A Love Story In the Hills

He sells furs and-runs moonshine

He sets traps near his still every night

‘Cross the creek down-by the tall pine

If you go there he’ll shoot you dead on sight

His wife chews-chaw tobacco

She spits it-in a jug

She’s raising-thirteen children

She buried four more in graves that she dug

We’ll they’ve never- paid any taxes

They have a beat up- rusted out old truck

She would leave him- if she knew how,

but he would kill her-so she’s stuck

He drinks his whiskey-in the daytime

He runs his coonhounds-every night

He’s got a lazy eye- and big hands

And he’s quick to- start a fight

There’s no food-in the cupboard

The kids work-so they can eat

They get cornmeal-and potatoes

There’s almost never-any meat

The kids have never had real shoes

and they walk almost everywhere they go

They’ve never-gone to school

‘cause he hit her when she asked if they could go

Though he hits her-‘bout every evening

She reckons that she’s had about enough

She knows that- he’s killed before but,

She reckons any man who hits a woman ain’t so tough

Well she practiced-for a long while

Swingin’ that cast iron at the scarecrow in the yard

He’d been hit before-so he could take it

But she doubted that he’d ever been hit that hard

When he got home-he was tired

The dogs had run just about all night

Now the holler-is on fire

She knocked him out and burned the house and him alive

Well she never-drove until now

Thirteen kids in the bed of that rusty truck

She couldn’t leave him-‘til she knew how

So she killed him and she got herself unstuck

The kids all- go to school now

They get two brand new pairs of shoes every year

She makes good money-doing what she knows how

From the first batch her whiskey was always crystal clear