That's okay,
Rose would say,
don't you worry none,
we'll have good times by and by next fall when the work's all done.
I married Rose when she was 17,
we got a little farm.
In the first year out, the old barn burned down
and I broke my good right arm.
From then on in, things got bad.
I suppose they could have been worse.
But just seeing Rose in rags all day,
it made me want to curse.
That's okay,
Rose would say,
don't you worry none,
we'll have good times by and by next fall when the work's all done.
I watched her hands growing rough and red
from working out there in the fields.
She's putting up in mason jars
whatever little crops they would yield.
And I'd find what jobs there were in the town.
Most times there was none.
Ah, but Rose would
still have me dinner with him every night when the work was done.
That's okay,
Rose would say,
don't you worry none,
we'll have good times by and by next fall when the work's all done.
Our firstborn had a face like Rose and I suppose a temper like mine.
She'd sleep all day and she'd
cry all night.
But she grew up and she married fine.
Our only son, he went off to fight in some
Southeast Asian war.
A year went by and the telegram said,
he's not coming home no more.
One winter's night,
two years ago, Rose took a terrible chill.
She went to sleep,
she didn't wake up.
And I suppose she's sleeping still.
But sometimes when the wind is singing
high up there in the old hawthorn tree,
it seems like it's not the wind at all,
it's Rose still singing to me.
That's okay,
Rose would say,
don't you worry none,
we'll have good times by and by next fall when the work's all done.
That's okay,
Rose would say,
don't you worry none,
we'll have good times by and by next fall when the work's all done.