Ballad of the Bad Boy In Montana Dedicated To My Grandmothers Twin Sister
Some songs
Are of saddest times
The skies of darkest days
Some words
Bring such discontent
There are no gentle ways
To tell the tale
Without the tears
That tear the heart in two
But I will share
This saddest tale
Of hearts both black and true
There was a widow
With a son
He was a spunky lad
And when she found
Another man
The boy turned
Mean and sad.
The maid who cleaned the widow’s house
Saw the what was going on.
How each day the battle raged
As soon as she was gone.
The man took off
His silver belt
And like a man insane
He beat the boy, he cursed at him
And called him filthy names.
The mother’s love had maddened him
He hounded the poor child
Jealousy had filled his head
By hate his heart defiled.
He loved the widow, now his wife
Her son was in the way.
He sent the boy away to school
On that their wedding day.
The boy wrote home--
He hated school
They beat him there and worse
They starved the boy
To punish him
For writing silly verse.
The boy wrote home to plead his case
He promised to be good.
He begged to be at home again
He’d even chop the wood!
At the widow’s urging
The man re-read the letter
'He must come home'--his sweetheart cried--
'He's promised to be better.'
The man sent off the widow
Quick to get her son
She left him on the next train
Before the day’d begun.
The day was hot, the winds were bad
The clouds, they shouted rain
The neighbors said that angels wept
As they hailed the train
The man stopped by to get the mail
Without his widow’d wife
Another letter from the school
How tiresome was his life!
He put the letter in his bag
And headed his way home
When bedtime came he got it out
He liked to read alone.
'Your son is dead,' the letter said,
The hand was from a man
the school was starving naughty boys
the lawmen had a plan.
The school would close, the boys all leave
But one boy would remain.
The dead boy would be with his ma
When she returned by train.
The man who loved the widow
And took her for his wife
Hanged himself before the dawn
And took his own dear life.
The widow and her son
Returned through beating rains
She walked into that darkened house
And blew apart her brains.
Copyright © Victoria Anderson-Throop | Year Posted 2012
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