My version of this song, called "Old Chicken."
Version from Jean Ritchie's Swapping Song Book. She tells a fanciful tale of how they used to scare each other with ghost stories at night. It also, curiously, has a copyright mark that says the "Broadcast Music Inc." owns the rights to this piece of music.
Found the in the The Frank C. Brown Collection of NC Folklore: Vol. V
The Music of the Folk Songs; By Frank C. Brown · 1977
Journal of American Folklore, Volume 26, 1888