American Old Time Song Lyrics: 38 The Old Tin Dipper On The Nail

Theater, Music-Hall, Nostalgic, Irish & Historic Old Songs, Volume 38

The Old Tin Dipper on the Nail.
Copyright, 1891, by Frank Tousey.
By F. Belasco and Homer Howard.

There's an old-fashioned dipper that hangs on a nail.
In an old-fashioned farm-house, and near it a pail,
And an old-fashioned woman in an old-fashioned gown,
Who would often at eve take that old dipper down.
In her old-fashioned chair she would silently rock,
Keeping time to the tick of the old-fashioned clock,
Then she'd call to us all in her old-fashioned way,
And these were the old-fashioned words she would say:

Chorus.
"Waste not-want not-never be in need,
Drink from the bucket-it was your father's creed­'Tis a maxim I remember, in life 'twill never fail.
Be contented with the dipper on the nail!"

Then she told of her laddie that left her one morn,
How the city's temptations had made him forlorn,
How he sank step by step through the glass that destroys,
And had robbed her old heart of its comforts and joys;
How she'd longed for her darling to be by her side,
And at last how he sank on the door-step and died,
Then she wept o'er his fate in her old-fashioned way.
And this golden maxim again She would say:-Chorus.