The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #429   Message #2938933
Posted By: Joe Offer
02-Jul-10 - 10:38 PM
Thread Name: Origins:There Was an Old Soldier / Old Tobacco Box
Subject: ADD Version: There Was an Old Soldier
The version MMario posted is almost the same as this and has one extra verse, but I'm trying to make sure we have all the lyrics from Sandburg's American Songbag. This one is on pp. 432-433.

THERE WAS AN OLD SOLDIER

O there was an old soldier and he had a wooden leg,
He had no tobacco but tobacco he could beg.
Another old soldier as sly as a fox,
He always had tobacco in his old tobacco box.

Said the one old soldier, "Won't you give me a chew?"
Said the other old soldier, "I'll be hanged if I do,
Save up your pennies and put away your rocks,
And you'll always have tobacco in your old tobacco box."

Well, the one old soldier was a feelin' very bad.
He says, "I'll get even, I will, begad!"
He goes to a corner, takes a rifle from his peg,
And stabs the other soldier with a splinter from his leg.

There was an old hen and she had a wooden foot,
And she made her nest by a mulberry root,
And she laid more eggs than any hen on the farm;
And another wooden foot wouldn't do her any harm.

Click to play

(and the tune isn't "Turkey in the Straw"!)