The songs of this group relate to various occupational pursuits. Of course, many of those listed elsewhere could be placed here also.

THE MOONSHINER, 4aa, 3: “For seventeen years I’ve made moonshine whiskey for one dollar per gallon, at my still in a dark hollow. I wish all would attend to their business and leave me to mine. God bless the moonshiner!”

WALKING-BOSS, metre as below, 3: A teamster’s song in couplets, with refrain, beginning:

Get up in the morning ’way before day,
Feed old Beck some corn and hay.
Get up in the morning soon, soon;
Get up in the morning soon.

THE STEEL-DRIVER, ii, 4a3b4c3b, 11: John Henry, proud of his skill with sledge and hand-drill, competes with a modern steam-drill in Tunnel No. Nine, on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. Defeated, he dies, asking to be buried with his tools at his breast.

ROSIN THE BOW, 3abcb, 4: A lyric of an old fiddler buoyant even in the face of approaching death: he asks for wine and women at his funeral rites.

ROSIN THE BOW: a fragment as follows:

I’ll tune up my fiddle, I’ll rosin my bow,
And make myself welcome wherever I go.

THE OLD SHOEMAKER, 4a3b4c3b and 4a3b4c3b, 4: Lately become a freeman, with five pounds laid up, and half a side of leather, he sings of Kate, the woman to make his content complete.

THE FARMER’S BOY, ii, 4a3b4c3b, 9: An orphan lad, he obtains employment from the farmer, later to marry his daughter and inherit thus the farm.

OLD GRAY, 6aabb, 5: Song of a teamster, who, lured by the still-house, hauls four loads of coal per day, instead of six; becoming drunk, he rides Old Gray off to a country frolic one night, whither his father follows him, and brings him back to his duty in the morning.

THE WAGGONER’S LAD, ii, 2abcb (or 4aa), 15: A complaint, arranged as a debat, of a lorn and loving lass against the teamster lad, as he departs from her.

OLD NUMBER FOUR (THE F. F. V., STOCKYARD GATE), ii, 6aabb, 10ca: George Allen, engineer, stays at the throttle as train Number Four on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad plunges into a fallen boulder near Hinton, W. Va., and bids his fireman jump to safety, while he himself dies a hero’s death.

[RAILROAD BOY], 4a3b4c3b and 4a3b4c3b, 5: A maiden’s song in scorn of all men save the railroad conductor, with his striped shirt, handsome face, and diamond ring.

THE OLD MILLER, 4aabb, 7: Dying, he questions his sons in order to choose one of them as his successor in the mill. Dick will take a peck as toll from each bushel; Ralph will take half; Paul will take all. But his wife assumes direction at his death.

LYNCHBURG TOWN, 4a3b4c3b, 3: A teamster’s song as he takes his tobacco to the Lynchburg (Va.) market.