in 1877 for Emma Sampson,
daughter of David Dodds of North Hero and later wife of
Reuben, son of Olivia and Daniel Sampson of Grand Isle:

Emma I love you
Indeed I do! I offer
you my fortune, my
heart, hand, body &
soul--Will you accept it?

Remember who wrote you this
When other days shall come
And I who loved you fondly
Sleeps in the silent tomb.
Orpha Hibbard

She is little and she is pretty
And she is very spirited
And the more you hug
and kiss her
The better she seems to feel.

(Contributed by Clara Coss, Grand Isle)

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In the little district school that I attended seventy years
ago we all had to "speak pieces" on the closing day of the
term. These are two ballads I remember being recited at
that time:

Spot, the Little Dog Under the Wagon

"Come wife," said the good Farmer GRay,
"Put on your things this market day;
Let us be off to the nearest town
And back again e'er the sun goes down."

"Old spot? We'll leave old Spot behind
But he'll guard the house and guard the cote
And keep the cattle out of the lot."
The little dog under the wagon.

The trip to town was uneventful, but on the return trip Farmer
Gray was stopped by a highwayman who pointed a gun at
him and called,

"Your life or else your money."

Old Spot he barked and Spot he whined
And grabbed the thief behind
And threw him down in the mud and dirt
And tore his coat and tore his shirt
And the farmer bound hom hand and foot
And tumbled him into the wagon.

So Spot he saved the farmer's life
The farmer's money, the farmer's wife,
And how a hero bright and gay
A silver collar he wears today
And everywhere his master goes
He follows on his horny toes,
Spot, the little dog under the wagon.

ANother piece was about a man someplace in the South
who decided to leave his farm and go west for he couldn't
raise nuthin' but yellowish cotton, and more then all that his
fences were rotten, so he sold to a Yankee farmer and went
to Texas.

Some years later the Yankee farmer, fat and prosperous,

Was just sitting down to the rousingest dinner
What was ever prepared for a saint or a sinner
When in came one of his sons and said that there
was Jones,
The man from whom they bought their land.

The Yankee took Jones in and fed him, for he was thin
and ragged and half starved,

(ending is missing)
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