“After while ole man Hall walk up to Noah an’ bus’ him over de head wid er axe halve and beat him up ... an’ Jedge Foolbird axe ole man Hall what de nigger do ... an’ ole man Hall say ‘He ain’t do nuthin’, but he look like he goin’ say sumpin,’ and Jedge Foolbird fined Noah one hunnerd dollars.”
Voice: “What did he do wid ole man Hall?”
Perk: “He fine him fi’ dollars....”
Dr. Adams’ second book, Nigger to Nigger, is fuller and even more forceful. The title suggests the method. Here Negroes are assumed to be talking to themselves, without any eavesdroppers, although the author reveals that he has listened closely, and has been privileged with confidences. As a result the humor is true folk humor, and the bitterness at social injustice is undiluted. There is fine laughter in “The Telephone Call,” but most of the tales are tragic. “Fifteen Years” is the Negroes’ brooding summary of the “Ben Bess Case” where a Negro, envied by white neighbors, was framed on a rape charge. “A Damn Nigger” is one of the harshest stories to come out of the new realism.
Jake was a nigger. De judge were a kind judge—a good man—wuh ain’ b’lieve in too severe punishment for white folks when a nigger is kilt, ain’ matter wha’ kind er white folks—And de solicitor wha’ prosecute an’ see dat de criminal git he full jues is a merciful man. An’ he got great ideas er bein’ light in punishment of dem white mens.
Some of the sketches deal with slavery, in a manner far removed from the plantation tradition. The unusual chorus of Tad and Scipio and their fellows reveals that though they may be unlettered, they are cynical realists, and are certainly not being fooled. When Reverend Hickman urges Christian forbearance he is met with taunts:
Dere ain’ no use. De courts er dis land is not for niggers. Ain’ nothin’ but for’em but a gun an’ a knife in a white man’s hand, an’ den de grave, an’ sorrow an’ tear for he people. De Bible say, “De Lord watcheth de fall of every sparrow,” an’ I says: “Why ain’t He take He eye off sparrow an’ luh ’em rest some time on bigger game?”
Nigger to Nigger gets more of the true picture of Negro life in the South than do most other books combined. And the picture, for all of Dr. Adams’ mastering of humor, is not a pleasant one to linger over.
Acquainted with Gullah Negroes and dialect from their earliest days, Samuel Gaillard Stoney and Gertrude Mathews Shelby have retold in Black Genesis (1930) the charming fables of guileful Br’ Rabbit and foiled Br’ Wolf, short-tempered Br’ Wasp, Br’ Alligator, Br’ Frog, Br’ Partridge and Sis’ Nanny Goat, together with free biblical reinterpretations of the creation of the world, of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, and the beginning of the race problem. In one of the best stories, Br’ Rabbit pesters God for a longer tail; God assigns him difficult tasks to get rid of him. Smart and cocky, Br’ Rabbit turns up again with his tasks completed, surprising and throwing God out of patience:
’Bout dat time, God in de Big House look out de window to see how dat t’under an’ lightnin’ he send fix dat bowdacious Br’ Rabbit, so he won’t be pesterin’ roun’ no mo’. An’ he see a little somet’ing jis’ a-skeedaddlin’ down de Abenue.... He lean out de window, an’ he put he two hands to be mout’, an he holler: “Ah-hah! Ah-hah!! AH-HAH!! You so drat smart! Well, GIT A LONG TAIL YO’SELF!”