From an article "Folk-Song of Nebraska and the Central West: A Syllabus" by Louise Pound, in Publications, Vol. 9, No. 3. (Lincoln: Nebraska Academy of Sciences, 1915?), page 120:

6. Poor Little Joe. Fragment.

Cold blew the blast and down came the snow,
With no place to shelter him, nowhere to go,
No mother to guide him, in her grave she lay low,
Died on the cold streets, it was poor little Joe.