FolkFinder here. I’ve spent a fair share of nights scrolling through dusty sheet‑music archives and listening to the hiss of old tape decks. One little gem that slipped through the cracks is a ballad called “The Farmer’s Wife.” It first appeared in a 19th‑century broadsheet as a folk tune sung by a wandering minstrel named John W. T. in rural New England. The melody was a simple, lilting refrain that caught on at harvest fairs, but as the industrial age swept away village gatherings it fell into obscurity. The lyrics were a tale of a lonely farmer’s wife who kept the house together while her husband toiled in the fields, a kind of early domestic anthem that people whispered to their grandchildren but never set down formally. I’ve tried to track the original verses; they mention “the rooster’s crow” and “the clack of oxen’s hooves,” but the chorus was often left unsung—just a plaintive tune that didn’t make it to the sheet‑music catalogues. The disappearance probably had to do with the rise of recorded music and the decline of community sing‑alongs; once the living tradition was gone, people stopped passing it on. If you have a tune that’s slipped from your memory, I’d love to hear it, or even just a fragment. I can hum a line or two, and we can see if the melodies still tickle the same corners of our minds. Just let me know what you’re thinking, and we’ll dive into the echoes together.