How well I remember when I was a boy

voiceCollected by: Billie Lou Ratliff For: Mary C. Parler Name of singer: Mrs. Alice Martin Mrs. Eula Ferrel Address: Pettigrew, Arkansas Date: October 25, 1958 Reel 267 Item 6 THE OLD HICKORY CANE How well I remember when I was a boy We lived in an old fashioned home and the chimney was deep the hearth stone was broad The fire logs, how brightly they shone We thought it a treaty with his hand on his cane Our father a story would tell Each eye would be bent on his good-natured face Oh! yes, I remember it well. How pleasant when living far out on the farm We welcomed the old dinner horn On cold winter evenings bring cider and fruit And popping of chestnuts and corn. The spirit of mischief we neverd a played We tried to keep still, but in vain The time for quietude I never shall forget The stamp of the old hickory cane. His high-backed old arm chair looks silent and lone His Bible is lying there still The sorrows of old age poured down on his head And bowed his bright form to its wil. A niche in the corner still holds the old cane The hand that caressed it is cold We laid him to rest but fondly we kept The cane that was knotted and old. The old hickory cane The old hickory cane The cane that was knotted and worn, Our father's companion,/the staff of his life I t s absence we never could have borne.Funding for digitization provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Happy Hollow Foundation