She writ me a letter
As long as my eye.
An’ she say in dat letter:
“My Honey!—Good-by!”
Dem whitefolks say dat money talk.
If it talk lak dey tell,
Den ev’ry time it come to Sam,
It up an’ say: “Farewell!”
Going to the nursery—it was the one room of the log cabin, or the great out-of-doors—we find the old-time Negro’s head filled with a Mother Goose more enchanting than any printed and pictured one in the “great house” of the white child:
W’en de big owl whoops,
An’ de screech owl screeks,
An’ de win’ makes a howlin’ sound;
You liddle woolly heads
Had better kiver up,
Caze de “hants” is comin’ ’round.
A, B, C,
Doubled down D;
I’se so lazy you cain’t see me.
A, B, C,
Doubled down D;
Lazy Chilluns gits hick’ry tea.
****
Buck an’ Berry run a race,
Buck fall down an’ skin his face.
Buck an’ Berry in a stall;
Buck, he try to eat it all.
Buck, he e’t too much, you see.
So he died wid choleree.
But it is in the dance songs that rhythm in its perfection makes itself felt and that repetends are employed with effects which another Poe or Lanier might appropriate for supreme art. A lively scene and gay frolicsome movements are conjured up by the following dance songs:
CHICKEN IN THE BREAD TRAY