Sung by John Crosher, "Skiff & Gaylord's Minstrels"
[Cover page: "Father Don't Drink Any Now!"]
[Title page:] "Our Father Don't Drink Any Now" (1866)
Song and Chorus.
Answer to Come Home, Father.
[by Henry Clay Work]
Words and Music by Frank Howard.
[aka Delos Gardner Spaulding, 1833-1884]

Detroit: J. Henry Whittemore, No. 179 Jefferson Avenue
[Source: 098/078@Levy]

1. Our Father, dear Father has not drank a drop, 
Since the night that poor “Benny” died, 
He cheerfully now comes straight home from the shop, 
And brings comfort to our fireside, 
The lines have all fled from poor Mother’s brow, 
She smiles as in days of yore: 
At school our young playmates don’t scoff at us now, 
Since Father don’t drink any more.

CHORUS [sung after each verse]
Hear the sweet voice of the child, 
With a bright happy smile on her brow, 
As she says with such candor and pride in her voice, 
Our Father don’t drink an y now.

2. Our cot once so shabby, is now clean and neat, 
So lately with white painted o’er. 
With pleasure we list for the sound of his feet, 
For he meets us with smiles at the door— 
The nights we once pass’d with watching and fear, 
And dreaded his knock at the door, 
Are pass’d in sweet sleep, Mother sheds not a tear, 
Since Father don’t drink any more.

3. I now sometimes awake in the night and can hear, 
The clock striking “one,” “two,” and “three;” 
And I murmur a prayer for the ones far and near, 
Who’ve been watching for “Father’s since tea;” 
On Sundays Pa sits with Mother and me, 
In a pew near the little chuch door, 
’Neath a mound, in a yard near the church ’Benny” sleeps— 
But Father don’t drink any more.