I learned the song (and it's rather turned into my theme song) years ago from an older friend who learned it in the '40s from her college roommate's father.

Ed Cray (author of _Erotic Muse_ and eminant biographer) called me a few years back when he was working on _Chief Justice_ and told me it was Chief Justice Earl Warren's favorite *recitation*; don't think he knew it as a song. We speculated it's from somewhere between 1900 and the 1920s, but haven't a clue as to who wrote it.

I run into people occasionally who hear me sing it and get all nostalgic because they'd only heard their mother/father sing it.

Linn, the Bat Goddess