From CREEK-MUSIC:
OZARK MOUNTAIN BALLADS
OZARK MOUNTAIN BALLADS
by Diane Taylor aka catta
© by Diane Taylor 1997
All rights reserved
BALLAD OF FIDDLER DAN
I got lost up in the mountains
In a late October storm.
An old man at a farmhouse
Bade me come in and get warm.
He offered me some coffee and
Inquired about my trade
So I told him I wrote stories
But was very seldom paid.
"I've a story you might fancy,"
I could barely hear him say.
In the leaping firelight shadows
His blue eyes were far away...
"Mandy Brown lived in the village.
She was wild and reckless-free,
And it broke her mother's heart when
She took up with Dan Dupree.
Now, Dan played mountain music
Like no one had ever heard.
Why, he could make that fiddle sing
Just like a mockingbird.
High upon the midnight mountain
Dan would play his fiddle low,
Softly calling Mandy to him -
And she never failed to go.
Jonah Small was slow and quiet.
He owned the General store.
If that gal had been an angel
He could not have loved her more.
Mandy laughed at Jonah's passion
And aggrieved the gentle man
With her taunting condemnation
And her love for fiddler Dan.
Mandy gave herself too freely.
Fiddler Dan was just as wild.
When he left town that autumn
He left Mandy with a child.
As his baby grew inside her
Mandy, sorry for the sin,
Begged forgiveness from her family
But they wouldn't let her in.
Then, one night in late December,
Jonah found her at his door.
Nearly dead from cold and hunger,
she collapsed upon his floor.
He carried Mandy to his room
And, in her pain, he cried.
Gently he brought forth her baby.
Mandy called for Dan - and died.
Jonah raised the child to manhood
with no help from anyone
And the love he had for Mandy
Overflowed onto her son.
And the bond between them strengthened
Through the years, till Jonah died
With the fiddler's son who loved him
Like a father by his side....."
When he finished with his story
I asked if he could recall
If the fiddler ever knew about
His son and Jonah Small.
He picked up a battered fiddle as,
Outside, the night wind rose
And the old man, softly sobbing,
Cried, "He knows... oh yes! He knows!"
The End
In a late October storm.
An old man at a farmhouse
Bade me come in and get warm.
He offered me some coffee and
Inquired about my trade
So I told him I wrote stories
But was very seldom paid.
"I've a story you might fancy,"
I could barely hear him say.
In the leaping firelight shadows
His blue eyes were far away...
"Mandy Brown lived in the village.
She was wild and reckless-free,
And it broke her mother's heart when
She took up with Dan Dupree.
Now, Dan played mountain music
Like no one had ever heard.
Why, he could make that fiddle sing
Just like a mockingbird.
High upon the midnight mountain
Dan would play his fiddle low,
Softly calling Mandy to him -
And she never failed to go.
Jonah Small was slow and quiet.
He owned the General store.
If that gal had been an angel
He could not have loved her more.
Mandy laughed at Jonah's passion
And aggrieved the gentle man
With her taunting condemnation
And her love for fiddler Dan.
Mandy gave herself too freely.
Fiddler Dan was just as wild.
When he left town that autumn
He left Mandy with a child.
As his baby grew inside her
Mandy, sorry for the sin,
Begged forgiveness from her family
But they wouldn't let her in.
Then, one night in late December,
Jonah found her at his door.
Nearly dead from cold and hunger,
she collapsed upon his floor.
He carried Mandy to his room
And, in her pain, he cried.
Gently he brought forth her baby.
Mandy called for Dan - and died.
Jonah raised the child to manhood
with no help from anyone
And the love he had for Mandy
Overflowed onto her son.
And the bond between them strengthened
Through the years, till Jonah died
With the fiddler's son who loved him
Like a father by his side....."
When he finished with his story
I asked if he could recall
If the fiddler ever knew about
His son and Jonah Small.
He picked up a battered fiddle as,
Outside, the night wind rose
And the old man, softly sobbing,
Cried, "He knows... oh yes! He knows!"
The End
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