Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss (OT2003-3013-007)

Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss (OT2003-3013-007)

The Wisconsin Emigrant's Song

Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3013, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.

Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.

1964-07-16

en

VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3013-007

Vermont Folklife Center

Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss

[MacArthur asks Atwood if he would like to rest, which he refuses]

[Atwood mentions that the songs is reprinted in History of Dover, see footnotes]

[Singing begins at 0:25]

For the stone that keeps rolling don't gather no moss

[MacArthur entreats Atwood to sing the whole song]

Since times were so hard I told you sweetheart
I've a good mind to leave off my plow and my cart
And away I'll go canvass a journey to go
And to double my fortune as other folks do
For here I must labor each day in the field
When the winter consume all that summer doth yield

My horses, sheep, cattle at random doth run
And my new Sunday jacket comes every day on

O husband

O husband remember you farm is but clear
Which has cost you hard labor for many long year
Your horses, sheep, cattle and all things to buy
You would hardly get settled before you must die
Ought to stick to the farm though you suffer a loss
For the stone that keep rolling with gather no moss

O wife let us go and no more and no longer stand
I will purchase a farm that is champ to our hand
Where horses, sheep, cattle are not [Atwood stumbles] are not very dear
And I'll feast on fat buffalo for half of the year
For here I must labor each day in the field
While the winter consumes all that winter doth yield
My horses, sheep, cattle at random doth run
And a new Sunday jacket comes every day on

O husband remember with a sorrowful heart
You've long time neglected your plow and your cart
Your youth are getting older and it should not complain
But to find it much harder to start in again
But to stick to the farm though it suffer a loss
For the stone that keeps rolling will gather no moss

O wife let it go and no longer wait
I long to be there there and I long to be great
And you some rich lady and no one knows why
Am I some rich governor here long til I die
For I must labor each day in the field
When the winter consumed all the summer doth yield

O [MacArthur interrupts, noting the repetitiveness of the lyrics] husband remember your farm of delight
Is surrounded by indians who murder by night
Your house would be plundered you barns burnt to the ground
Your wife and your family lay murdered around
Ought to stick to the farm though it summer a loss
For the stone that keeps rolling will gather no moss

O wife you've convinced me I'll argue no more
For such dangers I'd never once thought of before
My children I love them althought they are small
And my wife I do value more precious than all
So we'll stick to the farm though we suffer a loss
For the stone that keeps rolling don't gather no moss

[MacArthur asks questions about the context of the song. Atwood says his uncle sang it one time, discusses the song "The Indian Hunter," which he says his father James Atwood also sang]

References

• "The Rolling Stone" typewritten James Atwood lyrics collected by Edith Sturgis before 1919 and owned by Margaret MacArthur, archived at the Vermont Folklife Center.
• "The Wisconsin Emigrant's Song." In Nell M. Kull's History of Dover, Dover Historical Society. Dover, Vermont, 2002. p. 140. Book reprinted from the 1961 original published by The Book Cellar, Brattleboro. Song reprinted from Flanders's New Green Mountain Songster.
• Helen Hartness Flanders, Elizabeth Flanders Ballard, George Brown, & Phillips Barry. The New Green Mountain Songster. Yale University Press. New Haven, 1939. pp. 106-8.

Notes

• The version printed in Kull and Flanders was collected in West Springfield, Massachusettes in 1931. It draws from a fragmentary form collected from Rutland, Vermont.

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