The old man cleared his throat and looking intently at the ceiling slowly remarked: “Brer Rabbit mighty like some people in dis yer day en time. Dey allers wants de bestes’ fer demselves en don’t nevah think dat ol’ cullud gemmens like to eat cake an turkey ez well ez tell ’bout Brer Rabbit.”
This thrust had its effect. The little boy slipped away and soon returned with a basketful of the choicest things from his mother’s table.
The old man looked affectionately at him and said, “Bless yo’ soul honey, yo’ is allers a good little boy—sometimes.”
Click here to advance to the next section of the text.
1 scratch he haid en fleck: scratched his head and reflected
2 sarcumwent: circumvent
THE DONKEY, THE DOG, THE CAT AND THE ROOSTER
Southern Workman 23 (1894), 150
Much like the German story about the musicians from Bremen, this tale about mistreated animals banding together to find a home is especially resonant in the context of slavery.
THE DONKEY, THE DOG, THE CAT AND THE ROOSTER
Once upon a time there was a man who owned a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster. They became discontented for some reason. The man was a cruel master, he worked the donkey very hard from before sunrise until long after sunset. The donkey got mad and very discontented and said that if this continued, he would leave. It was continued, and so one morning when the man got up the donkey had gone. This made the man mad and he kicked the dog and he ran away into the woods. The next morning the cat was sitting in front of the fire and the man told it to get out of his way, so the cat ran off and did not come back.
The man used to get up very early but the next morning he got up a little later than usual which made him mad and he said the rooster was to blame because he didn’t crow at the right time, so he flogged the rooster and the rooster got mad and ran away.
After a while as the donkey was wandering about in the wood looking for something to eat he met the dog. “Hello what are you doing here,” he said. “Oh I ran away,” answered the dog. “Master kicked me, so I couldn’t stand it.” “Well, let us go together,” said the donkey.
After a while they met the cat. “What are you doing here?” said they to her. “What are you both doing here?” she replied. “Oh the old man flogged us and we left.” “Well, we will all three go together and get our living.” As they were searching about for something to eat they ran across the rooster. “Well! What are you doing here?” they exclaimed. The rooster told his story, and then they decided to live together. If they were going to live together they must first have a house. The rooster said he knew of an old deserted house he had seen as he was coming down the road. “Now we will go there and take possession of it.”
When they got there they found the door fastened and a little smoke was coming out the chimney and they could smell something good to eat. There was no roof on the house. The rooster said “We must see what is inside. Now let the donkey stand close to the wall, the dog on his back, the cat on the dog’s back and then I’ll get on the cat’s back and look over and tell you what I see.” When the rooster looked over he saw some gamblers sitting about the fire cooking their supper. This frightened the rooster and he fell in and scared the men so that they all ran off.
Then the donkey, the dog and the cat came inside. They said “These men ran off but they will come back again, what shall we do?” The rooster, who seemed to be wiser than the others, said “I’ll tell you what to do. Let the donkey go down by the gate, the dog lie at the door, the cat at the hearth and I will go as usual to the roof. If the spy comes back he will come to the fire to make a light, then let the cat touch him; when he goes to the door the dog can touch him and as he leaves the gate the donkey can strike him and I will give the alarm.”
By and by the spy did come, but soon ran back to his companions crying that the house was haunted! For, he said, when I went to take a light something slapped me on the face; then I ran out of the door and something cut me on the leg and when I got to the gate something gave me an awful blow on the back with a stick and then the ghost cried—“Hand him up here to touch! Hand him up here to touch!”
JACK AND THE KING
Southern Workman 28 (1899), 232–33
Written down by W. G. Anderson, this trickster tale resembles some of the European “master-thief” narratives, in which numbskulls get the better of innkeepers, kings, and others of high social rank by engaging in farcical pranks.
JACK AND THE KING
In days of old a king lived in his kingdom with his family and he had a man working for him by the name of Jack. He was very bright, but tricky and careless. The king said one morning when he had been setting things wrong that if he was going to be a rogue he ought to go to school and be a professional. So Jack went off for two or three years and then came back, and as he was going along whistling loudly he met the king out walking. “Oh, there you are!” said the king. “Well, I suppose you are now a trained professional rogue.” Jack said he was. The king said he had twelve horses that he thought a great deal of, and that if Jack could get them away from the keepers he could have them. So Jack goes off and gets a gallon of tar, then he goes to his wife and says he wants a feather bed. He smears the tar all over himself, and rolls in the feather bed, then goes and gets up on the stone wall around the stables. When the keeper lets the horses out to the trough to drink, Jack gets on to the gate post and frightens the keeper, who runs back to the stables leaving the gate open and the horses in Jack’s hands. Jack mounts the leader and gallops off, and all the rest follow him. When the king sees his horses are gone he sends for Jack and says “I suppose you got my horses.” “Yes sir,” said Jack. The king said, “I have a set of fine gold and silver ware for my table and if you can get it you can have it.” Jack found out through one of the servants that the set was only used on Sunday. The family went to church except the oldest girl who expected a friend to call, and pretended to be busy with the household work. Jack managed to get into the house near the dining room; he saw the butler take the set out and put it on the table but he did not see any way of getting away with it, and then the butler locked the door and went off. Jack went into the room where the girl and her friend were and passed as some stranger who was there by mistake, and talked to them until the king drove up to the door, and the lover was forced to hide under the sofa; Jack didn’t know what else to do, so he got under the sofa too. The family sat down to dinner in the next room. By and by Jack thought of singing an old song which he said he had not sung since he was a boy, so he told the man he didn’t care, he wanted to sing. The man said, “Oh, don’t sing!” but Jack said he must. The man said he would give him $100 if he wouldn’t and Jack said “all right” and took the money. Pretty soon he said “I’ve got to sing that song,” and the man said “O take my ring and watch but don’t sing, please don’t sing.” So Jack took the ring and the watch, but pretty soon he said “I’ve got to sing that song.” The man said “I’ll give you all my clothes if you don’t sing that song.” When they had changed clothes Jack raised a shout and the king and others rushed out to see what it was and Jack doubled up the table cloth and walked off with it. The poor man who was hiding cut and run, but was caught and put to death. When the king found what had really happened he said, “That’s one of Jack’s tricks.” He sent for Jack and said, “Did you get my gold and silver set?” and Jack said he did. “Well,” said the king, “I have a solid gold wedge worth $50,000 in my house, if you can get that I won’t kill you and you can have it.” He wanted to catch Jack after all that he had done. Jack saw that the house was lighted from a shaft, for he stood in with one of the servants as I told you. The king brought his wedge into his wife’s room and said “Jack is after this wedge and I want you to take it and put it away where no one will get it.” So she took it away and put it away.
As Jack was going along the road thinking how he could get the wedge, he went by the house of an old colored preacher who was si
nging “I am gwine to heaven, if any one wants to go, come along, come along.” Presently the old man came out of his house and Jack said to him, “You come along to this house with me and you’ll go right through the pearly gates straight into heaven.” The old man went with him; Jack took him up on top of the house, tied a rope around his body and let him down the shaft. The king heard him coming and thinking it was Jack opened his door and grabbed him and without noticing what he was told the servant to take him out and behead him. While the king was busy with the old minister, Jack dressed up in some of the king’s clothes and skipped into his wife’s room and said, “Where is that wedge? I am afraid Jack will get it.” So she got it and gave it to him and he went off. Pretty soon the king came in and asked the same question. “Where is the wedge? I am afraid Jack will get it.” “Why I just gave it to you,” his wife said, and then the king knew that Jack had it.
The next morning the king called up Jack and said “I am going to have you beheaded for stealing my wedge,” and Jack said “I am going to have you beheaded for killing your daughter’s sweetheart and the old colored minister.” The king begged him not to do that, and said “If you don’t, I’ll move out and you can move in,” which they did.
W. G. ANDERSON
PLANTATION COURTSHIP
Southern Workman 24 (1895), 14–15
The American slave’s life was a desert of suffering certainly, but in it there were oases whose shades and springs yielded comforts whose delights were all the keener for their infrequency.
He had his holidays and his social seasons, and there were hours when, his day’s task done, he poured his story of admiration and love into the ears of some dusky maiden whose presence brought to him a joy as sweet, perhaps sweeter, than that which his smart young master felt in the society of the free women whom he loved and honored.
The slave girl had to be won as surely as did her fair young mistress, and her black fellow in slavery who aspired to her hand had to prove his worthiness to receive it.
Instances were not a few where the black knight laid down his life in defence of the honor of his lady-love, but of course milder proofs of worthiness were the rule.
Among the slaves there were regular forms of “courtship,” and almost every large plantation had an experienced old slave who instructed young gallants in the way in which they should go in the delicate matter of winning the girls of their choice.
I have distinct recollection of “Uncle Gilbert,” a bald, little dark man, who carried his spectacles on his forehead the most of the time.
“Uncle Gilbert” was the shoemaker on a plantation where there were a hundred slaves, whose good young master, “Pete,” allowed them to receive company Sundays and some evenings in the week from all the surrounding neighborhood.
What gay times there were on that plantation in the days befo’ de wah!
“Uncle Gilbert” was very learned in the art of “courtship,” and it was to his shop the slave lads went for instruction in “courtship’s words and ways.”
The old man had served a half dozen masters, had won and buried as many wives, and had traveled much. It was therefore conceded by the people of all the neighborhood that nobody thereabouts was a greater authority on wooing than he.
“Uncle Gilbert” held the very generally accepted opinion that “courtin’ is a mighty ticklish bizness,” and that he who would “git a gal wuth havin, mus’ know how to talk fur her.”
I never had the honor of being one of “the old man’s” pupils, being too young when I knew him to make inquiry along the courtship line, but I tracked many young men to Uncle Gilbert’s shop in the interest of general gossip.
The courtship idea, of course, belongs to people of every clime and race. People only differ in expressing it.
The American slave courtship words and forms are the result of his attempt at imitating the gushingly elegant manners and speech of his master.
Uncle Gilbert’s rule of courtship was that a “young man mus’ tes’ an’ prove a gal befo’ offerin’ her his han’. Ef er gal gives a man as good anser as he gives her question, den she is all right in min’. Ef she can look him squar in de face when she talks to him, den she kin be trusted; and ef her patches is on straight, an’ her close clean, den she is gwine ter keep de house straight and yer britches mended. Sich er ooman is wuth havin’.”
ECHOES FROM A PLANTATION PARTY
Southern Workman 28 (1899), 59
by Daniel Webster Davis
The natural tendency of the day is to forget the black history of the past; and so the younger generation seldom speak of the days of yore, with all of their lights and shadows. It is surprising to know the difficulty I have experienced in gathering the facts of this article. I have approached many old fathers and mothers and each confessed that he had forgotten the old plays. I recalled them to their memory and I have seen many an eye, dimmed by the withering blast of old age begin to twinkle and glow as memory brought again pictures of the days that are no more and ever and anon, a silent tear would steal down a faded cheek, as these reminiscences would conjure up visions of departed happiness, and of faces that once engaged in the old “ring plays,” and are now covered with mold, awaiting the trumpet blast that shall awake the sleeping dead.
It is indeed true that the “greatest study of mankind is man,” and this study need not be confined to his darker musings, and deeper thoughts, but in the province of his pleasures may be found many things to entertain and instruct, and from which we can better understand the peculiarities and idiosyncracies of this people.
The darker side of slave life had its silver lining. There is never a sorrow, but has its corresponding joy, never a midnight without its dawning, never a tear without its smile. God has wisely so decreed, or else this life would be to many unbearable, and every breath a prayer for deliverance from the body of this death. Slavery was no exception to this rule, and while some who understand the mazes of the cauliflower, the poetry of the waltz, the beauty of the lanciers, and the peculiar pleasure found in the modern party methods, now dignified by higher sounding titles, may smile at the strange modes of entertaining in those old days, yet to them it gave the most exquisite enjoyment.
The slaves worked in the summer from daybreak to sundown, and in winter, those who worked in the house would frequently be kept until ten o’clock at night, carding, knitting, spinning, weaving and sometimes getting “rations” ready for the hands the next day. The field-hands would gather most any night in the “quarters,” and shuffle around to the sound of a banjo, or if that was not forthcoming, to the beating of a tin pan, that furnished music not so classical, and yet served the purpose admirably well.
The great times for enjoyment would be on Saturday and Sunday nights, when all were comparatively free from labor. Sunday nights did not constitute any bar to the playing of the ordinary “ring plays,” as they were not considered dancing: in fact, nothing was considered dancing unless you “crossed your feet.”
Dancing, and the more elaborate ring plays were left to “sinnuz,” as non-members of the church were denominated, and of which there were a large number. This fact is not surprising, when it is considered what a laborious process “getting religion” was. The “travels” to be had, the amount of praying to be done, the long experience to be told, and the length of time it was considered proper for one to “seek” before “coming through” made the process so tedious that when a convert once got “through,” he would seldom go back to the “beggarly elements of the world.” Singing a song, dancing, etc. were considered mortal sins, while other things mentioned in the decalogue were passed by in comparative silence.
But it was at a regular “party” that the old time belles and beaux could be seen at their best. These were frequently given with a practical object in view. Bed quiltings were often had, where the people from the plantations around would gather to quilt a spread used for the bed, with which many of the colored people were often well supplied. The rags from t
he “great house” were carefully kept until such time as sufficient were gathered to make the much-to-be-desired quilt.
“Molasses stews” were frequent, at which time the great brass kettle of black molasses was put on the fire to stew. In a given time it was taken off, the hands of the merry-makers scrupulously washed, and then the pulling would begin. The candy would be pulled until almost white, large quantities, set apart for “marster; mistis, and de whi’ chillun,” and the rest consumed by the “pullers.”
When the corn for the winter had been gathered in, many indulgent masters would allow the slaves to have a “corn shucking.” The master might kill an old steer, now past the possibility of work, and prepare a big supper. Spirited races would sometimes take place between rival shuckers, and happy was the man who would come out ahead. Again it would be a “husking bee,” when the same process would be gone through, only this time it would be for the purpose of getting the corn off the husk that it might be carried to the mill and ground into meal for the slaves.
The Annotated African American Folktales Page 38
