It soothed him, however, to hear the strong,
musical voice of his sable patron, not very far away, tenderly
contending with a lusty tune; and to this accompaniment the
little boy dropped asleep:
"Hit's eighteen hunder'd, forty-en-eight,
Christ done made dat crooked way straight--
En I don't wanter stay here no longer;
Hit's eighteen hunder'd, forty-en-nine,
Christ done turn dat water inter wine--
En I don't wanter stay here no longer."
XXXII. "JACKY-MY-LANTERN" *1
UPON his next visit to Uncle Remus, the little boy was
exceedingly anxious to know more about witches, but the old man
prudently refrained from exciting the youngster's imagination any
further in that direction. Uncle Remus had a board across his
lap, and, armed with a mallet and a shoe-knife, was engaged in
making shoe-pegs.
"W'iles I wuz crossin' de branch des now," he said, endeavoring
to change the subject, "I come up wid a Jacky-my-lantern, en she
wuz bu'nin' wuss'n a bunch er lightnin'-bugs, mon. I know'd she
wuz a fixin' fer ter lead me inter dat quogmire down in de swamp,
en I steer'd cle'r an' er. Yasser. I did dat. You ain't never
seed no Jacky-my-lanterns, is you, honey?"
The little boy never had, but he had heard of them, and he wanted
to know what they were, and thereupon Uncle Remus proceeded to
tell him.
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