Origin of "Few Days."
I have continued to collect versions of "Few Days." I can find nothing before 1854, when a flurry of Know-Nothing versions appeared, along with the Christy's Minstrel song credited to Lucy Long and Jenny Lind, posted above. Most of these are in American Memory.

The entry in the Traditional Ballad Index contains the 'key words,' mining, and religious. Neither seems to be correct. At least as early as 1826, "diggings" was used to mean a farm, or home. That most of us think of mines results from the great Gold Rush to California, in 1849. Other than that word, nothing suggests mining in any of the songs from 1854.

"Religious" seems to stem from the minstrel-like song by Holland, 1854, (posted above) in which the devil is discussed as a liar and conjuror; it possibly could have come from a camp meeting, but sounds more like parody to me. Minstrel shows often had songs of this type.

In 1857, a part of the Hollan lyrics, or a close version, was printed in the "Social Harp." George Pullen Jackson reprinted it in "White Spirituals of the Southern Uplands," and John A. and Alan Lomax included it in "American Ballads and Folk Songs," with musical score:

FEW DAYS (Pullen)

I pitch my tent on this camp ground,
   few days, few days.
And give old Satan another round,
And I am going home.
I can't stay in these diggin's,
   few days, few days.
I can't stay in these diggin's,
I am going home.

This song may be incomplete; I don't have the Pullen book. Lomax and Lomax, 1934, ABFS, p. 566 (1958 printing).

Any pre-1854 references would be appreciated.