The poor white man sat under our tree;
He has no mother to bring him milk,
No wife to grind his corn.”
And oft recurring came the chorus—
“Let us pity the white man,
No mother has he.”[5]
Such, literally translated, were the words of the improvised song, and listening to them, sleep was driven from Park’s eyes, as he turned and tossed a prey to the liveliest emotions of gratitude. Far into the night the women worked, and spinning ever sang—
“Let us pity the white man;
No mother has he;”
while outside the tornado spent its violence in blinding flashes and deafening peals of thunder, in raging blasts of wind and drenching showers of rain.