"Now, Ladies," John said, "please excuse me. I left my wife at home real sick, and I just must hurry to the drug store and get some flaxseed so I can make a poultice for her." As he made a hasty departure, he agreed to complete the story later at his home, and gave careful directions for finding the place.
A month later, two visitors called on John at his small, unpainted house in the center of a hillside cotton patch.
A tall, thin Negress appeared in the doorway. "Yes, mam, John Van Hook lives here. He's down in the field with his hoe, digging 'taters." She leaned from the porch and called, "Daddy, Daddy! Somebody wants to see you." Asked if John was her father, she answered "No, mam, he is my husband. I started calling him Daddy when our child was little, so I've been calling him that ever since. My name is Laney."
The walls of the room into which John invited his callers were crudely plestered with newspapers and the small space was crowded with furniture of various kinds and periods. The ladder-back chairs he designated for his guests were beautiful. "They are plantation-made," he explained, "and we've had 'em a mighty long time." On a reading table a pencil and tablet with a half-written page lay beside a large glass lamp. Newspapers and books covered several other tables. A freshly whitewashed hearth and mantel were crowned by an old-fashioned clock, and at the end of the room a short flight of steps led to the dining room, built on a higher floor level.
"Now, let's see! Where was I?," John began. "Oh, yes, we were talking about cornshuckings, when I had to leave your office. Well, I haven't had much time to study about those cornshucking songs to get all the words down right, but the name of one was General Religh Hoe, and there was another one that was called, Have a Jolly Crowd, and a Little Jolly Johnny.
"Now you needn't to expect me to know much about cotton pickings, for you know I have already told you I was raised in North Carolina, and we were too far up in the mountains for cotton growing, but I have lived in a cotton growing country for forty-odd years.
"As to parties and frolics, I guess I could have kept those things in mind, but when I realized that being on the go every night I could get off, week in and week out, was turning my mind and heart away from useful living, I tried to put those things out of my life and to train myself to be content with right living and the more serious things of life, and that's why I can't remember more of the things about our frolics that took place as I was growing up. About all I remember about the dances was when we danced the cotillion at regular old country break-downs. Folks valued their dances very highly then, and to be able to perform them well was a great accomplishment. Turkey in the Straw is about the oldest dance tune I can remember. Next to that is Taint Gonna Rain No More, but the tune as well as words to that were far different from the modern song by that name. Rabbit Hair was another favorite song, and there were dozens of others that I just never tried to remember until you asked me about them.
"My father lived in Caswell County and he used to tell us how hard it was for him to get up in the morning after being out most of the night frolicking. He said their overseer couldn't talk plain, and would call them long before crack of dawn, and it sounded like he was saying, 'Ike and a bike, Ike and a bike.' What he meant was, 'Out and about! Out and about!'
"Marriage in those days was looked upon as something very solemn, and it was mighty seldom that anybody ever heard of a married couple trying to get separated. Now it's different. When a preacher married a couple, you didn't see any hard liquor around, but just a little light wine to liven up the wedding feast. If they were married by a justice of the peace, look out, there was plenty of wine and," here his voice was almost awe-stricken, "even whiskey too."