Hunters & Healers: Folklore Types & Topics Page: 74

                                
folksong according to standards set by G. Malcolm Laws in his
Native American Balladry,3 the ballad is worth studying as a spe-
cific example of ballad-making of this type.
The text of "The Gatesville Murder," as recovered from Mrs.
Murphy, follows:
"The Ballad of Leeper and Powell"
1. Come all my friends and near relations;
Come and listen unto me.
I will sing about two men,
About two men that's to be hung.
2. 'Twas on the eighteenth night of December,
In eighteen hundred ninety-five,
'Twas the night they did the murder
For which they had to give their lives.
3. One says, "Father and dear mother,
Won't you both remember me,
When I'm dead and gone forever,
And my face no more you'll see ?"
4. "We were held long in this prison-
No one came to go our bail-
God will aid and assist us
Now to break the Gatesville jail."
5. And when started [sic] from that prison
And the guards surrounded them-
"I must die and I'm not guilty,"
'Twas the answer Jim made then.
6. Ed was tall and fair complected;
Jim was low and very neat.
They were pale and very silent,
And their lips did seem to meet.
7. One says, "Lord, oh, do have mercy
On those who swore my life away."
They tied their wrists and their ankles,
Placed black caps upon their heads.

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