FWIW, the line in the Lead Belly version is “The little thing went blind, blam-de-lam/I said it wasn’t none of mine, blam-de-lam/They said it wasn’t none of mine.”
I believe newborns from women with syphilis sometimes go blind.
Hence the practice of routinely treating newborns’ eyes with silver nitrate.
Could ‘blind’ be, blind as in drunk, enforcing the liquor aspect?