“Well, have you any book of negro melodies.”
“No, sir. Wouldn’t do me much good, sir, as I can’t read music.”
“Oh, I thought you said you sang by note.”
“Yes, sir. Note by note, right along. I have a good ear, but I can’t read music.”
“Very well, James. Come in the morning prepared to sing note by note, by ear, anything you can remember. Do you know ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot?’”
“Indeed I do. Oh, I know all the jubilee songs, and all the rag-time songs, and I guess we can fill up a couple of hours singin’ in the old Congregational Church.”
He chuckled.
“What is it, James?”
“Why, I was thinkin’ that here the white folks sing down there every Sunday in the church, and if I care to go an’ hear them it don’t cost me a cent, but if Minerva and me sing there in that same church, the white folk’ll have to pay money to hear us. ‘Tain’t gen’elly that way.”