Sister Sue and ol’ Aunt Sallie,
Gwine to git a home by an’ by,
Both live down in shin-bone alley,
Gwine to git a home by an’ by.
Name on de house, name on de do’,
Gwine to git a home by an’ by,
Big green spot on de grocery sto’,
Gwine to git a home by an’ by.
There are many songs of the mule, some of which are old and being revived, some of which have been made new by the phonograph records. The first illustration here was sung with remarkable effect at the Dayton, Tennessee, Scopes trial, with hundreds of whites and Negroes standing around the quartette of Negroes who came for the occasion. Most of their songs were of the stereotyped sort, such as Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’. The mule song is the best illustration of the minstrel type given in this volume. The other mule songs are presented largely for comparison, and are not particularly valuable. One of these, exhorting Miss Liza to keep her seat, is similar to the version collected twenty years ago in Mississippi.[80]
[80] See The Negro and His Songs, p. 235.