Transcribed from the sheet music at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mussm:@field(NUMBER+@band(sm1885+18527))

SAVE MY MOTHER'S PICTURE
(Words, C. W. Brown. Music, J. Walsh. 1885)

I've been thinking of the day that has long since passed away
When my mother through a sickness drooped and died,
And the still and silent room when they laid her in the tomb.
I remember then how bitterly I cried.
I but a boy was then. My age was scarcely ten,
And with sorrow I had grown so thin and pale.
When the home had to be sold, I cried with grief untold,
"Oh! Save my mother's picture from the sale!"

CHORUS: My mother's face, that dear old face,
Her loss I ever shall bewail.
Don't break an orphan's heart. With that don't make me part.
Oh! Save my mother's picture from the sale!

The auction day came round. With mirth the room did sound.
The things I loved so well soon passed away.
The chair in which she sat and in which she liked to chat--
They all went into a stranger's hands that day.
The table where I played, the cot in which I laid--
All passed away like chaff before the gale.
But when the end came near, I cried with piteous fear,
"Oh! Save my mother's picture from the sale!"

The picture round was passed, and questions they were asked.
A price was bid for it just here and there.
The tears streamed down my face. I could scarce keep in the place
When I saw the picture pass without a care.
But an angel of a girl with a mass of golden curls
Who was struck to see my face so sad and pale,
She outbid them all, you see, and presented it to me
And saved my mother's picture from the sale.