Georgiansilver,

When exactly were you in school learning this?

I believe we established in this thread that there has been no evidence discovered that the "in bed" line is traditional, and that the evidence we do have about "Early in the Morning" strongly suggests that it probably was not. The line does begin to proliferate in the late 20th center through folk-pop recordings, and the earliest date discovered for one of those was 1960.

So, your experience would be interesting if it were before, say, 1970, and especially interesting if it were before 1960.