My sister sent me to come and get you in,
It's time to take your dinner and you know you're to come in when your called.
I can see you up on the highest limb
And the sky looks to be stormin' and you'll be cold by mornin'

When I returned without you, her head was filled with words
Her tongue could not withhold, see, so she let them fly to scold me
I told I'd seen you up on the highest limb
She said the night was stormin' and you'd be dead by mornin'

Little sister where have you gone
In the night I hear you cryin' and the days are so damn long.
Sometimes I wish that I could've gone instead of you,
And I wonder if you were sittin' here, would you be wishin' that too.

The woods were damp and the air was green.
A beautiful spring morning, now what could serve as warning.
And I'd often seen it, rotten wood and broken bricks,
A long rope and a pail, and a hole going straight to hell.

And your big brother, you'd do anything to catch his smile
But you couldn't catch him runnin', so you'd just duck and hide for awhile.
And I didn't hear you, I didn't even try
I was a hundred yards away and I thought you'd run off somewhere to play.

The ground was clay, we dug a shallow grave.
And laid ourselves to sleep, there just outside the fields where we once played.
And I remember, the way we mourned and cried
And tried to start the healing, but what the stone was revealing was a lie ...
'Cause it was I.