VI. LULLABIES
NO figure of the old South was more vivid or more beloved than the "black mammy," with her white apron and her gay bandana, or tignon, on her head, tending her small charges. She has come down to us of a later generation in story and song, as well as in the fond recollections of those who knew her care. "Mammy" held an honored place in the home, for the white children were taught to respect and obey her; and when they grew up, they loved her as a second mother. An amusing instance of this is related by Mrs. Anna Hordeman Meade, in her volume of plantation recollections, "When I Was a Little Girl." Mammy was an autocrat whose boast was, " I got Injun blood in dese yer veins!" and who scorned the overseer as "po' white folks." Once, when the master and mistress were away from home and a grown son came home to take charge of affairs, the overseer complained to him:
"'Doctor, this old woman's insolence is becoming unbearable and I want to ask your advice about punishing her.'
"'What old woman?' asked our uncle.
"'The one they call Mammy, Sir. She ought to be sent to the fields, Sir."
"'What — what!' said Uncle Stewart in amazed and amused consternation. 'Why, I would as soon think of punishing my own mother! Why, man, you'd have four of the biggest men in Mississippi down on you if you even dare suggest such a thing, and she knows it I All you can do is to knuckle down to Mammy.'"
The peculiar conditions of slavery made the Negro nurse lavish more affection — or at least more demonstration of affection — on her white charges than on her own children. Negro children on many plantations received a sort of communal care. I saw on a plantation in Louisiana a house that in slavery times was used as a day nursery, where the mothers left their children in care of one or two old women, while they worked in the fields. They would come in at intervals to nurse the babies and then go back to the cotton-row or the rice- or cane-fields. In many cases mother love was thwarted and driven back upon itself under an institution which separated parent and
child, when one or the other might be sold; so the black mother often spent her tenderest love on the white child she nursed, and some of the most characteristic of the Negro folk-songs are the lullabies by which she crooned her baby — white or black — to sleep.
There is one lullaby which is widely known through the South and which is reported in many varying forms, but with the spirit and the tune practically the same.
One version is given by my sister, Mrs. George Scarborough, who learned it from Negroes in Grimes County, Texas, in her childhood, and later sang her babies to sleep by it.
LULLABY
Hushaby,
Don't you cry,
Go to sleep, little baby.
And when you -wake,
You shall have a cake,
And all the pretty little ponies.
Paint and bay,
Sorrel and gray,
All the pretty little ponies.
So hushaby,
Don't you cry,
Go to sleep, little baby.
Dorothy Renick, of Waco, Texas, gave me a variant several years ago, as learned from Negro mammies.
Hushaby,
And don't you cry,
My sweet, pretty little baby.
When you wake, you shall have cake,
And oh, the pretty little horses.
Four little ponies you shall have, All the pretty little ponies, White and gray, black and bay, Oh, the pretty little horses.
I had another version from Louree Peoples, of Texas, through the courtesy of Professor A. J. Armstrong, of Baylor University.
Go to Sleepy, Little Baby
Go to sleepy, little baby,
Go to sleepy, little baby.
Mammy and daddy have both gone away
And left nobody for to mind you.
So rockaby,
And don't you cry.
And go to sleepy, little baby.
And when you wake
You can ride
All the pretty little ponies.
Paint and bay,
Sorrel and a gray,
And all the pretty little ponies.
So go to sleepy, little baby.
Rockaby
And don't you cry
And go to sleep, my baby.
A version was given by Mrs. Tom Bartlett, of Marlin, who writes: "I wonder if you have thought of that old lullaby which every Negro mammy sings? Here it is as I remember it."
Go to Sleep, Little Baby
Go to sleep, little baby, Go to sleep, little baby!
When you wake,
You shall have
All the pretty little ponies.
All the ponies in the lot Belong to Mammy's little baby! Black and bay, White and gray, All belong to Mammy's baby.
Go to sleep, little baby, Go to sleep, little baby! When you wake, You shall have a little cake, And all the pretty little ponies! Hushaby, and don't you cry, Go to sleep, little baby! Black and bay, White and gray, All belong to Mammy's baby!
Mrs. Miller, of Louisiana, gave me a version which she had heard sung in her childhood by the Negroes on a Mississippi plantation.
Go to sleep, little baby. Daddy run away, An' lef nobody with the baby!
Daddy an' Mammy went down town To see their pretty little horses. All the horses in that stable Belong to this little baby!
Mrs. Cammilla Breazeale sends a version given her by a Negro woman, who said that it was a "baby" song. This is an interesting combination of the lullaby given above and another more gruesome one, which is yet sung in various places.
Go to sleep, little baby, When you wake You shall have All the mulies in the stable. Buzzards and flies Picking out its eyes, Pore little baby crying, Mamma, mamma!
Mrs. D. M. Diggs, formerly of Lynchburg, Virginia, gave the following song, which is an old lullaby, one that Negro mammies sang to the children, and which has come down for generations in Virginia.
OLE COW
"Ole cow, ole cow, Where is your calf?" " 'Way down yonder in de meadow. De buzzards an' de flies A-pickin' out its eyes. De po' li'l thing cried, Mammy I'9
Mrs. Charles Carroll, of New Orleans, gave me a variant of this, which from the rhyme would appear to be the original version.
'Way down yonder
In de meadow
There's a po' little lambie.
The bees and the butterflies
Peckin' out its eyes.
Po' li'l thing cried, Mammy!
This she heard her grandmother sing, as she learned it from the Negroes on her Louisiana plantation.
A variant of this was sung by Tom, the colored butler at Curls Neck Farm, Virginia. Jeannette Freeman, who later gave me the words and air, says that this is also sung in South Carolina in the same form, as reported to her by various college girls from that state.
Baa-Baa, Black Sheep
"Baa-baa, black sheep, Where you lef yo' mammy? " " 'Way down yonder in de co'nfiel'. Gnats and flies A-pickin' out its eyes — And de po' li'l sheep a-holler, Mammy! "
BAA-BAA, BLACK SHEEP
Another painful lullaby of a somewhat similar nature was given me by Mrs. Charles Carroll, who had learned it on her father's plantation in North Louisiana.
Three old black crows sat on a tree,
And all were black as black can be, Pappa's old horse took sick and died,
And the old black crows picked out its eyes.
These latter lullabies present rather melancholy and depressing pictures, and, it might be thought, would produce bad dreams on the part of infantile sleepers. Surely they are not of a type that modern white mothers would choose to croon babies to sleep by, but Negro mammies knew not of dream-complexes and would have called Freud's ideas "torn-foolishness."
Another favorite hushaby song, which many Negro mammies confess to knowing, and which numerous white acquaintances remember dropping of! to sleep by, is Shorfnin' Bread. This has a lively tune which might easily have entertained an. infant enough to keep him wide awake. Of the following version the first stanza and the chorus, as well as the air, were given by Jean Feild, of Richmond, Virginia, and the other stanzas by Professor Wirt Williams, of Mississippi.
Short/nin' Bread
Put on de skillet, Put on de led; Mammy's gwine to make A li'l short'nin' bread. Dat ain't all
Dat she's gwine to do — She's gwine to make A li'l coffee, too.
Chorus
Mammy's li'l baby loves short'inn', short'nin', Mammy's li'l baby loves short'nin' bread. Mammy's li'l baby loves short'nin', short'nin', Mammy's li'l baby loves short'nin' bread*
SHORTNIN BREAD
Three li'l Niggers Lyin' in bed. Two wuz sick An' t'trier 'most dead. Sont fo' de doctor, An' de doctor said, " Give dem Niggers Some short'Din' bread!"
Chorus
I slipped in de kitchen, An' slipped up de led, An' I slipped my pockets Full ob short'nin' bread. I stole de skillet, I stole de led, I stole de gal To make short'nin' bread.
Chorus
Dey caught me wid de skillet, Dey caught me wid de led, An' dey caught me wid de gal Cookin' short'nin5 bread. Paid six dollars for de skillet, Six dollars for de led, Stayed six months in jail, Eatin' short,nm, bread.
Chorus
Mrs. D. M. Diggs sends another slightly different stanza from Lynchburg, Virginia. She says it is a very old song that she learned from black mammies, who had sung many little ones to sleep by it.
SHORT'NIN' BREAD
Run here, Mammy, run here quick!
Short'nin' bread done made me sick!
Mammy get-a short'nin', short'inn', short'nm', Mammy get-a short'nin', short'nin5 bread.
It might be explained for the benefit of those who have never lived in the South that "short'nin' bread," or "cracklin' bread," as it is as often called, is considered a great delicacy among colored people. It is a kind of bread made very rich by having bacon gravy and bits of crisp bacon mixed in it. "Cracklin' bread" was made on the plantation at "hog-killing time," we are told. It is still heard of, though not so popular now as in earlier times. Professor and Mrs. W. H. Thomas — of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, of Texas — have heard little plantation darkies of the present day sing:
Ain't I glad
The old sow's dead: Mammy's gwine to make
A little short'nin' bread.
"CrackhV bread" is delicious even to a more aristocratic palate, though it is so rich that one cannot eat much of it at a time.
Dorothy and Virginia Carroll, of New Orleans, contribute an additional stanza concerning the small darkies and this favored delicacy.
Two little Niggers lyin' in bed, One turned over and the other one said: "Mah baby loves short'nin' bread, Mah baby loves candy."
The following lines given by the Carroll children are obviously akin to the other, though perhaps not a part of Short nin' Bread,.
I know somep'n I ain't going to tell; Three little Niggers in a peanut shell, One can read and one can write And one can smoke his father's pipe.
Mr. More, of Charlotte, North Carolina, gave Miss Gulledge a slightly different version of the "short'nin' bread" song.
PUT ON THE SKILLET
Put on de skillet,
Never mind de led,
Granny gwine to cook a little short'ing bread.
Chorus My baby loves short'ing, My baby loves short'ing bread.
Two little Niggers Lyin' in bed,
Heels cracked open lack short'ing bread.
Chorus
Who's been a-courtin', Who's been a-tryin', Who 's been a-courtin' dat gal o' mine?
Chorus
There are certain lullabies that are distinctly expressive of the colored mother's love for her own child, and made to be sung to pickaninnies, not white babies. One such was sent me by Howard Snyder from his Mississippi plantation, the place which has appeared distinctively in his "Plantation Pictures" in various magazines. This is a combination of the old counting nonsense jingle, "Eenie, Meenie, Miny, Mo," and an overflowing of mother love.
Leddle bit-a Niggeh an' a great big toe,
Meenie miny mo. Leddle bit-a Niggeh wid a great big fis',
Jes' de size fo' his mammy to kiss. Leddle bit-a Niggeh wid big black eyes,
Bright as de sun up in de skies. Leddle bit-a Niggeh wid big black eyes,
Meenie minie mo.
Two fragments marked "Baby Songs" were given by a colored woman in Natchitoches, Louisiana, to Mrs. Cammilla Breazeale, who sent them to me. One can see the nodding, kinky head falling over on the mother's breast as "Mammy" croons these words:
Toolie low, toolie low, loolie low,
I am Mammy's little black baby child.
Toodie noodie, mammy's baby, Toodie noodie, mammy's child, Toodie, noodie, toodie.
One cradle-song of this character was contributed by Mrs. Richard Clough Thompson, of Arkansas. Mrs. Thompson has made considerable study of the Indian and Negro folk-lore of her state and has collected a number of songs, some of which she loaned for this volume.
Cradle Song
0 Lulie, O Lulie, if you please, Let me fall upon my knees;
Rock de cradle,
Rock de cradle,
Rock de cradle, Joe.
Joe cut off his big toe And hung it up to dry. All de gals began to laugh An' Joe began to cry.
Rock de cradle,
Rock de cradle,
Rock de cradle, Joe.
The first four lines of the second stanza were sung in Texas also, for I have heard them from my mother in my childhood. She had learned them from the colored children on her father's plantation.
Betsy Camp, of Franklin, Virginia, sang the following nonsense stanza, as remembered from the singing of old Negroes on her father's place. One can imagine a sleepy child rousing up to hear a noise, and soothed to slumber by this droning chant:
WHO DAT?
Who dat tappin' at de window? Who dat knockin' at de do? Mammy tappin5 at de window, Pappy knockin' at de do'.
Two Creole slumber-songs, as sung by the Negroes in the Creole patois, that quaint speech of the Louisiana Negroes under French influence, were given me by Creole ladies in New Orleans, Mrs. J. O. La Rose and Mrs. Deynoodt.
Fais Do Do, Minette
Fais do do, Minette,
Chere pitit cochon du laite.
Fais do do, mo chere pitit,
Jusqu'a trappe l'&ge quinze ans.
Quand quinze ans a pale couri,
M'o pale marie vous avec monsieur le martine.
FAIS DO DO, MINETTE
M'o pa - le ma-ri-e vous a - vec mon-sieur le .. mar - ti - ne.
I neglected to get the translations of these songs from the ladies who gave them, but Julian E. Harris, of the French Department of Columbia, assisted me in putting them into English. Fais Do Do, Minette means:
Go to sleep, Minette,
Dear little baby,
Go to sleep, my dear little baby,
Till you are fifteen years old.
When you have got to be fifteen years old,
You shall have the martine for a husband.
Minette was obviously a girl baby, but the infant addressed in the other Creole lullaby given by the same ladies is as unmistakably a boy.
Fais Do Do, Coias
Fais do do, Colas, mon petit frere,
Fais do do, t'auras du gateau.
Papa e aura,
Et moi j'un aurai,
Tout un plein panier.
Here some "little mother" is singing to her small brother, promising him reward if he will go to sleep. Perhaps she would like to dispose of him promptly, so that she could escape to her play, unhampered by vicarious maternal duties.
In English this would be somewhat as follows. The Creole patois with its cryptic pecuHarities of speech is difficult to translate — as it
would be hard to put ordinary Negro dialect of a pronounced type into French, for example:
Go to sleep, my little brother.
Go to sleep. You shall have some cake.
Papa will have some,
And I will have some,
A whole basket full.
The promise of cake as payment for dropping off to sleep soon, in this lullaby, is reminiscent of that in the variants of the first given in this discussion. Cake evidently formed a more customary part of the baby's diet in older times than now — though perhaps the promise was only a sort of poetic license, not to be taken seriously when the sleeper awoke. A night's slumber might be supposed to wipe out remembrance of what had been necessary to produce it.
An old nursery song remembered from the singing of various black mammies of the South has the appearance of being an antique English nonsense jingle. I heard my mother sing it in my childhood, as she knew it from the Negroes on her father's plantation in East Texas. A version was given me by Kate Langley Bosher, of Richmond, Virginia, who said that she had been sung to sleep by it in her babyhood, her black nurse rattling it off.
CREE-MO-CRI-MO-DORRO-WAH
Cree-mo-cri-mo-dorro-wah, Mee-high-mee-low-me upstart, Pompey doodle, Sing sang polly witch, O-cri-meo!
A slightly different version was contributed by Dorothy Renick, of Waco, Texas, as she had heard colored nurses sing it.
Way down south on a cedar creek; Sing-song-Polly, won't you ki' me oh? There the Niggers grow ten feet; Sing-song-Polly, won't you ki' me oh?
Chorus
Kee mo, ki mo, darro war, Hima-homa patta patta winka, Singa-song nipper cat, Sing-song-Polly, won't you ki' me oh?
Dey go to bed but 't ain't no use; Sing-song-Polly, won't you ki' me oh? Feet stick out for de chicken's roost, Sing-song-Polly, won't you ki' me oh? Chorus
A charming little lullaby was sent me by Professor J. C. Metcalfe, of the University of Virginia. One of his students, Betty Jones, had given it to him. It has a simplicity and rustic charm that are delightful.
Oh, the wind is in the west,
And the guinea's on her nest,
And I can't get any rest
For my baby!
I }11 tell papa when he comes home
Somebody beat my little baby!
A variant of this, written down for me by a Negro woman in Louisiana and given to Mrs. Breazeale for me, has a homely quaint-ness particularly characteristic of the rustic Negro mother. I have left the spelling just as the woman wrote it out for me. Though "bookerman" is n't in the dictionary, any child in the South knows what it means.
Go to sleep, little baby,
Before the bookerman catch you.
Turkey in the nest
Can't get a rest,
Can't get a rest.for the baby.
Vivid imagery and dramatic dialogue are to be found in a lullaby sent by Mrs. Diggs from Lynchburg, Virginia.
Great Big Dog
Great big dog come a-runnin' down de river, Shook his tail an' jarred de meadow. " Go 'way, ole dog, go 'way, ole dog, You shan't have my baby. Mother loves you, Father loves you, Ev'ybody loves Baby. Mother loves you, Father loves you, Ev'ybody loves Baby.
GREAT BIG DOG
One would suppose the picture enough to frighten a child out of, instead of soothing him into, sleep. But black mammies, while they did not know psychology as a technical study, yet were wise in the knowledge of child fancies, and if they conjured up the fearsome image of a great black dog, they were as able to banish it at will.
A more formal lullaby was given me by Mrs. C. E. Railing, formerly of Virginia, who had the words from Miss Caroline New-comb, of Shreveport, Louisiana. Mrs. Railing has set the words to music of her own — which, not being folk-music, is not given here. But she thinks the words belong to a genuine folk-song of the Negroes.
Mammy's Little Boy
Who all de time a-hidin' In de cotton an' de corn? Mammy's little boy, Mammy's little boy. Who all de time a-blowin' OF Massa's dinner horn? Mammy's little baby boy.
Chorus
An' he come to his mammy, An' she ketch him on her arm,
Mammy's little boy,
Mammy's little boy. An' a bye-bye,
Mammy's little baby boy!
Who all de time a-stealin' Of de shovel an' de rake? Mammy's little boy, Mammy's little boy. Who all de time a-ridin'
Of dat great big lazy drake?
Mammy's little baby boy! Chorus
Who all de time a-runnin' To de kitchen for a bite? Mammy's little boy, Mammy's little boy. Who mess hisself wid 'taters Till his clo'se is jes' a sight?
Mammy's little baby boy. Chorus
Who all de time a-fussin'
When you go to wash his skin? Mammy's little boy, Mammy's little boy. Who fuss an' cry an' holler
When you take him out de tub, Cause he want to get back in?
Mammy's little baby boy. Chorus
Who all de time a-fussin' Fo' 'lasses on his bread? Mammy's little boy, Mammy's little boy. Who all de time a-fallin' An' bump his little head?
Mammy's little baby boy. Chorus
An examination of these Negro lullabies as a whole shows that the music is simple, with the elemental simplicity that belongs to childhood. There is a crooning sweetness about them, a tenderness as manifest in the tones as in the words, which one rinds infinitely appealing. One discerns in them something more than ordinary mother-love, — as marvellous as that is, — a racial mother-heart which can take in not only its own babies, but those of another, dominant, race as well. What other nation of mothers has ever patiently and with a beautiful sacrifice put alien children ahead of its own — in outward devotion if not in actual fact? Remembrance of the spirit back of these lullabies gives them a more poignant beauty. Yet even without that, even in themselves, they are lovely enough to deserve the study of musicians and poets. The words are sometimes compounded of that jovial nonsense which charms chil-
dren, but sometimes of a lyric beauty that is surprising. Can Tennyson's much-advertised "wind of the western sea" compare in simple naturalness and charm with that in the dateless, authorless lullaby which sings:
Oh, the wind is in the west,
And the guinea's on her nest,
And I can't find any rest
For my baby.
The imagery here is more spontaneous, more sincere in its appeal to childish fancy; for one sees the guinea — shy, wild creature that nests stealthily so that one rarely sees her at her hiding-place — settling down in peace in some secret place secure from surprise.
We see in these songs the kindly soul of the black nurse, promising the child, who is righting off sleep with that instinctive resistance symbolic of our older dread of the long sleep, anything he wishes if he will but yield to slumber. He may have all conceivable indiges-tibles, from cake to short'nin' bread, or he may possess and ride the ponies or wild horses or mules he is forbidden to approach in his waking hours. How like our human hope that another sleep will yield us joys not realized here!
These Negro lullabies have their quaint terrors, too, their repellent suggestions, which might upset a child unused to them. But baby calves and lambies dead under sorrowful conditions, great big dogs that shake the meadow, and the like, may have but brightened the sense of peace and security which a "baby child" felt in its mammy's safe embrace.. Ole Bangum and the Boar, with its cave where lay the bones of a thousand men, lulled to sleep many prominent Southerners, including General Taylor and President Madison, as has been mentioned before. And the song of the murderous Jew's daughter, slaying the errant little boy, was used as a lullaby by Negro mammies.
The antiseptic, hygienically brought-up child to-day might suffer if he heard such suggestions just before he went to sleep. But then he misses more than he escapes, for the ample bosom and enveloping arm of a black nurse might be more germy than a hospital ward, yet they are vastly comforting; and the youngster who is put to bed and made to seek slumber by himself in a dark room may experience more alarms than any that terrifying good-night songs might give him.
These simple, homely songs have a touching charm that professionally composed lullabies usually lack, for, as Mr. H. E. Krehbiel recently said, folk-songs are "the most truthful and the most moving music in the world."