If you still doubt, do as I did. Consider Sheener.
THE FIELD OF HONOR
I
OLD Eph’s favorite stand was on Tremont street, just outside the subway kiosk, where every foot in Boston soon or late must pass. He appeared here about dusk every evening, when the afternoon rush was over; and he squatted, tailor fashion, on crossed legs, and hugged his banjo to his ragged breast, and picked at it and crooned and shouted his old melodies so long as there were any to listen. He was a cheerful old fellow, with the pathetic cheerfulness of the negro. When coins were tossed to him, he had a nimble trick of whisking his banjo bottom side up, catching the contribution in this improvised receptacle, flipping it into the air and pocketing it without interrupting his music. Each time he did this, his fingers returned to the strings with a sweep and a strumming that suggested the triumphant notes of trumpets. There was an ape-like cast to his head; and his long arms and limber old fingers had the uncanny dexterity of a monkey. Pretty girls, watching him, sometimes said shiveringly to their escorts:
“He hardly seems human—squatting there....”
Old Eph always heard. His ears were unnaturally keen, attuned to the murmur of the crowds. And he used to answer them, chanting his reply in time with the tune he happened at the moment to be playing. Thus: “Don’ you cry, ma Honey ...” might become:
“‘Don’ you call me monkey,
‘Don’ you call me monk ...
‘Eph ain’ gwine tuh lak it, and hit ain’t so....’”
And then he would go on with the song, calm and undisturbed ...
“‘All de little black babies, sleepin’ on de flo’ ...
‘Mammy only lubs her own.’”
When a particularly liberal coin came his way, he gave thanks in the midst of his song. Thus: