Barry Holden

The very fall my sister Nancy Knapp         Set fire to the house         They were trying Dr. Duval         For the murder of Zora Clemens,         And I sat in the court two weeks         Listening to every witness.         It was clear he had got her in a family         And to let the child be born         Would not do.         Well, how about me with eight children,         And one coming, and the farm         Mortgaged to Thomas Rhodes?         And when I got home that night,         (After listening to the story of the buggy ride,         And the finding of Zora in the ditch,)         The first thing I saw, right there by the steps,         Where the boys had hacked for angle worms,         Was the hatchet!         And just as I entered there was my wife,         Standing before me, big with child.         She started the talk of the mortgaged farm,         And I killed her.