Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[HW: (photo)]
[Date stamp: AUG 16 1937]
LUCINDA DAVIS
Age (about) 89 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.
"What yo' gwine do when de meat give out?
What yo' gwine do when de meat give out?
Set in de corner wid my lips pooched out!
Lawsy!
What yo' gwine do when de meat come in?
What yo' gwine do when de meat come in?
Set in de corner wid a greasy chin!
Lawsy!"
Dat's about de only little nigger song I know, less'n it be de one about:
"Great big nigger, laying 'hind de log—
Finger on de trigger and eye on the hawg!
Click go de trigger and bang go de gun!
Here come de owner and de buck nigger run!"
And I think I learn both of dem long after I been grown, 'cause I belong to a full-blood Creek Indian and I didn't know nothing but Creek talk long after de Civil War. My mistress was part white and knowed English talk, but she never did talk it because none of de people talked it. I heard it sometime, but it sound like whole lot of wild shoat in de cedar brake scared at something when I do hear it. Dat was when I was little girl in time of de War.
I don't know where I been born. Nobody never did tell me. But my mammy and pappy git me after de War and I know den whose child I is. De men at de Creek Agency help 'em git me, I reckon, maybe.