My Old True Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

the year,” Hackley said. And Larkin asked him, “Do you really aim to marry Mary?” Hard to think that even as boys she was always there between them, but oh, yes, she was. And when Larkin asked him if he’d thought whether Mary wanted to marry him, Hackley had shrugged and said, “Why, I reckon she does. I mean, I ain’t thought about it much. Just figured when it come time, she would.”
    And Larkin said even then he wanted his mind off of that, so he’d asked Hackley to sing something he didn’t know, and that was the day he learned “The Cruel Mother.”
    They was a lady who lived in York, all alone and lone-y,
    She fell in love with her father’s clerk, all down by the green
wood-side-y.
    They hadn’t been courting but a year and a day, all alone and lone-y,
    Until her heart he did betray, all down by the green wood-side-y.
    As she was a walking across the bridge, all alone and lone-y,
    She saw her belly were growing big, all down by the green
wood-side-y.
    She turned her back against the oak, all alone and lone-y,
    First hit bent and then hit broke, all down by the green wood-side-y.
    She leaned her back against the thorn, all alone and lone-y,
    There’s where her two purty babes were born, all down by the
green wood-side-y.
    She pulled out her snow-white breast, all alone and lone-y,
    And bid them purty babes suck their best, all down by the green
wood-side-y.
    She took her hair so long and neat, all alone and lone-y,
    To tie them with, both hands and feet, all down by the green
wood-side-y.
    She took a penknife keen and sharp, all alone and lone-y,
    And pierced these two purty babes to the heart, all down by the
green wood-side-y.
    And with a napkin from her head, all alone and lone-y.
    She wrapped them up when they were dead, all down by the green
wood side-y.
    She wiped her penknife on her shoe, all alone and lone-y,
    But the more she wiped the redder hit grew, all down by the green
wood-side-y.
    She placed them under a marble stone, all alone and lone-y,
    And prayed this murder would never be known, all down by the
green wood-side-y.
    I can just see Larkin, eyes shut tight, already making it his own, imagining that poor girl returning to her father’s house pretending to be still a maid, thinking of the ghosts of the murdered children coming to call. Them children then telling their own mommie she was doomed for hell.
    He’d be learning it to me in a week’s time and asking, “Why do you reckon she let them suck if she just aimed to kill them?” I had no answer unless it was that she was a coldhearted and selfish bitch, which is just what I said to him. And he said he’d asked Hackley the same thing and I asked, “Well, what did he say?”
    Hackley said just this: “Hell if I know. Just the way them old songs is, sometimes.”

4
    I HAD MY FOURTH child that we named Sylvaney the year Larkin turned thirteen, and that was also the year I was afraid he would never sing again.
    Hugh Wallin’s singing school met every summer where he taught the shape-note singing which went like this: a flag shape for fa, circle for sol, diamond for mi, and a square for la. When we all learned the music, we would sing the poetry. The church was always full to busting and we divided ourselves into the three parts, which was tenor, lead, and bass. The singing always started at 9:00 in the morning and more times than not we’d go straight through until supper-time with the number of folks singing ebbing and flowing as some would quit and eat and come back to sing again.
    Every time Hackley got called on to lead a hymn the tenors, which was where all the young girls was setting, would go all a-twitter. He knew it, too; however much he acted like he didn’t, he did. And this day was no different. He stood and literally flowed into the open center and even I could see what they did. He might have been little but he had that way of moving that women just loved. He held himself all loose and easy and his eyes looked lazy