The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published by the Photochrom Co. Ltd. of Royal Tunbridge Wells. They state on the divided back of the card that it is an all-British production.
Old Maid’s Cottage
When Robert Smith became the owner of the valley in which this house stands, in the 1870s he had the original cottage rebuilt.
The following verses suggest that the house should perhaps be called Old Maids’ Cottage:
— A Bird in Hand by Frederick Weatherly
There were three young maids of Lee,
They were fair as fair can be,
And they had lovers three time three,
For they were fair as fair can be
These three young maids of Lee.
But these young maids they cannot find
A lover each to suit her mind;
The plain-spoke lad is far too rough,
The rich young lord not rich enough,
And one is too poor and one too tall,
And one just an inch too short for them all.
“Others pick and choose , and why not we?
We can very well wait!” said the maids of Lee.
There were three young maids of Lee,
And they had lovers, three time three,
For they were fair as fair can be,
These three young maids of Lee.
There are three old maids at Lee,
They are old as old can be,
And one is deaf and one cannot see,
And they all are cross as a gallows tree,
These three old maids of Lee.
Now if anyone chanced, ’tis a chance remote,
One single charm in these maids to note
He need not a poet, nor handsome be,
For one is deaf, and one cannot see
He need not woo on his bended knee
For they all are willing as willing can be
He may take the one, or the two, or the three
If he’ll only take them away from Lee!
There are three old maids at Lee
They are cross as cross can be,
And there they are, and there they’ll be,
To the end of the chapter, one two three,
These three old maids at Lee!
“A Bird in the Hand” (subtitled “The Three Maids of Lee”) is a 19th.-century parlor ballad with lyrics by the prolific English writer Frederick Weatherly and music by the German-born composer Joseph Leopold Roeckel.
It was first published in the early 1880’s by Oliver Ditson & Co.
The humorous yet cautionary song follows three young women who refuse their suitors—only to become bitter spinsters later in life.
The lyrics tell the story of three young maids of Lee who, despite having multiple suitors, reject them all to wait for “better” options.
The Moral: By the final verse, they become three old maids who are “cross as a gallows tree,” demonstrating the old adage that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”—meaning it is better to hold on to what you have than to wait for something that may never come.
