BOB WHITE
Passing by a country graveyard one day last summer I noticed an old man throwing stones at a bird. When I asked him why he did so he stammered: “I—I thought it was a Bob White, but it was only a thrush. There is a Bob White comes here every day through the summer time and calls the one name I so bitterly despise, and I chase him away. I don’t want the dead to hear him call that name.”
I passed on, but at the first house west of the old country graveyard, where I stopped to get a drink, a woman told me the old man’s story. He was engaged to a beautiful young girl, but an Englishman came into the neighborhood, pretending to be very wealthy, and turned the girl’s head. She was attracted by his supposed wealth, and eloped with him to New York. Less than a year afterward her dead body was sent home for burial in the old home graveyard, her husband having deserted her a few months after their unholy marriage.
The Englishman’s name was Robert White. The old man I saw stoning the birds, had never married after losing his promised bride, and the neighbors say he acted very queerly from the day the girl ran away with the Englishman, and has been watching her grave ever since her body was brought home for burial. He imagines the quail is mocking him, or taunting the dead woman with the repetition of the man’s name who wronged both in the long ago.
Hark, I hear the Bob White call!
I wonder where he can be?
Ah, sitting on the old stone wall
Under the maple tree—
The maple tree in the graveyard old,
Where my sweetheart is sleeping,
Clasped in the arms of the earth so cold,
While the rain drop tears are seeping.
Bob White, Bob White!
The man who bought a bride;
Bob White, Bob White!
With a broken heart she died;
I sing this song
The whole day long—
Bob White, Bob White!
She married a man for his gold and land,
After plighting her troth, you see;
He turned her head, and she gave her hand,
But her soul was in love with me.
He proved a brute from the very start,
And in one short year, she died;
He beat her body and broke her heart—
She was only a purchased bride.
Bob White, Bob White!
The man who received her life;
Bob White, Bob White!
The man who bought a wife;
That spiteful call,
From the old stone wall—
Bob White, Bob White!
And the name of the man was Robert White,
A Britain, from over the sea—
A man with a heart as black as night,
And he stole my sweetheart from me.
The bird comes back to the grave each year,
And sits on the old stone wall,
And seems to say to the dead, My dear,
Do you love the man I call?
Bob White, Bob White!
The man who broke your heart!
Bob White, Bob White!
Does it make your mem’ry start?
Oh, I love to shout
This vile name out—
Bob White, Bob White!
I must go and chase the bird away,
So the woman I love may sleep—
The woman still dear to me today,
Tho’ the world must not see me weep.
I hate the name of the man he calls,
And the dead, tho’ buried from sight,
Must curse each note that spitefully falls,
And the name of the man—Bob White.
Bob White, Bob White!
My curse be on your head!
Bob White, Bob White!
Go, leave in peace the dead;
Her soul is mine,
Tho’ her body was thine,
Bob White, Bob White!
Go away, you bird of spiteful song,
My sweetheart is at rest;
But through your calling the whole day long
Sad memories might pain her heart.
And my own heart still bleeds anew
While you call, from mourn to night,
That name, so spitefully sung by you—
That hated name—Bob White!
Bob White, Bob White!
Be gone, you evil bird!
Bob White, Bob White!
My soul is within me stirred;
Call not in shame
That dastard’s name—
Bob White, Bob White!