Joe: Yes, suh, dey all daid.
Porter: I’ll quote that fellow who says you couldn’t write about Nashville, Tennessee. I tell you Joe, you can write about any place where human beings live—provided you know how to get into their hearts and report what’s going on there; it doesn’t matter who they are—white or black—or where they are—in jail, or in Nashville. A story is a report on human hearts. I’ll call this one “A Municipal Report”; quote the statistics about Nashville—all the commonplace things, and then tell how I go there, and run into the old hackman that was once a slave, and drives his tumble-down old rig to earn a dollar, to buy food for his starving mistress in the mansion! I can make them cry over that! (a pause)
Joe: Misteh Porteh.
Porter: Well?
Joe: Somethin—Ah dunno if Ah’d ought to say it. Ah was in dis room las night, when you got through wid sewin up dat feller wid de busted haid—an you was all alone—leastways you thought you was, an Ah didn’t like to make no noise. (a pause) Ah like to say dis, Misteh Porteh, you doan have to feel shamed—dey’s lots o fellers cryin in dis place. (a pause) Dey gits you locked up, an yo cell-mate’s snorin—oh, den de tears come a runnin onto de pillow. You know, Misteh Porteh, dey was a little kinky headed yalleh baby, de prettiest little thing you ever see; Ah thinks what become of him, maybe he’s crying tonight cause he doan get enough to eat—it jes seem like mo’n Ah can stan.
Porter: You were married, then?
Joe: Naw suh, we wasn zacly married—dis was a kindeh what you might say engagement baby. (grins) But Ah guess Ah done loss dat yelleh gal fo keeps now, she doan write to me, Ah reckon she got some new felleh. (a pause) You got folks outside, Misteh Porteh?
Porter: I’ve got a little girl.
Joe: Sho nuff? Well, now! How ole dat little gal?
Porter: Eleven.