"You lak dat? Yes? You is praisin' me too highly I 'spect, but since you lak dat one just listen at dis one; maybe you change your mind, 'cause I's gwine to h'ist it a wee bit higher and put more of de spiritual in it. Ready? Yes? I stand up dis time.
'All de medicine you may buy
All de doctors you may try
Ain't gonna save you from de tomb
Some day you got to lay down and die.
De blood of de Son can only
Save you from de doom!
Some day you got to lay down and die.'
"You lak dat one? You just ought to hear my wife, Mingo, and Me, singin' dat 'round de fire befo' us go to bed.
"Well, I'll toddle 'long now. Good-bye."
Project, 1885-(1)
Prepared by Annie Ruth Davis
Place, Marion, S. C.
Date, February 4, 1938
LIZZIE'S 'SPONSIBILITY
I.
The first scene of "Lizzie's 'Sponsibility" is that of the small, one room dwelling place of Lizzie Davis, aged colored woman of Marion, S. C. A disorderly, ill-lighted, crudely furnished room, saturated with the odor of food. Behind the front door stands a gayly colored iron bed, over which is thrown a piece of oilcloth to keep the rain from leaking on it. In the center of the room are several little quaint home-made stools and two broken rockers, while in one corner sits a roughly finished kitchen table, the dumping place of all small articles. Still in another corner, almost hidden from sight in the darkness, is the dim outline of an old trunk gaping open with worn out clothing, possibly the gift of some white person. A big fireplace in one side of the wall not only furnishes heat for the little room, but also serves as a cooking place for Lizzie to prepare her meals. On its hearth sits a large iron kettle, spider, and griddle, relics of an earlier day. The room is dimly lighted by the fire and from two small doors, together with a few tiny streaks that peep through at various cracks in the walls and top of house.
It is about 9 o'clock on a cold, drizzly morning in January, 1938. The little two room house, in which Lizzie rents one room for herself, displays an appearance of extreme coldness and dilapidation, as a visitor approaches the doorway on this particular morning. It is with somewhat of an effort that the visitor finally reaches the barred door of Lizzie's room, after making a skip here and there to keep from falling through the broken places in the little porch and at the same time trying to dodge the continual dripping of the rain through numerous crevices in the porch roof. Within is the sound of little feet scuffling about on the floor, the chatter of tiny children mixed with mumblings from Lizzie, and the noise of chairs and stools being roughly shoved about on the floor.
A rap on the door brings Lizzie, crippled up since she was twelve years of age, hobbling to the door. Taking her walking stick, she lifts the latch gently and the door opens slightly. A gray head appears through the crack of the door and Lizzie, peeping out from above her tiny rim spectacles, immediately recognizes her visitor. She offers her usual cheerful greeting and begins hastily to push the large wooden tubs from the door to make room for her visitor to enter, though it is with unusual hesitancy that she invites her guest to come in on this occasion.
Lizzie—Come in, Miss Davis. I feelin right smart dis mornin. How you been keepin yourself? Miss Davis, I regrets you have to find things so nasty up in here dis mornin, but all dis rainy weather got me obliged to keep dese old tubs settin all bout de floor here to try en catch up de water what drips through dem holes up dere. See, you twist your head up dat way en you can tell daylight through all dem cracks. Dat how I know when it bright enough to start to stir myself on a mornin.