“All coons look alike to me.”
The old man was poisoning potato bugs on our second crop of Irish potatoes. It was getting along “t’wards de shank of de ebenin’,” as I had heard him so often express it, and I have noticed about that time that the old man is always hunting for some excuse to stop working. “Dar am jes’ two sho’ nuff fools in dis wurl,” I have heard him say—“one am de man dat wucks all de time an de yudder am de ’oman dat don’t wuck at all.”
I was not surprised, then, to see the old man set down his can of Paris green and water and give vent to a prolonged laugh. I have learned that the way to catch the old man is to get him when he is “fit and ready”—the same as a horse when he is expected to break the record—and I might carry it further and say you can’t always tell when he is ready. But there are certain signs you can go by.
And so the old man has signs, too—that he is ready to go a heat in an old time yarn—and one is when the sun gets low and the bugs high—when a watermelon is waiting in the spring trough and the sheep on the hill begin to come out from the shaded woods for their evening meal in the meadow—now cooling with the condensing shadows of a setting sun.
The sign he gives is a furtive glance around and a big, chuckling laugh.
I had cut around the melon with my pocket-knife, and broken it open on a big rock, which left the jagged, juicy heart bulging out in a tempting lump. But I divided as equally as I could, under the circumstances, and as we sat in the shade of the elm by the big spring I shoved him his half and said:
“Now that’s for what you were laughing at just now—out with it.”
“I doan’ blame white folks fur sayin’ all coons look alike, fur I tried it onct and I thou’t I knowed my own kid—thou’t ef it cum to de scratch I cu’d do lak a hoss an’ tell ’im by hees smell, ennyway. But when I wus put to de test I foun’ dey not only all look alike, but smell alike, too—an’ dar’s whar I cum mighty nigh gittin’ into de wuss scrape I eber got into.”
“Way back in slabery time, when a young p’ar ob niggers ’ud marry, de rule wus dey was to lib wid de gal’s muther ontwel de fust chile was bohn. Ole marster useter la’f an’ wink an’ tell me it wus a trick ob de white folks to mek ’em hurry up wid de fus’ chile! Jinerally we didn’t need no hurryin’ for ole Daddy Stork is mighty kind to young folks, ’spesh’ly niggers, which wus p’uffectly nat’ul, you know—rangin’ all de way in his visertachuns frum a few weeks arter de suremony to es menny months—fur no nigger dat had enny manhood an’ independence wanted to be pendin’ on his wife’s mammy enny longer den he cu’d h’ope it! Den arter de chile wus bohn de marster ’ud gib a log-rollin’ an’ a house-buildin’—jinerally on a Sad’dy arter de crop wus laid by—an’ all de niggers frum de joinin’ farms ’ud cum ober, fetch dey wives an’ babies, an’ whilst de men cut logs an’ put up de cabin, de wimmen and gals ’ud quilt de young p’ar a quilt or two an’ cook a big dinner ob gumbo soup and green cohn an’ bakin an’ greens. An’ if de baby dat de young fo’ks had was a boy de rule was dat Marster had to fling in a good big lam’, es er kind ob a free gratis prize fur ’em gittin’ a boy, an’ den Lord, boss, de barbycue an’ de stew we did hab! In dem days enny man in Tennessee cu’d ’still de fruit ob his own orchard and not pay no rivernew, an’ Marster had a nigger named Pete Gallerway dat cu’d beat de wurl’ makin’ apple-brandy. Ebery fawl he’d ’still Marster twenty gallons an’ it ’ud stay in de cellar twell de naixt fawl, an’ Lord, boss, by dat time it wus dat kind o’ stuff dat es you drunk it in dis wurl’ it seem ter kinder tel’fone to de angels in de naixt! It was so ra’ar an’ ripe you cu’d jes’ put de stopper outen de bottle in yo’ boot-legs an’ cudn’t keep from cuttin’ de pigeon-wing to save yo’ life an’ er singin’ dat song we sung den—
“‘Cum down ter Tennessee—