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�Pout Qreen 's
ftLphabet of Reminiscence
in two volumes
is presented to
in recognition of generous support
to the Pout Qreen foundation.
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�Paul Green's Wordbook
An Alphabet of Reminiscence
by
PAUL GREEN
Edited by Rhoda H. Wynn
Foreword by John Ehle
Volume I • A - K
APPALACHIAN CONSORTIUM PRESS, BOONE
in association with
THE PAUL GREEN FOUNDATION, INC., CHAPEL HILL
NORTH CAROLINA
1990
�The Appalachian Consortium was a non-profit educational organization
composed of institutions and agencies located in Southern Appalachia. From
1973 to 2.004., its members published pioneering works in Appalachian studies
documenting the history and cultural heritage of the region. The Appalachian
Consortium Press was the first publisher devoted solely to the region and many of
the works it published remain seminal in the field to this day.
With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National
Endowment for the Humanities through the Humanities Open Book Program,
Appalachian State University has published new paperback and open access
digital editions of works from the Appalachian Consortium Press.
www.collections.library.appstate.edu/appconsortiumbooks
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. To view a
copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses.
Original copyright © 1990 by the Appalachian Consortium Press.
ISBN (pbk.: alk. Paper): 978-1-4696-3835-5
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-4696-3838-6
Distributed by the University of North Carolina Press
www.uncpress.org
�Contents
Volume I
In Memoriam by Laurence G. Avery
Photograph of Paul Green, 1978
Foreword by John Ehle
Editor's Preface
Acknowledgments
Alphabetical text, A to K
Volume II
Alphabetical text, L to Z
Author's Note
Other Creative Works by Paul Green
�In Memoriam
Paul Green was born in Lillington, North Carolina, on March 17,1894, and
died in Chapel Hill on May 4, 1981. In 1921 he took a B.A. from the University
of North Carolina and the following year married Elizabeth Atkinson Lay. Their
long and rich life together in Chapel Hill ended only with his death.
Green came into national prominence with In A braham 's Bosom, for which
he received the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1927. A decade later he launched a
new form of theater with The Lost Colony, a symphonic drama that now has
run for more than fifty years and inspired a movement. In addition to his writing,
which includes fiction and motion pictures as well as plays, Green also attacked
some of our severest social problems as a crusader for social justice. Always a
champion of the down and out, he worked — frequently in a hostile environment
— to secure equal rights for blacks and other minorities, and equal opportunities
in education and employment. A strong faith in human potential also led him
to campaign against capital punishment. And a lifelong passion for peace drove
him during his final decades to seek disarmament, an end to the Cold War, and
friendly relations between East and West.
Uniting the strands of Green's life was the outlook of a humanist, a
preoccupation with the need for individual expression. Among the purest forms
of such expression were the sayings and doings of people close to nature — farmers,
fishermen, mountain folk. Green looked on the folk tradition as the common
heritage of mankind, and his Wordbook suggests the portion of the heritage alive
in him.
Laurence G. Avery
Professor, Department of English
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
and President, The Paul Green Foundation
�Lance Richardson, photographer
PAUL GREEN
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�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
Foreword
Paul Green, the powerful, distinctly American author, was staggeringly big
in mind and spirit. His intelligence was beyond measuring and his spirit was allembracing. He was willing to include every single man, woman and child, even
the lowliest, even the bigoted, even the condemned on death row in Raleigh; for
the soon-to-die he would hold overnight vigils, for the others he hired attorneys,
using his own funds, seeking help from friends. I once referred to his guest room
as the one hundred dollar room and, on my saying that, his eyes showed his hurt.
Of course, I felt miserable, joking about one of his causes.
I have come to think of this book as being his intellectual autobiography.
It does not tell the story of his life in any year by year fashion; he was too modest
ever to do that. Rather it picks and chooses, is playful, creates word games, goes
chasing after memories, tells stories, sings songs. His kind eyes are on us as we
read. He wonders if we understand. "Please try to become a friend of mine and
pardon my meandering. Let this linger in your mind. Settle here beside me. Criticize
my book, if you like. Law, I do! Hold it to your own light. Let these pages be
a companion, a friend."
"I was too hard on the preachers in this manuscript," he told me not long
before he agreed to die—it took him eighty-seven years to reach that decision.
"I have to change some of that," he told me.
Well, they were hard on him, too. They had trampled him when he was a
boy. They had scared him to hell and back. He wrote a stage play about that,
incidentally: Tread the Green Grass. It is experimental, difficult to do successfully.
I saw it performed successfully in Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill in 1969.1 thought
it was beautiful and moving.
The Wordbook will need shortening," Elizabeth, his wife, told him. "No
need to put so many verses of hymns in it. There are other books where the hymns
can be found."
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"I'll see what the editors say about that," Paul told her. They were sitting
in the library of their big home in the country near Chapel Hill. A fire was burning
in the fireplace; he was one for hearth fires. And for her, his wife of fifty-nine years.
He mentioned this book again while in the hospital with yet another meeting
with the "Old Man himself," as he called death. (He once said to me, referring
to a previous hospital experience, "I saw the Old Man himself, John, and, you
know, I was not the least bit afraid.") I had ventured up to his room where several
signs on the door read "DO NOT ENTER,'' but I pushed the door open anyway,
and there he lay, father figure of all who knew him, aged, slender, on his back,
stickers attached to his bare chest and shoulders, gadgets reading his pulse. One
of his daughters was sitting beside the bed. "Come on in here," he said. We talked
for a short while, and soon he went to the subject close to him, as dear as life
itself, this book which he had written over the years. He wouldn't estimate how
many years. Decades. The Wordbook. He had put down everything he had known,
"about everything I've learned."
"What sort of order is it in?" I asked.
"Alphabetical. Do you mean what shape? It is finished. The last bit of it
is with the typist. She is doing the final pages. It's a long book, John."
"How long?"
"Sixteen hundred pages."
I laughed out of surprise.
"Single spaced," he added.
"I want to see it," I told him, "I want to see that book!"
"Elizabeth says it needs cutting."
"I want to see it as it is."
"Will you get it published for me?"
"I will. I certainly will."
"It might need cutting."
"Let everybody cut it for himself," I said. So I believed then, and do now.
My wife Rosemary and I sat with him in his library on the afternoon of the
day before he died. He had the hiccups; he simply could not stop hiccupping,
but no little thing like that was going to ruin our visit. There was the book. That
wordbook. It was what he was leaving behind. It had been a feature year by year
of his life's work.
The writer of so many dozen stories and plays, the father of outdoor drama
in America, the wise teacher, the friend, was leaving this gift.
Himself in this gift.
In your hands.
One of seven children, Paul was born March 17, 1894, about one hundred
years ago, in a farm family in an eastern, sandy county of North Carolina. In
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later life, on one occasion he complained to me about the flatness of his homeland,
"while your novels have those great mountains, towering over the people,
embracing your actions all around."
His mother named him after St. Paul. She was an interesting, brilliant lady,
with charm and musical talent who, when Paul was thirteen, collapsed. Paul was
getting ready for bed at the time, and with one shoe on and one off, he ran for
help. There was no one who could help quite enough, it seems, and she died.
He claimed to have read books while he plowed. He was honest in most all
matters, so we will need to accommodate even that. He ordered a mail-order violin
and registered for a correspondence course, practiced in the woods, making
frightful noises one suspects until, lo and behold, he played.
He pitched for a baseball team, served as principal of a school, saved his
money, and by age 22 had as much as he guessed he would ever get this way. He
borrowed $5.00 to buy a yellow suit, got a free ride to Chapel Hill and registered
in college.
That was 1916. At Chapel Hill he began to write plays, and Paul had the
wonder of seeing his own play produced, the third play he had ever read, and
the first he had ever seen. This was the beginning of a tumultuous career, with
Broadway, Hollywood and outdoor theater supplying praise and brickbats galore.
In 1917 he enlisted for military service, fought in the trenches in France and
was commissioned on the battlefield. He told me when one of his soldiers refused
to return to the trenches and advance as ordered, he leveled his pistol at him and
said he would kill him if he did not. Paul later wondered how he had ever come
to threaten a friend's life, and he took it as good reason to be forgiving of
individuals who fail.
About ten years after returning to Chapel Hill, by then a teacher of philosophy
and active in the Carolina Playmakers, Paul had his first New York City
production. The play was In A braham 's Bosom, and its protagonist was a black
Southerner with ambition, who was not allowed to realize his goal. Paul received
the Pulitzer Prize. Later, the Broadway production of Roll Sweet Chariot fell
apart like a bag full of marbles its opening night. The huge cast was left in disarray,
the audience in confusion. Next night, it all went better, and so it gained each
night after; however, the Shuberts wanted their theater and closed the play.
The House of Connelly was produced successfully by the new Group Theatre.
The Field God.
Johnny Johnson, using Kurt WeilPs music, a beautiful musical well ahead
of its time and received without proper criticism in the press. John Gassner of
Yale Drama School in his theater history said it might have been the turning point
of the American stage. Native Son, collaborating with Richard Wright. Orson
Welles directed, and became exasperated with Paul, who had more than a few
criticisms of the directing. "Well, here comes our Southern playwright again."
He finally refused to let Paul come near.
In Hollywood, Paul wrote films for George Arliss and Will Rogers, among
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�Paul Green's Wordbook
them the first version of State Fair. He was a personal friend of Will Rogers, but
one of his memories of him was hateful to contemplate. The two of them were
walking together, and a little boy asked Will if he would sign his autograph book.
"Why yes, little boy. What's your name?"
The boy stammered it out.
' 'To my friend, Billy Medlin, from his friend, Will Rogers," Will murmured
as he wrote. He closed the book, handed it to the boy and went on his way.
Tagging along, Paul glanced back only once at the boy who was looking
through his book for the treasured page. Paul had noticed that Will had written
nothing in the book at all.
"I know you think I'm terrible," Will told him. "But they worry you to
death."
Many writers as famous as Paul were in Hollywood in the thirties, including
Bill Faulkner, who was also a friend. Faulkner drank a bit too much in those days.
During prohibition, on one trip they made together, Bill wanted Paul to drive
his new Cadillac up a narrow dirt road to a drop-off for whiskey, and once he
had his full, quart mason jar, he was ready to face the open road.
Bette Davis used to say her favorite line of all her movies was one Paul wrote
for her: "I'd like to kiss you, but I just washed my hair."
Paul, Bill Faulkner and most all the writers were out there re-doing each
other's work, turning out scripts for stars, and for producers whom virtually
nobody respected as artists or public servants. Disgusted, Paul would leave, but
would be called back—"they want me to re-do other people's scripts," he
complained, "want me as a critic, advisor, editor. Not much writing on my own.
And you'd be surprised what they'd throw at me to try to keep me out there. Money,
beautiful women..."
About Paul, Katherine Anne Porter wrote at the time, "The honest, tender
and gifted soul stood out like a stalk of good sugar cane in the thicket of poison
ivy."
Paul also was teaching playwriting during this period of his life, and Carolina
Playmaker Sam Selden told me Paul was unpredictable. A great teacher, he might
find too little talent among his students to compel him to help them, or he would
get a call from Hollywood or New York and be off, not even turning in reports
on attendance, much less notes on student performance, or grades. Days later
he would be found at work engrossed, in Hollywood or somewhere else. One-act
plays, full-length plays, screenplays, many short stories. Yes, and novels. The
Laughing Pioneer was written in 1932 on the train taking him to California. Paul
sent the manuscript to a publisher. On hearing not one word for weeks, he bothered
to ask about its whereabouts, fearing rejection. The novel was at the printer's
being set in type, he was told.
He rewrote the galleys, had the book reset.
His second novel, This Body the Earth, is a major work set in the day of
heavy poverty in the South. It appeared in 1935.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
One time a group of civic leaders caught Paul at home in Chapel Hill. They
asked if he would visit Roanoke Island, the very spot where the first English
colonists to America landed. This was before Jamestown and Plymouth Rock.
Could something be done one summer as a commemoration. Paul caught fire
over the idea, saw visions in music and words and moving figures, heard echoes
off sand shores and the ocean, bathed himself in details of the events, recreating
the "Royals" and "commoners,'' and wrote a new type of drama, which he named
"symphonic drama." In an outdoor theater, using a central stage and two side
stages, using dancers, music, a narrator, a cast of over a hundred, he wove a story
of empire dreamers, home dreamers, Indians and the parents of Virginia Dare, •
the first English child born in the New World, and finally the disappearance of
all the colonists into the vast wilderness.
Now down the trackless hollow years
That swallowed them but not their song
We send response—
"O lusty singer, dreamer, pioneer,
Lord of the wilderness, the unafraid,
Tamer of darkness, fire and flood,
Of the soaring spirit winged aloft
On the plumes of agony and death—
Hear us, O hear!
The dream still lives,
It lives, it lives,
And shall not die!"
Paul gave the play to the civic leaders to produce, and they did, using local
people, the Carolina Playmakers helping—and it was a great success. It played
that first summer, 1937, and the next, and has since, to this date.
Paul wrote fifteen other outdoor dramas.
Rhoda Wynn, his assistant for years, indeed up to the day of his death, tells
us that Paul once registered himself at the hospital as a humanist. That was his
religion he told the clerk. "We don't have a code number for that, Mr. Green.
Would you think of something else?'' the clerk said. Humanist was an appropriate
description of him. He was dedicated to humanity, and to the best of man's art
and thought. He worked for equal treatment of all people, under the law. Once
he compared the university at which he worked, the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, to a lighthouse casting its light afar, but dark at its own base.
When Richard Wright, the black novelist, visited him in Chapel Hill, Paul's
treating Wright as a guest and equal broke social codes of the South in that day.
Paul was accosted for doing so by angry men, but he offered no excuse, and even
shielded Mr. Wright from knowing of this embarrassment because it might hurt
his feelings. Paul did not come to despise the intolerant, the men who had hounded
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him. He was never intolerant of the intolerant; he was sympathetic to the plight
of all people.
He believed violence in plays would lead to greater violence. Excessive violence
on television and world news troubled him.
He opposed the arrogance in patriotism, but loved the country which was
his to care for.
He was wary of the jury system, saw it as authorizing twelve poorly educated
people to make decisions. He would rather trust a judge, he said.
He was never mean, his daughter Janet tells me, simply never, nor petty.
His niece Claire has one criticism of him, and this has to do with Saturday
afternoons when he took the children to the movies. Uncle Paul never, simply
never, let them see the whole thing. Up and out, let's go children. Claire says he
was exasperating when attending plays. In New York, he would go to a play, leave
at the end of an act, duck into another. She says the only one in her experience
he sat through was My Fair Lady.
I knew him to sit through one other, Winterset, at the Playmakers Theater,
his wife beside him. I was on the other side. It's true he was all over the seat, his
long body coiling and uncoiling with tension, revealing excitement, irritation,
distress. He was attuned to every emotion depicted. In the love scene, the director
allowed the male actor to touch, indeed to cup during his embrace one of the lady's
breasts, and Paul was instantly airborne.
His daughter Janet pays tribute to his teaching ability, which was every day
exercised; she came upon him one evening during his gardening time, a daily twohour ritual, and found he had heaved brush into a mountain. "They built great
piles like this in Homer's time," he told her, "on all the headlands of the sea to
bring the news to Greece—fire by fire—that Troy had fallen." He went on piling
brush, Janet says.
In my own experience, Paul was the great teacher. Always I took manuscripts
to him to criticize. Never did he embarrass or chide. Always he featured in our
discussion what could be praised. He asked questions about the other parts,
hoping, I believe, that I would find a better way. He never delayed my work, not
at all. "John, can you get the manuscript to me today? Can you come over
tomorrow evening after dinner, so we can talk about it?"
I know of only one writer he ever lied to. This was Professor Horace Williams,
Chairman of the Philosophy Department when Paul was a young faculty member.
Professor Williams was acknowledged to be an excellent teacher and wretched
writer. He had written another book, one lost in the author's efforts and trials.
After going through the manuscript, Paul told me he tried to avoid the proud
arrogant professor. However, on his way along Franklin Street one day, Williams
hailed him and came alongside. "Paul, did you read my book?"
"Yes, Professor, I did," Paul said, bracing himself.
"What do you think of it?"
Paul decided the need to support his family must be considered, that and
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the feelings of the elderly man. "I tell you, Professor, I dreamed last night my
house caught fire, and I leaped out of bed wondering if I should save your
manuscript or my baby."
Williams was impressed. He accepted the compliment. A ways along the gravel
sidewalk he said, "Which did you?"
Too late to turn back, Paul said, "I saved your book, Professor."
A ways farther on, Professor Williams stopped and for a while gazed at the
horizon. "Paul, you've always done right."
John Ehle
Penland, North Carolina
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�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
Editor's Preface
In Paul Green's plays, radio dramas and motion pictures—and in his novels
and short stories as well—the speech, customs, work and play activities of the
characters were significant. Even before he realized he would devote his
professional life to writing, Green had developed a keen ear for the spoken word
and the music of the people and an interest in their folklore. Recollections of his
childhood and youth always included stories, songs and traditions he had found
in family and community activities and extended to remembrances of folk sayings
and beliefs he heard while chopping cotton with the fieldhands, white and black,
on his father's farm in North Carolina's Harnett County, working in summer
lumber camps, and serving in the army in World War I.
This Wordbook is the culmination of more than sixty years of his observing
and collecting those words, superstitions, customs, cures, riddles, games, stories,
songs and beliefs, wherever he encountered them. It is a personal collection,
posthumously published unabridged. While the entries are not of a bounded
geographical area, Green's roots were in eastern North Carolina, which is traversed
by the Cape Fear River. References to "Cape Fear" and "the Valley" relate to
that area, which encompasses his Harnett County birthplace and Chapel Hill,
which, regardless of his wide-ranging United States and foreign travel, was
' 'home" from his 1916 freshman enrollment at the University of North Carolina
until his death in 1981.
Paul Green's college education was directed first toward philosophy in which
he majored at U.N.C., with Dr. Horace Williams as his mentor. Later Green taught
courses on philosophical concepts and comparative religion, references to which
one finds also in the Wordbook. Undoubtedly, his interest in folklore was increased
by association with faculty colleague and folklorist Dr. Howard Odum and with
playwriting teacher Frederick H. Koch, affectionately called "Proff," who
encouraged his students to write plays, "folk plays," from what they knew. The
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characters and places Green originally dramatized were, therefore, of the Valley.
The earliest record of this wordbook collection is a bound volume of 427
typewritten pages, entitled, Folk Beliefs and Practices in Central and Eastern North
Carolina 1926-28, co-authored by Elizabeth Lay Green and Paul Green, which
was catalogued in the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina
Library, in March 1937. The volume includes a list of "Informants," as diverse
as Mr. Green's sisters, a "Mrs. Stubblefield (Beauty Parlor), Raleigh," and Mr.
W.S. Turner, Dean, Shaw University, Raleigh, as well as the Border Books Club
of Spray, North Carolina, and The Progressive Farmer, Editorial Department,
Raleigh. A three-page bibliography cites a range of sources, including seven
almanacs, the Holy Bible (King James Version), seven volumes of County FolkLore of Gloucestershire, Suffolk, Geicestershire and Rutland, London, 1895;
FolkloreofShakespeare,T.F.T.DyeT,New'YoTk,lSS4;ABookofNewEngland
Legends and Folk Lore, Samuel Adams Drake, Boston, 1884; and the Yearbook
of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 1912. One must presume
that Mr. and Mrs. Green selected from the reference books only entries they might
find in central and eastern North Carolina, in accordance with the title, but even
in that first collection the entries were not credited to specific sources or identified
by the contributor's urban or rural residency, race, profession or gender. The
manuscript consists of eleven main headings: Folk Beliefs and Practices
Concerning Birth and Childhood, Childhood Beliefs and Practices, Love and
Marriage, Death, Man's Work, Recreation and Entertainment, Man's Health,
Religion, General Superstitions and Credences, Native Wisdom, and Imaginative
Beliefs and Sayings. Each heading has numerous subsections. A note on the title
page,' 'First draft of notes from which book is to be written,'' a two-page allowance
for a "Prefatory Note" and ten pages for an "Introduction, Giving Historical
Background and Picture of Present Day" indicate the Greens' plans.
By all records, however, the 1926-28 "Folk Beliefs and Practices" manuscript
was never revised.
Two decades after it was compiled, the manuscript, plus eleven pages of folk
sayings Paul Green had recorded from W.P.A. workers, was made available to
Dr. Newman Ivey White, Duke University Department of English, who had
accepted responsibility for organizing the voluminous folklore materials of the
late Frank C. Brown and beginning what was to become the seven-volume Frank
C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Duke University Press,
1952-1964. Responding to an editing inquiry from Dr. White, Paul Green wrote
from California, September 1946:
As to the proverbs and folk sayings which Elizabeth and I collected
— my memory is a little bit hazy. I know that we traveled around in
eastern North Carolina in an old Ford car back in 1927 and '28, and
we talked to hundreds of people of all walks and stations of life in
that region. We would always raise the subject of "old sayings,"
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stimulating our informants with reference to some well-known ones
of our own, etc. We gathered a great many proverbs this way. Then
also we searched in our own remembrance for those we had heard.
Although my father had died a year or two before this project was
underway, I imagine I set down at least a hundred which I had heard
him use, such as "wilful waste makes woeful want," "a fat today
makes a hungry tomorrow," etc. Then also Elizabeth and I went
through a great number of proverb collections and thus refreshed our
memory as to those we had actually heard or which some of our
informants had heard. In addition to this we sent out hundreds and
hundreds of questionnaires, which among items of superstitions,
health, cures, etc., carried a heading calling for proverbs. I am sure
that our methods were quite unscientific, and no doubt through the
"consonance'' of memory we caught some literary bits in our fishing
net. So that is the way it was. And what among those proverbs is good
sound folklore and what is contaminated by the subjective imagination
I cannot tell at this distance. But I would hazard a guess that about
ninety percent of the stuff is authentic — maybe more.
The Greens' collection was valuable to Dr. White, who acknowledged (letter
of April 10, 1945) "extracting and cataloguing ...some 3,000 items from the
folklore collection that you and Elizabeth made," items which he integrated in
the appropriate sections. Green contributions are acknowledged in the indices
of several volumes, and Dr. WaylandD. Hand notes in Volume I that "the Green
Collection appears as a source 1,426 times, an amazing total."
The years following 1928 were extremely active for Paul Green. He spent
two Guggenheim Fellowship years in Europe, wrote ten screenplays in Hollywood,
and dramatized the story of The Lost Colony, with which he introduced a new
genre of American theatre, "symphonic drama.'' He followed it with nine more
symphonic dramas — The Common Glory, The Founders, Faith of Our Fathers,
The 17th Star, Wilderness Road, The Confederacy, The Stephen Foster Story,
Cross and Sword and Texas—all by 1966. During this period he also published
three books of short stories, five books of essays and two novels; served in
numerous national, regional and state leadership positions, including President
of the American Folk Festival, 1934-45; and, with his wife Elizabeth, raised a
son and three daughters.
Paul Green's principal achievement was as a creative writer — foremost in
drama where the spoken word is basic and the rhythm of the dialogue creates
character, lyricism and suspense. It is not surprising that folklore continued for
him as a concomitant six-decade interest. At the same time he was recognized
as a champion of human rights, especially for the downtrodden, whether white,
Negro or Indian. He visited death row inmates at Raleigh's Central Prison and
took a strong position against capital punishment; he supported the educational
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goals of the Lumbee Indians in Robeson County, North Carolina, who were limited
by a third school system, separate from both blacks and whites; and for more
than half a century he spoke and wrote, decrying the restricted opportunities for
the Negro. "His father laid the bricks of the university library building. Why can't
the boy borrow a book?" he asked poignantly. Stories and expressions gleaned
from all these experiences interested him and were added to his collection.
Sometime in the late 1940s and '50s Green adopted a new format —
alphabetical — for his numerous items. He had a selected number of entries from
the earlier manuscript typed on 3"x 5" cards and alphabetized. (The researcher,
by cross-checking, can identify which of the manuscript entries he did not carry
forward and thus determine the pattern of his selection.) In 1967, when I began
my work as his assistant, he was again converting those cards, with several hundred
he had subsequently added, to "books." Mrs. Jane Suggs, a Chapel Hill
homemaker and typist, copied them on double-spaced pages compiled in five
looseleaf binders the author called his "wordbook." To Paul Green's frequent
visitors and interviewers (indeed, even to the camera of The Dream Still Lives,
a 1971 biographical program produced by WUNC-TV) he displayed these
notebooks and stated his plans to publish them "someday."
For the remaining fourteen years of his life he continued to collect and—it
should be noted—to write dramas and short stories. Always he carried 3"x 5"
cards in his pocket for the chance encounter with a familiar bit of "folklore,"
at which he often commented, "Why, I've heard that all my life. I must be sure
to put it in my wordbook.'' Occasionally, too, he would note a modern expression,
belief, story or custom because, for the writer, "everything is grist for the mill."
Much as one empties his pockets of coins after a trip, Paul Green dropped those
cards from his pockets into a box in his office. In odd moments I would check
them against the looseleaf pages to determine if they were new entries or if his
notations gave a new or additional meaning. And I would enter these by hand
in the alphabetical arrangement.
This "wordbook," then, is a record of his observations and "grist" for the
mill of Paul Green, a writer who was also a university professor and recognized
human rights leader.
Apart from the adoption of items by Dr. Newman Ivey White, only one other
volume has been published directly from this manuscript. In 1968 Professor
Richard Walser selected 103 entries featuring stories and, with Green's permission,
submitted them to the North Carolina Folklore Society, Raleigh. Under the title
Words and Ways, the Folklore Society published a special issue, Volume XVI,
No. 4, December 1968, with copyright by Paul Green.
In the 1980-81 winter, before beginning the writing of two new plays for which
research was complete and his treatments sketched out, Mr. Green determined
we should review again the looseleaf collection and get "a clean typed copy."
Sitting together at a long office table, he and I read aloud every entry, and here
and there he amended them. Charlotte Mansfield of Chapel Hill began a new
xvni
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
typescript while Green turned again to playwriting.
On April 30, 1981, four days before his life and work ended, he wrote in
a still strong hand to his longtime friend John M. Ehle, Jr., "Your interest in
the wordbook encourages me no end. I wish to proceed with that project, and
in any way I can, partake of your interest and guiding suggestions. I know your
creative words are popping into being but any time you can take a bit of time
to drop me a note or give me a telephone call with suggestions, I' 11 appreciate it."
John Ehle did more. He persevered through numerous publishing contacts
to get the wordbook published posthumously without conceding to an abridgement
of it.
You, the reader, undoubtedly will find in these pages unfamiliar and new
material, regardless of your heritage or experience, because the content represents
another time (spanning the nearly nine decades of Paul Green's life and earlier
years from which he drew) and another place perhaps from that in which you
grew up. But you'll find familiar entries, too — more so if you are of Southern
lineage — ones you may have heard all your life or a game you played as a child.
Your responses will affirm the value of preserving words and expressions which
might be lost by assimilation, and serve as an acknowledgment of the universality
of some folklore. Verba volant, scripta manent—words fly away, writing remains.
For me it was a privilege and a joy to work with Paul Green on this and
numerous other projects during his final fourteen years and to continue his work
under The Paul Green Foundation, established in 1982.
In the untold hours I have spent on this voluminous manuscript —
proofreading, cross-checking entries, correcting alphabetization, cross-referencing
stories and preparing the whole for publication — I have been faithful to Green's
manuscript, resisting the inclination to delete an entry, add a definition I have
known, or change a Green statement. It is his personal lexicon, not a linguistic
collection representative of the geographic South or the author's own language
usage. The games are not limited to ones he played; race prejudice and religious
fundamentalism certainly were not of his credo; and neither profanity nor
obscenities were in the vocabulary of this man of letters.
The Paul Green Foundation, the Appalachian Consortium Press, family and
friends are pleased to publish and make available this Wordbook in tribute to
him, his interest in folklore and his creative use of words.
Rhoda H. Wynn
Executive Director, The Paul Green Foundation
xix
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�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
Acknowledgments
One might safely say that no project reaches its final form without much
assistance, often brief but important input from numerous individuals' expertise.
Therefore, to the persons who gave generously in myriad ways to this project but
are not identified by name, The Paul Green Foundation extends its primary
acknowledgment for valuable and timely help.
Special gratitude must be expressed to the two prime movers in making this
publication a reality — John M. Ehle, Jr. and Betsy Green Moyer. As stated in
the Editor's Preface, John Ehle persevered after the death of Paul Green to match
the Foundation with a publisher who would agree to the Wordbook publication
without abridgement. When abridging was suggested, Mr. Ehle's reply was, "If
Paul were here, he could decide on the deletions, but posthumously we should
publish the entire manuscript." With the advice of Borden Mace, founder and
first director of the Appalachian Consortium Press, the Press and The Paul Green
Foundation reached agreement.
Meanwhile the Foundation Publications Committee, with Betsy Green
Moyer, chairman, determined that the wordbook manuscript of her late father
should be available to students and adults via North Carolina school and municipal
libraries as well as through private purchases. With persuasion and repeated
proposals, Mrs. Moyer developed grants and individual contributions for
publication and distribution. Two grants from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation,
Durham, North Carolina, matched by The Paul Green Foundation, and a liberal
grant from the Lynn R. and Karl E. Prickett Foundation, Greensboro, North
Carolina, were supplemented by a generous contribution from Mrs. Paul Green*.
The fund was further increased by donations from the following individuals:
Laurence Avery*, Charles and Betty Cheek, Byrd Green Cornwell*, W.W.
Finlator*, Erma Green Gold, Janet M. Green*, Paul E. Green, Jr.*, W.A.
Johnson*, H.G. Jones*, Frank Lewin*, Betsy Green Moyer*, Sam Ragan*, Terry
xxi
�Paul Green's Wordbook
Sanford*, MarkR. Sumner*, Robert E. Ward*, M.Abbott Van Nostrand*, and
Rhoda H. Wynn*. ("Current or past Paul Green Foundation Trustee.)
There have been valuable contributions of time and scholarship, too. Dr.
Edwin G. Wilson, Provost and Professor of English, Wake Forest University,
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, read the entire manuscript and made valuable
marginal notes. Ms. Jeaneane Williams, previously associated with McGraw Hill
Book Company, Garrett Press Inc., N.Y.C., and University of North Carolina
alumni publications, perused the complete manuscript twice: first, to note any
remaining grammatical errors not contrary to the folk expressions; and second,
to review the complex alphabetization. The editor wishes to thank Ms. Williams
also for wise counsel and an energizing spirit at times when the detailed work on
this voluminous manuscript seemed more task than joy.
Typists Jane Suggs in 1967 and Charlotte Mansfield in 1981 evidenced patience
and skill in typing "clean copies" of the rough manuscript with its handwritten
emendations.
For this publication, Lance Richardson graciously gave permission to use
a black and white print of his 1978 award-winning color portrait of Paul Green.
And Stacy Wynn offered valuable advice on typeface and layout.
Dr. Laurence G. Avery, President of the Paul Green Foundation Board of
Trustees, wrote the In Memoriam tribute.
Members of the Foundation Publications Committee — James Applewhite,
Laurence Avery, Sam Ragan, Robert Ward, Rhoda Wynn and Betsy Green Moyer,
chairman, provided guidance in pre-publication decisions.
And finally, from all who participated in this publication there is special
appreciation to Paul Green (1894-1981) and Elizabeth Lay Green (1897-1989),
his wife of nearly sixty years and early collaborator, for originating the collection
and never letting it die.
R.H.W.
xxii
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1
A
a
have.' 'Pa would-a (would have) been eighty if he'd lived another month."
of. "What kind-a (kind of) girl you think I am?"
Aaron's beard
Any of several Cape Fear Valley plants having some resemblance to a beard,
as the great St. John's wort, Jerusalem Star, the rose of Sharon, etc.
Aaron's rod
A rod which the Bible records was given to Aaron by Moses and with which
he performed many magic tricks according to the Lord's commandment.
The preachers in the Valley often let their imaginations soar in elocuting
in their pulpits about the rod, even identifying it with the rod and staff of
comfort spoken of by the Psalmist or the rod with which Jesus was beaten.
Also the penis.
ABC book
The first year primer.
ABC song
We children used to sing it in the old Pleasant Union School to help our
memorizing. The tune was to that of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, O, I
wonder what you are, Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the
sky-"
"A-B-C-D-E-F-G
H-I-J-K-L-MNOP
Q-R-S and T-U-V
W-X and Y and Z.
Oh, how happy I will be
When I know my ABC."
�Paul Green's Wordbook
2
abide
Accept, tolerate, endure. "I reckon I could abide him if he would cut the
hair out'n his ears."
"Abide With Me"
One of the many beloved hymns in the Valley. This has brought comfort
to many a soul in trouble.
"Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.
The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me!"
abigail
A serving woman, a lady's maid. Also a popular name for a woman in the
18th century. Cf. John Adams' wife Abigail.
able
Wealthy or in good financial circumstances. "No wonder Luther's building
that great mansion on top of the mountain. He's an able man."
abortion
According to the folk belief, a teaspoonful of turpentine taken nine mornings
in a row can cause an abortion.
about
To be well or better or convalescent. "He's been sick for a long time, but
he's about now." Usually as "up and about."
about out
Supply almost exhausted.
about the size of
Approximately right, near the truth.' 'That Joe James is a crook and that's
about the size of it."
about to
On the point of, ready to, almost. "It tickled me so I was about to die."
above
More than, in excess of. "I wouldn't charge above a dollar or so." "He
lives above a mile from here."
aboveboard
Honest, straightforward. "A man who is always aboveboard will come out
right in this life."
abracadabra
A charm word. Having this word on a piece of paper and carrying it with
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
3
you is believed to be a good protection against toothache and bleeding.
Abraham's bosom
A haven of rest and safety for worthy souls in the hereafter.
I used to shiver with fear and sympathy when the preachers in the Valley
would tell the story of Lazarus and the rich man, and tell it with all sorts
of embellishments of terror for sinners. I, who from earliest youth have felt
myself a sinner, suffered from their furious onslaughts. In the Gospel of
Luke the story is told about a certain beggar, Lazarus, who lay at a rich
man's gate full of sores which the dogs came and licked the while he begged
for crumbs from this rich man's table. Lazarus died and was carried by the
angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and went to his reward
in hell. And there in the tormenting flames he lifted up his eyes, so the
Scriptures say, and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus resting in his bosom,
and he begged Abraham to have mercy on him and send Lazarus with but
a drop of water to cool his burning tongue. But Abraham wouldn't do it.
He said to the rich man that he had received the good things of life while
Lazarus received the bad things and now he must suffer his torment — and
he meant suffer forever and ever. Thus the father of the chosen people
showed no mercy.
What terrible cruelty has the Bible (called holy) — and likewise the
Koran — fostered on this earth! And in saying so I do not forget the sweetness
and joy of the Sermon on the Mount and other humane teachings of Jesus
himself.
Abram man
A beggerman, a good-for-nothing.
A slovenly Abram man used to come now and then to our house in
the Cape Fear Valley, begging for clothes or food or anything he could get.
His name was Good, or he said it was. He carried a "budget," a peddler's
pack, on his back and had wild black eyes, gray-streaked beard and stringy
hair as long as a woman's. He was unbelievably dirty — a pioneer beatnik
or hippie. Once my mother cooked him up a good lunch and we children
took it out to him all eager to see him eat with his great crooked hands. He
looked at the food and said it wasn't fit for a dog and snarled. My father
who was nearby heard the remark and became so angry that he hurried out
to the harness room, got a blacksnake whip and came back, popping it
through the air. He made for the old man, saying, "I'm going to whip you
good, you devil of a Good!" The Abram man jumped up and fled down
the road, budget, long hair and all. He never bothered us again.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
absotively-posilutely
Absolutely-positively.
�Paul Green's Wordbook
4
accident
To have an uncontrolled bowel or bladder movement. "Look at that poor
little boy, he's had an accident in his britches."
accommodating
Kind, generous, helpful. "He's one of the most accommodating men you've
ever met."
ace
A near thing, a close call. "He came within an ace of breaking his neck on
them roller skates."
ace high
In high esteem, first rate. "General Eisenhower is ace high in my book."
ace in the hole
Some special item or strength in reserve.
ache
To desire, to yearn. "I'm just aching to go to Wilmington on that excursion.''
Aches and pains in the body foretell damp weather.
Aching corns mean wet weather.
a-cold
Cold. "I was so a-cold in that church my teeth chattered."
acorns
A heavy crop of acorns, nuts and berries always forecasts a hard winter.
Before the no-fence law came into effect in the Valley the farmers let both
their cattle and hogs run loose in the woods, the cattle to feed on reeds and
other pickings and the hogs to fatten on acorns in the fall. A brag-porker
was one fattened on acorns.
Act in the living present.
action
A bowel movement. "I had a bad headache last night, but this morning
I had a good action and now it's gone away."
A motion picture production directive to actors, technicians, etc. to begin
filming.
Suit the action to the word.
Actions speak louder than words.
act of God
A happening or event not explained by any natural or human agency,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
5
therefore thought to be caused by a divine or supernatural power, namely,
God.
'' Yessir,'' said Arthur, the yardman, as we were setting camellias behind
the lily pool the other day, "Old Moster looks after us many a time when
we don't expect it."
"There's no doubt about that, I guess," I responded.
"Ezzactly right," he said. "From hard experience I know that God
takes action to help us now and then. He's holp me several times, but one
time in particular he holp me — if he hadn't I' be lying behind penitentiary
bars or rotted in the ground from death in the electric chair right now. That's
what I would."
"That must have been something, Arthur," I said.
"It was that. Well, sir, there was this girl — that was when I was living
down in Wilmington away from here — and I loved her better'n life itself.
Couldn't think of nothing but her as I went about my work. I was driving
for Mr. Lanchester at the time. And one day he said to me 'Arthur,' he said,
'I see you're a-loving that girl over there, and I think I better tell you she's
not what you think — she's two-timing you. She lets you spend money on
her, buy her candy and let her have cash now and then — you do, don't
you?' 'Yessir,' I said, 'for she's my onliest woman.' 'You may think so,'
he said, 'but I know better. There's a long yellow fellow comes to see her
at night regular. Rena that cooks for us knows the man that creeps in when
you're gone, and Rena says the girl is going to marry him. I thought the
only thing to do was to tell you about it so you can save your money and
save your feelings too. She's a bad woman.'
"Well, sir, I was all churned up inside and mad enough to eat nails.
And right off I determined to kill that yellow man. Not once did I think
of harming her. That shows you how much I loved her. So I took my shotgun
and lay in wait for that fellow. There was a field behind her house, and that
was the way Rena — I found that out from her — said he'd come at night
to visit my gal. So I hid in the bushes right after dark waiting for him. And
I was going to let him have both barrels as he passed by and drop him in
his tracks. Well, I waited awhile, and then all of a sudden a voice spoke
to me — it was my mother's voice loud and clear. 'Arthur,' the voice said,
'what are you doing out there in that field with that gun? "I'm just out huntin'
a little bit, Mama,' I said. 'Hunting, the dog's foot! I know what kind of
hunting you're a-doing,' she said. 'Now, boy, you listen to me, get right
up from there and go back home. Hear me? Go home!' 'But, Mama,' I said
— all ready to make excuse, 'they's plenty of fat rabbits use around here,
and —' Well, sir, when my mother spoke, you had to listen to her. You
couldn't go against her. No sir. So I shouldered my gun and went on toward
home like she told me, leaving that fellow to come by all safe and sound
if and when he wanted to come. I was halfway back to the place I boarded
�Paul Green's Wordbook
6
at when all of a sudden I remembered my mother had been dead for ten
years or more and was buried way back in Fuquay Springs. Yessir. It was
an act of God that saved me. And don't tell me no different."
act up
Misbehave, run badly. "My old Ford started to act up, and there I was —
stuck."
act your age
To behave discreetly, fittingly.
Adam
According to the Bible, the first man created by God out of common dirt.
Also a sinful instinct, the bodily appetite, usually referred to as "Old Adam,"
and everlastingly opposed by the fundamentalist followers of Christ.
Godparents in the Episcopal Church stand as sureties at the christening of
an infant that the said baby has renounced the devil and all his works and
they themselves will strive to their uttermost to see "that the old Adam in
this child may be so buried that the new man may be raised up in him" —
and "that he may have power and strength to have victory and to triumph
against the devil, the world and the flesh. Amen.'' An agreement not often
kept.
Also that instrument of bodily appetite and baby-creating, the penis.
Adam and Eve
A curious little flower belonging to the orchid family. Its two bulbs just
below the ground are joined together — "Adam and Eve hand in hand."
Later the two other bulbs, "Cain and Abel," appear, a close family group.
Inside the bulbs is a strong glutinous matter from which the plant is
sometimes referred to as' 'putty root.'' When this root is chewed or brewed,
it is supposed to be good for throat or bronchial trouble.
Adam and Eve and Pinch-me-tight
Went to the river and had a fight.
Adam and Eve fell in.
Who was left out?
(A sell rhyme. The answer prompts a good pinch.)
Adam and Eve on a raft
Poached eggs on toast.
Adam and Eve suit
In the nude.
Adam and Eve wrecked
Scrambled eggs.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
7
Adam's ale
Water. "Adam's ale is the best ale."
Adam's apple
The proj ection in the front part of the neck, supposedly caused by the apple
Adam sinfully swallowed which swelled out his throat as it went down, a
swelling that remained.
Adam's flannel
See "Indian thistle."
Adam's needle
The Spanish needle, yucca, bear grass. This plant, also known as Adam's
needle and thread, is becoming more and more popular in the Valley because
of its gorgeous column of creamy white flowers. The tincture of the root
was once used for rheumatism and gonorrhea.
Adam's off-ox
A term of disparagement, a clumsy or unimportant person.
adder
After.
adder's-tongue
More commonly known as dogtooth violet, this popular southern flower
is often called trout flower or trout lily. It was once used as a medicinal herb,
the juice to bathe severe eye inflammations and the leaves, applied to wounds
and placed gently over chilblains, were therapeutic. Like the sunflower, the
adder's-tongue turns its little devoted head to follow its lord the sun and,
like the rue anemone, too, it is a perfect flower to tramp the woods for in
one's springtime courting days. So did I, so did she.
addled
All mixed up, as an addled egg. Also mentally weak, crazy.' 'Mis' Sara Mims
has an addled boy Joe."
addle-pate
A confused or feeble-minded person.
admiration
Suspense, state of uncertainty. "He kept me in admiration so long that I
got plumb nervous."
Adventist
A religious sect believing in the second coming of Christ, the resurrection
of the dead and the approaching ending of the world. (Seventh-Day
Adventists observe Saturday as the sabbath.)
�Paul Green's Wordbook
8
Like most protestant religions in America, and especially in the Valley,
whether Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians,
Holy Rollers or what not, the Adventists maintain that when Jesus appears
the second time, he will appear in the air in the east. According to the
Scriptures, after his resurrection he was seen by eleven apostles (Judas having
hanged himself) for forty days during which time Jesus spoke to them "of
things pertaining to the kingdom of God.. .after which he was taken up and
a cloud received him out of their sight." Then "two men stood by them
in white apparel." And these men said to the apostles, "Why stand ye gazing
up in heaven? This same Jesus which was taken up into heaven shall so come
in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."
So it is that people wait the second coming and the rising of the dead. And
thus the dead are buried in the Valley — and elsewhere — with their feet
toward the east and their heads toward the west. They then will rise up on
judgment day, when Gabriel blows his horn, with due courtesy and politeness
to greet their Savior face forward, for according to Scripture he is like the
sun and will appear in the east.
Sweet are the uses of adversity.
Advice is cheap.
Advice when most needed is least heeded.
afeared
Afraid.
affect
To love. "He affected that gal a lot, and when she gave him the go-by, looked
like he'd go plumb crazy."
afflicted
Deformed, crippled, retarded. "Po* Mis' Matthews, all these years she's
had to nuss that afflicted boy of hern."
afire
afore
Sensually hot. "Just to look at that girl sets me afire."
Before, heretofore, ahead of. "If you don't get a move on with Joe Turner's
gal, that Cephus Bowles is going to be there afore you."
afraid
Apprehensive, full of worry. "Yes, child, there you come with a woods colt
baby sprouting in you, and I was afraid of it."
Be not afraid. (Matt. 14:27)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
9
African golf
Craps.
afterclap
A clap of thunder after lightning, an unexpected payoff, a harsh follow-up.
afterlife
Survival after death. A belief held by most people on earth. But more and
more of the Valley young people are becoming skeptics along with the
scientists.
"After the Ball"
A popular song among the Valley people in the early part of the century.
I loved to hear my mother sing it as she dressed for church.
"After the ball is over,
After the break of morn,
After the dancers' leaving,
After the stars are gone.
Many a heart is aching,
If you could read them all—
Many the hopes that have vanished,
After the ball."
There were many parodies made on this song. One I especially like was given
to me by Margaret Harper, the driving force behind my outdoor drama
"Texas." —
"After the ball was over
Mary took out her glass eye,
Put her false teeth in water,
Washed off her paint and dye,
Stood her false leg in a corner,
Hung her right arm on the wall,
What was left of her went to slumber
After the ball."
After the storm comes the calm.
against
Injurious.' 'Jesse was a chain smoker and he knowed cigarettes were against
him, but he wouldn't quit, and so now he's dead as a wedge from lung
cancer."
against the grain
Contrarily, unwillingly, unhappily.
�10
Paul Green's Wordbook
agate
A marble in the well-known boys' game.
Age before beauty.
Age makes men older but not better.
be your age
Same as act your age.
age of accountability
A condition of moral or freewill responsibility a child reaches when he
becomes able to tell right from wrong — often referred to as "line of
accountability." Boys are supposed to arrive at this age at ten; girls, being
smarter, at nine.
The first time I ever ran into this accountability subject was when I
was a little boy about eleven years old. I was a year late. It was such a hellish
experience that the details of it are with me to this day.
A big meeting was going on in the neighborhood at the time, and the
preacher had spent the night at our house as was the custom around and
about among the neighbors during a "protracted meeting" of those days.
These big or protracted meetings, or revivals, were customary throughout
the countryside during the "laying by time," that is, during the period when
the final plowing, chopping, siding and cleaning out the crops had been
finished and a waiting of some two or three weeks ensued. Then would begin
the burning, blazing business of fodder-pulling, and after that the cottonpicking and then the cornshucking, the school days coming on in late fall
and finally the rich fat wintertime to follow. (Back in those days tobacco
— a full crowded year's crop — had not taken over in the Valley as much
as it now has.)
Brother Wicker, the old fiery preacher, after prayers the night before,
had interviewed me somewhat thus — as his cold blue eye looked holes
through me.
"You are past ten years old now, your mother tells me," he said.
"Yessir," I gulped, "soon be 'leven."
"Uh-huh," he said as his long-fingered hands writhed themselves
together, a nervous habit I had noticed in him before, especially when he
was going good in the pulpit. "So you've reached the age of accountability
— ain't that right? You can tell the difference between right and wrong,"
he went on. And before I knew it he had made me promise to go to the
mourners' bench at next day's meeting and repent of my sins and find my
Savior.
I slept very little that long, long night.
Somehow I lasted through the sermon the next day, and the singing
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
11
to follow. Then when the call came, I managed to go down the aisle and
kneel barefooted at the anxious bench (also called the mourners' bench)
along with older and more sinful creatures such as Eddie Kirk Maxton, who
fired the boiler at the neighbor's sawmill and who could never get up steam
except to much chewing of tobacco, loud hollering and rollings of profanity.
The soles of my bare feet were turned toward the congregation, and my
repenting tears were wetting my fingers spread over my face. Then Brother
Wicker came and knelt beside me, and his bad breath from his decaying
teeth blew in on me. He thumped me on the back with the flat of his mighty
hand. "Give it up! Give it up!" he shouted. "Let Jesus into your heart!
Let Him in! He will save you, save you now! Pray for grace! Pray!" And
with a final and devastating blow to my poor little scrawny shoulders, he
moved over to belabor Eddie Kirk.
I prayed for grace as he ordered but could feel no grace. The
consciousness of my bare feet bothered me, and then my waist (blouse) —
the one my mother had made with lace around the collar — kept sliding
up above my cloth belt, leaving my back bare, and I could feel the fishhooking eyes of a hundred people digging into my naked skin. Even so when
later Brother Wicker called for all the new converts to stand together before
the pulpit and receive the right hand of fellowship, I was lined up right there
straight among them, and I knew I was a low-down hypocrite and no more
saved than a snake had hips. But I would commit most any kind of sin, I
knew too, to get out of that dreadful situation.
So it was that I was "saved from nature to grace'' and three weeks later
was baptized with the others in the Reuben Matthews millpond. And since
that time I have bothered no more about the age of accountability or the
grace that saves. See "baptizing."
aggervate
Aggravate.
to agg on
To incite, to rouse to anger, to encourage unduly. Same as egg on.
as agile as a monkey
agin
Against.
agin the government
Obstreperous, anti-social.
agony column
A newspaper column in which correspondents express their troubles and
usually get too-easy answers.
�12
Paul Green's Wordbook
agribble
Agreeable.
agrimony
A common plant throughout the Valley. It was used as a tonic and also for
asthma and as a vermifuge.
ague bark
The water ash or swamp dogwood. The bark was often used for a tonic and
the chewed leaves aided in digestion.
ague tree
See "sassafras."
ague weed
The stiff gentian, also called gall weed. In the old days tea made from it
was used as a tonic to purify the blood as well as to help in female disorders.
ague wood
Sometimes known as snakeroot.
ahint
Behind or behint.
aholt
Hold of. "When that horse bolted, I tried to get aholt of the reins."
dig
ail
Egg.
To be different from others, also to mope about. "What ails him."
Ailanthus
See "tree of heaven" or "stink tree."
If ails stay at home,
Rain will soon come.
If they fly away,
Fine will be the day.
(Weather proverb.)
ally
aim
111, not well.
Intend. "I aim to do it if I live long enough."
If you don't aim high, you'll never hit high.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
ain't
air
13
Is not, am not.
Are. I can remember as a boy that most of the old people in the Valley did
like their Elizabethan forebears — they prounced "are" as "air," also
"joint" as "j'int."
air, aim
Any or one. "Have you got air knife?" "No, I ain't got aim."
air, airy
Either one. "I couldn't tell air (airy) one from t'other."
in the air
Rumored. " It's in the air that the two of them are planning to get married.''
airing the lungs
Shouting, running off at the mouth, being too loud in one's talk.
airish
Cool, windy. "This room's airish, you'd better close that there door."
air one's dirty linen
To tell facts about one's intimate troubles and mistakes which would be
better left untold.
airs
Pretentiousness, conceit. "There that woman comes stepping along and
putting on airs."
Battle ofAlamance
A famous battle that took place at the head of the Valley when in 1771 —
four years before Lexington — some embattled farmers, known as
Regulators, rebelled against the tax gatherers of the British Governor William
Tryon. They were defeated and six of their number were hanged in a grove
at Hillsborough. Strange as it may seem, these Regulators later were Tories.
alder
A shrub that grows plentifully along streams and in swamps in the Valley.
In the old days we boys chewed the bark and spat out its red juice profusely,
pretending that we were chewing tobacco. Also, local baseball pitchers
chewed it in the place of slippery elm to help them throw spit balls. A gargle
made from the bark was supposed to cure sore throat, and it was used also
for an emetic as well as for tanning and dyeing.
Ale sellers shou'd na be tale tellers.
�14
Paul Green's Wordbook
as alike as two peas in a pod
all
Belongings, property. "He was sick so long it took his all to pay the hospital.''
The only. "They were all the men I ever saw hung." "That's all the help
I could get."
Everyone, for inclusive emphasis. "We all." "You all."
The family, the relatives, the near relatives. "How's all?" "Just well as
common."
All is not gold that glistens.
All that a man hath will he give for his life.
All that live must die.
All the keys hang not at one man's girdle.
All the speed is in the spurs.
All the world's a stage.
all about
Everything, the complete story, all the details. "Tell me all about what you've
been doing."
all alone
Single, individual, lonely. "There I was in that big field all alone and the
snow pouring."
all along
All the while. "All along I knew that man was a crook."
all and some
Inclusive of everybody or everything.
all arms and legs
Awkward, adolescent.
all ass and no body
A loud talker, a boaster, a show-off.
all at sea
Confounded, confused, at a loss.
all but
Almost, nearly. "We're all but home now."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
15
all by her (his, its) lonesome
Entirely alone.
all covered up
Over-committed, extremely busy, with an overfull schedule. "We got so
few cabs here in Fayetteville our boys stay all covered up."
allemande
A command or call for a particular move in a square dance at which the
men turn the ladies to the left and return to their partners.
up my alley
Suitable, easy for me, exactly what I wanted.
all fingers and thumbs
Awkward.
all-fired
Absolutely, completely. Used for emphasis and intensification. "That
preacher made me so all-fired mad scaring the little children half to death
with his hell-fire sermon that I felt like standing up in the church then and
there and telling him to shut his big blabbing mouth!"
all-fours
To be on one's hands and feet or knees like an animal.
"I was passing by along in the night when there come a racket in the
fence jamb, and I thought some hogs were in there, and I let out a loud 'sooey,
sooey!' Then all of a sudden Henry came out on his all-fours, holding to
his half-off britches. And then I seen a woman there in the shadow lying
spread out flat on her back and her dress drawed up beyond her knees. She
was so far gone in love or drunk one she had no shame.
" 'You won't tell on me, will you, Lem?' Henry said, still on his allfours, looking pitifully up at me in the star-shine, his head hanging to one
side, and his hand jiggling at his pants.
" 'No, I won't, Henry,' I said.
"And I ain't never told it till now, Paul, and it don't matter no more,
for both Henry and the woman are long gone to their final resting place
where there's neither love nor giving in love anymore."
all front and no back door
A phony, irresponsible person, a pretender.
all get and no give
Greediness, self-centeredness.
all get out
Intensely, entirety. "He works his hands like all get out when he talks."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
"That beats all get out."
all give and no get
Service, devotion without thanks or return.
all gone
Deeply in love, infatuated, absorbed.
Also tired out, done in.
Consumed. "The cookies are all gone."
"All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name"
A popular hymn.
As a boy I admired Ian Matthews' tenor soaring away in Sunday service there at Old NeilFs Creek Baptist Church. I went there now and then
because it was near my country sweetheart's home.
"All hail the power of Jesus' name,
Let angels prostrate fall!
Bring forth the royal diadem
And crown him Lord of all."
And so on through a stirring missionary proclamation—
"Let every kindred, every tribe
On this terrestrial ball
To him all majesty ascribe
And crown him Lord of all."
Still, for these vivid and consoling words I have just as vivid remembrance
of an occasion connected with them in which I was involved — vivid and
painful. Our male quartet — consisting of Ernest Spence, Rass Matthews,
Gordon Long and myself — was to sing this hymn at an Easter service in
the old church. For the occasion I had bought a new suit from the merchant
Ransome Taylor in Dunn, costing five dollars — on a credit. We fellows
did ourselves proud in the quartet, and I was especially pleased that my
yellow-haired girl was in the congregation sitting in the front pew. Later
among the folks outside she complimented me on my second tenor. Then
with a little giggle she pointed to the front of my coat.' The next time you
sing in public like that," she said, "you ought to cut the price tag off your
suit. Folks all around me could see it where it said 'Price—$5.' "
The world was ruined for me for a week or so. And I have never
particularly liked that song however much my neighbors and Ian loved it.
all his buttons
All his wits. "You needn't try to trick Cousin Henry, he's got all his buttons,
old as he is."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
17
all hollow
Thoroughly, completely. "We played Fuquay yesterday and beat 'em all
hollow."
all how
Completely how. "He told me all how he got that way."
A llicomgreenzie
A game, same as Drop the Handkerchief.
all in
Whipped down, tired out. Same as done in.
all its worth
Completely, entirely, as fully as possible.
all kinds
Many, much, a lot, a great deal. "That fellow's got all kinds of money."
All meat is to be eaten, all maids to be wed.
All men can't be masters.
all mops and brooms
Very drunk.
all of a heap
Nonplussed, astounded, speechless. "That bad news hit me all of aheap."
all of a stew
Disordered, in a mess, topsy-turvy, turned upside-down. "Brother Goff
and Brother King are coming for the protracted meeting and my house is
all of a stew."
all one
All the same, the same result, of no importance particularly. "It's all one
to me whether you buy my land or not."
all outdoors
Totally, completely. "He's as mean as all outdoors."
all over
The entire body, completely. "I hurt all over." "He's a liar all over."
Ended. "The children were sad when the show was all over."
all-overs
Fidgets, nervousness, mild willies, also called the "hicumstrikes." "To look
at a snake just gives me the all-overs."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
allow, 'low
To be of the opinion, to think, believe, intend. "I 'low you might make
it." "I allowed as how I'd go over there, but I ain't never done it."
allowance
A ration, quantity of goods or pay. "You've not give the children their
'lowance this week, and they're all sore at you."
all prick and no pence
Pretense, all front and no back, a show-off. "Them soldiers come in here
all fired up — it was all prick and no pence."
all right
Satisfactory as to manner and condition.
all screwed up
Tangled up, in a mess, topsy-turvy.
all set
Ready, on the qui vive, satisfied, in comfort. "How're you doing this morning?"—"I'm all set."
all sore
Angry.
all sorts and sizes
Every kind of thing, used inclusively.
All squeal and no wool, as the devil said when he sheared his hogs.
A lot of effort amounting to nothing, much ado and little result.
All's well that ends well.
all that
A great deal, much. "What are you going to do with all that money?"
all the
Used for comparison. "Is that all the fast you can run?" "Is that all the
good you can do?"
all the go
The style, fitting the fashion, popular taste and custom.
all there
Sane, sensible, long-headed, of sound judgment. The opposite, "not all
there," is often used in speaking of one touched with lunacy.
All things work for the good of those that love the Lord.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
19
"All Through the Night"
A favorite song.
all thumbs
Awkward.
all to pieces
Ruined, collapsed, broken to flinders. "When she heard her husband had
been killed in France, she went all to pieces."
allus
Always.
all wet
Wrong, ignorant, mistaken.
"You're all wet about Billy Graham's being an influence for good,"
said Uncle Myron,' 'not with him selling Christ-and-him-crucified the way
you sell stocks and bonds or a blood purifier or this Geritol stuff and all
with a lot of publicity and ballyhoo, and at the same time whooping it up
for devotion to the flag and the killing of the boys in Vietnam for the sacred
cause of patriotism. Maybe he thinks the quicker they're killed the quicker
they'll get to heaven."
the almanac
Next to the Bible, the wisdom book of the Cape Fear Valley farmers. My
father always kept his almanac hung on a nail by the fireplace where it was
handy for reading. He treasured it for its information on the diseases of
animals and human beings, its recipes, its household advice, its directions
on soil and crops, table of postal rates, how to make hens lay more eggs,
character readings, and especially for its weather forecasts for each month
of the year. And both he and I used to ponder the page given over to the
zodiac. See "zodiac." In the trimming of cattle and hogs these signs were
most carefully considered. Also in the old days women baked bread and
weaned their babies by them.
Although the almanac is not considered the authority it once was in the
Valley, still it is popular and is widely sold and distributed today.
The Almighty
God, Jehovah, maker and ruler of the universe.
"Almost Persuaded"
An old hymn.
"Almost persuaded, harvest is past.
Almost persuaded, doom comes at last.
Almost cannot avail,
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Almost is but to fail.
Sad, sad, that bitter wail,
Almost, but lost!"
And I, a little fellow, would shiver and shake as I stared across at some
of the unregenerate sinners who would not yield to the pleadings of the
preacher to save themselves from future torment in hell.
It is not good that man should be alone.
along
Becauseof, onaccountof. "It was along of you talking so damn much that
I got into that mess with Lena's daddy."
along the line of
In a planned direction, connected with the same subject, in line with.' 'Along
the line of what you're saying, I say force is the only thing that'll make 'em
behave."
alpha and omega
The beginning and the end.
an also ran
A defeated candidate, a horse coming in in last place.
althea
A very popular shrub, most often found around Negro cabins and houses.
Another name is rose of Sharon. It was introduced from Asia and has become
so popular with its beautiful cotton-bloom blossoms that many baby girls
in the Valley are named for it.
alum
A good Valley remedy to stop bleeding. The old midwives were wont to use
it to help heal up a new mother.
alumroot
Spotted geranium or wild geranium. It is common in the Valley and was
used medically by the Indians and early settlers. A drink made from boiling
the roots and leaves was supposed to be good for dysentery and diarrhea.
Some old folks also used to say it was good for sore throat and ulcerations
of the mouth, as well as general stomach disorders.
a-many
Many. "A-many man has hung himself with a woman's skirt."
amaranth
Also known as thorny amaranth or prickly careless-weed. It is widely
scattered in the Valley and elsewhere in the south and grows as well in waste
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
21
places as it does in the garden. Like cabbage leaves, Jimson leaves and leaves
of the mullein, the amaranth leaves were used to heal bites, wounds and
all sorts of hurts, including nail-punctured feet. This plant was also referred
to sometimes as pigweed. It was a curse to the Valley farmer like crabgrass,
Johnson grass and nut grass.
amaryllis
Sometimes called colic root because of its poisonous nature. It is now one
of the brag flowers in a Valley garden.
"Amazing Grace"
One of the Valley people's most comforting hymns through the years, even
more comforting, say, than such old favorites as "Blessed Assurance,"
"Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing," "My Faith Looks Up to Thee"
or "Sweet Hour of Prayer."
And though the hymn is written in three-four time, it went well with
my mother's churning. Up and down, up and down her dasher moved in
the churn, the while she sang—
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind but now I see."
I never did care to hear her say "a wretch like me."
Like so many of her hymns, this one served somewhat as a labor
accompaniment as well as a testimonial of religious faith during her ever
busy, busy life. (She was the mother of seven children, did all the cooking
and housekeeping till some of us, especially my sister Mary, were large
enough to help in the four-room house, sewed for the neighbors, both the
living and the dead, kept a little home post office, sent butter and eggs for
sale down to Buie's Creek Academy, played the organ in the church, and
now and then wrote a bit of poetry, some of which appeared in the Lillington
newspaper.)
Once when my father spoke of her working so hard, she answered —
I was a little boy standing by and heard her — the reason, she said, was that
she wanted the family to get ahead, that "our children, Billy, can get an
education, can have a chance to amount to something." She was a great
believer in education.
Often we children felt as she churned, or we churned for her, that
"Amazing Grace" was too slow in bringing results, so we'd stand around
the churn and chant over and over in our shrill voices—
"Come, butter, come,
For I want some!
Come, butter, come,
�22
Paul Green's Wordbook
For I want some!"
And when we told her our song was better than hers, she smiled, pushed
back her lovely dark hair with her firm-fingered hand and said,' 'They both
help bring the butter."
She died too early from hardship and overwork. As the poet puts it
more or less, "her reach exceeded her grasp." And then he adds that's as
it should be "or what's a heaven for?"
I well could add and do, "why not a hell as well?"
ambeer
Tobacco spittle or juice.
ambitious
Dangerous, irritable, bad-tempered, easily angered. "You better watch that
sow with her new pigs, she's an ambitious hussy."
ambrosia
Same as wild wormseed. See "Jerusalem oak."
ambulance chaser
A greedy lawyer or his agent, also an undertaker.
amen
A Hebrew word used in English now to end a prayer or song and also to
agree heartily, as "Amen to the president's war on poverty."
amen corner
In the old country churches in the Valley there were three areas as to seating
the congregation. On the right from the pulpit's point of view was the old
women's corner, and on the left the old men's corner. These were called
amen corners, from whence often during the preaching the "amens" would
sound in loud confirming, or not, the doctrine being preached. The
rambunctious young and middle-aged people, more subject to sinfulness,
sat in the middle of the church out in front of the pastor. I can remember
at Pleasant Union, the church I once attended and where I was' 'converted,''
that one Sadie Morgan, one of the young girls who used to sit out in front,
had a bastard baby and when she returned to church she naturally took a
subdued and humble place over among the old women in their amen corner.
And often while the preachers thundered away on the carnality of man, she
would nurse her baby unashamed from a lovely full breast, a breast which
had been part of her undoing in the first place.
"America"
The popular patriotic song, strong and determined.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
23
"America the Beautiful"
A charming song with less dogma and more beauty in it.
"Am I a Soldier of the Cross?"
Old popular hymn with its' 'blessed assurance'' and its ethical admonition.
"Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize,
And sailed thro' bloody seas?"
a-mind
Disposed to, inclined to. "I'm a-mind to go down there and beat hell out
of him for saying my son was a whore-hopper."
amongst
Among.
Alsoagroup, others, additional ones. "He went with Ed and amongst 'em."
an
If.' 'An he don't pay that debt, I'm going to get him where the hair is short.''
ana mana
A counting-out rhyme in a children's game for deciding who is to be "It."
"Ana mana, dippery dick,
Delia dolia dominick,
Hotcha potcha dominotcha
Hy-uh pon tus—
O-u-t spells out,
On your way home."
Ananias
A liar.
anarchy
See "Phil McNeill."
anchorman
A central man in any setup, one on whom the main responsibility rests.
and how!
Manner, ways, means, condition intensified. "If you young'uns don't
behave, I'm going to tan your hide — and how!"
aneath
Beneath.
anemone
See "rue anemone."
�24
Paul Green's Wordbook
anenst
Against.
angel
In Christian belief a spiritual and celestial being who acts as a messenger
of God. Also has reference to the conscience, as one's good angel or bad
angel. There are many important angels, one of them being Gabriel. For
to him God has assigned the future duty of blowing his trumpet to mark
the coming of the judgment day and the ending of the world.
Speak of an angel and you can hear the rustle of wings.
angel food cake
A light white cake made with whites of eggs, flour and sugar — no butter.
Be on the side of the angels.
angel 's-trumpet
The aristocratic sister flower of the lowly Jimson (Jamestown) weed and
with a bloom just as malodorous. Both the leaves and the seeds are poisonous
but can be used as a cathartic or emetic. We children used to have fun chasing
hawk moths as they fluttered around the blooms in the dewy evenings. Also
we used the blooms to extend our fingers. See "Jimson weed."
angry
Red, raw, swollen. "The flesh around that cut place is angry. You'd better
do something about it."
anigh
Near.
The animal in man knows no history.
animal magnetism
A mystic force which certain human beings are said to be gifted with. Such
persons are supposed to be psychic and have hypnotic and healing power
and, according to the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University, they
score extraordinarily high in extrasensory perception tests.
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
A children's guessing game.
ankle
To walk, to go afoot. "Son, you ankle on down the road there and buy me
a plug of tobacco at the store."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
25
to break an ankle
An illegitimate pregnancy, also' 'break a leg." "I hear that Jess Jones' Sadie
has broke her ankle." "Oh-oh, too bad."
"Annie Laurie"
The ever fresh and popular Scotch love song. This was one of our male
quartet favorites.
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
Answer a fool according to his folly.
'ant
Want. "I 'ant the doctor to look at my sore tooth, please."
ante up
To show one's honest intent, to make a down payment. "If you folks wanter
ante up, then put your money where your mouth is, and I'll deal."
Antichrist
A fabled enemy of Christ and his teachings, an enemy of man and God also,
who according to Biblical legend and the Christian belief will fill the world
with evil until he is conquered by Christ's second coming. Recently I heard
Lonnie Cofield, the Valley wit, say that from the looks of things in this strifetorn country of ours, Christ better hurry and come or Antichrist will get
too muscled up for him to handle.
antics
A fit of anger. "Every time I wash my boy's hands, he puts on a tirade of
antics, and I don't know what to do with him."
antigodlin
Out of line, awry, leaning, not in a plumb line. "Earsie Jenkins has a new
house, and every wall is antigodlin."
Anti-Over or Ant'ny Over
See "Hail Over."
ant rice
See "wire grass."
When ants are especially busy, bad weather is coming, and when they are especially
thick, a war is corning.
An anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
One anvil wears many hammers out.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
anxious bench
In the old days the church custom was to have a bench, or maybe several
benches if sinners were numerous, placed in front of the pulpit, with some
open space between it and the congregation. Often hay was spread on the
floor around the bench so that those who were caught in a paroxysm of
penitence or of joy and became wild and cavorting in their movements would
not hurt themselves or get their Sunday clothes dirty. In our neighborhood
we also called it "the mourners' bench." Under the power of the preacher
and the singing and shouting, the sinners often trooped down the aisles and
flung themselves at the bench and cried aloud for forgiveness for their sins
and salvation for their undone condition.
This anxious bench custom is passing away now in the Valley, people
becoming more mechanics-practiced and flagrant in their manners and not
feeling the presence of the devil and the conviction of their souls with the
intensity once they did. The Moody and Sankey hymn tunes, such as' 'Almost
Persuaded'' and' 'There's a Great Day Coming,'' were especially powerful
in my childhood for the conviction of sinners. I can still remember with what
harsh pity some of the believing ones would look at sinful Malcolm Norris
on the last night of the big meeting and he still unrepentant and womanhungry, while the congregation in dolorous condemnation sang—
"There's a sad day coming,
A sad day coming.
There's a sad day coming by and by
When the sinner shall hear his doom,
'Depart, I know you not!'
Are you ready for that day to come?"
And I as a boy would gaze across at Malcolm in horror, seeing him
in my mind's eye, because of his heinous crimes, already br'iling in the torrent
flames of hell.
any old how
In a careless haphazard manner, hit or miss. "I helped him build his house
to bring his bride to, and we put it up any old how, yessir, put it up in one
day before sundown, and Johnny then hurried off to git her."
any way, shape, form or fashion
Under whatever condition, in whatever way. "That woman might fix herself
up in any way, shape, form or fashion under the sun and she'd still be a
vulgar hussy."
A-one
First rate, honest, reliable. "Terry Sanford was an A-one governor."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
27
apern
Apron.
apostle
One of the twelve disciples of Christ sent forth to preach.
Also the male organ which is known by multitudinous names — "John
Hancock," "John Henry," etc.
What is done by night appears by day.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away;
An onion a day keeps everybody away.
Apple
A popular brand of chewing tobacco.
apple-bobbing
A game in which young people used to put apples in a bowl of water and
try to bite them as they floated. Most often the boy and girl got in more
nose-rubbing and kisses in the game than they did apple bites.
apple cart
A plan, project, a business, a matter of concern. "They ain't no doubt about
it a-tall, on that judgment day old Satan's gonna get his apple cart upset,
and I mean upset."
apple cider
The fermented juice of the apple. This used to be a most popular drink in
the Valley, and nearly every farmer had his apple orchard and his keg or
barrel of cider in the fall. It was believed the apples had to be gathered on
the waning of the moon or they would shrink up. Horse apples were said
to make the best cider.
apple dumpling
A popular southern dish, made usually by covering the apple or apples with
pie dough and cooking well.
Also a woman's breast.
applejack
Brandy distilled from apple cider, a strong and almost venomous drink.
apple of one's eye
A favorite person.
apple of Peru
Same as the Peruvian bluebell. This plant is common in the wastelands of
North Carolina. It was once used as a diuretic. Also used as a fly poison.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
apple of Sodom
A kind of horse nettle, also called bull nettle and wild tomato. This Sodomy
pest used to play havoc with our bare feet as children, especially if the dead
dried plants chopped up by the hoe were stepped on. The thorns were sharp
as little needles.
apple pie order
Clean and neat arrangement, excellent housekeeping. "You ought to see
Althea's home — all in apple pie order."
apple root
A large flowering spurge. A tincture of the root was used as a purgative.
apples
Testicles.
as sure as God made little apples
Very sure indeed.
apple sauce
Nonsense, foolish flattery, much like soft soap.
apple toddy
A drink made of apple brandy, water and sugar and served with hot roasted
apples.
apricock
Apricot.
April fool
A catch or sell, a trick. The first of April is known as "April fool's day,"
and often we young people in the Valley would have fun with a gullible fellow.
We'd send him on an errand, for instance to borrow a neighbor's left-handed
monkey wrench, a square auger knife, a few one-foot postholes, or a handful
of square pegs, for, as we told him, "the east wind had blown up a special
use for them."
April showers are like women's tears, easy to wet and easy to dry.
April showers bring May flowers.
apron
The part of a plough used to throw the dirt each way in splitting out middles.
apron-high
Pregnant. We used to sing a song in the Valley called "Careless Love," a
stanza of which ran as follows—
"When she wore her apron low,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
29
The boys they hung about her do'.
Now she wears her apron high,
All the boys they pass on by."
apron man
A waiter.
apron strings
Feminine domination, control of a man by a woman, especially by a wife.
There's an old saying in the Valley that of all the strings — whether
hamestring, shoestring, tiestring, cross-string, or bow string—the strongest
of all strings is a woman's apron strings.
Sudie May Wicker was one of the liveliest girls in the country, and she
had an eye out for the boys all right. And Martin Ray was wild about her
from the first day when he saw her sitting up near the front in Shady Grove
Church, her pink cheeks framed in curls and her clear soprano voice pouring
out the favorite old hymn—
"Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow,
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."
—from her full red lips.
Martin was a rising young merchant in Elizabethtown and as good a
catch for a woman as you could imagine. It was no surprise then when he
and Sudie Mae were married. For a while things went along well, but no
baby came to brighten Martin's home. And folks with their long tongues
of course would be saying the reason why was that Sudie Mae kept it from
happening by drinking cotton-stalk root tea on the sly or using baking soda
in a certain way. For her interest in men continued. Martin became harassed
in his soul and imagination, and when he had to go to Raleigh or Durham
or Richmond to buy goods for his store in town, he was in a dither to get
back home, he being so uneasy about Sudie Mae the way he was. He had
especially grown uneasy, as it came out later in the trial, after he had seen
her casting looks in the church at handsome young Hugh Morgan who was
back home on a vacation from the university up at Chapel Hill.
One summer night Martin returned home earlier than he had been
expected and he found young Hugh and Sudie Mae in what was spoken of
in common parlance as a "compromising position." By this time he had
worried so much that his mind was ready to fly to flinders on the least
provocation and, of course, in running into such a spectacle he went to pieces
altogether, grabbed up a butcher knife and cut young Hugh to death right
there in the house. But harm a hair of her precious pretty head, not he. Then
he tried to kill himself by cutting his own throat, but the doctors saved him.
Later he was tried for his life and got a penitentiary sentence, a pretty stiff
one, twenty-five years behind bars. Some folks said the reason he got such
a harsh sentence was that the young prosecuting attorney, Eben Trotter,
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Paul Green's Wordbook
had already begun to make eyes at Sudie Mae, or she at him, and he pushed
the case to get a death sentence. But the sympathies of the people were with
Martin, and the storm of feeling against Sudie Mae in the neighborhood
got to be so strong now that she left there. It's not certain just what happened
to her, though Slim Whitaker said recently he had seen her waiting on tables
in a cafe in New Bern.
A petition is going the rounds now for the Governor to pardon Martin.
I have signed it along with hundreds of others. Perhaps he will be pardoned,
but in the meantime his business has gone to bankruptcy and another man
is the leading merchant in the town in his stead now.
As old Mr. Mac, the Valley philosopher, said, an apron string can often
be more than a string — it can be a noose to hang you with.
apt
Inclined to, usually tending to." It's apt to rain from the looks of the sky.''
apt as not
As likely as not.
aptitude test
Shortcut tests given by educational leaders, scientists, they call themselves,
to get an answer, and most often a phony one, as to the potentialities or
talents of a student for certain kinds of work or study, leading to a more
than likely successful career. The Valley schools are full of these tests
nowadays, along with a lot of other scientific techniques.
apt to
Likely to.
a-purpose
Intentionally. "He hit me in the eye a-purpose."
Arabian Balsam of Gilead
Carolina poplar. A tincture of the bark was good for chest troubles and
rheumatism.
arborvitae
Tree of life. A kind of cedar. A tincture from its twigs and leaves was a good
tonic.
trailing arbutus
A very delicate and much admired little flower. How many miles have my
wife and I tramped the woods searching for this shy and heavenly sweet
' 'ground laurel.'' We once found a colony of it just north of old Barbecue
Church near the spring where Flora MacDonald and her stalwart husband
Allen used to worship and listen to Reverend John McLeod's sermons in
both Gaelic and English. We keep it growing in our wildflower plot as best
we can.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
31
archives of gravity
Everlasting record, the book of life in the hereafter. "Yes sir, I 'spect my
name to be written there forever in the archives of gravity, and St. Peter
can p'int to 'em any time he wants to, saying, 'Here is a beloved servant
in whom we are well-pleased.' "
area
A term common to and popular with teachers and public lecturers denoting
the field of discussion or interest. "In the area of civil rights we were making
great progress till all hell broke loose in Newark and Detroit."
a'ready
Already.
"Are You Washed in the Blood?"
Another consoling and big meeting favorite.
I can still see Cousin Joe Long standing by the organ, played by his
niece Flora Long, beating time with his chubby hand and leading us all in
a fervent rendition—
"Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in his grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
Chorus:
"Are you washed? (Are you washed?) in the blood
(in the blood)
In the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? (of the Lamb?)
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
And even as we sang, my youthful inner query would continue — "How
can something be washed in blood and come out white as snow?"
Only years later, after I did more thinking and reading and studying
philosophy and religious writings, including much of St. Thomas Aquinas,
was I able to see that religious faith — the kind I was acquainted with in
the Valley — depended on believing the unbelievable. To believe the
believable was easy and obvious and required no faith.
argify
To argue.
Arizona nightingale
A donkey, a jackass.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Arkansas toothpick
A long-bladed stiletto knife. Also Arizona toothpick.
"Arkansas Traveler"
A popular fiddle and talking piece. My brother Will used to love this and
was a whiz in it with both banjo and fiddle, but without talking. (Like Charlie
Chaplin, he played left-handed.)
My old friend John Riardon was well-known in the Valley for his
performance of "The Traveler,'' both talking and fiddling. He had another
claim to local distinction too. It was said he would put on a clean shirt every
day, but on top of the one he already had on. So come Sunday morning
he was ready to begin again. I remember once he came to our house, bringing
his fiddle as always but this time without a bow. He had broken the only
one he had and was waiting for another he had ordered from Sears and
Roebuck. When we children begged him for "The Traveler," he asked us
to find him a bow. Of course, we couldn't, but he was both a devoted
musician and a man of ingenuity. He went to the woodpile, found a flat
lightwood piece of fence rail, split out a long splinter, and, back in the house,
fiddled away with the splinter, the resin or rosin in it serving to bring forth
some sort of string response. And we children stood joyously around him.
He carried on the old dialogue between an imaginary farmer and a traveler
who had lost his way — playing the while.
TRAVELER:
Hello, stranger.
FARMER:
Hello yourself. If you want to go to hell, why, go
there yourself.
TRAVELER:
(Looking about him.) Why don't you cover your
house here? (He gestures toward the unseen house.)
FARMER:
Can't cover it when it's raining, and when it's dry,
it don't leak a drop.
TRAVELER:
(Gazing about him again.) What makes your corn
look so yellow?
FARMER:
Fool, I planted the yellow kind.
TRAVELER:
Um-um. How did your 'taters turn out?
FARMER:
Didn't turn out, fool. I dug 'em out.
TRAVELER:
Say, how far is it to where the road forks?
FARMER:
Been living here fifty years and it ain't forked yet.
TRAVELER:
Reckon I can ford Little River down there?
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
33
FARMER:
Reckon so, any goose can.
TRAVELER:
Look! Yonder comes a steer. You better head him.
FARMER:
I gad, looks like he's got a head on him.
TRAVELER:
I mean stop him.
FARMER:
I ain't got no stopper.
TRAVELER:
I mean turn him.
FARMER:
Don't need no turning. He's already got the hairy
side out.
TRAVELER:
Well, well, well. Say, you have lived here all your
life?
FARMER:
No, fool, for I ain't dead yet.
TRAVELER:
Mercy's sake! You don't answer anything. You sure
are ignorant.
FARMER:
I may be ignorant, but I ain't lost! Ha ha!
And Riardon wound up with a flourish while we children hopped up
and down, squealing with delight. We begged him to go on with another
favorite, "Leather Britches,'' but Mother came out then, sweat on her brow
as usual, and said dinner was ready. "Everybody go and wash his face and
hands."
See "school-breaking."
arm
The end of the axle tree that goes into the hub of the wagonwheel.
Stretch your arm no farther than your sleeve will reach.
an arm and a leg
An excessive price. " If you eat in that place, it' 11 cost you an arm and a leg."
arm baby
A baby too young to stand, contrasted with a knee baby, who is, say, unable
to walk.
armful
A fat or roly-poly woman.
arn
Iron. "That hickory log was hard as arn." Also as a verb "to arn."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
around
To be present in strength. "When it comes to settling the race question by
fist and skull in this country, yes sir, son, I'll be around," said Ernie, the
new Ku Klux Klan member.
In the neighborhood of. "A mole around the neck means money by the
peck."
around-about
Nearly. "She's around-about forty years old."
around the corner
Anticipated, just ahead.
around the house
Ordinary usage. "Don't bother about that shirt. I'm just going to wear it
around the house."
arrowhead
A plant of the water plantain family found plentifully along the Valley
streams and in swampy places and becoming more and more a favorite
decorating and aerating feature in lily ponds.
arrowhead hunting
One of our happy pastime occupations as children was hunting the ploughed
fields for Indian arrowheads. They were few and far between but common
enough to keep us always on the lookout and conscious somewhat of a
perished people who once lived where we walked.
arsh potatoes
Irish potatoes.
arsle out
To back out, same as weasel out.
arsy-versy
Upside down, topsy-turvy, also vice versa.
arter
After.
artichoke
A popular watery tuber, much used in the Valley for pickles. The kind we
grew were called "Jerusalem artichokes," also "earth apples." Mymother
used to make artichoke pickles and for me they were a total watery loss.
But many people like them. Dr. H.R. Totten of the Botany Department
at UNC once brought us a handful of tubers, and now looking out the
window across the garden I can see plants flourishing seven feet tall. The
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
35
rich ground there is alive with tasteless tubers. The Indians were said to have
enjoyed them as succulent food.
article
A person, used in a derogatory sense. "He's a slick article, that fellow."
arum
A swamp and stream plant, associate of arrowheads, pipeworts, yelloweyed grasses and other acid soil aquatics and becoming a feature of lily ponds.
Often called wild calla or water-arum. It is a beautiful addition in our lily
pool in the summer and is said to be poisonous. We have never tried to find
out.
as
Used as a conjunction. "Them as has gits."
asafetida
Wear a lump of asafetida tied around the neck with a string to keep off
contagious diseases.
Ascension
The legend that forty days after his resurrection Christ ascended into heaven,
there to sit on the right hand of God, the Holy Ghost on the left, awaiting
the end of the world and the bringing on of judgment day when He will
descend to earth again "to judge the quick and the dead."
Ascension Day
The Thursday forty days after Easter on which day Christ's ascension into
heaven is commemorated.
ashamed
Shy. "That one's named Phyllis, but she's so ashamed she won't look at
a stranger."
ash bin
A receptacle for ashes and other refuse.
ash cake
Cornbread baked in live ashes. Usually called "hoecake" from the old
practice of baking it on a hot hoe in the fireplace.
as how
An idiomatic substitute for' 'that.' '"He 'lowed as how he'd up and do it."
As I was going down the road,
I met Mr. Tairpin and I met Mr. Toad.
The toad and the tairpin begun to sing,
And the toad cut out the pigeon wing.
(Nonsense rhyme.)
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Paul Green's Wordbook
ash potato
Irish potato.
Ash Wednesday
The first Wednesday in Lent. The name came from an ancient ceremony.
Ashes were placed on the head of persons by the priest or priests with the
accompanying words — "Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou
shalt return."
Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies,
Give me no peaches, I'll bake you no pies.
What is not worth asking for is not worth having.
asleep
Indolent, lazy.
A temporarily numbed condition of one's arm or leg and sometimes toe
due to hindered blood circulation. "I lay on my arm last night and woke
up this morning with it asleep and, man, did I evermore have a time getting
the feeling back."
asleep at the switch
Irresponsible, absent-minded.
"Asleep in Jesus"
This hymn brought comfort at many a funeral, and our male quartet could
render it with especially good barbershop harmony effect. It brought tears
of sympathy not only from the relatives and friends of the deceased but
sometimes from even us, the singers.
"Asleep in Jesus! peaceful rest,
Whose waking is supremely blest.
No fear, no woe, shall dim that hour
That manifests the Saviour's power."
as long as
Inasmuch as. "As long as you say so, I will do it."
aspen
Often called more descriptively "quaking aspen."
ass
Nerve, bravado. "It took a lot of ass to climb that church steeple and paint
it."
A stupid person. "He that makes himself an ass must expect to wear the
bridle."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
37
Every OSS loves to hear his own bray.
ass around
To philander, waste time, flirt, be busy doing nothing.
ass backwards
Completely the wrong way, in reverse, same as the gentler bassackwards.
ass ears
A common weed.
ass hole
Anus, rectum.
ass kisser
Sycophant.
ass-kissing snake
A lowdown person.
ass over one's elbow (shoulder)
To get in too big a hurry, to cross a bridge before one comes to it. Also to
be angry, excited.
kiss my ass
A derogatory and blackguarding phrase. Pantomime without words is often
used with the same meaning, such as putting one's thumb to one's nose and
wiggling the extended fingers or turning one's rump toward a person and
slapping it with the palm of the hand.
piece of ass
To have sexual intercourse with a woman.
silly ass
Foolish, irresponsible person.
Asses die and wolves bury them.
assy
Horsey, excessive and free behavior, bossy, usually refers to a woman.
ast, asted
Asked.
aster
There are many species of this wild weed or flower. The pastures and
wastelands and roadsides are beautified in autumn by its profusion of white,
pink, lavender and purple bloomings. For all its beauty it still awaits the
praise of a single Valley poet.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
asthma weed
See "Jimson weed."
astraddle
Astride. "That woman ought to be ashamed of herself the way she rides
her horse astraddle and her dress up to her thighs."
astral body
A term used in theosophy or occultism meaning a super-sensible substance,
an ethereal counterpart or replica of the physical body. This astral entity
is most active when the gross body sleeps. At that time it can communicate
with other astral bodies and with other beings living or dead. I have constantly
been astonished at the number of people I meet who believe in this
superstition. But then I am reminded of the old Hindu proverb which in
paraphrase says,' 'There's nothing man can believe that he won't believe."
"As We Go Round the Mulberry Bush"
A singing game, popular among smaller children. A ring was formed and
the children, holding hands, at first marched around singing—
"As we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush,
the mulberry bush,
So early in the morning."
Then they continued—
"This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes,
wash our clothes,"
And they pantomimed "the washing" and so on through the prim
pantomime of
"This is the way we go to church, go to church, go to church,
So early in the morning."
atall
At all.
at death's door
Critically ill.
at loose ends
Disorganized, lacking in any interest.
A to izzard
From first to last, the complete story, all the way through.
atom
A tiny bit, a grain, aniota. "That Earsie Brown ain't got an atom of sense."
�An Alphabet c^f Reminiscence
39
atonement
The redeeming effect of Christ's incarnation, sufferings and death, as
believed in by the faithful. It also means a reconciliation between God and
man, especially through Christ. In fact, the whole protestant world believes
that this atonement can only be effective through Christ. The early
missionaries in the Valley had a hard time explaining to the benighted Indians
how it was that the Father God, Great Spirit, could bring sinful mankind
closer to him by having it commit more sin in the killing of his gentle and
innocent Son Jesus. However, the Indians gave in here and there to the
teaching but with no particular profit as I could learn, certainly no economic
profit.
atowards
Towards.
attaboy (attagal)
A term of encouragement, meaning "go to it, give it all you've got," etc.
after
After.
afternoon
Afternoon.
after while
After a while.
"At the Cross"
Another consoling hymn that says—
"Alas and did my Savior bleed
And did my sovereign die.
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I."
And as I raised my childish voice along with others in the church, I
often thought to myself, "I don't feel like any worm.'' The refrain or chorus
was most singable, after the dolorous verses preceding it—
"At the cross, at the cross
Where I first saw the light
And the burden of my heart
Rolled away (rolled away).
It was there by faith
I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day."
My brother Hugh and I often while chopping cotton or doing other
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Paul Green's Wordbook
rhythmic farm work would sing our parody on this chorus—
"At the bar, at the bar,
Where I smoked my first cigar
And the money in my pocket
Rolled away (rolled away)—
It was there by chance
That I tore my Sunday pants
And now I have to wear them
Every day (every day)."
at the end of one's tether
At the end of one's resources.
bore with a big auger
To talk big, act proud and mighty without sufficient reason, pretentious
and egotistical.
auger-eyed
Sharp-eyed, boring-eyed.
a cold day in August
A rare occasion, much the same as never. "It'll be a cold day in August
before he gets a brownie out of me to save the heathen."
"Auld Lang Syne"
A favorite old Scotch song, sung tearfully at the new year.
"Aunt Dinah's Dead"
See "My Mamma Sent Me."
auntie
An affectionate term for an old Negro woman, a general form of address
to such in the old South.
Aunt Jemima's plaster
A popular plaster among us in the old days, good for all sorts of aches and
pains. We children used to sing a song, and Mother sang it with us, about
this mighty plaster, a song sent out as part of the manufacturer's
advertisement—
"Aunt Jemima she was old,
But very kind and clever,
She had a notion of her own,
That she would marry never.
She said that she would live in peace,
And none should be her master.
She made her living day by day,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
41
In selling of a plaster."
Chorus:
"Sheepskin and beeswax
Made this mighty plaster,
The more you tried to get it off,
The more it stuck the faster."
And it went on through many stanzas telling how Aunt Jemima's sister
was stopped from growing into a giantess by having a plaster put on her
feet, how a thief was caught by Aunt Jemima's setting one of her plasters
as a trap for him and his getting stuck in it, and how tomcats, dogs,
sweethearts, wives and lovers were kept from wandering by the use of these
wonderful plasters. We would sing the final stanza more dolorously as we
chopped or picked cotton in the fields—
"Aunt Jemima's dead and gone,
I hate to tell the story,
They put a plaster on her back
And drawed her up to glory.
Sheepskin and beeswax," etc.
auto poker
A children's game of identifying automobiles — also cows, sheep or horses
— as one rides along. What fun our children used to have playing this game.
average
Medium, used in health inquiries mostly. "How'reyour folks, John?" "Just
average, just average, Luke." Sometimes the reply is and was, "Well as
common," or "Not so good," or "Just middling."
Averasboro, Battle of
The Battle of Averasboro in the Valley was one of those tragic wasteful
actions which often take place in wars after the main quarrel has been settled
and no effect on the solution can accrue from the fight, only the senseless
death of a number of combatants made more senseless by its uselessness.
And, of course, this applies if one wants to be sensible and generous-hearted
to all fratricidal brutalities among men. But often and often in the muck
and misery of happening a bright flower or a luminous happening will take
place, as if to say that no matter how men work their smothering they also
strive to let a little light still shine.
So it was in the Battle of Averasboro, according to my good and longtime friend, Dr. John A. McKay. See "immaculate conception."
awful
Very. "There were an awful lot of people at the funeral."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
as awkward as a cow
as awkward as an elephant
as awkward as an ox
awkward squad
New recruits or neophytes, especially in the military service.
ax
Ask.
axle grease
A lubricant for wagon wheels, often applied to sores, wounds, even piles.
Also a reference to butter.
ax to grind
Some pet cause or project, a special interest. "No wonder you're for Sam
Ervin, you've got an ax to grind in that matter."
azalea
A very popular shrub, and becoming more popular as the years go by. I
would guess that at least half the homes in the Valley now have this beautiful
plant, both white and pink, somewhere on their premises. Many azalea
gardens have become showplaces, for instance, those at Wilmington or at
Orton Plantation nearby. Azalea festivals also are becoming popular. We
children used to go into the woods in the late springtime and gather the sticky
sweet-smelling flowers of the wild azalea by the armful and bring them home
to decorate the house. Also known as wild honeysuckle or swamp pink.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
B
43
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.
One for my master and one for my dame
And one for the little boy that lives in the lane.
(A nursery rhyme.)
Also there is another song which runs as follows:
Baa baa black sheep,
Where's your little lamb?
Way down yonder in the valley,
Buzzards and the butterflies
Picking out its eyes—
Poor little thing crying "mammy."
Baal
A pagan divinity often referred to in the Bible. In Christian religious folklore
it is identified by the local preachers with the spirit of evil and oftentimes
with the devil himself.
babble
To blab, to gossip. "She'll babble it all over the neighborhood."
babe
An intimate term for a young woman, a lover. "How are you, babe?"
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,
Out of the mouths of babes.
Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent
And revealed them unto babes.
babes in the woods
Innocent, inexperienced or gullible people.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
babies
We were told that more babies are born in a country during a war and the
majority of them are male babies — as if mother nature had prescience and
was replenishing the ranks of the dead.
babies-in-the-eyes
The mirrored reflection in one's lover's eyes. A game often played by
sweethearts, face to face. Often, too, a little arm child is told to look into
its mother's eyes to see its own reflection.
baby
A toy. "Give that child his baby and he'll quit crying."
We children were told that the new baby was found in a stump or an old
woman brought it in her apron.
If a pregnant woman carries her baby high in her body, it's a girl, low it's a boy.
If a baby smiles in its sleep, the angels are talking to it — or it is talking to the
angels.
Letting a baby stand up when it is too young will cause it to be bowlegged, or
so it was believed.
baby born
"A baby born with two curls on his head
In two continents will break bread."
The old granny that helped bring Mr. Mac into the world said this about
him and his baby curls. But she was sadly mistaken — so far. She also
prophesied a big family for him from the number of puckers in his blazing
forehead. She missed that completely and no question about it. He's a
childless widower and getting old.
baby cradle
A figure woven by threads or strings from one's fingers.
baby hives
Mr. Mac, my old miller friend, said they used to cure baby hives in the Cape
Fear Valley by washing between the little thing's shoulders with warm water
and soap. Then they'd make three small slits in the shoulder flesh with a
razor. After that they'd warm up a cow's horn and put the large end over
the slit in the skin and with beeswax close up the small end. The horn would
stay on until it had drawn out a tablespoon of blood. Then it would fall
off. "It was that blood that caused the hives. You could see it all dark,"
he said. "Weren't that a way to treat a baby! They've got a different fad
these days. On any pretext whatsoever they tear and cut the poor helpless
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
45
thing's tonsils out. Later they'll have another custom like pulling off toenails
or slitting ears to take the 'poison' out maybe. If they get the notion, it's
scientific. Still, doctors have to live like anybody else," he said.
baby-kisser
A politician running for office.
"Babylon Is Fallen"
A stern and monitoring hymn widely sung in the Valley during the middle
and latter part of the nineteenth century. It was one of the choice pieces
in "Singing" Billy Walker's old book The Christian Harmony.
"Hail the day so long expected.
Hail the year of full release!
Zion's walls are now erected
And her watchmen publish peace.
"Thro' our Shiloh's wide dominion
Hear the trumpet loudly roar—
Babylon is fallen, is fallen.
Babylon is fallen to rise no more."
baby's breath
A flower.
baby-snatcher, also baby stealer
Usually refers to an older man who marries a girl very much younger than
himself. Same as cradle-snatcher.
Don't leave a cat in a sleeping baby's room. It might suck the child's breath
away and kill it.
baby stretches
The habit a little one has of stretching its arms above its head and yawning.
Mr. Mac said the way to cure a baby of the stretches, according to an
old folk belief, was to put a horse collar around him for a few hours. "Chavis
McKiver's mammy," he said, "kept him sitting in a horse collar off and
on till he was ten years old. But she never cured him. In later years when
he was grown and driving his frisky mare across the Cape Fear River Bridge
at Fayetteville, a spell of the stretches came on him. He reached out his arms
sudden and high and his little mare jumped through the railing. Both man
and mare fell to the riverbed below and were badly hurt. Chavis recovered,
but the mare had to be shot. Chavis had no more stretches."
baby trough
A primitive wooden cradle made usually from a hollow gum log.
A baby crib.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
bachelor's buttons
A flower. Bachelors were said to carry these flowers in their back pockets
for love charms to win their sweethearts.
back
To address a letter. "Back that letter for me."
To lay back, to put back. "That Stewart boy can back his ears like a mule.''
The most difficult part, the crest. "Now that March has come the back of
winter is broken."
The back is shaped to the burden.
backache root
Same as blazing star.
back a ways
Somewhere in the past, some distance back.
back band
That part of the harness that goes over the back of the animal to hold up
the shafts or the trace chains for plowing.
back bar
The iron bar in a chimney on which pots were hung for cooking.
backbite
To derogate, to berate, to speak of enviously, to abuse someone behind his
back.
backbone
Strength, character, stamina. "That fellow's got plenty of backbone."
back door trots
Diarrhea, same as Joe-trots.
back down
To give in, to recant, to yield.
'backer
Tobacco.
backfire
An unexpected action or response opposite of what was intended.
back hand
To strike with the back of the hand. Also a sarcastic retort.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
47
backhouse
Privy.
backhouse blues
The melancholies.
back jaw
Sassy talk. "Now look here, woman, don't give me any of your backjaw
or I'll slap you from here to kingdom come."
backlog
A large log usually put in the back of the fireplace to last a long time and
give out heat for quite a while. It also means "savings" or something in
reserve as, "He's got a backlog of money saved up for a rainy day."
back number
Out of style, an old person, a failure.
back out
To renege, to break an agreement.
back pedal
To recant, to deny, to put on brakes.
back-scratcher
A sycophant, a flatterer. "Now that he's running for office he's the busiest
back-scratcher you ever saw."
take a back seat
To be modest or retiring, assume second or third place instead of first place.
backseat driver
Just that — one who is always giving directions from the backseat, a meddler.
backset
A setback, ill luck.
backside
The rear, buttocks.
back-slapper
An over-offensive person, same as a sycophant. Also a hail-and-well-met
fellow, a sort of over-optimistic Babbitt.
back-step
An error. Also to backslide, fall from grace.
backstrap
That part of the harness which goes around the rear of the team and fastens
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Paul Green's Wordbook
to the shafts or to the traces to keep the wagon or carriage from rolling against
the team in going downhill.
back talk
Sass, disrespect, same as backjaw.
back teeth a-floating
A desperate need to urinate.
back to the wall
A precarious position, in hard financial straits. "Now that the stock market's
gone down, Mark's got his back to the wall."
back up
To withdraw.
backward
Afflicted, mentally retarded. "Poor Mrs. Matthews, she's got that backward
boy and that hinders her a heap."
Shy.
back water
To back away, to yield. Also to repent, to give in and change one's attitude.
back-water
The water behind a mill dam which is usually still and backed up for use
in grinding meal, corn or wheat. "No, I can't grind today because I ain't
got no back-water."
bacon meat
Bacon.
as bad as marrying the devil's daughter and living with the old folks.
There's so much bad in the best of us
That it doesn't behoove any of us
To talk about the rest of us.
bad actor
A rough character, even a dangerous person.
bad blood
Enmity, hate. "No wonder Ed Lucas shot Jed Tart, for there's been bad
blood between 'em for a long time."
Also hereditary tendency toward disease. "Bad blood runs in the family."
bad cess
Bad luck. Often used as an imprecation.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
49
badder
Worse. "Rorie's abadder fellow than Dan McCloud and always has been."
bad egg
An unreliable person, a scoundrel, a faulty thing.
bad eye
The evil eye.
bad fix
A bad situation, injured or very sick. "Dr. Oppenheimer has got cancer
of the throat and is in a bad fix from all that cigarette chain-smoking."
bad lot
Worthless, applied either to things or persons.
It is bad luck to drop a dish.
It is bad luck to help dig a grave for a relative.
It is bad luck to kill a buzzard.
It is bad luck to kill a lizard.
if I'm not badly mistaken
A much-used intro to a statement, meaning I am sure.
Bad Man
The devil. "If you children don't try to do better than you're doing, the
old Bad Man is going to get you, sure as shootin'."
bad medicine
Bad news, bad influence, punishment. "That woman is bad medicine for
him."
bad-mouth
To speak evil of one, to deride, downgrade.
bad name
Ill-repute. "Give a dog a bad name and you just as well shoot him."
bad nigger
A Negro who refused "to keep his place," that is, remain subservient to
the white man, especially the Southern white man.
bad-off
To be very sick or in financial difficulty.
bad penny
An unreliable person, one with potential for trouble, often referred to as
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Paul Green's Wordbook
a "black sheep."
bad place
Hell, torment, "the br'iling pit" as the fanatical hedge preachers call it,
the place where the orthodox and hardshell Christians believe sinners and
unbaptized children and babies go when they die.
How often as a frightened little urchin I have sat in the old Pleasant
Union hard-benched church and shivered under anathemas pouring from
the blazing pulpit where the man of God stood and shouted forth his warnings
and his condemnations. The only way to escape this awful hereafter place,
according to these preachers, is to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him crucified,'' and to lead Christian and godly lives. The belief is current
in the Valley, as elsewhere, that anyone who has not repented of his sins,
taken Christ as his personal Savior and turned his steps to walk in the straight
and narrow path, will burn in everlasting fire after death, a fire seven times
hotter than any fire that can be or ever has been kindled on earth, including
bolts of sizzling lightning. When one of these believers is asked what will
happen in the hereafter to all the millions and even billions of people who
have lived and died and never heard of Christ and never had any chance
to, the answer comes smugly enough from the deacon in Little Bethel Church
saying, "It's just too bad for them, there's no help for it, they've got to
suffer forevermore in the bad place."
You go on with your unregenerate but concerned inquiry.' 'But, Deacon
John, surely you can't believe that all the millions of tiny babies, say, the
innocent ones, the babies born and then immediately dead — and grown
people, too, including the Orientals, the Hindus, the Mohammedans, the
Chinese, the Japanese, Africans, Hottentots, Bantus, Eskimos and who not
— all these who have never heard of Jesus and could not — all these must
burn in this awful fire?"
' 'Too bad for them,'' comes the stern and rock-hard reply again,' 'just
too bad, but that's the way it is."
"How do you know that's the way it is?" the inquirer calls out
half-angrily.
"Why, it's in the Bible, and don't you believe the Bible? It says again
and again, 'Except ye repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, ye shall
all likewise perish.' Read Luke, John too, and the other gospels. Yessireebob, it's as plain as the nose on your face. Don't you believe the holy word,
I say."
The answer from the lost one is, "No, I don't, not that sort of unholy
word. Nor do I believe in such a God who would dispense this kind of insane
and brutal judgment. No!"
And again the stern reply, "That's just too bad for you, too. I see where
you're headed when you die. I'll pray for you, yes, I will, but I misdoubt
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
51
it will do any good. Repent now before it's too late."
And to keep the deacon from kneeling and beginning his prayer for
him right there, the non-believer changes the subject to the pennant race
between the Orioles and the Dodgers baseball clubs. Like the lost one, the
deacon loves baseball, and so they have a good cheerful talk after all and
shake hands friendly-wise when they part.
bad row of stumps
A difficult situation, difficult problems ahead.
in a bad way
In a difficult situation, near bankruptcy or in ill health.
Bad weather usually comes with the autumn equinox, September 22 or 23.
Bad winters come every seven years.
go to the bad
To be ruined, depraved, degenerated.
looks bad
Suspected of wrong-doing, in ill-health. "There's a shortage in John's
account and it looks bad for him."
bag
An elderly woman, usually a prostitute.
It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.
bagabond
Vagabond.
baggage
A trollop, a bad woman.
baggage smasher
A fellow who handles baggage or freight.
bag of bones
A skinny person.
bag of tricks
Devious devices or sells.
bag of wind (a windbag)
A loud, loquacious braggart.
bag of worms
An intricate problem, a dilemma.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
bagpipe
A Scottish wind instrument once loudly played in the Valley, for instance
in leading both Tory and Patriot troops to the Battle of Moore's Creek
Bridge.
bags under the eyes
Puffy protuberances under the eyes, often suggestive of heart trouble, say
the doctors. Also suggest sleepless night carousing.
Bahama grass
See "wire grass."
bailiwick
A politician's district, a person's neighborhood or "stomping ground."
bait
A full meal, a stuffed stomach. "That boy et a bait of chitlins."
The bait hides the hook.
After putting bait on your fishhook, spit on it for good luck.
Be not a baker if your head be of butter.
baker's dozen
Thirteen.
balance
The others, the remainder. "Where are the balance of the folks?"
balance all
A call and movement in a square dance in which one executes a few steps
before swinging his partner.
as bald as a billiard ball
as bald as a doorknob
as bald as an eagle
as bald as an onion
balderdash
Useless talk or argument, rubbish.
bald-faced
Unashamed, obvious. "He told me a bald-faced lie, that's what he did."
bald-faced horse
A horse with a white face.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
53
Why is a man's bald head like unto heaven, son?
Because there's no parting there.
(Riddle.)
bald statement
A brash statement.
balk
A narrow unploughed strip in the middle of two rows, or the amount set
for a plough to plough off in ploughing a field around and around.
as balky as a horse
ball
A happy experience or happening. "I had a ball pitching that game."
Berry. "I had a good holly tree in front of my house full of balls, and once
nigh to Christmastime somebody came in the dead of night and dug it up."
ball-and-chain
A heavy weight. In the old days the dangerous convicts, and often some
who weren't dangerous, had to wear a ball-and-chain as they went out to
work on the roads or help build railroads, or were hired out to dig canals
for certain landowners. Many a pitiful story can be told about those who
wore the ball-and-chain. This kind of punishment has passed away. Balland-chain is also used jocularly for a close clinging husband or wife.
balled up
Tangled up, confused, overwhelmed with work. "I'm so balled up these
days I hardly know where to turn."
ball game
Business, plans. "They found him cheating, and there went his ball game."
bollocks
Testicles.
ball of fire
A very energetic person, a hustler.
balls
Testicles. Also used in an exclamation, "Balls to you" or "Balls!"
ball the jack
To move fast. One of my earliest remembrances of Wesley Armstrong, a
Negro hired man on our farm, was his playing the mouth organ and imitating
the train. And when he came to the part where the locomotive was balling
the jack, we children would hop up and down in shivers of delight.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
bally-hack
To cut and to tear wastefully, mess up.
balm in Gilead
A Bible phrase which is often used by preachers and others to tell of the
healing we on earth who suffer so in this vale of tears will receive in the
hereafter. This balm came from the Gilead region of ancient Palestine.
balmy
Lightheaded, foolish.
Baltimore meat
Cheap, huge slabs of sidemeat, once very popular, especially among Negroes
in the Valley.
bamboozle
To hoax, to deceive. "He was the finest looking fellow you ever saw and
all the time he was bamboozling me to a fare-ye-well."
band dog
A dangerous dog. One that has to be tied up, banded up.
bang about
To travel about carelessly. "You can bang about and get all kinds of reports
as to the world going to the dogs." Also to treat roughly.
bang-up
Fine, first-rate, good. "He did a bang-up job on that barbecue."
bank
A cloud. "A dark bank in the west presages rain."
bank on
Depend on, count on. "You'd better not bank on that woman since she
took to smoking them cigarettes."
bantam
An active, fiery person. "He was a little bantam all right, but he carried
the difference in his pocket in the shape of a switchblade knife."
bantlin
Same as bantam, an undersized person.
baptism
The custom of either immersing or sprinkling a newly converted sinner. It
is a common belief in the churches that children or babies that have not been
baptized must go direct to hell when they die. The custom of baptism is to
immerse one in a baptismal font or a lake or millpond, or to sprinkle on
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
55
the head water from a baptismal font as the Methodists do — the Baptists
prefer immersion — those sinners who have repented or those children who
are being christened.
baptizing
A ritual use of water, either immersion or sprinkling, to symbolize purifying
the converted sinners and admitting them to the Christian fellowship.
In the neighborhood where I was reared, the main baptizing place was
the Reuben Matthews millpond. I'll never forget the day when I as a boy
was baptized. I was so self-conscious that I even sweated while the preacher
was leading me and a line of others into the water. I was sure that everybody
was looking at me and only me. It was all a strange custom and, as young
as I was, I wondered about it. Not many years later, to show how I backslid,
I went to one of the baptizings at the same millpond, and two or three other
teenage boys and I climbed up in the top loft of the millhouse and peered
discreetly out of the open door there and watched the proceedings below.
At many a baptizing before I had noticed how the deacons and the men
standing on the bank watched the young women be led slowly into the water
as they held the hand of the preacher or the person in front and with the
free hand constantly pushed down their skirts to keep from revealing too
much. And how sometimes when they were dipped under to the words,
"Sister Sarah Matthews, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son
and the Holy Ghost," down under they'd go and often come up squealing
and sputtering. Well, one day, as I say, we boys were hid upstairs with our
beanshooters. We had BB shot for our ammunition and, when the girls were
standing out in the water with their skintight clothes revealing much of their
anatomy, which was the more keenly watched by the male members of the
congregation along the bank, we fellows would let fly silently with our
beanshooters and sting these girls with our invisible shot. When one girl
would squeal and jump, we would duck behind the level of the door and
hide, and the persecuted ones would look around to see from whence this
biting and pinching came. We remained uncaught and all of this discomfort
was attributed to the dog-flies which were usually plentiful in those hot days
of August.
"Barbara Allen"
The famous and perhaps most beloved of all tragic love ballads. There are
many, many versions. Lynn Riggs, the playwright, used to visit us with his
guitar, and always we would call for his "Barb'ry Allen." We would sit
and gulp back our tears as the sad tale was sung, telling of Willie's futile
love that killed him and of Barbara's death to follow. (Lynn Riggs was author
of many plays including "Green Grow the Lilacs" from which the Richard
Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein musical "Oklahoma" was made.)
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Paul Green's Wordbook
"Sweet Willie was buried in one grave
And Barbara in another.
A rose bush sprung from Willie's grave
And from Barbara's a briar.
"They grew and grew to the tall church door
Til they could not grow any higher.
They linked and lived in a true love's knot,
The rose wrapped 'round the briar."
barbecue
A popular roasted pork dish, cooked with skill and patience. A dressed whole
split pig is laid on poles or iron bars across an open pit in which a fire of
hickory wood has been built and burned down to coals. During the some
twelve hours of slow cooking these coals are replenished from time to time
and the important sauce, composed principally of vinegar and pepper, is
brushed over the pig at intervals, even as the pig itself must be turned to
insure proper and even cooking. When the meat is thoroughly cooked and
seasoned and allowed to cool, it is sliced and minced, which we prefer in
the Valley, and served, usually with cole slaw and cornbread. Rocky Mount,
North Carolina, used to be a sort of barbecue capital.
The word "barbecue" now often stands for a picnic or social gathering —
sometimes called too "a pig-pickin' " — for always barbecue is the chief
dish on such occasions.
Another use of the word referred to the horror of the electric chair.' 'Well,
yesterday was Friday the thirteenth and it was an unlucky day for a lot of
them fellows. Three of 'em were put in that chair and barbecued."
Malcolm Fowler, my historian friend from Lillington, saw one of the
executions. He told me that as he was looking through the window to the
death chamber at that big strong white man sitting in the chair, naked to
the waist, "they shot the juice into him, that two thousand volts, and the
hair on his chest caught fire and sizzled away." And Malcolm got sick at
the stomach and hollered, from the observation room, "Let me out of here,
let me out!" And they did.
Barbecue Church
The famous old Presbyterian Church where Flora MacDonald worshipped
and where in the old days Reverend John McLeod would preach two sermons
— one in English and one in Gaelic — to satisfy his Scotch congregation.
According to John A. Gates, "The first grave within the 'Auld Kirkyard
o' Barbecue' was said to be that of a stranger who appeared late one
afternoon at the home of John Dobbin nearby. The stranger appeared
seriously ill, unable to travel farther. Only one person, a woman, was at
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
57
home at the time. She told the man it would be impossible for him to receive
accommodation there for the night. The stranger traveled on toward the
church which had recently been built. The woman, becoming frightened,
decided to go to the nearest neighbor's home to spend the night. She walked
from Barbecue to the Gully McLean place, which is near the present post
office of Overhills, a distance of eight miles or more, and remained there
overnight. Next day, the body of the stranger was found prone upon the
church steps and was buried hard by the church, the first grave at Barbecue.''
And from that time to this the door of the church is never locked.
barefooted
To be without means, penniless. "You tell me to be patient and, Lord God,
I'm barefooted as a yard dog."
barefooted horse
An unshod horse.
bare naked
Nude, naked, also stark naked, mother naked.
b'ar hog
Boar.
bark
To skin, to hurt. "Golly, I barked my shin against that snag."
To cough. "Hey, boy, why you barking so?"
He's all bark and no bite.
His bark is worse than his bite.
bark at the moon
To clamor or argue uselessly. Also to attempt the impossible.
barking dogs
Aching feet. "I've already walked five miles and I've got to rest my barking
dogs."
barking iron
An instrument in the old days used for removing bark from red oak logs
or other trees whose bark was suitable for tanning hides or for medical uses.
bark up the wrong tree
To be mistaken, to act foolishly.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
barley
A cereal grain much planted in the old days. It pretty much disappeared
in the latter part of the nineties but it is now beginning to come back into
favor.
barley corn
Usually referred to as John Barley Corn. Robert Burns' poem "John Barley
Corn" used to be well known in the Valley. Phil McNeill could recite it
beautifully when drunk.
"Then let us toast John Barley Corn
Each man a glass in hand.
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland."
barlow knife
A very popular pocket knife in the old days. This knife could be bought
from Sears and Roebuck for twenty-five cents. It still can be bought around
in hardware stores here and there. The last one I got I bought in Canyon,
Texas, and it cost me $1.25. The barlow knife is a special knife to me, and
it is special to at least one other person in the Valley I can tell you about.
When I was a little boy, I had a Negro playmate named Rassie McLeod.
His father was a tenant on my father's farm — the only tenant we had, and
the family lived in an old shack, for we were all very poor. Rassie was the
same age as I was and he was wondrously smart. He knew all kinds of woods
lore and little shortcuts in how to get things done. He taught me how to
chew tobacco, how to spit through my teeth, how to shoot dogwood berries
out of one nostril while holding a finger or thumb against the other — shoot
them out sometimes with the speed of a little popgun — and he finally taught
me how to swim. In those faraway golden days we progued the woods many
an hour when we were not busy in the cotton patch. And we were wont to
make little waterwheels and see them turn gaily in the swift flowing tiny
branch when the rains came. And we would make small pinebark boats,
with an upright little mast and dry oak leaf for a sail, and watch them skid
and turn and usually sink in the turmoiling stream. His prized working utensil
was an old barlow knife which he had picked up somewhere.
Typhoid fever used to be man's raging enemy—along with tuberculosis
— up and down the Cape Fear River Valley. Rassie's family came down
sick with it. The two older brothers, Preacher and Herbert, were stricken,
and the parents, Will and Zelda, prayed unceasingly night and day for their
recovery. Dr. Joe McKay was summoned by my father — Dr. Joe, as he
was familiarly called, delivered all of us Green children — and he came over
in his horse and buggy. He came several times more as the fever ran its course.
My older half sister nursed the sick ones as best she could. I tried to help
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
59
her but was forbidden both by her and Dr. Joe to come near the sick folks.
Later she reported Rassie was stricken. I wanted to go to see him but
she picked up a stick and ran me away from the front door of the shack.
A day or two later Rassie died. In spite of all remonstrance I went to
see him and there he lay dead on the floor, his little stomach all swelled out
like one of these balloons you buy at the circus. I helped my sister wash him
and make him ready for the grave. She unrolled a nightshirt to put on him.
"It's one of yours," she said.
"It's all right, it's all right," I sobbed. "I want him to have it."
"And I reckon it's a fair swap," she said, "cause 'fore he died he said
he wanted you to have his barlow knife." And reaching behind her, she
picked it up from the chimney corner and handed it to me.
And all the while Herbert and Preacher, lying in their bed, were hasseling
and whickering away in delirium with the sounds of two sucking pigs. And
Will and Zelda were kneeling and bumping their heads against the floor,
crying out to the old Moster to have mercy and save their boys. Dr. Joe came
and surveyed the wrack and ruin. To me he looked about seven feet tall and
powerful as God Almighty. He stood by the bed with one of his hands on
Herbert, holding his big gold watch open. Then he snapped the lid of the
watch to, and it sounded like the snap of a steel trap to me. His voice burst
from him in rage.
"Why in the name of God a man will let his tenants live in such a mess
as this I don't know!" he snarled. "Let 'em die, let 'em all die!" And he
strode out of the old shack, climbed in his buggy and drove away.
Later my father and I made a coffin for Rassie and we took him up
in the field and buried him. And I put some limp cotton in the coffin for
his head to rest on.
Since that time I have carried a barlow knife in my pocket — in
remembrance of my dead playmate of long ago.
My more recent neighbor, Dr. Amos Brown, said the barlow knife was
special to him too. One day when we were talking about the eradication
of typhoid fever and other things, I mentioned Rassie to him and he told
me about his own knife. "I've got to go out to see a patient that thinks he's
got heart trouble," he said, "and maybe you'd like to ride along with me
and I'll tell you the story.
'' Yes," he continued as we drove along in his old Ford, "John Dupree
was on his last legs when I went out to see him — over there on Black River
— or on his last back, you might say, as he was lying in bed too sick to move.
When we were boys, John and I had a bad falling out about a barlow knife.
I had ordered myself one from Sears and Roebuck or somewhere and I sure
did love that knife. I showed it off at Little Bethel School and John saw
it and wanted it. He asked me if he could feel it, and I handed it to him.
Then he laughed, put it in his pocket and said he was going to keep it. I
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begged and pleaded but nothing doing. He made me so mad that I went
after him hot and heavy and we had a real fight. He was bigger than I was
and he gave my body a terrible beating. So all the way home walking through
the woods I kept crying. But I stopped before I got to the house, washed
my face in the branch and went on, too proud to let any of my folks know
what had happened.
"Naturally, after that I never liked John Dupree. He quit school, as
I remember, at the end of the year, went off and hired out to help build
the railroad that now runs from Dunn to Durham. He got in a fight over
there and had a brush or two with the law. Then he left and went to Georgia
and I went to Chapel Hill and then to medical college in Pennsylvania.
"What do you reckon! A few months ago a woman came to see me,
and was I surprised! Purty, my goodness, and built up in front like one of
these statues of Venus de Milo. She said she wanted me to come to see John.
I found out then that he had come back from Georgia to the old homeplace.
Over the years I had heard some talk now and then that he had been in trouble
down in Georgia, had served some time in the penitentiary for shooting a
man and so on. So, as I say, I was surprised to have this woman come to
see me and to learn that John had come home — and I learned further that
he had come home to die.
" 'Is he your husband?' I asked her. And she waited a while and said
that he wasn't but she loved him just the same and she would do all she could
for him in his last days.
"I went out to see him. He was in bad shape. He had cancer, cancer
of the testicles, a kind of rare thing but he had it. As far gone as he was
he recognized me and got hold of my hand with both of his cold trembling
ones and said pleadingly, 'Can you do something for me, Amos, can you?
We used to be boys together, you know.' I told him I would do the best
I could and for him to rest and take it easy. I gave him a shot to ease his
pain and then went outside and talked to the woman. Her name was Lydia.
I gave her some pain pills to give John now and then and told her I didn't
think there was much we could do for him.
" 'There must be, there must be!' and her voice was full of pleading.
She surely loved that scoundrel and, though by this time the neighborhood
was buzzing about what sort of woman she was, I felt like taking off my
hat before her. And I did.
' 'Two or three days later I went out to see John again and he was gone.
She had taken him up to Duke Hospital. Where she got the money, I don't
know. Maybe she got it the way some people snickered and talked about,
but I am not judging her. When you see a woman that loves a man the way
she loved John and tried to save him, all you can do is say Amen and bless
her for it. Anyway she was always a perfect lady around me.
"They operated on him at Duke and she brought him home, and for
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
61
a while he seemed to mend. Then he went down hill sudden-like, like the
sun sinking out of sight on a dark winter evening, as you might say.
"I went out to see him again and he was dead. She was sitting by the
bed holding one of his shriveled hands in both of hers.
"Well, she told me how John had died during the night and died
somewhat easier in his mind, and she told me why this easing had come to
him.
'' 'You know,' she said looking up at me with her big dark eyes, 'every
day he would ask if what he'd had me order from Sears-Roebuck had come
in the mail. It come yesterday. He said he wanted you to have it. You would
understand because of what happened when you were two little boys way
back there at Little Bethel Schoolhouse, he said. Then she got up and took
a little package from the mantelpiece and handed it to me. I opened it and
inside was a barlow knife.
" 'He said he wanted you to forgive him,' she said.
" 'Yes, I forgive him,' I said. And we crossed John's hands on his breast
and pulled the sheet up over him.
' 'We got the neighbors and buried John two days later, and I was proud
to stand by her side at the grave with the people looking on. After that she
went away, back to Georgia, I reckon. I wrote there trying to find out about
her. I was taken with her — I don't mind telling you. But not a word of
her did I ever learn. Ah, a woman's love is a wonderful thing, ain't it. Well,
here's where we stop."
And we drew up in front of a run-down farmhouse.
"And by the way," he said as we got out of the car, "like you I carry
a barlow knife with me. But mine is the same one she gave me with her own
hand. I've never lost it." And he clasped his britches pocket possessively
and he went up the walk to the house.
barn door
Abigtarget, something too big to be missed. "Cross-eyed as he is, hecouldn't
hit a barn door with that old gun."
barning
To put crops, especially tobacco, into the barn for curing. When the barning
time comes on, it is a busy time indeed for the farmers. The ripened tobacco
leaves are primed, that is, cropped from the stalk, tied in bundles, put on
sticks, and hung in the barn and fires put under them. In the old days, wood
was used in the furnaces. But in these later days oil burners are used.
A barn well filled,
A land well tilled,
And a woman well willed
Are the greatest blessings under the sun.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
barnyard chorus
A group of people, a sort of rabble.
Also a popular children's game in the Valley. In a whisper the leader assigns
to each player the name of the farm animal or bird he is to imitate. All are
to grunt, moo, cackle, bray, etc. when the signal "Barnyard chorus!" is
given. However, the leader has secretly instructed all but one, always a
newcomer, to remain silent at the signal. So it is that only the voice of the
unfortunate one is heard, much to his or her embarrassment. The trouble
with this game is it can be played only once by the group and has to wait
till another person ignorant of the game arrives.
barrel
To collect, as grain, for storage. "He barreled his potatoes."
To move or drive fast. "He went barrelling down the road and no wonder
he had a wreck in that old car."
Scraping the bottom of the meal barrel makes mighty poor music.
barrel house
A wide open saloon.
barrow
A castrated boar.
to set one's barrow down
To quit on the job.
bar-shear plough
A wooden mould-board plough with strips of iron nailed on to the board
to save it from wear. This was used in the early days.
bash
A loud gathering or garden party.
To smash, mash, or beat in. "You keep giving me that sass and I'll bash
in your face, hosscake.'' It was told in my neighborhood how a strong man,
one named Broadhuss (Broadhurst), bashed in the side of his house with
some hoghead bones once when he got irritated with his wife's picayunish
cooking. See "Broadhuss."
bassackwards, bassack'ards
Contrariwise, in reverse direction. "It's as plain as the nose on your face,''
said Mr. Mac, "that the way we're going out to win Southeast Asia by
military force is bassackwards."
Using the word in prim company, one should be sure of his
pronunciation. In "The Common Glory," an outdoor drama of mine, there
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
63
is a speech which included the word. One night the actor — and he was a
good one — said' 'assbackwards" by mistake and, believe it or not, it nearly
broke up the performance. It was something to see and hear — the
embarrassed tittering and shuffling of the audience. The actor felt selfhumiliated. He quit acting and became a preacher.
bastard
Illegitimate. A term of derogation, used often as an expletive. "You
bastard!"
bat
To blink. "That white man hit C.C. Spaulding right in the face when he
come up to the fountain asking for a co'cola, and Spaulding never batted
an eye, just looked at him all sad and sick-like."
A cylinder of cotton made on hand cards and placed between two layers
of cloth for quilting.
An elderly, obnoxious woman.
A night prostitute.
A spree. "He went on a bat so long that the heebie-jeebies got him. He
thought he was in a barn-lot mired up in manure to his neck and a mule
got after him and he couldn't get out. When he started screaming, Bud and
me went to him and held him on the bed. Later we had to take him up to
the asylum in Raleigh to get him dried out."
not bat an eye
To be courageous, able to endure. "He didn't bat an eye when the judge
sentenced him to death."
like a bat out of hell
Quickly, in a headlong manner. "When he saw the Ku Klux there in the
graveyard, he tore down the road like a bat out of hell."
batch
To live alone as a bachelor.
A number, a group, a flock. A batch of children, a batch of chickens.
bats in the belfry
Crazy.
batter bread
Bread made of cornmeal, mixed with eggs and milk and cooked in a deep
earthenware dish or tin pan. It is also called spoonbread.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
batting an eye
Usually "without batting an eye," meaning instantly.
battle axe
A militant woman, or a huge, rawbony female. Also a popular brand of
chewing tobacco.
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
The rousing Civil War song of the Union Army with marvelous lyrics by
Julia Ward Howe. The tune is the old "John Brown's Body Is A-mouldering
in the Grave."
Battle of Bentonville
One of the last battles of the Civil War and a bloody one, fought between
the southern forces of General Joseph E. Johnston and the pursuing northern
forces under General William Tecumseh Sherman on March 20-21, 1865,
in Harnett County. Once more a waste of human life. Johnston lost more
than 2,000 of his men and Sherman some 1,600. As a boy, I saw many an
old soldier who had given away a leg or an arm in this battle and, strange
to say, and not so strange, they all were proud of their sacrificial giving.
Battle of Cuttoden
The famous and bitter battle in 1746 between the British, led by the Duke
of Cumberland, and the Scots, led by Prince Charles Edward, resulting in
the defeat of the Scots. The Duke murdered the wounded Scots on the field
after the battle and thus received the title, "the butcher." But even so, the
Scots in the Valley named their county Cumberland after him.
As a boy I used to hear some reference now and then from an old
Scotsman who had it from his grandfather or some relative as to the bravery
or suffering of an ancestor in that battle. Its influence continued into the
Revolutionary War and had something to do with the division of loyalties
among the Valley Scots. See "Culloden."
battle royal
A loud quarrel, a hectic fight.
battling stick
A stick used to beat clothes while washing them.
batty
Crazy. "Mr. Holloway worried so much after the girl that jilted him that
he finally went plumb batty, and they had to shut him up in Dix Hill."
bawbee
A trifle, anything of small value.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
bawl
65
Squall, yell, cry.
bawl out
Scold, berate.
bayberry
A wax-producing shrub, also referred to as wax myrtle. The plant has
aromatic leaves and hard nut-like berries coated with wax. Bayberry candles
used to be popular, made by pouring the melted wax of the berries into
wooden molds.
A bayberry candle burned to the socket
Brings luck to the house and money to the pocket.
bay the moon
Pursue an empty cause or act foolishly.
bay window
A big belly.
beak of the house
The comb or ridge of the roof.
the be-all to end-all
The final goal, the complete authority.
beam
The hips, buttocks, rump. "She's a broad-beamed woman."
bean
The head. Also a dollar, as "I'm plumb hard up. I ain't got a bean in my
pocket."
to bean
To hit a person on the head, especially with a pitched baseball.
beanery
A cheap eating house.
beans
A standby vegetable in most gardens. There are two main kinds — the string
and the bush. We always planted the bush variety, though some of our
neighbors preferred the other and put up stakes and a clever crossing or
looping of strings for the plants to climb on. The good way of cooking these
beans was with a hunk of hog jowl or side meat. According to the old belief,
any vegetable whose fruit hangs down should be planted on Good Friday,
hangman's day, beans especially.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
not worth beans
No good, bankrupt.
beanstalk
An extremely tall, thin person. Same as slats.
Bear ye one another's burdens.
Every man shall bear his own burden.
bear a hand
To aid, to give assistance to.
to have a bear by the tail
To have a job too big to handle, and at the same time can't let go of it.
To have responsibility in a dangerous situation.
bear cat
A tough person, man or woman.
bear grass
See "yucca."
beard the lion in his den
To face the worst.
beast with two backs
A man and woman in sexual intercourse.
beat
Exhausted, whipped down.
To baffle. "That beats me."
You have to beat clay to make a pot.
beat about the bush
To be evasive, to hesitate, to prevaricate.
beat down
To persuade a lowering of prices, same as to jew down, to wear one down.
beat his bird in the bushes
To masturbate.
beatingest
The outdoingest, most outlandish, wildest. "He's the beatingest man I've
ever seen."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
67
beat it
A command to leave, to get away.
beat of
A special or unusual thing or person. "I've never seen the beat of that boy
the way he acts."
beats the Dutch
Outlandish, a matter of surprise. "That beats the Dutch."
beat the band
To be in excess of, up to a surprising degree. "Lord, that man could yodel
to beat the band." "It's raining to beat the band."
beat the gums
Idle talk, foolish palaver.
beat the jews
A reference to an act of cleverness or accomplishment.
Also a mild expletive.
beat the lard out of
A common parental threat of a spanking for unruly children.' 'You all stop
that fighting or I'll come in there and beat the lard out o' you."
beau catcher
A little frilled curl ladies arranged near the ear for seductive effect.
beaut
A beautiful person or thing.
as beautiful as the dawn
as beautiful as the sunset
"Beautiful Dreamer"
One of Stephen Foster's greatest songs.
Beauty buys no beef.
Beauty is as beauty does.
Beauty is like a rainbow, full of promise but short lived.
Beauty is only skin deep.
Beauty never made the kettle boil.
beauty sleep
Early night sleep.
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Beauty's only skin deep,
Ugly's in the bone,
Beauty soon will pass away,
Ugly hold her own.
(A proverb rhyme.)
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
I've seen lots of beauty but never et a mess of it.
Beaver
A game.
bed
What has four legs, a head, a foot and can't walk and can't talk?
(Riddle.)
Four legs up, four legs down
Soft in the middle, and hard all around.
(Riddle.)
As you make your bed so you must lie.
bedag
A mild expletive.
bed cord
The rope used in cord beds crossed from railing to railing to hold the mattress.
"Listen, gal, my love is bed cord strong."
bedful of bones
An emaciated sick person.
bedo and bedamn!
A mild expletive.
bed offer
To tempt sexually, a woman offering herself to a man for sexual use.
bed of roses
Easy living.
get out of bed on the wrong side
To be irritable, bellicose.
between you and me and the bedpost
Secretly.
bed stick
A bed slat. A short piece of plank used to hold up the springs or mattress.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
69
bed straw
A fast growing creeper that will cover a garden plot in a few days if not
gathered up. It is easily disposed of. Chewing it and swallowing the juice
was supposed to be good for a nervous condition.
bed tick
A big bag, a sort of thing for holding the goose feathers for the bed.
bee balm
A member of the mint family. Sometimes called "Oswego tea." It grows
luxuriantly in wet places and along stream banks. In the old days a tea made
from it was good to help women over their "monthlies."
bee bread
Brown substance in the honeycomb.
beech
This lovely tree is most common in the center and upper reaches of the Valley
and is a favorite for lovers to carve their initials on. There is a common belief
that it, like the sweet gum, is never struck by lightning. The bark was often
used for tanning when red oak bark was not available.
beef
To complain, to bellyache, to growl. "If that fellow can't quit beefing about
his job, I'm going to fire him."
beef up
To increase, to strengthen.
beefy
Stout, heavy, over-fleshed.
bee gum
A hollow gum for keeping bees, usually from a black gum tree. Also, an
old-timey container made by sawing off the length of a hollow tree and
closing up one end of it for holding grain or other farm produce.
bee-gum hat
A tall hat with a cylindrical crown such as Lincoln wore in the Civil War
on his visit to the front.
bee in one's bonnet
To have a special purpose or a secret scheme.
beeline
The straightest line between two points.' 'When his pappy called, little Willie
made a beeline for home."
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Beelzebub
The head man in hell as described in the Bible. The same as Satan, the Devil,
the Bad Man, Old Black Boy, Old Nick, Belial, etc.
bee-martin
A bird especially good at driving off hawks or crows. When I was a boy,
nearly every farm in the Valley had a pole raised with cross-arms above from
which hung a number of gourds with little openings cut in them for the
martins to nest. This custom is passing away. Recently in Chapel Hill, North
Carolina, Joe Jones brought me a number of gourds to put up, but I haven't
seen one bee-martin yet.
been had
Seduced, tricked, cheated. "Yes," she said gleefully as she pulled up her
drawers, "I've been had."
been there
Experienced, been around. "Boy, you needn't try to get around him, he's
been there."
Beersheba
A place mentioned in the Bible, and usually spoken of in connection with
Dan, meaning from A to Z or from here to yonder. The expression was
"From Dan to Beersheba."
bees
A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay,
A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon,
A swarm of bees in July is not worth a fly.
(Folk belief.)
bee's knees
Something excellent, same as the cat's whiskers. A clever action or a good
play at cards, or a nice and happy situation.
bee-tree
In the old days hunters kept their eyes out to find bee-trees. These were trees,
usually hollow black gums, in which bees had built, and sometimes when
they were cut down a great deal of honey could be got. I remember one man
in Cumberland County telling me that he had cut down a bee-tree once and
had over two hundred pounds of honey from it.
beezer
The nose, the face.
before you can bat an eye
Very quickly, instantly.
�An A Iphabet of Reminiscence
71
before you could say Jack Robinson
Instantly.
before you could say scat
Also quick.
Bfrom bull's foot
An expression of confusion, ignorance. "They were so drunk they didn't
know B from bull's foot."
Be fruitful and multiply.
beggar lice (ticks)
A pestering plant to anyone walking in wastelands or grown-over fields in
late August or September. These lice or ticks, their seeds, stick to your
trousers or dress most tenaciously. "So do they distribute themselves in the
land," said my friend Dr. Henry Totten at Chapel Hill. This caused me to
ask if maybe they had a mind of their own and knew what they were doing.
His answer was a shrug and half a nod. There is much to ponder here, of
course, as everywhere, as to nature's doings, and I have done a lot of that
as I walked among the weeds, the woods, the flowers and other growing
things in the Valley—not only with a shrug and half nod, but with a humbling
of the head. "Do these all," I ask myself, "have the power to think?" As
Dr. Totten might — and my old philosopher friend Mr. Mac would say,
'' Could be." A tea made from boiling the seed was said to be an aid in easing
the discomfort of women's menstrual periods. See "stick-tight."
Beggars must not be choosers.
Beggars breed,
And rich men feed.
If wishes would bide,
Beggars would ride.
If wishes were horses,
Beggars might ride.
beginning to show
Signs of pregnancy. "Mis Mae's girl is beginning to show. Lord have mercy
on her, and she ain't got husband one."
From small beginnings come great endings.
begoudge
To stab or pierce with a knife or sharp instrument. "He got so sick in his
mind that one day he picked up a butcher knife and begoudged himself in
the stomach."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
begredge
Begrudge.
Begun is half done.
behanged!
A mild imprecation.
behave
To act politely. "Now you children behave."
behind beyond
Completely away, gone.
behindhand
The opposite of beforehand, indolent, procrastinating.
go behind the barn
Refers to answering the call of nature, to urinate or defecate.
behind the eightball
To be in an uncomfortable situation, or hemmed in.
being
Since. "Being you are ten, you ought to know better." ' 'Being as how you're
a woman, I'll help you get your car out of that ditch."
bejeck and bejack
To trifle with. Also, a mild imprecation.
be-Jesus
An exclamation, also an indefinite something. "This nuclear threat over
the world scares the be-Jesus out of me!" says Lonnie Cofield.
belam
To lambast, to beat. "You orter seen him belam that old mule."
belfry
Head, brain.' 'He's got bats in his belfry,'' which means crazy ideas, loony
thoughts.
Believe only half you hear.
Believe I will.
Same as "yes." "Will you have more soup, Mr. Barnes?" "Believe I will."
A man believes what he wishes to.
beliked
Loved.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
73
A cracked bell can never be mended.
The higher the bell, the farther it sounds.
a bell-clapper
A loose tongued person. Retarded, loony.
bell cow
An old woman, a gossip, a scold.
belled buzzard
In Harnett County when I was a boy, a story was told how an old Negro
caught a crippled buzzard and put a little bell around his neck. Then he let
the buzzard loose. The buzzard was healed of his hurt and flew away, but
he continued to haunt the neighborhood, and he could be heard flying
through the air, the little bell tinkling as he soared and dipped. And it was
told that when the old Negro was nearing death, this same buzzard came
and sat on the roof of his house. Now and then he would shake himself,
shivering, lift his wings and hop about to ring the bell the while. After the
old man died, the buzzard flew away and was never seen again.
Stuffed bellies make empty skulls.
bellowsed
Wind-broken. "I ain't never liked Jim Harmon since he traded me that
bellowsed horse."
bell the cat
To attempt something dangerous, risky.
bellwether
The leader, sometimes tinged with derision. "That Sadie Cutts is just an
old bellwether."
His eye was bigger than his belly.
Said of one who overloads his plate with food, takes too much, or undertakes
more than he can accomplish.
bellyache
To complain.
bellyband
The girth in harness or saddle paraphernalia.
belly-buster
A flat dive so that one's stomach hits the water first.
belly button
The navel.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
bellyful
Enough, an excessive amount. "I've had a bellyful of that fellow."
belly-shot
Cattle, horses or mules, whose bellies are swollen and hang down low.
Shrunk-gutted.
My belly thinks my throat's cut.
To be ravenously hungry.
belly-wash
Patent medicine. Most of the curative tablets and liquids advertised on
present-day television can be so described.
Also a slang name for coffee.
belong
To deserve. "You belong to have your butt whipped for spittin' in that
woman's face."
Should, ought. "If the bonds belong to be in the safety deposit box, then
put 'em there."
belt
To chop a ring around a tree to make it die. Also to strike a blow at someone.
belt out
To sing loudly.
belt-tightening
Economical action, cutting down expenses.
bench fice
A dog with a long body and short legs.
bender
A spree, a wild drunk. "He went on a bender three weeks ago and ain't struck
a lick of work since."
bend the elbow
Take a drink of liquor. "Yeh, he had too much bending of the elbow and
theD.T.'sgot him."
benny
An automobile. The term may come from the old Benjamin Franklin car.
bent and determined
"He was bent and determined to go to see that girl and he did."
bent but not broken
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
75
Bermuda grass
This grass was used widely as a purge when chewed. Even the dogs still chew
it to make themselves vomit.
berries
The real thing, a special person or thing. "That Bryan girl is the berries."
berry
A jeer, same as raspberry.
be-shame bush
The sensitive plant. We boys were taught that if you touched its leaflets and
said, "Be shame, be shame," the little petals would close up. We soon saw
they would close to the touch with or without the words. We were also told
that if it thundered, the petals would close in preparation for rain. I don't
remember I ever checked this out.
besides
Except. "Everybody besides you three go out."
beslobber
To slobber, to slobber on.
best
To outdo, to get the better of.
The best comes first.
best fellow or best girl
A sweetheart.
to put one's best foot forward
To make a good impression.
The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merryman.
The best way to lose a friend is to lend him money.
Bethel
The name given to many a church in the Valley. I used to call the
neighborhood in which I grew up "Little Bethel" and wrote many a story
and play about the people who lived there. The word means "The house
of God," "hallowed spot."
Bethesda
A name common in the Bible and also very popular as a name for churches
in the Valley and elsewhere.
better a neighbor that is near than a brother that is far-off
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Paul Green's Wordbook
better be alone than in ill company
better be poor than wicked
better be sure than sorry
better be wise by the misfortune of others than by your own
better half
One's husband or wife.
better have it than hear of it
better late than never
better one plough than two cradles
The better part of valor is discretion.
better something than nothing at all
better suffer wrong than do wrong
better than
More. "He'll take better than an hour at a meal every time."
the better the day, the better the deed
better to be happy than wise
better to bend than to break
better to be safe than sorry
better to be than seem. The North Carolina motto - "Esse quam videri."
better to die on your feet than to live on your knees
better to do well than to say well
better to go to heaven in rags than to hell in embroidery
better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting
better to leap before you look than always to look and never leap
better to save a man from dying than to mourn for him when he is dead
better to smoke here than hereafter
better wear out shoes than sheets
better to wear out than to rust out
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
77
Betty Boddie bought some butter,
But the butter Betty bought was bitter.
Then she bought some better butter
To make her bitter butter better.
When she bought her better butter,
It made her batter better.
Tip top tangle tongue
Say this riddle I have sung.
(A tongue twister.)
betty
A name for various tools. "Hand me my betty from that box."
between a rock and a hard place
In tight circumstances, bankrupt, in a precarious position.
between kin see and kain 't see
Between daylight and dark.
between me and you and the gatepost
Confidential, secret.
between the devil and the deep blue sea
In a bind, in a quandary, in a tough situation.
between two fires
In a tough situation.
between whiles
Between times.
betwixt
Between.
betwixt and between
Uncertain, not knowing what to do. "I'm all betwixt and between on this
matter of capital punishment."
Also at odd moments, in one's spare time. "I'll work it in somehow—betwixt
and between."
bet your boots
A phrase of emphasis, a mild expletive.
bet your bottom dollar
Another phrase of emphasis.
bet your life
Also a phrase of emphasis.
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Beulah land
The land of heart's desire mentioned in the Bible and often sung about and
preached about by members of the Christian faith as identical with the New
Jerusalem in yonder world. The place the faithful shall go to when they are
dead, there to play their harps, drink of the wters of life, and praise almighty
God forevermore.
Beware of a woman with honey in her mouth and a sting in her tail.
Beware of the forepart of a woman, the hind part of a mule and all sides of
a priest.
beyond the beyond
The absolute distance, far far away.
beyond the shadow of a doubt
Absolutely, without any question.
The Bible says
The quoted authority to confirm a truth, to silence all opposition.
Bible thumper
A preacher.
biddy
A child, young girl. Also a freshly hatched chicken.
biff
big
To hit, to strike with the fist, to buffet.
To make pregnant. "He went and bigged Joe Turner's gal. No wonder
they're after him with a shotgun."
as big as a house
as big as an elephant
as big as life
big as life and twice as natural
In full presence.
big ass
A fat girl or boy, usually refers to a girl.
big auger
The boss. To bore with the big auger is to have great influence, also to show
off.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
79
big bed
Used in contrast with the trundle bed.' 'You can sleep in the big bed tonight.''
big blade
The boss, a splurging man, usually living beyond his means.
Big Boss
Jehovah, God.
big boy
A man, a foreman, a boss.
big bug
Same as big gun, big one, big shot, big stuff, big wig. A notable person,
a millionaire, a political boss.
big butt
A big posterior, buttocks.
big daddy
An affectionate term for a boss, leader, factory or union head who has a
special care for those who work for him or serve him. Also an indulgent
lover and sexually potent man.
big dog
Same as big bug.
the big end of the horn
To come out profitably. "Did you hear of Marshall Turlington in that real
estate deal? Man, man, he come out at the big end of the horn on that, and
I come out on the little end."
big-foot
A clumsy person.
no bigger than a minute
no bigger than a possum's peter
There's a family — Mr. & Mrs. Bigger and
their little daughter. Of the three which
is the bigger?
(Riddle.)
Why, the daughter, of course, for she's a
little Bigger,
biggest
The maj ority, the largest part. " I was there the biggest part of the night.''
biggity
Proud, stuck up, insolent.
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big gun
Same as big boss.
big house
The landlord's or boss's house, also the penitentiary.
Big John
A muscular stout man, any man of great physical size and strength. Also
a semi-fictional character in Negro folklore in the Valley and elsewhere.
There are many tales told about the Negro Big John and his gluttony
and laziness, and I have heard them from different sources. I copied down
one Aunt Fanny McDade told me about the old rapscallion. Aunt Fanny
was a prideful Negress who owned her own home in Chapel Hill, at the corner
of Cameron Avenue and Graham Street, and lived to be a hundred and four
years old. She died in 1964. She used to say to her friends with a chuckle,
"I come in with Lincoln but I didn't go out with him." She was for a long
time a favorite with the university people and her recollections went far back
to Mrs. Spencer, Presidents Battle, Winston and others and on up to recent
days. I copied down many of the things she told me about Chapel Hill, and
in one of my notebooks I wrote down her story of Big John.
"Yessuh, yessuh, Mr. Green," she said one day as she lifted her heavy
sad iron off the lacy dress she was ironing for one of the university wives
and peering over her steel rim spectacles at me, "put this in your pipe and
smoke it. There are plenty of people in this world who holler Lord and follow
devil. And they make a big squealing and little wool as this same old Satan
said when he sheared his hogs. And Big John was like that, a hypocrite from
way back, in the old days. Yessuh, he was a lazy good-for-nothing old
scoundrel, that's what he was. And there was nothing he liked better than
to lie up and snooze whilst his wife and children did all the hard work. And
there in his bed he kept saying and pretending he was sicker'n he was and
that he wouldn't be long for this world and soon would be flapping his wings
at the pearly gates. And he had one speech which he kept calling out — 'Old
Moster in Heaven, come and take me, take me whole soul and body, take
me away to thy mansion in the skies.' And that's the kind of tune he kept
a-going.
"The people passing along the road, the neighbors, could hear this old
nigger lying up there in his feather bed a-praying and a-talking this good
holy talk. And the folks brought him plenty of good things to eat, seeing
as how he was so close to God, they thought. But it was all a blind. For
that old devil wasn't any more interested in religion than a goat in a bass
fiddle. As I said, it was just his excuse to laze and do nothing and eat the
good things his wife and children worked out for him and the neighbors
brought in.
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81
"It may be easy to fool the niggers, Mr. Green, but you take it from
me, you can't fool the good white folks, not for long. They've got brains
— even like you and the other 'fessors that teach in the university here. So
it was that good old Moster Landlord, the white man, was on to old Big
John. He could see through him. So he said to Big John's wife one day,
he said, 'Liza' — her name was Liza — 'you and me's got to do something
'bout him.'
" 'Yes sir, Marse Landlord,' said Liza.
"So they put their heads together in a manner of speaking and made
their plans.
"Now one day in the fall when the cotton was hanging white as snow
in the field and needed picking mighty bad, old Big John was lying up in
the bed there same as usual and putting out his prayers and hollers more
than ever. You see he was slick, the worse the cotton needed picking, the
louder was his holy talk. And he was sending forth his refrain. 'Do Lord
God, old Moster, Savior mine, come and get me, whole soul and body! Come
now, I'm in a state of grace and pure and ready.'
"And then right spang in the middle of the night and in his praying
and talking there come a heavy tromp, tromp on the porch and a bam, bam,
bam on the side of the weatherboarding and then a big voice calling out,
'All right, Big John, here I am, I've come for you.'
"Old Big John didn't quite catch the words at first. And so he prayed
out louder than ever. 'O Heavenly Father,' he said, 'take me, Father, to
thy holy sweet resting bosom, crown me with thy diadem of glory, fit me
with a garment of joy and let me circle the battlements of Heaven like a
pigeon white as snow and the sun shining on me making my whings' — he
said 'whings' — 'yea, let me, Heavenly Father, sing thy praises celestial
evermore.'
"And now the voice out on the porch boomed out good and loud, so
loud that Big John couldn't help hearing it. 'All right, Big John, your prayers
are answered. I've come to get you forevermore.' Old Big John listened and
then shivered and shook and made the bed rattle with his trembling.
" 'Who's that, who's that?' he said.
" 'It's me, the Great Lord God of Heaven and I've come for you in
answer to your prayers — whole soul and body.'
"Old Big John he still shivered and shook but he quavered out in a
little small voice, 'Thank you, God.'
" 'Make haste,' said the great voice, 'I've got no time to spare. This
is a busy day. I'm gathering in the souls sanctified all round and about.'
"And old Big John lying there in the bed did some mighty quick
thinking. He raised up in his nightshirt and slid his feet out on the floor
and sat there scratching his head and finally he said in a humble sweet voice,
'Oh, Big Moster God, please suh, open the do' so I can look out over my
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crop and say goodbye to it, suh. I wants to say goodbye to all these earthly
scenes below,' he said. So the white Marse Landlord standing out of sight
on the porch in the darkness pulled back the door a little bit.
" 'C'mon, Big John,' he said, 'make it in a hurry.'
'' 'Yes suh,' said Big John, now a little more cheerful like. 'Just gimme
time, suh, to get my hat. It might be mighty cold flying up to Heaven through
them icy stars. And you wouldn't want me to ketch cold, would you, Marse
God?'
" 'That's right, I wouldn't. Get your coat too,' said the white landlord.
'' 'And please, suh, could you crack the do' a little mo' furder so I can
get a last look at the barn where my Mary mule is resting? It's mighty sad
to say goodbye to that faithful mule and me plowing her so many days and
hard.'
"And Marse Landlord pulled the door open a little wider. With that
old Big John set hisself and out he went, same as if the hounds of the bad
place were after him. All in his nightshirt he flew and with his derby hat
set 'pon top of his head.
' 'Now the wife and children were standing out in the yard. They were
on to the trick played by Marse White Landlord, and so Liza she screamed
out, 'Run, John, run!'
' 'And the children they screamed out, 'Run, Pappy, run!' By this time
Marse White Landlord with his white sheet on was chasing John in a hurry
'cross the cotton patch. And Liza screamed out again, 'Run, John, God's
a-gaining on you!'
"And, Mr. Green! John showered down on his speed and he left God
behind him same as if Jehovah was mired down in deep mud up to his knees.
Yessir, old John's feet that night were shod with the wind, they say. And
the pocket of his nightshirt dipped sand, they tell it, as he turned the edge
of the field and was gone from there through the woods. To say you the
truth, that nigger wasn't seen in the neighborhood for weeks on end. Then
one day he came walking back over the hill and he was wearing shoes and
a shirt and working overalls. And guess what he had in his hands. Guess.
Why he had a maul and a wedge, a maul and a wedge to work in his new
ground. And he set to work and they said he was a mighty man at splitting
cordwood and getting up grubs from then on, for you see, God had ketched
him and put that maul and wedge in his hand.
"God ketches everybody. 'Member that, son. Remember."
"Yes, Aunt Fanny, yes."
big jump
An advantage, or a rapid advance or promotion in a job.
big leg
Milk leg. "Poor Lilly Jones, purty as she is, has got that big leg again."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
83
big man
Warden of a penitentiary.
big meeting
A revival meeting, often spoken of as a protracted meeting. These meetings
were usually held in August when "laying by'' time had come, that is, when
tending the crops had been finished until the harvest came on. These were
great social occasions and often ran from two to three weeks with preaching
in the morning, then a picnic lunch or "dinner" on the grounds of the church,
then preaching in the afternoon and often prayer meeting at night. There
was much whooping and hollering in the old days, and many souls were
converted and brought to Christ. In these latter days this type of meeting
has become less protracted and the spiritual manifestations of unknown
tongues and holy dancing and weepings and shoutings have also become
quieter and less loud.
big mouth
A loud talker, a braggart.
put on the big pot
To show full hospitality.
big shot
A millionaire, a prominent person, same as big bug, big dog, big wig, etc.
big stuff
Also a big shot, and also a big business deal, heavy artillery. "After the
whiz-bangs, they turned loose with the big stuff."
big sugar
A kindhearted and generous boss. Also, a big man who is sugar daddy to
some girl who is serving him.
big time
The highest professional ranks, as in sports, the theatre, etc.
big tree, little possum
Big effort and little result.
big wheel
A very important person.
big wig
A big shot, a rich man, a big politician.
big wind
A braggart, a blowhard.
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b'ile
Paul Green's Wordbook
Boil.
b'ile your cabbage down
Lovemaking that cools a woman off.
bill
Mouth.' 'That Silver Queen corn is the sweetest stuff you ever popped your
billon."
The nose or the face. "He hauled off and punched him in the bill."
"Bill Bailey"
A Tin Pan Alley song that has been popular and handed on by word-ofmouth from work field to parlor and back again.
It was one of our favorite pieces. The rhythm of the chopping hoe went
well with it, especially its chorus, and, too, our hard working Christian life
made us feel superior to old Bill riding around in a "diamond coach" —
the sorry scoundrel! Even as we children chopped and sang we wondered
why "she" would cry after the rapscallion, "weeping hard."
" 'Won't you come home, Bill Bailey,
Won't you come home?'
She moans the whole day long.
" 'I'll do the cooking, darling,
I'll pay the rent.
I knows I've done you wrong.
" 'Member dat rainy evening
I drove you out
With nothing but a fine tooth comb?
" 'I know I'se to blame,
Well, ain't dat a shame?
Bill Bailey, won't you please come home?' "
billy
A policeman's club or stick. Also a billy goat.
billy-be-damned!
A mild expletive.
"Billy Boy"
A sort of comic version more or less of the "Lord Randall'' ballad. We used
to say the bouncing words of the numerous stanzas as we chopped cotton.
" 'Oh where have you been Billy Boy, Billy Boy,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
85
Oh where have you been pretty (charming) Billy?'
'I have been to find a wife
She's the joy of my life.
She's a young thing and won't leave her mammy.' "
Old Billy Buck
A guessing game. It is known in many countries under different names. In
our Valley version one player shuts his eyes, or sometimes he is blindfolded,
and bends over. He is then thumped, or pounded on the back with the flat
of the hand while the questioner chants —
"Old Billy Buck
Try your luck,
How many fingers
Do I hold up?"
Fingers are held up by the questioner. The guess is made by Buck. Say he
guesses four when three are held up. The chant and the pounding continue.
"Four you said and three it was
Old Billy Buck,
Try your luck,
How many fingers do I hold up?"
If the guess is correct, the speaker says, for instance —
"Four you said and four it was."
Places are exchanged and the game goes on.
In the game brought into the Valley by the early Scotch settlers, Buck was
a deer, and the question was "How many hands do I hold up?"
billy goat
A male goat. We children used to sing a billy goat song as we worked in
the fields —
"A billy goat was feeling fine,
Ate six red shirts right off the line."
The song went on to tell how his owner in anger tied him to a railroad track
so that a train would kill him. But Billy was smart. As the train was rushing
toward him —
"Bill gave a shriek of roaring pain,
Coughed up a shirt and flagged the train."
"Billy Goat" also means a lecher. The term fitted the widower, old Henry
Leach, so Mis' Sarah Harmon declared. "You know, Paul," she said, "that
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Paul Green's Wordbook
old billy goat went and got him a gal for a wife, only fourteen years old
— just a little frying-size biddy that had no more sense than a pond gannet.
He traded her daddy six hogs and four gallons of moonshine liquor for the
pesky young'un. Now they've got a baby, a little old shriveled-up critter,
looks like a baboon. I've seen it. Ain't that a purty looking way to carry
on the human race? I ask you."
bimeby
By and by.
bind
A tight fix, a worrisome situation. "The United States got itself in a bind
in Vietnam."
To constipate. "Cheese always binds me, so I can't eat it."
binder
A token.
A payment that binds or makes legal a trade or a deal.
binge
A spree, a breakdown, a drunken debauch. "After he joined Alcoholics
Anonymous he stayed sober for a year, but last Saturday he tore loose and
went on a binge."
bird
Derision, heckling, dismissal. "After the big boss bawled him out, he gave
him the bird, and now he's hunting for a job."
A woman's pudendum, also the male organ.
A lively or exceptional girl or boy. "He's a bird, I'll tell you that!"
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
A bird is known by its feathers.
The early bird catches the worm.
Every bird likes its own nest.
It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest.
It's a lazy bird that won't build her own nest.
A little bird wants but a little nest.
Sprinkle the tail of a bird with salt, and he'll be easy to catch.
bird blinding
Once a popular night sport among the boys and girls. In Harnett County
we used to split long lightwood splinters, set them afire at one end and then
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
87
tramp into the newground where brush had been piled in the land clearing.
We would surround a brush pile, hold up our lights and shake them, and
as the birds came out blinded, we would flail the air with our brush broom
mops. Sometimes we killed a sparrow or a snowbird, but most often we
did more courting and snuggling up one with the other than we did hunting.
to join the bird gang
To run away in a hurry, to speed off, to vamoose. "Man, when that
blunderbuss fired off, I joined the bird gang going away from there."
"A Bird in a Gilded Cage"
A sentimental favorite out of the "gay nineties" period. It tells the story
of a young girl who married for money. My mother and sisters loved it,
especially the chorus with its vivid imagery and moral teaching.
"She's only a bird in a gilded cage,
A beautiful sight to see.
You may think she's happy and free from care.
She's not, though she seems to be.
Tis sad when you think of her wasted life,
For youth cannot mate with age.
And her beauty was sold
For an old man's gold.
She's a bird in a gilded cage."
As for my sisters, they didn't need any moral teaching of this sort. Though
the four of them were beautiful and human enough, there was no man
around, young or old, with any gold for their tempting. They all loved and
were loved by more suitable husbands.
bird-nest protection
The wisdom of all nature's creatures is an absorbing mystery. Maybe what
they learn by experience with enough passage of time in repetition becomes
instinctive.
My neighbor recently pointed out to me a wren's nest built in his garage.
A piece of dried snake's skin was in the nest.
"You notice when you can, Paul," he said, "and you'll often see a
snake's skin in a bird nest, especially with wrens. This keeps other marauding
birds away, for all of them — especially little birds — are mortally afraid
of snakes or any sign of them."
I wonder how wrens learned not to be afraid and other birds didn't.
bird omen
A bird that appears suddenly at a house or flies inside it or hangs about it
presages sorrow or bad luck. And if it is a white bird, a death in the house
is pretty certain to follow.
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'' When Hardy Gilchrist's mother was dying,'' said old Aunt Margaret
Messer to me one day, "there come a little white bird and flew around in
the room and made a pitiful cheep, cheep sound and then flew out the
window. And later in the evening it come and set on the comb of the housetop
and still made its pitiful little cheepings. Then about sundown Mi/ Gilchrist
reared up in bed and cried out, with the sunset in the west shining on her,
saying that it was the glory of heaven spilling through the pearly gates to
welcome her home. I was setting up with her and saw and heard it. And
then she died. When we went out and looked for the little bird, it was gone.
And he ain't been seen around here since. But you watch my word, when
some other person in the neighborhood comes down to die, like as not we'll
see that little bird flying around. It's a sad thing to think about, but as the
Bible says, 'The bird shall cleanse the house.' Amen."
There was the case of Henry Whaley. He lived near Wilmington, and
right after he had covered his house with cedar shingles, he looked up and
saw a couple of buzzards roosting up there. He hated to have his shingles
dirtied, so he got out his old muzzle loader and shot at the buzzards, killing
one of them. The next day, believe it or not, his wife and daughter were
killed by lightning. As Mr. Jim Willis said, "A buzzard is a sort of sacred
soul."
Then there was Dr. Joe Robbins near Dunn. He got sold on airplanes
and bought himself one, and every time he got a chance he was up flying
it. And finally he was so taken with flying that he quit going to church and
was out early every Sunday morning, when the weather would allow, flying
back and forth in the air above the houses and fields .Old Burgess McFarland
told me that he warned the doctor about desecrating the Lord's Day.' 'Yes
sir, I warned him before he died. Now the very day he was mortally hurt
he was sailing way up there in the clouds all alone when suddenly a voice
spoke to him and said, 'Dr. Robbins, stop it. I tell you again, stop flying
that thing on Sunday. If you don't, something bad is going to happen to
you for violating the Lord's Day.' But as you know, Doc wouldn't stop
and went right on flying, saying to hisself no doubt that it was his own
imagination made him think he heard a voice. And then the very day he
fell, a little white bird come before time and lit on his airplane wing and
sung and sung a great long while the most pitiful, sad song — peep, peep.
And then it went away and it weren't a minute before the Doc started falling
out of the sky to his death, to his mortal wounding, I say. It's the truth.
Miss Dorine Hughes, the nurse, said Doc kept babbling while he was delirious
and was sinking on down to his death. I tell you, Paul Green, it don't do
to go against the will and the warning signs of the Lord, and if Doc had
minded his God and Savior, he'd be here with us today and not where he
is. Ay, Lord, I hate to think on it!"
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
89
for the birds
Nonsense, not worthy of any sort of consideration. "All that talk of his
about reforming is for the birds."
birds of a feather
A gang of rogues, thieves, also any gathering of like people. The term is
usually derogatory.
Birds of a feather flock together.
Birds of prey never sing.
Old birds are hard to catch.
bird's-nest
See "Queen Anne's lace."
bird sweat
A light rain.
Rubbing one's nose in butter on one's birthday will bring good luck.
birthday suit
In the nude.
birthmark
A peculiar mark or blemish on a young creature's body at birth. There are
innumerable folk-beliefs about birthmarks, their cause and cure.
Aunt Candace Murdoch said her boy was born with the mark of a pickle
on his hip because she had eaten so many sour pickles during her pregnancy.
Constant scrubbing with fresh chicken's blood finally got rid of it, she said.
It is widely believed too that if a pregnant woman develops a craving for
some fruit, vegetable or drink, or anything, and that desire is not satisfied,
her baby will be born with a birthmark on some part of his body resembling
the shape of the desired object or sometimes even to its color.
This reminds me of the Negro couple, Phil Ochiltree and his wife Lucy,
and their dilemma. During her pregnancy Lucy kept telling Phil that she
craved snow. "But how you gonna get snow, woman, here in the heat of
July?" he snapped. Still she kept asking for snow. Finally outdone, he said,
"Goddamit, there ain't gonna be no snow till winter time and maybe not
then and you know it." To which she replied, according to Lonnie Co field,
"Well if this here baby child is born white don't blame me."
I heard of another baby who had the mark of a red apple on its forehead,
and of another that had a red apple near its eye — both caused, so the mothers
said, because of an unsatisfied craving for June Sweet'nings (q.v.) in the
winter time. One of the mothers said she took the advice of old Phinny
Barlow, the cow doctor, who told her she should do the way mother cows
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Paul Green's Wordbook
did when some of their offsprings were marked — lick away the sign. And
so she did, licking nine mornings in succession, and the mark disappeared.
Among the many things desired by pregnant women are apples, cherries,
grapes, molasses, potatoes, strawberries, turnip greens, whiskey, icecream,
snow, Brazil nuts, oranges and tomatoes.
A sudden fright to a pregnant woman too can cause her baby to be
marked. A rabbit that bounces up suddenly in front of her and startles her
may cause her baby to have a harelip. Also any very impressive sight or vivid
object seen at the moment of conception may mark the child to be. An
illustration of this is given in Genesis 30 where the wily Jacob added greatly
to his flocks at the expense of his father-in-law Laban. The Scripture reads
— "Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut
tree and pilled (peeled) white strakes in them and made the white appear
which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the
flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink,
that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived
before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.
And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward
the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own
flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it came
to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods
before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among
the rods. But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in; so the feeebler
were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. And the man increased exceedingly,
and had much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and
asses."
birtle
To cut up, to dance wildly. "I birtled a bit, lad, a wee bit."
biscuit
A watch. We children used to recite a rhymed riddle:
"Round as a biscuit,
Busy as a bee,
Something inside it
Goes ticka-ticka-tee."
biscuit cutter
A cook.
biscuit roller
Also a cook.
bit
Cheated. "We traded horses and, man, did I get bit."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
91
A tiny amount, aniota. "Every little bit helps," astheold woman said when
she pissed in the sea. Also another old saying fits: "Every little bit helps,"
as the old man said when he farted in the storm.
as soon be bit as scared to death
If that had been a snake he would have bit you.
every bit and grain
Completely, to the last iota, just as much. "I'm every bit and grain as good
as you are, for all your praying."
bitch party
A female party.
The bite is bigger than the mouth.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
bit for manners
A bit of food left on one's plate for manners' sake so as not to seem too
hungry. My mother always insisted on our following this custom.
biter bit
A reversal of intent or expectation, and over-reaching, usually with
something of mockery in the happening, a situation or action in which a
person falls victim to his own doing, as depicted, for instance, in the
Sophoclean drama "Oedipus," or an ironical result as in Petronius' story
of "The Matron of Ephesus," in O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi," or
even in the doings of one Fate Hargrave.
Fate, I guess, was about the stingiest man in the Cape Fear Valley. There
was nothing he wouldn't do to turn a penny. But one day he tried for a penny
too much, and so became a sort of laughingstock to his neighbors when
the story got out.
He raised sheep along with his small farming and sold mutton in the
town of Dunston, and a terrible fellow he was for squeezing out every last
cent's worth he could get for his sheep.
It happened that his flock got down in numbers from selling, and about
this time a stray bitch took up at his house hungry as she could be. But of
course Fate wouldn't give the poor creature a crumb. At first he wouldn't.
He ran her off with sticks and chunked rocks at her, but she came back.
A second time he didn't run her off, for an idea had come into his stingy
mind. He kept her and fed her and in the coming weeks fattened her up.
Then one day he was up early before light and killed her and skinned her
and took the meat into the town and sold it for mutton to Jeems Macintosh,
another Scotchman, who ran a cafe.
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After Fate had haggled and got his money and gone away Jeems grew
suspicious. Why, I don't know. Perhaps he found some dog hair on the
carcass rather than sheep's wool. Anyway, from suspicion he came to
certainty in his own mind. So he put the' 'mutton'' in his ice box and bided
his chance. Sometime later, it might have been a few weeks or so, Fate came
into the cafe for lunch. He was over in town attending court, for he dearly
loved to sit in the courtroom and listen to murder trials and hear the
sentencing to death of Negro criminals when such was to be.
"What'll you have?" asked Jeems, the cafe man, as Fate sat down at
the counter.
"What've you got?" asked Fate.
' 'Well, we're running a little short for the time being of everything except
mutton. We've got some mighty good fresh mutton left."
"Enough said,'' said Fate, "you know how I like mutton. That's what
I want."
So the mutton was cooked and served up. Fate ate full and hearty, for
he would get every cent's worth, as I say, even to sopping his plate clean.
"That's good," he said, "good, and I mean good."
"There's more where it come from," said Jeems.
"No, I reckon not."
"Being it's you — no charge for a second helping,'' said Jeems, "seeing
as how you sell me a lot of stuff."
"Well, no sooner said than done,'' said Fate, hunching himself closer
up to the counter in fine good will, pleased that he was getting a double big
meal so cheap.
"And besides, it's nearing Christmas and all," said Jeems, "the spirit
of the giver, you know."
"Right," said Fate, "Christmas is the time for friends to loosen up.
I shore appreciate it, Jeems."
So he had a generous second helping. When he had finished he pushed
back his plate. "Yes sir, I've et mutton here and I've et mutton yonder,"
he said,' 'but this beats everything I've had to a fare-ye-well. I'd like to know
where you got that good mutton, Jeems. Who'd you buy if from?"
"From you," said Jeems, "about a month ago. "And he took the knife
and fork quickly out of the way.
"From me?" said Fate, his voice a little fuzzy.
"Yeh, from you. You remember that Saturday morning when you
brought that sheep in here and I complained about it being a little poor and
small."
Fate gulped once or twice and then in a low voice said, "Yeh, I remember
that —"
"Hey, where you going Fate?"
But Fate was already fleeing out of the door hunting a quiet emptying
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
93
place in the back alley.
He bites off more than he can chew.
bite the dust
To fail, to fall on one's face, to be thrown from a horse, to die.
bite the thumb at
To mock, as in the opening of "Romeo and Juliet."
biting frost
A heavy white frost. After such a frost the weather usually turns warm. After
a day or two the rain comes and the wind whips around to the north. Then
freezing weather comes once more and white or biting frost is repeated.
bit of fluff
A girl, a lighthearted female.
bit of muslin
A girl, a woman.
Once bitten, twice shy.
bitter as gall
bitter as soot
bitty
Same as biddy, a baby chicken.
little bitty
Very small indeed, tiny. "He was a little bitty man."
biz
blab
Business.
To reveal confidential information, to talk too freely, gossip.
blabber-lipped
Thick-lipped.
blab (blabber)-mouth
A loud-mouthed person, a gossip, a loose-tongued talker.
in the black
To show a profit. "He's in the black, not the red, this year, and his wife
is smiling again."
black and blue
Skin discoloration from an accident, but more often due to bruises from
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Paul Green's Wordbook
a fight or beating.
black and white
Written down. "If you want me to believe that and depend on it, put it down
there in black and white."
black as a crow
black as a raven
black as a stack of black cats
black as coal
black as ink
black as midnight
black as night
black as pitch
black as sin
black as soot
black as the ace of spades
black as the back of the chimney
black ball
To vote against, to disapprove of.
Blackbeard
A notorious pirate who preyed on shipping along the coast of North Carolina
and at the mouth of the Cape Fear River in the early part of the eighteenth
century. His name was Edward Teach or Thatch and he was described by
contemporaries as "a swaggering merciless brute." Stede Bonnet, a man
of wealth and good standing in the West Indies, joined Blackbeard in his
piracy. Finally in a battle with British forces Blackbeard was killed; later
Bonnet was captured and hanged.
Blackbeard received his nickname because of his heavy and voluminous black
beard. Several plays and ballads have been written about him.
blackberry
A popular briary bush. We used to go blackberry picking and bring home
bucketsful of the dark berries to be canned, made into jam or eaten fresh
with sugar and milk. Blackberry root tea was especially good for dysentery.
blackberry winter
A cold time that is supposed to come in May when the blackberry bushes
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
95
are in blossom.
black booger
A frightful night creature dreamed up out of the folk imagination and used
to frighten children or persuade them to behave by threats of his coming.
Sometimes identified with the devil.
black book
An imaginary judgment book in which the record of one's sins and errors
is kept.
black boy
Cast iron figures of Negro boys used as hitching posts, lantern stands, etc.
Old Black Boy
One of the many religious folklore names in the Valley for the devil. Among
others are the Old Bad Boy, Old Booger, Satan, Beelzebub, Old Scratch,
Old Nick, the Evil One, the Arch-Fiend, the Anti-Christ, the Foul Fiend,
Mephistopheles, Mephisto, the Adversary, the Wicked One, the Old Serpent,
Belial, and so and on.
"Whilst I was sitting there nodding by the corpse of sinful Acharel
Knott," said Benton Barnes, "I saw just as plain as could be the Old Black
Boy crack open the door, look in, and then come on in and creep tiptoe
on his forked hoofs to the bed. He reached toward the corpse, and something
like a great big white moth flew out of Acharel's mouth, and the Old Black
Boy grabbed it in his two paws and made with it back through the door,
and I could hear him whickering and laughing as he sped off in the night.
Yes sir, I believe it was Acharel's soul he carried away. And when I told
Preacher Johnson about it later, he said it surely must have been so and
let that be a warning to all of us to live right."
If a black cat crosses one's path, bad luck will follow.
a black cat's blood
According to superstitious belief, spreading a black cat's blood on an affected
body part will cure the shingles.
black cloud
A gathering of Negroes.
black coat
A clergyman.
Black Draught
A patent medicine good for everything, especially for tight bowels. This
powdery stuff — a teaspoonful mixed with water for a dose — was, next
to calomel, the most awful gagging drink we children had to endure. My
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father found it a favorite with which to clean us out. My mother preferred
calomel. Only a belief in the lightness of my parents' authority kept me from
learning to hate them for these ministrations.
blackening
Shoe blacking. We used to make it by mixing soot and water.
black-eyed peas
A popular garden crop in the South. If cooked with hog jowl and eaten on
New Year's Day, these peas are supposed to bring financial good luck for
the coming twelve months. It is common talk around in the Valley that a
person will have as many dollars then as peas he eats on New Year's Day.
I was told so when a boy, and I ate away manfully, counting the number
of peas spoonful by spoonful as I ate them. But when no betterment came
in my poor finances, I lost my taste for peas, if I ever had had any. To tell
the truth, to my way of thinking they are mighty poor eating at best. But
I heard of one fellow who loved them even to gluttony.
'' It was a pow' ful rainy night and as dark as the inside of a grave with
wind blowing," said Lonnie Co field, "and this fellow was traveling down
the river road toward Fayetteville, hoping to find a place to stay. The country
weren't settled in them days the way it is now, and a man out at night had
to shift for sleeping quarters the best he could. On and on he went. Now
why he was out in such a night I don't know. I reckon he was some sort
of drummer and had been trying to make a late sale and so got caught in
the storm earlier than he had thought for. Anyhow, he kept pushing right
on. Well, finally he saw a dim red firelight ahead of him, and he hurried
on fast as he could and come to a little cabin by the roadside. He whammed
and hammered on the door and finally it was opened by a rough sort of
farmer man. The young fellow asked if he could come inside from the storm,
and the farmer let him in.
"A good lightwood fire was going in the fireplace and the fellow was
mighty glad to see it, for he was wet slam through to the skin. The farmer
had a young wife and she was mighty polite and hospitable at once to the
young fellow and helped him off with his wet coat and hung it on a chair
to dry and brung him a towel to wipe his face and hair and scurried about
for this and that to make him comfortable.
" 'You're mighty kind,' the fellow said to her, 'and soon's I get dry
and the storm lets up I'll be on my way toward Fayetteville.'
" 'Seems like the storm's getting worse,' she said.
"The farmer was a kindhearted fellow and he told the stranger that
they'd be glad to offer him some of their poor fare. 'We were just about
to set down to a late supper, such as it is,' he said.
" 'I'm sure anything would taste good to me," said the young fellow,
'for I ain't et since breakfast.'
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
97
" 'We ain't got nothing but a big pot of black-eyed peas,' said the
farmer. 'Everything's mighty short with us this year.'
" 'Black-eyed peas!' said the young fellow all quick-like. 'Nothing I
love better than black-eyed peas.'
"By this time he was getting dry and the young wife set out another
plate and brung the big pot of peas from the stove and put it on the table.
And they all went to it. That fellow sure did prove the truth of his words.
He soon cleaned up his first big helping and held out his plate for more,
and the young wife was quick to oblige him. The farmer looked at him and
said, 'Like you said, you really like black-eyed peas!'
'' 'True, true,' said the young fellow as he gobbled away. 'And whoever
cooked these peas knew how to do it.'
" 'I cooked 'em,' said the young wife, pleased and looking across at
him.
"When she had helped the fellow to a third fill, the farmer got up, lifted
the pot and took it over and put it firmly back on the stove. 'We'll need
some in the house for tomorrow,' he said.
"The storm raged and roared outside and the young wife said it looked
like too bad a night for anybody to be out in.
'' 'Yes, I reckon it really is,' said the farmer, who as I said was at heart
a good sort of fellow. And he went on, 'As you see we ain't got but one
room to our house and only one bed, but we'll accommodate you as best
we can.'
" 'Thank you most kindly,' said the young man, 'you mustn't
disfurnish yourself. I'll sleep anywhere — lie down on the floor here till
day comes.'
'' 'You might catch your death of cold doing that,' said the young wife.
'It's mighty drafty on the floor."
" 'So it is,' said the good man. 'Well, seeing the night's the way it is
and you a wayfaring stranger and the Good Book advising us to be neighborly
one with another, I tell you what — we'll share our bed with you. My wife
can sleep next to the wall, I'll lie in the middle and you next to me, and no
harm done.'
"And so it was. And there they lay side by side while the rain poured
and the wind blew. Before long the good farmer was sleeping away, and
his snores began to sound in the room. But the young wife wasn't sleeping.
And maybe the stranger wasn't sleeping either. Soon the storm began to
subside. The young wife all of a sudden punched her husband in the side,
'Wake up, wake up,' she cried out. 'Wake up!' He grunted and squirmed
and finally wanted to know what the trouble was. 'Why can't you hear it?
Can't you?' she called.
" 'Hear what?' he mumbled.
" 'Hear the pony down in the stable kicking away? He's kicking that
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calf, that's what he is, about to kill it. Get up and go down there and stop
it! Quick, hurry! Oh, oh, my poor little calf!'
"Growling and grumbling, the good husband finally crawled out of
bed, pulled on his shoes and made his way out of the house and on down
to the barn. The young wife turned quickly toward the young fellow and
whispered in his ear, 'Now's your chance.'
"You know what that fellow done then, Paul?" said Lonnie.
"No, I don't, Lonnie, but I know what I —"
"Why, he got up and et the rest of them black-eyed peas."
blackguard
To tease, to talk rough to, to berate.
black gum
(Often pronounced bla'gum). A tree that grows plentifully in swamps and
lowlands. The wood is so tough that lumbermen leave it alone. We used
to cut down a good-sized tree and saw off narrow sections to make wheels
for our play wagons. The old trees often become hollow as they decay and
die and bee gums were made from them. The little limb sprouts from the
small trees made good toothbrushes — nearly all the snuff-dippers used them.
black haw
A small tree or shrub that grows well in either damp or dry woods, common
in the Valley as throughout the southeast. Tea made from the berries of
this shrub was used, especially by the Negroes, as a blood purifier. The old
grannies used it also to help prevent abortion.
a black hen will lay a white egg
A folk saying which suggests one should not be too quick in his judgment.
blackjack
A tough slow-growing oak tree common to the sandhill country in the Valley.
Pretty much worthless. Also a card game.
a black letter day
An unlucky day, a day on which bad news was received.
black Maria
The sweatbox, the solitary cell for confinement, used on the chain gangs
to make recalcitrant prisoners behave.
A hearse.
black racer
A blacksnake.
black story
A downright lie. "That boy told me a black story and I whupped him."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
99
black wagon
A hearse. See "black Maria."
black walnut
A large-growing and valuable timber tree. It is especially prized for the
making of cabinets and other furniture. Our daughter had some walnut
boards which were cut from our farm shipped to Boston, and Frank Hubbard
made her a beautiful harpsichord out of them. She performs on it most
happily. Juice from the green walnut hull was most efficacious in the
treatment of ringworm, poison ivy and skin diseases. A salve made from
the leaves was supposed to be a sure cure for leg sores.
blaggard
Blackguard.
blame it!
A mild expletive.
blast
A scolding, a bawling out.
blast it!
A mild expletive. "Blast it, the blasted fool went down there and sided my
corn so close it died."
blast off
To fire off a volley of words, to blow one's top, to take off at great speed.
blate (bleat)
We boys used to make blates, sometimes we called them hawk-callers. We
usually took a tough little twig of green oak or hickory, split one end and
inserted an oak leaf, trimming it close to the edges. Then, putting it to our
lips, we blew it like a flute or a fife. A tiny shrill little sound would result,
somewhat like the faraway cry of a red hawk in the sky.
blather
Loud boastful talk.
blaze
To face (to hack) a turpentine tree for the resin.
Don't light a blaze you can't put out.
blaze-face
An unreliable, unsteady horse or mule.
A horse or a cow with a white mark in the forehead.
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go to blazes
An imprecation or a term of scornful dismissal.
Old Blazes
The devil.
bleed
Urinating. "I' 11 be with you in a minute as soon as I go off here for a bleed.''
To moan and complain. "I bled all over the psychiatrist but he didn't move
a muscle, just sat there like a dummy. 'Go on,' he said, 'go on,' and I kept
bleeding."
To extort from. "That woman bled him plumb white. He denied all but
she got every dollar he had."
bleed like a stuck pig
to stop bleeding
Use alum, gun powder, cobwebs or soot. Our one tenant, Wesley Armstrong,
woke our family up about three o'clock one morning, saying his wife Meta
was bleeding (after childbirth) and he had to have some cobwebs. My father
crawled up in the loft of our house with a lantern and finally found the
cobwebs and Wesley hurried away happy. Next day he said, "It cyured Meta.
up fine — yessuh."
bleeding heart
A sentimentally kind person, overly sympathetic. "Yeh, I've heard that
fellow with his bleeding heart talk ag'in' capital punishment. Nuts!"
'bleeged
Obliged.
bleeper
A faux pas, a big blunder.
I'll be blessed!
An interjection.
Blessed
The well-known and comforting beatitudes. (See Matthew 5:3-11)
' 'Blessed Assurance''
One of the most popular and long-lasting hymns in our religious circle. I
can still see my mother working about the house, making up the beds, tending
to the cooking on the wood stove, or churning away and singing confidently
and often gaily to herself the comforting words.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
101
"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His spirit, washed in His blood."
"Blessed Be the Name"
Another of the talented and devoted Charles Wesley's hymns. The tune was
written by R.E. Hudson. It was one of my mother's favorite around-thehouse songs, and its four-four time went well with both her sewing machine
and churn.
"O for a thousand tongues to sing,
Blessed be the name of the Lord!
The glories of my God and King,
Blessed be the name of the Lord!"
bless God!
An interjection.
bless his (your, her, its) heart
An expression of sympathy or admiration.
bless my stars!
To be lucky, also an interjection.
bless out
To scold, to berate, to curse. "He blessed him out from A to Z."
"Blest Be the Tie That Binds"
Another popular and comforting hymn.
blest if it ain 't
Still another interjection.
'bliged
Obliged.
blind
To be dull, stupid, unable to see the truth in front of one's face.
A hut of boughs or camouflaged arrangement in which hunters hide to wait
the appearance of game.
Exceedingly drunk.
Also a common term among students in reference to an examination which
they passed easily or feel that they have answered nearly all the questions
correctly. "I blinded old Horace on that examination, yes sir, I blinded him
from a to z."
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as blind as a mole
The blind man eats many a fly.
A blind man needs no looking glass.
A blind man should not judge colors.
To the blind all things seem dark.
None are so blind as those who won't see.
If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
Blindfold (Blindman's
Buff)
A game popular everywhere in the western world as far as I can find out
and popular too in ancient times in Greece according to the records. There
is an ironic allusion in Luke 22:64. During the accusation against Jesus:' 'And
when they had blindfolded him they struck" (buffed) "him on the face and
asked him, saying 'Prophesy who is it that smote thee?' "
Players in the modern game usually arrange themselves in something of a
standing circle with a blindfolded member in the center. This member is
agreed on or chosen by any of a number of counting-out rhymes. He or
she is turned around three times and then attempts to catch one of the other
players who are permitted to touch or even strike him — buffet him. When
he has succeeded in catching one he must guess his or her identity. And here
much fun takes place when, say, a boy feels a girl — or vice versa — to find
out who she is.
The "feeling'' is usually discreet. If the guess is correct, places are exchanged,
and the game goes on.
blind side
The weak side, the most assailable spot.
blind staggers
A disease of horses or mules. It is the same as sleepy staggers.
There are numerous cures or medicines for this from kerosene oil to
turpentine. One that was common in the Valley was very much like the
medicine or therapeutic treatment I found described in some papers of my
great-great-great-grandfather, Colonel Alexander McAllister, in
Cumberland County. His prescription went as follows: "Take one ounce
of camphyre dissolved in spirits, this to be squirted up their nostrils at the
end of every two hours — a teaspoonful of it also to be put in their ears
three times a day: a teaspoonful in each ear and every time the camphyre
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
103
and spirits is squirted up their nostrils there must be tobacco smoke blew
up their nostrils by a smoking pipe. Then take tobacco and tar, set them
on fire and smoke the creatures head over it three times a day and give them
for their drink tea made of sassafras root and dogwood root. This by diligent
attendance is given for a certain cure."
stone blind
Completely, irrevocably blind.
blind tiger
A moonshiner's outfit for making illicit liquor. Its usually secret hiding place
in the deep woods and the danger attached to its working gave it its name.
The term goes back to the late 18th century.
blind trail
A false lead, a course that leads nowhere.
blink
An instant of time. "In a blink that good god (pileated woodpecker) was
gone, and there I was with my old muzzle loader cocked and ready to pull
down on him."
on the blink
Crippled, in need of repair.' 'My old buggy has gone on the blink, and I've
got to get it fixed."
blip
A quick turn, a sudden act. Also an interjection. "I grabbed the underholt
and, blip! I blipped him head over heels against the frozen ground."
A trollop.
blister
To spank severely. "Behave yourself or I will blister your hide."
A blister on your tongue means that you have told a lie.
as blithe as a bird
as blithe as a lark
block
The family tree or parent. "Yes sir, he's just like his daddy — a chip off
the old block."
blockade
Bootleg liquor.
blockade runner
In the latter part of the Civil War the southern states suffered mightily from
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lack of supplies, due to the blockade by the North. Cotton could be bought
for eight cents a pound in the South and sold in England for fifty to seventy
cents, and cheap goods could be brought back to be sold at high prices. The
main center of blockade running was Wilmington, near the mouth of the
Cape Fear. It was dangerous business but many shipowners tried it. Stories
and ballads of bravery and suffering of many a stout soul have become part
of our Valley folk heritage. See "Rose Grenow."
blood
Quality, high lineage or heritage, aristocracy. "Why, man, he's of the blood
— didn't you know that!"
Blood is thicker than water.
Blood will tell.
blood and guts man
A fierce fighter, a bulldozing personality.
blood and thunder tales
Wild hair-raising stories, sensational accounts.
blood-blister
A clot of blood under the skin such as of a mashed finger.
blooded
Of first quality, of superior stock. Usually said of fine race horses or prize
bulls.
blood money
Money paid for a crime, usually murder.
blood oath
An oath signed in one's own blood.
After the Battle of Culloden in 1746 between the English and the Scots
in which the Scots were defeated, the latter were required to take a blood
oath of loyalty to the English king. Even though thousands of Scots migrated
to North Carolina, the majority of them still felt their oath was binding,
and therefore they supported the Tory cause against the Patriots. "I ha'
taken the blood oath," said many a one, "and I will na break it." And no
wonder for it was a fearsome declaration, as witness Flora MacDonald's
signing — "I, Flora MacDonald of Skye, do swear and as I shall answer
to my God in the great day of judgment solemnly take oath that I shall never
bear arms against the rightful king of Britain, that I shall forego all action,
all tokens and symbols of separation, and may I never see my husband and
children, father, mother, loved ones or relations, may I be killed in battle
as a coward and lie without Christian sacrament, unburied and forgot far
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
105
from the graves of my forefathers and kindred. May all this come across
me if I break my oath — in the name of my king and Almighty God. Amen.''
Then the wrist was pricked, the pen dipped in the resulting blood and the
document signed.
blood of the lamb
A symbolism for the blood of Christ.
blood on the moon
A red splotch which is supposed to be a sign of bad luck.
bloodroot
This spring flower with its pale-lobed leaf and showy white blossoms grows
in rich open woods from March into May. A tea made from the root is
supposed, like carrots, to be good for the eyesight, also good for the nerves
and coughs and colds. Two ounces of this tea in one pint of alcohol made
a fine stimulant for both babies and rheumatic old men. The babies were
allowed two teaspoonfuls for a dose once a day. The old men could suit
themselves. In the latter case I doubt the pint lasted very long.
blood-shotten (bloodshot)
Red and inflamed, most often has reference to the eyes.
bloodsucker
A low-down character, a miser, a chiseler.
bloody flag
A woman's monthly. "Stay 'way, boy, she's got her bloody flag up."
bloody flux
Bloody dysentery. In many old records and letters of Valley people this dread
disease is referred to frequently. "Reverend Obadiah Easom is dead of the
bloody flux."
to yell bloody Mary
To shriek, to cry out wildly. Also, to cry bloody murder.
to go blooey
To explode.
blooming like a peach
In fresh health, especially said of girls.
blooming like a rose
blotto
Stone drunk.
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blow
To brag, to boast. "Listen to that fellow blow—you'd think he had a million
dollars in his pocket."
To leave in a hurry. "It looks like snow, I'd better blow."
To catch one's breath. "Let the mules blow a while."
blow a gasket
To go off into hysterics.
blowed
Past tense of blow.
I be blowed.
An interjection. Also, to be outdone.
blow great guns
A violent wind, a tornado.
blow hot and cold
To vacillate, to be wishy-washy, also to be unreliable.
blow in
To arrive. "We had a lot of company blow in last night and our house is
full to the eaves."
To spend money recklessly. "He had a thousand dollars when he went up
to that roulette wheel and he blew it all in."
to blow off steam
To give vent to one's packed-up feelings.
blowing out candles
Birthday custom. One is supposed to make a wish come true by blowing
out all the candles on his birthday cake with the first breath.
blowing out fire
In my neighborhood Zekiel McCrae, an ancient Negro who said he was' 'nigh
onto a hundred," claimed he could blow fire out of a burn. He had a
"patient" now and then who happily said he could. Zekiel would put his
finger on the burned place, mutter a lot of queer grunts and growls as he
blew his breath mightily on it. Finally he would say "Yo1 pain is now done
gone away, the fire is blowed out, and soon it'll quit hurting, yes ma'm,
yes, suh. And I charges only a quarter."
blow off steam
To give voice to one's feelings or temper. The Freudians believe in this,
though they call it by a different name.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
107
blow one's own horn
To boast, to brag.
blow one's stack (top)
To give way to high temper.
blowout
A party, ball, entertainment, usually gay and loud.
blow out his light
To shoot, to kill. "He heighoed out in the yard. I opened the door and he
let fire at me and shot me right through the side. I reached in, got my shotgun
from behind the door and pulled down on him. I bio wed out his lights."
He who blows dust will fill his own eyes.
He who blows his own horn makes poor music for others.
blow sky high
To upbraid fiercely, to expose to complete shame and denunciation.
blow the whistle on
To cause to stop, put an end to an action.
blow up
To bawl out, to scold. "I made a little teeny mistake, and, Lord, did he
blow me up for it."
blubber
To weep loudly.
blue
The sky.' 'There's nothing I like better than to get in one of them jets and
take off straight into the blue."
as blue as indigo
as blue as Monday morning
as blue as the sky
blue back
An old time spelling book.
blue balls
A venereal disease.
blue belly
A policeman.
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bluebird weather
Sunny, fine weather in winter.
blue blazes
A term of comparison or measurement, "hot as blue blazes," "mean as
blue blazes," etc.
blue cough
An especially bad kind of cough that turns a patient's face blue in one of
its onsets. Also name for the whooping cough.
blue cough of death
Last stages of consumption.
blue curls
An attractive flower usually found in dry open clearings from August to
October. A tea made from the leaves and flowers was used as a gargle for
sore throat and for diarrhea.
blue darter
A kind of hawk.
blue devils
Low spirits, the dumps, the mulligrubs, the melancholies. "The blue devils
got him so bad he took a rope and went into the barn and hung himself."
blue-eyed boy
A favorite. The same as fair-haired boy or white-headed boy.
blue funk
A condition of excessively low spirits, melancholia.
blue gum
A dangerous kind of Negro. "When I went to arrest that blue gum nigger,
he got hold of my hair and bit off two of my fingers, but I drilled him with
the cold steel. I went right to a doctor, and he said, 'Lord God, like as not
you'll die of the hydrophobia or something. He's poisonous.' But I didn't
die."
blue hen's chicken
One who is loyal to the authority.
blue law
The Sunday law in some states, and in nearly all states having some reference
to the keeping of the Sabbath. In the Valley when I was a boy, the Sabbath
was supposed to be a day of quiet. Any loud noise was objected to, and
in some cases there were laws to back up prohibition of hunting or fishing
or showing motion pictures, or doing anything that was pagan and human.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
109
In recent and more sinful days these restraints have been pretty much wiped
out.
blue lightning
A six-shooter, a pistol.
blue mass
A soft dark gum mercury much used by the Valley doctors in the old days
as a laxative. Their account books show it to be one of the most popular
of medicines. "To Avis Moore — blue mass — 10$."
blue Monday
A work-again day after a restful or social weekend.
blue moon
A long time, very seldom. "I haven't seen you in a blue moon."
blues
The melancholies, the droopies, low spirits. "I've had the blues all day —
and I don't know why."
blue stocking
An aristocrat, a proud person. Also a learned or pedantic one.
bluestone
A kind of patent medicine salve used as a cure for chancre or gonorrhea.
bluet
A tiny wild flower, the earliest to appear in the spring and therefore a prime
favorite. When it appears, winter is gone.
Blue veins across her nose,
She'll never wear her wedding clothes.
Bluff Church
Famous old church on the banks of the Cape Fear River some twelve miles
above Fayetteville. Like Barbecue Church, it was founded by Rev. James
Campbell in the 18th century.
bluing
A preparation used in laundering to make the linen and cotton "wash" as
white as possible. My mother's household list for purchases when my father
went to Dunn to "trade" nearly always included bluing.
blunts
Bent points or dull edges of a tool.' 'A file is the best thing to get them holedigger blunts off with."
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blur-eyed
Blear-eyed.
blushes like a rose
bo
Fellow, boy, guy. "Hey, bo, don't gimme no back talk."
boar cat
A torn cat.
boar chinch
A male bedbug, somewhat larger than the female, and a most fearsome
creature. According to Uncle Myron Lassiter, these chinches used to be
mighty plentiful in the Valley. And I know they were for a fact. The summer
I pitched baseball in Lillington and roomed on the stove-hot third floor of
the old Caviness Hotel, these varmints made my nights miserable. Mattresssoaking of kerosene didn't faze them. The old building has long been torn
down, and a good riddance. Bedbugs are now pretty much a thing of the
past, what with new insect sprays and better sanitation everywhere. But in
the old days — oom!
"There were these two young fellows," said Uncle Myron, "who set
off after their last week of breaking land to go to Wilmington to have some
fun with the fast girls down there, the way boys did in those days. Hee, hee!
They had ploughed their stock hard all the week and their daddy said they'd
have to walk and let the mules rest. So they did, all dressed up in their Sunday
clothes though they were.
"In the old days virgin longleaf timber was everywhere. The pines stood
up straight and tall some hundred and more feet high, so it was said. They're
all gone now, the sawmills have eaten them away every bit. But in the old
days it must have been something to behold. When I was good grown, some
of the remnants of these great forests still remained. On our own farm I
can remember in the winter how we would cut down these great trees and
haul them to the sawmill to make a little money. Some were three and four
feet in diameter. And one great tree on our farm down deep in the swamp
stood at an amazing height and size. My father measured it one day and
found that the circumference of this great pine tree three feet above the
ground was twenty-nine feet. Later he sold it for five dollars to a shinglemaker, who cut it down and found it was all grained up and was no good
for shingles at all. Suppose it was living there today. The tourists would
beat a path to it.
' 'Well, these boys were walking along and making good time when there
came up the ungodliest storm they'd ever seen. A big cloud rose in the west
and swept upon them with a terrible lot of wind, thunder and lightning,
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and the elements played above their heads among the great trees. And hail
began to fall. They were frightened half out of their wits. It seemed to them
almost as if the end of the world had come. More than one bolt of lightning
hit the tops of the longleaf pines and tore strips out of them down to the
ground. And these two fellows made a run for it, but there was no house
anywhere. They kept on going down the sandy road as hard as life would
let them, and finally they did come to a sort of two-room shack. By this
time the night was coming on and the rain was still pouring, and the wind
whooshing through the trees, and the lightning flaring all about, with the
thunder banging and rolling like a hundred big wagons running away down
a rocky hill.
"So the two boys knocked on the door and the man there let them in.
He lived there with his wife and worked at the turpentine business. They
had only two rooms in the house, one of them the kitchen, so the man and
his wife had to sleep in their one bed and the two boys would have to sleep
on the floor. They went ahead and had supper, consisting mostly of molasses
because, the man said, they had just recently made some fresh syrup and
they had a big five-gallon jugful of it. So his wife made down a pallet after
supper for the boys, and they all went to sleep — the man and his wife in
the bed and the two young fellows on the floor. The boys were about to
drowse off when, 'ting', something hit one of them in the side, andhe grabbed
hold of what it was and squeezed it and then he smelled it. And he knew
it was one of these boar chinches. The moon was coming through the window
by this time, for the weather had faired off. And he began to see the chinches
on the floor, marching in on them from all sides. He woke up the other fellow
and they held a counsel in whispers, and they grabbed the molasses jug and
poured a ring of molasses around their pallet to keep the chinches out. Then
they lay down all snug and hunky-dory and slept well. The next morning
when the light broke through the window enough for them to see, there they
saw a ring of boar chinches caught in that molasses. And they measured
it, and in one place the ring of chinches was nine inches thick.
"Never were chinches as bad anywhere in this world," said Uncle
Myron, "as they used to be down there in Cumberland County."
"Unless it was here in Harnett," I said.
board tree
A straight tree especially used for lumber. The best board trees were oaks,
preferably the white oak.
in the same boat
In the same situation, condition, etc.
to be in the boat
To be lucky, to be in good shape, to be sitting pretty.
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Little boats should stay near the shore.
bob
To hit on the head.
bobtail and rag tag
The rabble, the scum of the earth, low-down people.
bob up
To appear or return suddenly.
bob white
A partridge more commonly known from its call. It is rarely called a quail
in the Valley. At its first call in the spring we children would often sing out
with the old teasing rhyme:
"Old Bob White, are your peas ripe?"
(And then we'd answer for the bird)
"No, not quite."
"Come over tomorrow night
bodacious
And we'll all have some."
Audacious, outrageous, flamboyant.
bodaciously
Completely, entirely, much the same as teetotally.''Bodaciously winded.''
body
Stamina, strongwind, stouthearted. "That horse has a lot of body in him."
Often called "bottom" when applied to horses.
body-snatcher
An undertaker, similar to an ambulance chaser.
bohunking
To soldier or loaf on the job, to expend one's credit unnecessarily.
boil down to
Come to the point, to summarize. "The question boils down to this — are
we going to have a democracy in this country or a power game in which
big business and the military are in charge."
feel like a boiled lobster (or a boiled owl)
To have a hang-over the morning after, to feel extremely bad physically.
Also to suffer a severe sunburn.
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boiling hot
Very hot indeed. "You go down there and tell your daddy to come out of
that boiling hot sun, he's pulled enough fodder.'' I went down and told him,
and there he was racing away and to my little eyes a giant and powerful man
with the sweat showing through his shirt and on his back a white glimmer
of salt where his shirt had dried. How I wished that I, too, could grow up
and could sweat like that and show salt through my shirt. And some years
later I did.
boil over
To fly into a rage.
A watched pot never boils.
bold as brass
To be presumptuous, shameless.
as bold as a lion
bollucks
Ballocks, testicles.
boll weevil
A destructive bug that began to infest the cotton crop in the South — first
in Texas and then moving up the east coast. When I was a young man, the
pest grew so bad in the Valley that most of the farmers there finally turned
to tobacco, peanuts, and of recent days, vegetables. I hear that herbicide
discoveries are making possible a cotton comeback. The ballad of the boll
weevil became popular. Carl Sandburg, the poet-troubadour, had it as one
of his favorite songs.
"The boll weevil say to the farmer,
'You better leave me alone.
I done et all yo' cotton.
Now I'm going to start on yo' corn—
Gotta have a home, gotta have a home.' "
bolster
A long pillow-like headrest common to every bed in the homes of the Valley's
best housekeepers. Pillows were used in addition.
bolt
To swallow greedily without chewing.
bolt goods
Fabric cut and sold from bolts.
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boltings
The bran and seconds from the flour in the bolting process.
like a bolt out of the blue
Instantly, like a flash of lightning.
to drop a bomb
Cause excitement, let out devastating news.
bond servant
A servant who, in the old days, would sign up to serve a certain number
of years in order to pay for his passage across from Europe to America.
Flora and Allan MacDonald brought several bond servants to the Valley
from Scotland.
The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat.
bone felon
A carbuncle, usually on the finger or somewhere close to the bone.
bonehead
A stupid person.
bone lazy
Very lazy.
bone orchard
The cemetery.
the bones
The dice.
bag of bones
An emaciated person, often used in reference to a bony old woman. "Dirksen
pulled a boner in discussing Mrs. Luce. He said, 'Don't beat an old bag
of bones twice.' "
make no bones
To be frank, to have no hesitation in speaking out. "She went up to Durham
there and turned whore, and she makes no bones about it."
When an old person's bones ache, it is a sign of rain.
boneset
A plant common to pastures and wasteland. In late August and September
its white flowers can be seen all along the roadside. It is also known as
sweating plant. A tea from its leaves or root made a fine tonic and it was
good for all kinds of diseases too, including urinary troubles and female
disorders. It was said that in the old, old days the doctors made bandages
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
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of the crushed leaves and wrapped them around a broken leg or arm to help
it heal better, whence the name.
bone-tired
Excessively tired, physically exhausted.
bone to pick
A quarrelsome matter, a matter of complaint.
boneyard
The cemetery.
Stede Bonnet
A pirate who preyed upon commerce at the mouth of the Cape Fear. Not
as colorful as Blackboard (q.v.).
Bless you, bless you, Bonny Bee,
Say when will my wedding be?
If it be tomorrow day,
Take your wings and fly away.
(A divination rhyme.)
booby-hatch
The insane asylum.
booby trap
A scheming woman, a diseased prostitute.
boodler
A grafter, a dealer in boodle or stolen goods.
booger
To frighten. "Uncle Heck and the others put on their Ku Klux outfits and
went down and boogered Reuben Matthews nigh to death."
A louse. "Bring me the fine comb here and let me comb this boy's head
for the boogers. He's been scratching all through preaching."
A goblin. Also, a thing, an animal or a person.' 'What do you reckon that
booger did? He pitched the first game with his right hand, and then turned
around and pitched the second game with his left, and he won both of them.''
booger man
The devil. "Behave yourself, children, or the old booger man will be after
you."
the Book
The Bible, the sacred book, a book used often in the courts and elsewhere
for one to hold in swearing to tell the truth. Perhaps the most influential
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single volume in all literature. Many people believe that every word was
inspired by God, and some include the translations. The devout Valley people
were — and some still are — careful never to drop it or put any other book
on top of it.
book-learning
Education, training. "That fellow's got book-learning — he knows how
to lay off a piece of land."
Book of Life
The mystic book in heaven in which all the records of people on earth are
recorded and which will be hauled forth on judgment day. One's account
will be looked up and the penalties or rewards handed out by the great Lord
of Heaven accordingly.
doomsday book
The book of the dead in which the final judgment for each individual is
recorded.
in my book
To be in my book is to be in my favor, and not to be in my book is to be
in my disfavor.
take a leaf out of one's book
To follow a person's example, to be guided by another person's action.
Books!
A call by the teacher to the children on the playground to come in and resume
their lessons. At old Pleasant Union School, the call was "Books, books,
come in to books!" And sometimes a teacher would ring a little hand bell
as he sent his call out far and wide. Later when we got a big bell to go in
our belfry, the tones of the bell took the place of the teacher's call, and so
the old cry disappeared.
boomderatum
Rear, ass, buttocks.
boondocks
Back territory, the sticks, areas far from civilization.
the boot is on the other leg
The case is reversed, altered, the biter is bit.
have one's heart in his boots
To be frightened half to death, terrified.
boo-turkey
An expression of negative emphasis. " He went off without saying boo-turkey
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
117
to anybody."
booze-blossoms
Pimples on one's nose from excessive drink.
be bored for the hollow horn
A phrase of disparagement, reference to one as being weak-minded. "He
makes such a mess of things, he orter be bored for the hollow horn."
Sometimes a misbehaving cow would be diagnosed as having pain or trouble
in her horn, and the cow doctor would come and bore a hole and let the
"pizen" out.
born
A word used for emphasis, such as "abornfool," "abornidiot," "aborn
writer," etc.
born-again Christian
One who has received remission of his sins through conversion'' from nature
to grace."
born and bred in the briar patch
Equal to any rough treatment or challenge. From Uncle Remus' tar baby
story.
born days
One's life or the term of existence to date.' 'In all my born days I never saw
such a fool."
born with a silver spoon in his mouth
To be born rich.
as sure as you are born
A phrase for emphasis. "I'm going to get that fellow as sure as you're born!"
to borrow trouble
Looking ahead apprehensibly, worrying with no cause for worry.
better buy than borrow
better to beg than borrow
If you would know the value of money try to borrow it.
The borrower is servant to the lender.
Borrowing makes sorrowing.
He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.
bosom friend
A body louse.
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botheration
Bother.
both sides of the coin
Common sense judgment.
both ways for Sunday
All mixed up.
bottle nose
A drunkard's nose.
bottle up
To hem in, to enclose, to keep hidden.
bottom
Buttocks. Also stamina and character; endurance in a horse. "My buggy
horse Bill has got plenty of bottom — he can trot half a day at the time."
He who is at the bottom can fall no lower.
bottom dollar
One's last dollar.
bottom falls out
A cloudburst or tremendously heavy rain. A heavy drop in, say, the stock
market.
bottomless pit
Hell.
bottom rail man
A strong, reliable, enduring man. In making our fences in the old days a
good heart rail or "a fat lightwood one'' would be preferred as best against
rotting.
on the bounce
On the go, lively, spasmodic.
second bounce
A second try, a re-run.
bouncy
Full of high spirits.
bound
Constipated.' 'My bowels are bound on me, Doc, and I need some calomel
to clean me out."
Determined. Often used for emphasis as "bound and determined." "I'm
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119
bound and determined to get across the Cape Fear River somehow."
/ be bound!
An exclamation.
as boundless as the ocean (sea)
bound to be
Certainly a fact. "There's bound to be some way out of here."
long bow
A big guy, an important person. Also an exaggeration, a lie.' 'When he gets
to talking about his fishing experiences, he pulls the long bow."
bowels
Dung, feces. "That child's bowels look like he's got worms."
Animosity. "He's got no bowels."
bow-wow
Empty talk.
go to the bow-wows
To go to the dogs, to become depraved, ruined.
box
A coffin.
box supper (basket supper)
This was a very popular form of entertainment and money-raising in my
neighborhood. The girls would cook delicacies and fix up boxes trimmed
in all kinds of ribbons and gay-colored wrappings. At the schoolhouse they
would be auctioned off to the highest bidder. What fun we used to have
on these occasions! And often two boys who vied for the same girl's favor
would go to it hammer and tongs and run the bids up as long as they could
beg or borrow or get anybody to stand by them to pay the bid. In the
competition now and then, fights would break out. The winner would have
the privilege of eating supper with the girl who provided the box.
box terrapin
A species of terrapin with the lower front part of its shell hinged for closing,
boxed in. It is common all over the Valley, and how many have I seen
squashed on the highways.
boy
In southern parlance this usually referred to a Negro boy or man, even if
the man is up past middle age. "Hey, boy, come over here and help me with
this here trunk.'' The term is passing out of favor now that Uncle Sam has
got behind the civil rights movement and the deep southern states have
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reformed, in some cases even reformed more than the North.
Never send a boy to do a man's work.
boyfriend
A sweetheart. Of recent days it frequently means a bedfellow.
Boys will be boys.
A boy's will is the wind's will.
bozo
A fellow, a somewhat slow-witted person, a term of derogation.
There is a Negro settlement just over the hill from where I live, and
a number of the young boys from there used to come and work with me
in the garden or help cut firewood. We had lots of fun spelling the names
of things about us, identifyng trees, and doing simple arithmetic sums —
or trying to. Too often I was appalled at their ignorance, but impressed with
their eagerness.
"Joe, do you know what tree this is?"
"Well-suh-er-maybe it's a dogwood."
"No, this is a maple. And this tree here? This is an oak. How do you
spell oak, Tracy?"
"Er-er o-k-e."
"And what grade are you in?"
"Seventh grade, Mr. Paul," was the prideful answer. And so on.
But one thing they all were keen on and quick to learn about — the
Ford tractor I had — all except one, a stout muscular boy of fourteen, named
Oscar, whom they called Bozo. He was evidently retarded or so it seemed,
and stuttered badly. But when a large rock was to be moved or a heavy timber
to be lifted, Bozo was the man to do it. And he was proud and rightly so
of his bulging muscles. One day when we were breaking land with the tractor
and picking up rocks, I half-jokingly asked Bozo if he would like to try his
hand at driving the tractor, saying I would help him or one of the boys would.
He shivered and shook his head. The boys laughed loudly and derisively.
"Oh-ua—buh-buh—no-nuh, Mr. Paul," he blubbered. But an eager
look on his face showed he wanted to.
"Go ahead, Bozo, try it," I urged. Before either I or any of the boys
could help him, he jumped up on the seat, slammed in the clutch and began
ploughing, his furrows straight and true as any man's. Then pulling the lifting
lever he backed up, grinning joyously, to where we all stood. The boys stared
at him in disbelief. All the time we had been using the tractor he had been
watching and learning.
From that day a transformation slowly took place in Bozo. He
continued to come to work for me in his spare time and soon he was my
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121
most dependable help. Each time he came and drove the tractor I noticed
he seemed to be more of his own man and stuttered less.
When I had first met him, I asked whether he wanted me to call him
Oscar or Bozo.
P-p-please suh—suh, call me Buh-buh-Bozo, Mr. Paul," he said.
Now I asked him the same question.
"Call me Oscar, Mr. Paul," he said easily and strongly.
Time passed. One day I got an engraved invitation from Oscar for his
high school graduation. Before he became master of the Ford tractor, he
had repeated the third grade two times.
But last week there was a knock at the front door and there stood two
well dressed young Negro people. The man was Oscar and the lady his wife.
We had a good reunion, talking of the old days and plans ahead.
"You know, Mr. Green," Oscar said, "when I look back, I think a
turning point in my life was when you insisted I drive that tractor. I wanted
to run it more than anything. Then when I found out I could — oh me. From
then on I had a little bit of confidence in myself and it kept growing, and
my stuttering began to go away. I thank you, Mr. Paul, I thank you."
"No, Oscar, I thank you."
After he and his bride had gone away I pondered and pondered on the
subject of education as it is given forth in our schools and the tumult of
professional books, with their measurements, tests, and barbaric
terminology.
If Oscar (Bozo) learned much from the tractor, so did I.
brace up
Take heart, to keep up one's spirits, strengthen one's willpower.
brackly
Brittle.
brad
To strike or flatten. "Mess with me and I'll brad your nose for you."
brag crop
A crop of cotton or corn or tobacco which a farmer is very proud of. Also,
if it is a small specially fertilized piece, he will say his "brag patch."
brag dog
The leader of the pack.
An idle brain is the devil's workshop.
pick one's brains
To elicit help, information. "He writes novels, and he's always picking
people's brains for ideas and making his notes."
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bramstone
Brimstone. "I believe just what the Book says — hell is a burning bramstone,
and I don't aim to go there."
make a branch
To urinate, usually spoken to a small child.
branchhead boys
The common, redneck people usually.
branch water
Weak, shiftless, poorwhite. "The Barnes always were branch water folks."
Natural water as contrasted with soda water.
brandied peaches
Peaches pickled in brandy. Very popular among the teetotalers. Even the
preachers like them.
brand-fire new
Same as brand new.
brandstone
Same as brimstone.
brandy blossom
A pimple or red spots showing on a heavy drinker's nose.
brash
A skin eruption or a rash. "That child's got a brash all over its back and
in between its straddle — why don't you take it to Doctor Cicero West and
get him to try some of his herbs on it."
brass
Bravado, boldness. "That gal Ludie is the brassiest thing alive."
Also means high ranking personages. "Yeh, all the brass welcomed the
president."
Money.
brass knucks
A brass weapon made with finger holes through it so the fingers can be
inserted, and then when the fist is balled up, it becomes a formidable weapon.
In ancient days the wrestlers and boxers used lead instead of brass and fought
unto the death.
A brass ring is good for rheumatism,
as brave as a lion
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123
None but the brave deserve the fair.
brawdy
Raw, bawdy.
as brazen as brass
bread
Wages, a living.' 'My bread's down under that stump and I got to dig it out.''
Bread first and then the bride.
Bread is the staff of life.
Bread of dependence is bitter.
Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.
Charity bread is bitter bread.
Communion bread
Bread broken in small pieces and eaten with wine in Communion service.
According to some believers, the bread actually is transubstantiated into
the body of Christ, remembering the words, "This is my body, eat." The
wine is supposed to become the blood of Christ. "This is my blood, take,
drink."
Bread and Butter
A children's game: "Bread and butter,
Come to supper."
Used as a call to players to come into a room where something has been
hid by "It" for them to find, as in "hide the thimble." When a searcher
draws near the hidden thimble, or another object chosen instead of the
thimble, "It" calls out "You're getting warm," or "cold," if the player
is going away from the hidden object.
bread and butter
Food, victuals, a wage-earning husband or wife. "Sure I love her, she's my
bread and butter."
Don't quarrel with your bread and butter.
bread and butter letter
A letter of thanks for preceding hospitality. Same as ham and biscuit letter.
bread and meat
Also livelihood, support, sustenance.
bread buttered on both sides
To be on easy street, to have a fine job.
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know on which side one's bread is buttered
To look out for number one, to see after one's own advantage.
bread of life
A symbolic term for the salvation process in the Christian religion.
He's eating white bread now.
Said of a person living at ease and comfort.
break
A piece of luck, chance. "Give me a break, will you, fellow, and I'll pay
that debt."
To age. "I declare, Miss Sybil Branch has broke the most."
To plough. "No, he ain't here, ma'am—he's down in the low ground
breaking land."
To end, to scatter. "Church will break in a few minutes and then you can
talk to the preacher."
breakdown
A dance, a wild party.
break down
To cry or weep.
Sing before breakfast, you'll cry before supper.
If you tell your dream before breakfast, it won't come true.
a breaking out
A rash or sort of eczema. "He had a breaking out all over his face."
break it off in
To suddenly reverse one's decision or agreement, to renege on a deal. "In
that land deal, old man Partin really broke it off in me and left me holding
the bag."
break one's leg
To become pregnant while unmarried. Same as to break one's ankle.
In the theatre, "Break a leg" is to wish someone a fine performance.
break one's pipe
To die. Same in French—casser sa pipe.
break the back of
To get over the most difficult part, over the hump, get by the crisis.' 'March
was here and that warm spell broke the back of old winter."
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break the ice
To begin a difficult conversation or undertaking.
break to flinders
Smash to bits or smithereens.
break up
To ruin financially.' 'The hospitals these days will break any man up if he's
in there very long."
To adjourn, to end. "All of a sudden when sister Latham started letting
her bosom come undone in the holy dance, old Deacon Gregory went for
her to tell her to be 'shamed, and then brother Latham, her husband, took
it on himself to interfere with Deacon Gregory and a fight broke out and
broke up the meeting."
make a clean breast of
Confess in full, state completely.
breastworks
A woman's breasts, her bosom.
breath
A report, a rumor, whisper. "I never heard a breath of the fact that she
at her age was planning to get married."
breathe
To let out a secret, tell, let the news out. "I didn't breathe a breath of it,
so you can't blame me."
breathing one's last
Dying.
What's bred in the bone won't come out in the flesh.
bredern
Brethren.
breeder
A procreant person or animal. "She's a good breeder — already six fine
healthy young'uns, and she not thirty years old."
bresh
Brush.
bresh brooms
Brush brooms. These were usually made of thick dogwood sprouts and
bound around by string. These used to be used to sweep yards, front yards
especially. A clean, bare yard was a sign of neatness and good husbandry.
Grassy lawns in the Valley, when I was a child, were practically unknown.
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Brevity is the soul of wit.
briar-patch baby
An illegitimate baby.
brick
A dependable person, one of sterling character. "Jesse Atkins was a real
brick — he took on the debts of his divorced wives and paid "em."
to drop a brick
To make a tasteless remark, to upset a meeting by a piece of news or a rough
statement.
brickly
Brittle. "The limbs of that china tree certainly are brickly; look how the
sleet broke everything to pieces."
You can't make bricks without straw.
bridal wreath
A more common name for spirea with its delicate white spring blossoms.
Happy is the bride the sun shines on.
To carry the bride over the threshold is to insure good luck.
Bridegroom
Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Lord, the Messiah, the Savior. See especially
the four gospels and the last chapter of the "Book of Revelation."
Behold, the Bridegroom cometh.
bride of the woods
The flowering dogwood tree.
bride's bouquet
The bridesmaid who catches the bride's thrown bouquet will be the next
one to be married.
Three times a bridesmaid, but never a bride.
What bridge has never been crossed by anybody?
(Riddle: Bridge of the nose.)
bridge tobacco
Horse manure mixed with scuffed up splinters. A neighbor said his
grandfather smoked bridge tobacco a lot.' 'There was a covered bridge near
his home. The hooves crossing the bridge scuffed up woody fibers from the
floor and this got mixed with the droppings. He dried it and smoked it."
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A bridle for the tongue is a fine piece of harness.
bridle-broke
First phase of training an animal, especially a horse or mule.
To be tamed down, subdued. "She was wild before she married Tom but
now she's bridle-broke."
put a bridle on your tongue
To stop gossiping.
bridle up
To fire up, to become irritated, to show resentment. "When Dubose said
he had read Lynn's little play, Lynn bridled right up and said, 'It's not a
little play, it's a full-length play.' "
brief
Sick, not up to snuff. "Your Uncle Tom's sort of brief this morning, son,
sort of brief."
bright
Light colored, reference to a mulatto coloring. "He's a bright boy and jest
as sassy as he can be."
bright and early
Very early in the morning, near daybreak.
as bright as a button
as bright as a dollar (or new dollar)
as bright as a new penny
as bright as a star
as bright as a sunbeam
as bright as day
as bright as gold
as bright as sunlight
as bright as the sun
brile
Broil.
bring
To cause an orgasm in lovemaking.
To loosen, to produce the desired effect, to make ready. "This scalding water
will bring the hair on that hog."
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bring down the house
To cause hearty applause, to receive an ovation.
bring home the bacon
To get the desired results, success or victory. "You boys are going to play
Sanford, and I want you to bring home the bacon."
"Bringing in the Sheaves"
A popular big meeting hymn. See "sheaves."
He who brings a present finds the door open.
bring to taw
Tame.
as brisk as fire
If you lend your britches, don't cut the buttons off.
Don't get too big for your britches.
to wear the britches
To be boss. "His wife wears the britches in that house, believe you me."
caught with the britches down
To be caught in an embarrassing position or predicament, to be in a helpless
situation.
britchin'
Diaper.
The part of the harness passing around the rear of the horse or mule and
fastened to the shafts or pole to keep the wagon or buggy from pushing up
against the animal.
as brittle as glass.
as broad as it's long
It makes no difference either way. Same as six of one and half a dozen of
the other.
as broad as the side of a house
Frequently used in reference to an overweight person, usually a woman.
Broadhuss
A semi-fictional strong man in the Cape Fear Valley and one with whom
all other strong men were to be weakly compared as to muscle power and
brawn and fighting powers of tooth and claw. Like the Negro steel driver
John Henry and the Northwest giant Paul Bunyan, his fame and size
increased with each telling and retelling of his exploits.
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His name was Broadhurst, but everybody called him Broadhuss, just
the way you might say cornhuss for husk. But there was no "huss" about
him. According to a number of old people who still remember him or say
they do, he was all might, fiery blood and muscle, and every ounce a man
to his six-feet-six and two hundred and forty pounds. And his deeds of
strength were equaled by his sprawling living and sensuality and appetite.
It was told that seven women once swore bastards to him on the same first
Monday at the Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions in the county
seat. And a funny thing too, all the babies were girls.
Broadhuss was married to a patient little woman named Polly Oliver,
and folks say she didn't weigh more than a hundred pounds. They had one
child born to them, a little boy who lived only a few days, and Broadhuss
cried like a child at the funeral, they said.
One day Broadhuss ordered Polly to cook him up a snack, for he had
to go down to Fayetteville with a load of staves and turpentine. In those
days Fayetteville was the main head of river navigation and a big market
place for most of the upper Valley people. So that morning he was up before
light loading his wagon. And Polly was up the same, cooking the grub he
was to take with him. She put it in a tow sack, and when he was ready to
ride, she dragged it timidly out to the wagon to him. He reached over and
lifted the bag from the ground, shook it and roared out at her—"You don't
call this a snack, do you!"
"Yes, Mr. Broadhuss," she piped up all trembling and afraid. "I
thought it would be enough." She always called him Mr. Broadhuss.
"And me hungry enough to eat the Lamb of God!" he yelled.
And sitting there on his wagon seat, what did he do but open the bag
and devour the half-a-bushel of cornbread and five hog heads she had cooked
for him. Then he threw the skull bones at the house, smashing a hole in the
weatherboarding, 'twas said, and drove off.
Another time, he hitched his horse to a maple tree in front of the
courthouse. The horse gnawed the tree badly, and Broadhuss was fined five
dollars to pay for it. After he had paid the fine he walked back to the tree
and manhandled it back and forth, big as it was, loosening it in the ground,
and finally with his own two hands he pulled it up roots and all. "Lord,"
said Lawyer Baggett who was passing by, "he's same as a steam stumppuller himself. And why do you do that, Mr. Broadhuss?" he called.
"I paid for it," snarled Broadhuss, "and it's mine to do with what I
please." And he carried it off behind the courthouse and threw it into a
gulley there where in later years a scaffold was built to hang Nigger Purvis on.
There was another strong man, they said, farther up the Valley by the
name of Bradley. This Bradley heard of Broadhuss's exploits and went down
to call on him. When he got to the mighty man's house, Broadhuss wasn't
at home, but Polly was, and she came to the door in answer to Bradley's
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heigho as spry as you please.
"Is this where Mr. Broadhuss lives?" said Bradley.
"Yes," said Polly.
"Well, my name is Bradley, and I claim to be the bull of the woods.
I hear that your husband says he can whup anybody."
"I don't know about that," said Polly, "but he's whupped everybody
around here."
"Well, is he at home? I want to see him."
"No, he's not at home," said Polly. "He's gone down in the lowgrounds
to look for a cow and a calf."
"All right, I'll just set here and wait," said Bradley.
So he sat down on the front steps fanning himself, waiting for the
contest-to-be when he was going to cave in Broadhuss's teeth and skull. Purty
soon he looked down the road and saw a cloud of dust rising. "What's that,
my good woman?" he called to Polly.
Polly looked off and said, "Why, it ain't much of anything, just Mr.
Broadhuss coming home."
"He's stirred up a mighty dust," said Bradley.
"Yes, that'sthe way he travels," saidPolly, "always inahurry." Then
she peered a little more closely down the road and said, "Yes, he comes
with the cow under one arm and the calf under the other.'' Bradley jumped
up as if he'd been bit by a spreading adder.
''Lord God, is that so!" he said. He looked off and it was so. He balled
up his hat and said, "Goodbye, Mrs. Broadhuss. Tell your husband I've
been here, but I've gone.'' And with that he lit a rag going up the road, raising
a cloud of dust himself as he went.
Later, so it was said, Broadhuss and Bradley did meet in a brawl at
a political rally, and though Bradley put up a great fight, Broadhuss crippled
him pretty much for life. George Miller, the local poet, wrote a ballad about
it, beginning—
"Oh, come everybody and listen to my song,
Of the great fight that happened
Twixt the powerful and the strong.
" 'Twas one Bull Broadhuss on a bright summer day,
Met old Bud Bradley in a bloody killing fray—
Fol de rol doll—dollicum do."
Broadhuss lies buried in Little Bethel churchyard in an unmarked grave,
his mighty powers stilled in dust now. Little Polly sleeps by his side.
broad open daytime
Full day, in the full light of inquiry.
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brogues
Brogans, a stout sort of shoe. I remember when I got my first pair of brogans,
and was I proud. They had a little brass strip on the toe to protect the shoe
from being scuffed out from marble shooting and all kinds of ground games.
And how thrilling it was to be able to lace up these brogues and hook the
goatskin string around the hooks at the top of the shoes. I know one pair
that had a little metal lever lock on it. You would open it and put the shoe
on, then press the little handle down and they'd be tight and snug as you
please. I don't suppose there's a brass-toed pair of brogans to be found in
all North Carolina now.
broken reed
A weak person, a poor promise, something not to be depended on.
broke up
Upset by grief, deep sorrow. "He was all broke up over the news."
brong
Past tense of bring, same as brung.
broom
A woman's pudendum. "Stay away from that woman's broom, boy."
A new broom sweeps clean.
A new broom sweeps clean but the old broom knows the corners.
jump the broom
To get married. Usually connotes a sort of shotgun wedding suggesting that
the girl is pregnant and the father has been found out and is now forced
to marry her.
broom sage
Broom sedge or broomstraw. How often have we children been sent to the
broomstraw patch to cut straw for making brooms. These we usually put
together with a stick in the middle about halfway down and wrapped around
with a rawhide string. They made wonderful brooms for sweeping the hearth
but were very dangerous before the open fire. Many a child crawling along
the floor got a broom into the fire and was badly burnt by it. My brother
Hugh had a scarred wrist all his life from being burned so as a crawling baby.
broomstick marriage
A pretense marriage. A man and woman living together illegally were said
to have a broomstick marriage.
broose around
To wander about, to poke around, to take a walk aimlessly.
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Brother, I'm Bobbed
A young people's game. One player (sometimes two) sits blindfolded in a
chair. The other players march around him and one of them now and then
bangs him on the head with a book, rolled paper, or even the flat of the
hand, whereupon the blindfolded one says, "Brother, I'm bobbed." The
leader asks, "Who bobbed you, brother?" Then the blindfolded one tries
to guess who of the players has bobbed him. If he guesses correctly, the guilty
one takes his place. If not, then the players continue marching and bobbing.
Sometimes two blindfolded people sit in chairs back to back. The dialogue
occurs between them, each of whom may get a bobbing.
Brow brinker
Eye winker
Nose knocker
Mouth mocker
Chin chopper
Cootchy, cootchy, coo!
(A baby tickling rhyme. On the word' 'coo" the baby gets
a tickling under the chin or in his chest or tummy.)
brown
Brine. "The way to cyore the leg swelling is to soak that leg in a caig of
brown—you know brown like them herring fish came in—that's it, soak
it good."
Brown eggs are richer than white eggs.
/ be John Brown!
A mild expletive.
brownie
A penny.
brown study
A reverie, an inner concentration.
bruised blood
Blood clotted under the skin as in a mashed finger or a bruised spot.
bruise easy and cry loud
Over-sensitive person. "Them Jews," said Mr. Mac, "always bruise easy
and cry loud."
bruiser
A low prize fighter type of person, a roughneck.
brum
Broom.
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133
brung
Past tense of bring.
brung up in a barn
One having bad manners, or careless, hasty action. "I once went to call on
the girl who later became my wife, and I was introduced to her father who
was sitting by a stove reading his church paper. When I went out of the room
I forgot to close the door, and I heard him say, 'Who's been brung up in
a barn? Close that door.' "
Brunswick
An early lower Cape Fear Valley town and capital. It was founded in 1727
and for many decades was the center of shipping trade for the region. It
was captured by the Spaniards in 1748 and destroyed. But the citizens
recaptured it, drove the Spaniards out and rebuilt it. After the Revolutionary
War it gradually gave way to the new and growing Wilmington only a few
miles distant.
The roofless remains of the old Brunswick Church still stand, with its thick
walls and solid masonry work as a witness to the town's former importance.
Tourists by the thousands come each summer, as well as hundreds in the
winter, to see this example of man's effort and his hope.
brush
As a matter of little importance. "Uncle Joe volunteered for the army in
the Civil War," said Mr. Mac, "and rode away laughing, saying Til be
back in a few weeks, this is nothing but a brush.' He was killed at Malvern
Hill."
The pubic hair, especially of a female.
Also a fox's tail.
brush around
Move around. "She's finally got over the typhoid and's where she can brush
around the house."
brush heap
A pile of brush for burning, especially in newground cleanups.
brush-off
Abrupt dismissal, cold shoulder. "That girl really give Doug the brush-off.''
brush up
To study a subject prior to examination, to review. "I'm brushing up on
my Russian because I'm expecting to go there."
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bub
Paul Green's Wordbook
A boy, buddy.
A woman's breast. Plural is "bubbles."
bubble
A money-making scheme. "When the bubble burst, people started jumping out of the skyscraper windows — Lord, Lord, same as if judgment day
had come."
buck ague
Same as buck fever, a violent nervousness that often seizes a deer hunter
at the appearance of the deer.
bucket
A slop jar or chamber pot.
kick the bucket
To die.
coming down in bucketsful
Description of a heavy rain. Same as raining cats and dogs.
bucket shop
An illegitimate business.
buckeye
Usually a shrub. I have never seen it large enough to be called a tree. But
Messrs. Coker and Totten of the University of North Carolina reported that
they found a buckeye in South Carolina 20 feet high and its body 3 Vi inches
in diameter, large enough to be called a tree. A decoction from the bark
was used in the old days for ulcers and toothache. A buckeye nut or kernel
was often carried in the pocket as a good luck charm. As a boy I carried
one for several months but after a spell of what I thought was bad luck I
threw it away. Mr. Mac said that his mother used buckeyes as a source of
starch for clothes. He had heard from old folks too, he said, that the Indians
would pound the kernels into a meal, mix it with beaten corn and water and
throw the mush into rivers and creeks. The fish would eat it and get drunk
on it and float to the top and then were easy to catch as they floated on the
water.
buck-eyed
Round-eyed like a rabbit or buck.
buckle
To yield to pressure, to bend, to collapse.
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135
make buckle and tongue meet
To make accounts square, to make one's outgo not exceed his income, to
make a job come out as planned.
buckle down
To settle down, to become serious about working or about living.
buckle-horned
An animal with horns turned horizontally inward.
buckle to
Same as buckle down.
buck nigger
Young stalwart Negro man.
buckra
A Negro term for a white man, white folks, and sometimes used derogatorily.
buckskin
An American soldier during the Revolutionary War, so designated from
the deerskin clothes he wore.
buck teeth
Protruding upper front teeth.
Buddha
The founder of one of the world's great religions—practiced now throughout
most of the Orient — in Burma, Sri Lanka, China, India, Indochina, Japan,
Korea, Nepal and Tibet. It also has a scattered following in all other nations
of the earth. Like the great religions everywhere, it has its different sects.
Buddha founded his belief six centuries before the birth of Christ. And like
the Christian faith, it is a religion (even a philosophy) of peace, of love among
men. But unlike the Christians, the Buddhists practice their faith. The
Christian nations of the west, for all their religious claims of faith in and
devotion to the teachings of gentle Jesus, have through the ages proved to
be among the most warlike, if not the most warlike, people of all history.
For the Buddhist, life is full of suffering (error, pain, ignorance, blindness,
etc.) and the way out of it is through the Eightfold Path — right belief, right
resolve, right word, right act, right life, right effort, right thinking, right
meditation.
Selfish desire for earthly things is the main source of suffering. Therefore
give them up or at least put them in proper perspective. In this Buddha and
Jesus agree.
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As we might expect, Buddha's conception and birth were miraculous.
Whereas the Holy Ghost "came down from heaven" and impregnated the
virgin Mary, Buddha himself was a spirit dwelling in heaven; looking down
on the earth he chose his parents himself — the aristocratic Prince
Shuddhodana and his beautiful wife young Princess Maya. Accordingly then
as a spirit he descended from heaven and entered Maya's womb. At the
moment of conception he was nurtured by a drop of an elixir drawn from
an open lotus.
For ten months gestation lasted and during that time the elixir fed him. At
the time of delivery Maya held on to the bough of a tree, and the infant
emerged from her right side. He was given the name Siddhartha, meaning
' 'the goal reached" and grew up in his father's palace, quite different from
the poverty of Bethlehem and Nazareth.
During his youth Siddhartha fulfilled the prophecies made at his birth. He
perfected himself in the knowledge, sports and professions of his times. These
were known as the 64 arts. A number of miracles took place in connection
with him. For example, one day he went to sleep in the shade of a tree, and
the sun changed its course in order not to shine on him and awaken him.
Of course we all understand that every religion must have its miracles or
it would lack followers.
Some authorities place Buddha's birth in the year 566 B.C. and his death
in 486 at the age of 48.
Since my youth I have liked much of Buddha's teaching. For one thing he
believed in living by and for one's faith. Jesus believed the truth he taught
would be more powerful if he died for it. He must have believed this for
by virtue of his ability to perform miracles he could have waved his hand
and said to his captors, "You-all boys, be gone from here." Between the
two points of view I prefer Buddha's. "Let men live and work for their cause,
not die and thus work no more." When I think of the millions of young
men — 55,000 in Vietnam, the 700,000 in the Civil War, the 50,000,000
people in the two world wars — I declare Buddha was right and I cry out
and on this written page again and again, "Life, not death!"
Every time I see a crucifix with the figure of Jesus hanging there, arms
outstretched, head hanging, his two reaching palms with nails driven through
them, his crossed pitiful feet nailed likewise and a gaping, blood-lipped hole
in his side, I shudder. And I wonder if this symbol in every Catholic church
and in most Catholic homes — if this does not prepare and accustom the
little viewing children to cruelty and violence, yes, infect them with these evils.
What price such preparation for life!
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budget
A pack, usually a peddler's pack. "Mr. Berman first came to Chapel Hill
with a budget on his back and got his sandwiches at 100 apiece to eat. He
grew to be one of the richest men in town."
budgies
Hicumstrikes, nervous or irritated condition.' 'How've you been, Melvin?''
"Oh nohow, Paul, I've been having the budgies mighty bad lately."
buds
buff
A little calf's budding horns, or a young girl's budding breasts.
A devotee, a follower. "As part of the Civil War celebration they fought
the battle of Manassas over again, and there must have been 10,000
Confederate buffs there looking on. And 'Stonewall Jackson' from
Massachusetts fell off his horse in a briar patch and got all scratched up."
buffalo
A Confederate soldier who, when his section of the country was overrun
by the Yankees and he was captured and took the oath of loyalty, joined
the Yankees and fought against his former fellows — such a person was
later called a buffalo. I remember once in Avon, N.C., seeing a Bible with
some pension papers in it which showed that the same person had got
pensions from both the State of North Carolina and the federal government
before he died.
buffaloed
Stumped, confused. "Lord, that professor had me buffaloed."
buffing
knife
A knife used in scraping leather.
Mama, Mama, what a bug I'll be
When three young men come a-courting me.
(A jocular love rhyme.)
A bug needn't argue with a chicken.
bug day
The 18th of March is known as bug day and was therefore a bad day on
which to plant a garden for, it was thought, the bugs would eat the corn.
I don't know. I am glad it didn't come a day earlier for that was my birthday.
bugger bears
Booger bears, frightful things. "Better watch out for the bugger bears
tonight, you children."
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buggy robe
A robe to keep warm under in riding in a buggy or carriage. A good place
for holding your girl's hand on a cold night coming from a box party or
schoolbreaking. Present day automobiles offer a better chance for that.
buggy whip
A whip, usually with a long straight handle tapering into a flexible lash.
These whips were of many kinds and prices and some were very sporty.
bug in one's ear
A bit of secret information or advice.
bug juice
Whiskey.
bug out
To protrude. "There he sat looking at me, his eyes all bugged out."
When bugs give a party, they never ask the chickens.
build afire under
To stir up a person, to motivate him to action.
get the bulge on
To get an advantage over.
It depends on whose bull is gored.
bullace
A wild black muscadine grape about the size of a marble. Much the same
as the white scuppernong. In late September we used to climb the viney trees
here and there and eat and eat until our heads swam. It's hard to find any
wild bullaces anywhere in the Valley these days. Their history goes far back.
When Amadas and Barlow first reached the shores of North Carolina in
1584, they spoke of the wonderful smell of grapes. We children for lack
of jumping ropes used to cut bullace vines and use them with great joy, never
once thinking that we were underprivileged because we didn't have a nice
woven rope bought from a store. "Bullaces grow sweetest when the vines
hang on or climb up pine trees," says my friend Nathan Williams.
bullbat
A nighthawk, now all but disappeared from the North Carolina evening
skies. I remember how we used to see them flying in their criss-cross patterns
in the late afternoon and diving suddenly toward the earth with their vulgar
braying cries.
take a bull by the horns
Take a difficult job or boldly face up to a matter.
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139
bull by the tail
To get hold of a job or be in a situation too hard to handle. Same as bear
by the tail.
I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw a bull by the tail.
No trust at all.
bull calf
An obstreperous boy.
bulldog
A tough fellow, an irritable, angry-minded person.
A cop, a detective.
Bull Durham
A once famous roll-your- own cigarette tobacco. How sweet-smelling it was
when the little cloth bag in which it was sold was opened! The stringing of
these little bags was once common household work, especially in the town
of Durham, for elderly people. They could remain at home and do the job.
Many years ago I, in my early pro-labor activities, inquired as to their
remuneration and was informed that the pay was 25<f per thousand bags.
I went about trying to get an increase in the wages but was urged almost
frantically by these same workers to let well enough alone. I did, for I had
already found out that so far as cooperative employers were concerned, I
was whistling in the dark.
Anyway this work counted for more than one might think, for it helped
even in its small way to build both Duke University and Duke Hospital where
the workers' children and theirs after them could receive an education as
well as medical treatment which they themselves in poverty had been denied.
The cigarette-making machines and automatic packaging finally pretty
much put an end to the Bull Durham smoking tobacco in bags.
When I was a boy, there was a huge sign reared up high in Durham,
showing a mighty bull triumphant. At first he had his sexual apparatus
buoyantly defined. But churchly and puritan embarrassment caused the now
millionaire tobacconists, so I was told, to have him pictorially castrated.
I was also told that after that the sign lost much of its advertising appeal.
bullet
A keen, go-getter person.
bullet patching
A piece of cloth put around a bullet when in the old days it was pushed into
a muzzle-loading gun.
A bullfrog knows more about rain than the almanac.
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bullhead
A low road dike to turn water.
bullheaded
Stubborn.
like a bull in a china shop
Clumsy, awkward, inclined to approach a task without caution.
bulling
A cow in heat. I heard the cow lowing and my father said,' 'The cow's bulling,
son, and you've got to take her up to Mr. Martin Matthews' animal."
Bull in the Ring
A boy's game of skill and strength. I've never seen girls play it, but maybe
with ERA coming on, they will.
The boys form a circle and clasp hands tightly. One of the number, chosen
by lot, takes his place in the ring. He wanders about, sometimes pawing
the ground and making bullish sounds. Suddenly he flings himself against
the ring and tries to break through. If he succeeds, one of the boys who yielded
takes his place in the center, and the game proceeds as before. Sometimes
a quarrel breaks out between the two boys where the breakthrough occurred,
one accusing the other of weakness.
bull of the woods
Strong man, bully.
bullshit
Nonsense, foolish talk.
bull thistle
A thorny field pest. It grows from a thick taproot and its spiny leaves,
especially when dried, can be a torment to bare feet. It grows everywhere
it gets a chance to grow and has one redeeming feature — beautiful reddish
purple flowers. According to a folklore pharmacist friend of mine, a salve
or even a tincture from it was once supposed to be good for eczema and
other skin irritations.
bull tongue
A plow with a special tongue for breaking roots.
bully
Fine, excellent, to be praised, good going.
bully beef
Canned cornbeef fed to the soldiers in World War I.
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bull yellin
Bull yearling.
bully-rag
To banter, to abuse, to tease. "He bully-ragged me til I was ready to fight."
bum
The posterior, the ass.
To beg, to cadge. "First he bummed a ride off of me, and then he bummed
cigarettes all the way along."
to be on the bum
To be down and out.
bumbershoot
An umbrella.
bumble-foot
A heavy-footed, awkward person.
bum-fodder
Toilet paper.
bumfuzzled
Confused, muddled, flustered. "My honest belief is that the president stays
bumfuzzled all the time about what to do with this war."
bump
To put off, to cancel. "I had a ticket on the plane, but they bumped me
for a soldier."
A phrenological term designating an irregularity or protrusion on the skull
which showed the character of a person. There were all sorts of bumps
according to this now-perished "science," the bump of kindness, of
ambition, of anger, etc.
Bump
A game. A person would be held up by two others, taking hold of the ankles
and wrists, and this person would be swung buttward against another person.
bumper
A full big glass, usually of strong drink, also a bumper crop.
bump into
To meet by accident. "I bumped into my old war buddy, Tubby Howard,
yesterday, and we had good talk about the old days together."
bump off
To kill, to shoot, mainly a gangster's term.
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bump on a log
A good for nothing, a lazy indolent person. "You're just a bump on a log.
There you set and won't say nothing."
get the bum's rush
To be hurried out unceremoniously and involuntarily.
bum steer
Wrong advice, bad guidance.
bunch
A crowd, people, group.' 'When that man started walking on the water there
in the millpond at Angier, a whole bunch of folks standing on the dam started
yelling and shouting."
bunchy
Roly-poly, stout, fat. "She's a bunchy little girl, but her eyes make you think
only of them."
bundle off
To send away in a hurry.
bundlesome (bungersome)
Clumsy, awkward.
bung
The anus. Same as bunghole.
bunk
To sleep, having sleeping quarters. "Tom Wolfe bunked there in that old
room over Eubanks' store."
bunk with
To share a bed or room.
bunny
The female pudendum.
burn
To insult.
To infect with venereal disease. "She was the hottest loving woman a-tall
and look how she burnt me."
burn a hole in one's pocket
Said of money one is eager to spend.
burn daylight
To have a lamp or candle burning during the daytime.
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burn for
Long for intensely.
Burning brush is supposed to bring a rain.
burning bush
An erect and sometimes tree-like shrub from six to fourteen feet high of
the euonymus family. It is deciduous, but in late summer and early autumn
its thick leaves turn a fiery red and therefore its name. We have a big one
at our back door and it mixes well with the red of the early autumn sunset.
It is found from Carolina to Florida and grows in both sandy and rich moist
soils.
The bark and root provided a good laxative, so it was said by old folks in
the Valley. In looking at our bush I often think of the burning bush spoken
of in the Bible. There is a full account in the third chapter of Exodus which
reads—"Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest
of Midian; and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to
the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared
unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and,
behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And
Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is
not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called
unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he
said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from
off thy feet, for the place whereon though standest is holy ground. Moreover
he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look
upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people
which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters;
for I know their sorrows and I am come down to deliver them out of the
hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good
land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place
of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites,
and the Hivites, and the Jebusites."
And later Jehovah did bring this people unto the land of milk and honey.
But he went ahead of them and worked havoc among the inhabitants,
mercilessly destroying the above mentioned tribes, every man, woman and
innocent child of them. At least the Good Book says he did, and thus he
prepared the way for his chosen people, The same sort of thing seems to
have happened with the 1948 establishing of Israel, though not with such
wholesale killing. In this instance though, England and the United States
took the place of Jehovah.
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burn one's fingers
To come to harm, to make a bad investment.
A burnt child dreads the fire.
burn the breeze
To ride or run at full speed. Same as burn the wind.
burn the candle at both ends
To work early and late, also to indulge in dissipation.
To debauch oneself, to indulge one's sensual appetite to excess.
burn up
To cheat. "In that trade he burnt me up by working off that moon-eyed
mule on me."
To be embarrassed, irritated, or angry. "The way my date behaved at that
dinner burnt me up."
burn you!
An imprecation, same as go to hell.
slow burn
Smouldering anger.
burr
A hanger-on, a pest. "He's a burr under my saddle, that's what he is."
burr head
A Negro.
burr of the ear
The outer part of the ear. "I hit that fellow in the burr of the ear and I piled
him."
bursting heart
A shrub often called heart-bursting-with-love.
bury the hatchet
To make friends, to forgive each other, cease hostilities.
bush
A woman's pubic hair.
beat about the bush
To be devious, hypocritical, insincere.
bush baby
A bastard, same as bush or woods colt.
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bushed
To be whipped down, tired, exhausted.
a bushel and a peck
A baby rhyme. Usually someone asks a little one: "How much do you love
me?" and then is prompted to say:
"A bushel and a peck
And a hug around the neck."
The hug naturally follows.
bushel bubby
A woman with over-large breasts.
go to the bushes
To defecate or urinate.
business
Body elimination. "Before we start the trip, go do your business."
business before pleasure
Everybody's business is nobody's business.
business end
The main part, the efficient end, the dangerous part, said of a kicking mule
in reference to his hind feet. "Stay away from the business end of that mule.''
mind one's own business
To abstain from meddling, to look after number one.
buss
bust
To kiss.
A complete failure. "He made a bust of the hardware business there in
Wilmington, just like several others before him."
A spree, a wild party. "He went on a bust."
bust a gut
To overexert oneself, strain unduly.
bust a hamestring
To overdo.
bust developers
These developers were of various kinds and once were used by many a shy
Valley maiden. Sometimes cajoling bust cream was used in massaging the
breast. The most effective aid apparently was the breast pump. The early
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Sears-Roebuck catalogues (before the Federal Food and Drug Act)
advertised the instrument eloquently for the ladies, declaring "If nature has
not favored you with the greatest charm, a symmetrically rounded bosom
full and perfect, send for the Princess Bust Developer.'' Satisfactory results
were of course guaranteed or money would be' 'gladly refunded.'' This pump
had a handle and a rubber cup that fitted over the breast. The suction would
pull the breast out and so after much pumping was supposed to produce
the desired size — or not. The pump was also used by mothers who had
too much milk and some of it had to be drained off.
busted
To be broke.
buster
A young boy.
bust head
Cheap, hard liquor.
bustle
A padding enlargement of a woman's skirt over the buttocks, common in
the fashions of the late 19th century to add to the sex appeal.
bust middles
To plough out the center ridge between crop rows.
bust up
Break up of two engaged people or two friends.
bust wood
To split wood. "I sure love to bust wood on a cold, frosty morning."
busy as a beaver
busy as a bee in a tar bucket
busy as a cat on a hot tin roof
busy as a cat on a marble slab
busy as a hen with one chick
busy as a one-armed paper-hanger with the itch
busy as the devil in a high wind
butch (butch up)
To ruin, make a mess of. Same as botch.
butt (or butt-end)
The buttocks.
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butt-cut
The first bottom cut of a tree.
butter
To soft soap, to praise unduly. Same as butter up.
butter and egg money
Money made by the housewife from selling butter and eggs. I remember
how my Aunt Nanny used to take butter and eggs down to Buie's Creek
and accumulate a few dollars which she sent away to foreign missions, for
her heart was terribly concerned over the starving children in India—pictures
of whom she would see in the Christian Herald. "Why, Paul, it tells in the
Herald how the poor things go around gnawing bark off the trees, they're
so hungry," she said half-weeping.
butter and eggs
A folk name, especially a Negro term, for jonquils.
butter ball
A fat, roly-poly person.
Come, butter, come
A divination rhyme we used to recite as we churned away at the old' 'stone''
churn—
"Come, butter, come
For I want some."
buttercups
There are several varieties of this lovely flower and all give a cheerful spring
welcome with their yellow blossoms. The buttercup grows in meadows and
pasture lands everywhere, and its bulbs, if eaten, result in stomach upheavals
and heart pressures, so the old folks said.
butter-fingered
One who tends to drop things too easily. "I'm all butter-fingered this morning."
butterflies
Nervous spasms in one's stomach. "Every time I think of that accident I
get butterflies."
butterfly
A sissy fellow, homosexual.
If a butterfly lights on a lady, she will soon get a new dress of the same color
as the butterfly.
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butterfly kiss
A caress made by two people touching their eyelashes one against the other
and blinking.
butterfly weed
A rather shy plant that grows rarely more than two feet tall here and there
in dry soil. Its orange blossoms are especially attractive to butterflies. My
old Negro friend, Uncle Jerry McLean, told me that chewing its root and
swallowing the juice was the best medicine "a-tall for snakebite." It was
also said to be good for the pleurisy and was often called "pleurisy root."
The Indians were said to have used it for a purgative and as a sweat-producer.
butter molds
A wooden mold in which butter is packed and made into balls or cakes.
I remember how beautiful I used to think the butter was which my mother
took from her molds. On top there was a flower design. But often, in hot
weather when I would take the butter to Buie's Creek, some two miles away,
the flowers would be terribly "wilted" and smeared by the time I got there
to deliver to Mr. Upchurch who ran a boarding house.
butter paddle
A paddle three to four inches wide with a six-inch blade or more which was
used to beat the water out of butter. The paddle was usually made of oak
or maple. I can still hear the smart slap of the paddle as my mother made
her ball of butter ready.
butter piggin
A wooden pan in which butter was paddle-worked.
butter up
To flatter unduly and unctuously, like "lathering the victim well before
shaving," that is, cheating him.
butt in
To interrupt.
butt into
To meet incidentally.
butt off
Dead end.
button
The nose, the face. "He hit him right on the button."
Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?
A guessing game. The players seat themselves in a circle. The one who does
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the guessing, "It," stands in the center. The button is passed from hand
to hand, the purpose of the game being to keep "It" from guessing who
has it. As the button is passed around, the players all call out or sing:
"Button, button, how you wander
From one hand unto the other!
Is it fair, is it fair
To keep Mr. (Miss)
standing there?"
"It" touches the hand of the one he thinks has the button. The hand is opened
to show whether empty or not. If the guess is correct, the player with the
button becomes "It," and the game continues. If empty, the game goes on
until a correct guess is made. The "It" who takes longest to locate the button
is declared the worst player.
not to care a button
Not to care at all.
buttonhole
To corner one, to catch hold of a person, to keep him unwillingly for the
sake of a conversation or argument.
button up
To finish a matter, to conclude. "Well, I guess that buttons things up and
we might as well adjourn."
bust my buttons!
A mild expletive.
butt peddler
A pimp.
butts like a ram
buy
To bribe. "He bought him, that's how he got him on his side."
Don't buy a pig in a poke.
He who buys what he doesn't need will need what he cannot buy.
buzz
Idle chatter.
buzzard
A contemptible person, sometimes used jocularly and affectionately.
"Where have you been all these months, you old buzzard? Golly, I'm glad
to see you."
It's unlucky to kill a buzzard.
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If you see a buzzard flying and make a wish and it flaps its wings, the wish will
come true.
Fly away buzzard, fly away crow,
Way down South where the wind don't blow.
(A divination rhyme.)
buzzard bait
An old decrepit horse or mule.
buzzard dance
An awkward dance. Buzzards often when they are on the ground stretch
their wings and hop around in an actual dance.
buzzard lope
A loose, awkward manner of running or shuffling along.
laid by a buzzard and hatched by the sun
A term used to describe an illegitimate child.
buzzards
Large black scavenger birds, generally known as turkey buzzards, about
the size of a turkey hen and very common in the South. I remember hearing
Mr. John Turlington tell of a visit he made to Charleston, South Carolina,
about 1909. "I sure was disgusted with that dang town,"he said, "for them
old turkey buzzards were all about the place, walking in the streets same
as people and same like they owned things. And when they wanted to they
flew up on tops of the houses and roosted there in their spewing and mess
just as ca'm as you please." It used to be against the law in some sections
of North Carolina to kill a buzzard. And too it is likely to bring bad luck
on the guilty party—as one Austin Honey found out. The story of Austin's
tragic and grotesque struggle with these slovenly creatures is still widely told
in the Valley.
Austin was from hardy and God-fearing Scotch stock. He ran a small
farm and tended his fish traps on the rapids of the river there below
Linneyville. And like many a Scotchman in that section he was a stubborn
fellow. He had to be to make a living from his few sandy acres and these traps.
He was not only God-fearing and stubborn but miserly and grasping
for the pence. It was this last trait more than any other perhaps which led
to his downfall. In his haste to get his fish out of the traps and up into town
before the other fishermen arrived, he slubbered his work. If he happened
to find a catch of red rock or bass or shad floundering in the foaming waters
that poured through the slats in his traps, he would haul these fish out and
into his sack and toss the unsalable mud cats and suckers carelessly aside.
Some of these culls fell on the rocks and spoiled there in the sun.
Uncle Josh, the old colored man who ran the ferry above the falls and
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151
made shad nets in his spare time, said to him, "Mr. Austin, suh, you better
clean up them there dead fish. If you don't, you'll like as not start the
buzzards to using around here. And everybody excepting the law knows
a buzzard be's a plumb dirty mess and tribulation." But Austin didn't listen.
And the great black vultures began to settle down out of the sky and
eat the dead stinking fish. From eating the dead ones scattered around they
finally began to steal the live ones out of the traps. Then it was that the stingy
soul of Austin Honey got fired up.
He was a member of good standing in the Little Bethel Church and
sometimes even taught the Sunday school class there. So, remembering his
pride of place, he controlled himself and refrained from violent language.
But one morning when he came down to the river and found a half dozen
of the big ungainly birds sitting around gorged to the gills, their wrinkled
bald heads nodding in the sun and his traps completely empty of good fish,
he flew into sudden and spontaneous profanity and cursed them to a
fare-you-well.
Uncle Josh, sitting on the bank of the river snoozing under a sycamore
tree, said to him,''That's mighty pow'ful languageyou's a-using for agood
church member, Mr. Austin, ain't it, suh?"
Austin acknowledged it was and felt properly ashamed. As the days
went by the number of buzzards kept increasing, and it looked as if the main
means of his livelihood would be destroyed. They had really developed a
sweet tooth for the live fish by this time. He went off to the hardware store
and bought himself a shotgun on a credit and fired after and around the
birds to frighten them. They soon got on to the sham shooting and ignored
him. Then he lost his temper and fired in among them, killing several. He
should have known better, for the law in those days was stern on such matters.
He was promptly haled into Recorder's Court and fined five dollars
for each of the dead birds. He explained his case to the judge. His lawyer
pleaded and moved and objected, but no go. The judge was hard-boiled
— for he suspected Austin of shortchanging him on a fine shad recently
— and so Austin in a rage had to accept the verdict and pay up.
Then he did like many a troubled man before him. He sought refuge
in whiskey. Straight across the street to the dispensary he went, and came
out an hour later sod-drunk. He began to harangue the air against the judge,
and quite a crowd collected around him on the street corner. Finally he began
to let out a lot of threats, and so there was nothing to do but lock him up.
And he spent the night in jail.
For this scandalous behavior the deacons and elders of Little Bethel
Church called him before them and warned him to mend his ways. He told
them that if they would keep the buzzards from his traps, he would. They
couldn't promise that, so he refused to repent. And they expelled him.
After that Austin quit church and Sunday school altogether. As time
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passed he went to the bad with blasphemous language and liquor and
scorching profanity. But he never relaxed his stubborn contest with the
buzzards, drunk or sober, nor they with him. When he sat up at night, they
sat up too. When he slept they robbed him. When he woke they fled from
him.
One winter night he staggered to his traps with his lantern to find one
of the finest open-mouth bass he'd ever seen being lifted in a buzzard's beak,
and he rushed forward wth a yell loud enough to wake Uncle Josh in his
shack up on the hill. He struck at the buzzard with his lantern, and because
he was a little wobbly on his legs from his over-heavy slug of whiskey —
in fact he was never sober anymore — he missed the buzzard and went head
over heel lantern and all into a deep swirling whirlpool below the falls. He
came pretty near drowning, but finally he beat his way down to a willow
clump on a little island some several hundred yards below the rapids. And
there he stayed, chilled and freezing to the bone until Uncle Josh and the
neighbors rescued him.
A few days after this he developed a case of double pneumonia. And
by the end of the week it was spoken around among the neighbors that Austin
Honey was going to die, and buzzards were the cause.
Then he did a queer thing. He summoned several friends to his bedside.
"Folks," he quavered piteously and with heavy breathing — "folks, it looks
like they've about done for me — them buzzards I mean." And his glazed
sick eyes rested dolorously on their sympathetic faces.
"Yes, Austin," they said, "it's all too bad." Then they sat silent, for
they were God-fearing people, and they thought he had summoned them
to pray for him that his wickedness might be forgiven and he be made ready
to pass over the cold river of death into the promised land. And they were
all in a prayerful mood. But never a word about praying did he speak.
"I've got a dying request to make of you," he said hoarsely—"adying
request. And you know that the wishes of the dead are sacred.'' They nodded
agreement that this was so. "Then listen to me," he went on waveringly,
"and do what I tell you. When I'm dead, and it won't be long, I want you
to take me up on yon hill by the river above my fish traps—'' and he pointed
with a trembling finger through the window toward the hill in the distance,
"and bury me there right on top of it, out in the field space. And I want
you to put me in an open coffin, with the lid off. You hear me? Do you?"
"Yes, Austin, we hear you," they said.
"And you'll do what I say!"
They finally agreed. And with burning insistence he made them put
their hands on the big Bible and swear to it.
' 'When you've done that,'' he went on,' 'and got me there in that open
coffin, I want you to build some hard and fast brickwork up over me and
around me—pen me in like. Jake there knows what I mean—the way he
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153
done Mr. Sexton's front yard wall. Tough and strong I want it. But leave
cracks between the bricks, you understand me." The ragged breathing of
the sick man was touching to hear.
"Yes," said Jake, sadly and gravely, "you want us to sort of dodge
the bricks."
"Yeh, dodge 'em, that's what I mean," Austin croaked.
"What in the world you want that for?" said Marvin Whittaker, the
blacksmith.
"No matter what I want it for," Austin coughed painfully and even
angrily, "I want it. And I want the cracks between them there bricks big
enough so you can look through good and see me lying peaceful-like in my
coffin."
"I believe his wits is a-wandering," said old Phinny Barlow, the cow
doctor.
'' Wits!'' wheezed Austin.'' You fools wait and see." And he beat the
bed on either side with his dying, angry fists.
Soon after that Austin died. Jake and his friends, even as they had
promised, performed the last sad rites for their dead friend. They placed
him in an open coffin on top of the hill. And a good stout interlaced structure
of brickwork was built up over and around him.
The next morning when Jake Senter looked up toward the hill he saw
a single buzzard sitting on the brick death-house. A little later in the day
he noticed a second buzzard had arrived and joined the first, and by sunset
time a flock of them was slowly wheeling in the sky. The following morning
quite a number of them were wandering around there on top of the hill.
Some were sitting on the lattice work and others were poking their heads
in through the open spaces between the bricks.
But none of them could get at Austin. None at all. There he lay serene
in his open coffin protected from their reach by the stout bricks. All day
long more buzzards were arriving from every direction of the horizon's
circumference. And early in the morning of the third day the people from
town could see the hill literally black with them.
Then the fun really began. Too bad that Austin couldn't see it. A terrific
struggle of buzzard muscle and brawn took place against bricks and concrete.
Singly and in pairs and in a flock these great black birds would go after
Austin. Then they began to fight among themselves for the privilege of
another try at him. They beat their old wrinkled heads bloody against the
bricks, they wore the feathers away from their rawbony shoulders. And day
and night they kept at it. For a fortnight or so the struggle went on, and
all the while more buzzards were landing in the scene.
In their way they were just as stubborn as Austin had been in his. They
wouldn't give up. And as these days went by they drooped and sickened
by the hundreds. Their frustration and disappointment brought them into
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nervous prostration and breakdown. They began to die in droves. Also
starvation and efforts at mutual cannibalism took toll of them where they
carried on their ceaseless and futile toil. All over the hill you could see them
scattered like humped bunches of black rags where they lay dead with the
dust blowing and sifting over them.
Some said there was no doubt of it at all — Austin Honey soon would
have cleaned the birds out of the Cape Fear Valley as well as all of North
Carolina maybe and had a final and complete revenge if the wind hadn't
changed. But it did, and began to blow down back toward the village. That
was too much for decent folks living there. When finally they could stand
it no longer the more hardy and self-respecting ones fastened wet vinegar
cloths to their noses with clothespins and went up to the top of the hill with
shovels and mattocks. They raked away the great piles of dead buzzards,
tore down the brickwork, closed up the coffin, dug a grave there on the spot
and put Austin reverently and definitely in it.
And any time you go along that road, folks will point out to you the
place where Austin Honey was buried long ago — him that had such a fight
with the buzzards. And the name of that hill to this day is Buzzard Hill.
buzzing like a fly
buzz saw
A furiously angry, especially high-tempered person.
by any manner or means
By any chance or doing.
by cracky!
A mild expletive.
by craps!
A mild expletive.
"Bye Oh Baby Bunting"
A traditional lullaby still sung by mothers. Bunting is an old word for a
woolen coverlet.
"Bye oh Baby Bunting,
Daddy's gone a-hunting
To catch a little rabbit skin
To wrap his Baby Bunting in."
by dag!
A mild expletive.
bygones
Something past, a thing to be forgot. "Let bygones be bygones."
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by grabs!
A mild expletive.
by guess and by god
At random, hit or miss, lacking any care or accurate measurement. "I made
that lot gate by guess and by god but it works good."
by gum!
A mild expletive.
by heart
By rote, to have in one's memory. "He was a smart boy, that Lexie Barnes,
he had all the names of all the bones in the body by heart. And he could
recite 'em right off and finally got to going so fast he would start dancing
to keep up with them, a kind of accompaniment."
by himself
Alone, single. "Rorie Matthews lives in that old shack all by himself now
that his two sisters have died."
by hook or crook
By any means, fair or unfair, overcoming any obstacle.
by now
At this moment, at the present. "He's surely got home by now."
bypath
A devious way, off the main and honest highway of action. "Hewasalways
trying to make money by bypath means."
by rights
Justly, one's j ust deserts. " By rights that boy ought to be in the penitentiary
for killing the people in that auto wreck and him drunk."
by the by
Incidentally.
by then
By that time. "Come back at three o'clock, and he'll be sure to be here by
then."
by the tits of St. Chris!
A mild oath.
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C
cabbage
A woman's sexual offerings. "He boiled her cabbage down."
Money, cash, same as spondulicks.
To steal.
cabbage head
A weak-minded person, a fool.
cabbage leaf
Inferior cigar or smoking tobacco.
This universal vegetable often came in for good medicinal use. If a child
had a cut in his or her foot or a nail puncture, a wilted cabbage leaf was
folded over the wound and wrapped in a cloth. Mothers often used this
cabbage leaf doctoring. The practice, like other folk cures and treatments,
had come down from 'way, 'way back. If a cabbage leaf was not available,
then any sort of large leaf would do — collard, mullein, pokeweed, or Jimson
weed. In winter applying a kerosene-wet bandage or greasing with lard or
mutton tallow would satisfy.
cabbage leaves
Leaves greased with lard and applied to boils will bring them to a head.
caboodle
The lot, the aggregate amount, the entirety. "He sold out, kit and caboodle.''
cackle
Idle talk. Also to gossip, to babble.
cackle crate
A chicken truck.
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157
cacky
Human excrement.
by cacky
A mild expletive.
tea caddy
A kitchen utensil for holding loose tea.
cadge
To sponge, to deadbeat, be parasitical.
cag
Keg.
caging
Cheating, bumming, living off of or living on. "He's caging on us."
cahoots
Shady dealings, illegal confederation.
Cain
The son of Adam and Eve and a "tiller of the soil." In a quarrel he killed
his brother Abel and because of this, as the well-known Bible story has it,
God put a curse on him. We have the folk expression "to raise Cain,"
meaning to create a row, a fight, or raise an unseemly loud rumpus.
The word Cain has a further distinction — or did have — in the minds of
many of the religious fundamentalists in the Valley. See "Land of Nod.''
coin't
Can't.
cair
cake
Carry.
Easy pickings, profit, delight.' 'You cannot eat your cake and have it, too.''
To stick, to adhere. "The mud's caked to his feet."
cake together
Stick together.
cake turns to dough
Pretense is shown up. Fine purposes turn out to be nought.
take the cake
To succeed in, to win the prize.
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cakes and ale
Good food, pleasant living. Same as high on the hog.
calabash
A kind of squash.
calaboose
Prison.
calamity howler
A Jeremiah.
Calamity Jane
A killjoy, a sour-faced person.
calamus
See "sweet flag."
calamus root
Tea from the boiled root was used to treat babies with colic.
calf
A meek, harmless fellow, a numbskull.
calf-head
A dumb fellow, a stupid person.
calf love
Adolescent love, same as puppy love.
calf-rope
A term used in yielding, surrendering, giving up. Often we boys would wrestle
or fight, and the cry would soon go up to call for the calf rope, and finally
when the defeated one called out "calf-rope," the struggle was over.
sound like a dying calf
A bellowing, guttural sound.
calico
A girl, a woman. "He went plumb nuts over that piece of calico that lived
'crost the creek."
calico queen
A honky-tonk woman, a sort of bawdy house madam.
calks
The turned-up ends of horseshoes to aid in firm footing.
call
Named. "That third young'un there is called Sally."
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159
Obligation, right, duty. "He had no call to do me like that."
call a spade a spade
Describe or report a happening with unashamed frankness.
to get the call
To need to defecate.
The call from on high, to be summoned home to glory, to die.
To get the word from on high to speak the gospel. See "call to preach."
call down
Reprimand.
called home
Died.
call in
To visit incidentally. "While I was in Benson I called in to see Miss Nolie
and, old as she was, she was right there at that piano teaching music."
calling hogs
A term used in reference to someone who snores loudly in his sleep, much
like sawing gourds.
call it a day
The end of a day's work, the completion of a job.
call it square
To become friends, to wipe out a debt. "Pay me ten dollars and we'll call
it square."
call one's bluff
To meet a threat unflinchingly, answer a dare, prove another person's
weakness.
call the game
To umpire, also to stop a game as in a heavy rain. " It was too bad yesterday
the ump called the game in the fourth inning. One more inning and we would
have won."
call the turn
To guess right, to solve a problem.
call to mind
Recall, recollect, remember. "I can't call to mind who it was."
call to preach
A summons from on high, a divine command to spread the word of God
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and bring sinners to repentance. Over the years I have known many preachers
who have come and gone in the Valley, and without exception they all
declared they became preachers because God had called them. And I must
say that almost without exception God showed mighty poor judgment in
his selection. I remember the example of Needham Bolin — though the final
results as to him, I must agree, were not bad at all.
This Needham was a lonely, plowhandle sort of fellow, timid and of
few words indeed. Maybe in his very lonesomeness in the wide fields he felt
the need of comfort and so developed some kind of closeness to his God.
Anyway, he confided to his sister Lida one night at the table — the two of
them lived alone in their little farmhouse after their parents' death — that
something strange had happened to him that day as he was plowing. He
heard a voice clear as a bell say, "Needham, I want you to preach." Lida
looked at him in astonishment, saying he might as well get that wild idea
out of his head. It must have been something he et, or maybe he was like
that Chester Harmon fellow that thought he heard God saying' 'Go preach,
go preach!" only to find out later that it was Heck Turner's old jackass
sounding off.
And to add to Needham's other disabilities he at times stuttered badly.
But as the devout people in the Valley say and have said for generations,
"The Lord moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform."
It happened sometime after that that an old Negro woman, who had
once been a cotton hoe-hand for Needham's father, died and the Negro
preacher came over and invited Needham and Lida to the funeral, saying,
"Aunt Hy'cinth loved yo' daddy and she sho' would 'predate yo'
'tendance." So Needham and his sister went to the funeral in the nearby
Negro meeting house. It was a bitterly cold day and a big fire was going
in the iron heater in the crowded church. Much to Needham's dismay the
preacher came down the aisle, got him by the hand, and the next thing he
and Lida knew they were wedged in on the front seat and cut off from the
door by an aisle full of Negro mourners and relatives who were crowding
in. Caught fast, he sat there in a cold sweat between the congregation and
Aunt Hyacinth's black cloth-covered pine coffin.
Then the preacher started his funeral sermon on Aunt Hyacinth and,
much to Needham's surprise made it quiet and short. But he wasn't so
surprised long, for the reverend explained that there was one with them this
day who would speak words of sympathy and praise about the' 'deceasted.''
Poor timid Needham shuddered where he sat and a great silent groan went
up inside him as the preacher pointed to him and called his name. Lida nudged
him and whispered that he at least ought to stand up and be recognized.
A great "Amen, Brother" sounded from the congregation in urgent
expectancy. Needham finally got to his feet and stuttered out a word or two
about old Aunt Hyacinth being a fine character and mighty good with a
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161
hoe. Before he could sink back into his seat more loud cries of "Amen"
broke out, and others were added.' 'You tell it, Brother,''' 'Amen,'' "Listen
to the word!"
"Go on, go on," Lida urged, even pushing him from behind. "Say
a little bit more — they expect it."
So all bent over and ready to drop down again, Needham managed
another word or two, and the amens and hallelujahs began to grow more
numerous and loud. The preacher now stepped down from the little pulpit
as Needham was taking his seat, got the poor timid fellow by the arm and
pulled him firmly out toward the coffin. Then he began clapping his hands
and whooping things along in encouragement.
Needham managed to squeeze out a few more words, and the preacher
moved to one side out of the way, sat down and left him in charge. The
congregation kept calling on him to tell the good news about Aunt Hyacinth.
"Preach her on into Abraham's bosom," they pleaded loudly.
The terrific emotional upheaval now going on in Needham caused
something to happen. He started talking more freely, and the Negroes started
answering him with the 'sponse. And every time he'd weaken they'd roll
in with their hallelujahs and amens and sweep him on.
Finally he got going, and soon he was walking the floor, pacing unafraid
about the coffin, his eyes flashing, his long plowhandle arms waving like
winding blades in a flood of drumming words pouring from his lips.
"You know not the day nor the hour!'' he shouted. And the wild 'sponse
rolled back from the congregation — "Preach it, brother, preach it up to
the gates of glory."
And they say he did. Never had such a funeral service been preached
in Cedar Grove Church as Needham Bolin preached that day.
From then on he was a preacher, and one of the best. Some of the older
folks said he was about as good as Billy Sunday. He went on the road bringing
sinners to Christ. He quit farming in the hot sunlit fields, for he took literally
the words of the Biblical preacher who said, "What profit hath a man of
all his labor wherein he laboreth under the sun." So he left his farm, and
Lida hired a foolish boy, Erse Harmon, to help farm in his stead. The last
I heard, Needham was still traveling up and down the Valley as far as
Wilmington to the south and east and Greensboro to the north, thundering
forth the word of God. Now and then you could hear his hoarse hasseling
voice over the Sunday morning radio. But he was getting old and his powers
against the Devil and all his works were weakening.
calomel
A purgative cure-all in the old days and of constant and popular use by the
Valley doctors then, including Dr. Joe McKay, our family physician.
Of all the fiendish medicines in the world, I as a boy counted calomel
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the worst. Sometimes my mother would stare at me and say, "You look
kind of peaked today. You need cleaning out, that's what." And then she
would destroy me in my tracks where I stood by saying she was going to
give me a good dose of calomel. And plead and weep and carry on as I would,
it was all in vain. For ultimately I would have to take a horrible teaspoonful
of the vomit-sickening white powder and wash it down with water. And then
most of the following night and on into the next day I would have to squat
with my little behind on the cold chamber pot — or "thunder mug" as we
sometimes named it—if the weather was wintry; or if the weather was warm,
take up residence in the' 'garden house'' or privy out in the edge of the field.
Later would come the delicious mending time when Mother would pet me
up, bring me good chicken soup and hang sweetly about me. And then the
other children — there were six of us — would stand around and look
enviously on, almost reconciled to the time when they too would have to
take the wretched stuff, with such exquisite warm attentions to follow. And
Mother would always see to it that while the calomel was working we didn't
get our feet wet and chilled. "I don't want you to get salivated the way Will
Elliott did and have all your teeth fall out," she said.
This Will Elliott was a nearby neighbor and now and then helped us
as a hired hand on our farm. He was a handsome young fellow and had
the most beautiful white teeth you ever saw. He was very proud of these
teeth and used to show them to good effect in his wide entrancing smiles
at the girls at church on Sunday, for he had a lot of the giddy creatures looking
his way and he enjoyed the admiration of them all with no fancy for any
single one in particular, it seemed. Another thing Will had too, whether he
was proud of that I don't know, and that was a high temper. When he was
rubbed the wrong way or thought he was, he would fly into a passion. Once
he was plowing in front of our house, and our Negro tenant, also named
Will, Will McLeod, stopped at the well, lifted the gourd dipper and drank
from it same as white folks. He was of course supposed to drink straight
from the bucket's rim and not touch the gourd. Will Elliott stopped his mule
and flew across the field toward the other Will shouting at him, and that
Will fled down the road. Our Will grabbed up the gourd dipper which had
been contaminated according to his folk belief by the lips of the Negro, threw
it on the ground, and stomped it to pieces. He resumed his plowing, his whole
form trembling with rage. I, a little fellow, was standing on our front porch
and saw it all and, young as I was, I wondered why he did it.
The preceding summer Will Elliott's folks had failed to pull and cure
enough fodder for their stock, and one cold winter day it was decided that
Will would have to go across the creek some distance to get a supply from
old Sheriff Johnson. Now a few nights before this, Will had been out on
a randy near Barclaysville and had come home feeling mighty low, so he
had taken a big "dose of purgative'' to get himself back in shape. He like
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163
others believed mightily in calomel, God help him! He must have taken more
than usual, for the explosive stuff really reamed him. For a day or two he
lay about, weak as water. But he had strength enough, he felt, to drive across
the creek to get some fodder for the stock. The Elliotts had an old steer named
Buck, a patient, plodding character who had served the family well. So he
hitched Buck to the cart and drove over to Sheriff Johnson's to get the fodder.
The day was bitterly cold. A series of heavy sleets had recently fallen, and
Middle Prong Creek was swollen high. But he got on across somehow, loaded
up the fodder and started home. When he came again to the creek, old Buck
rebelled. One trip through that icy water was enough. But Will with his
furious temper flailed away on his rawbony back with his whip and finally
drove him into it. But half-way through, Buck balked once more and Will
gave more of the whip to his poor lacerated stern. Then Buck really bucked.
He lay down in the creek with his head and part of his backbone sticking
up out of the flowing flood. And beat as Will would, Buck wouldn't stir.
Then Will in his fury thought of a diabolical scheme. He took several big
bundles of the dry fodder, reached out and piled them carefully on the old
steer's back, set fire to them and waited. The dry fodder blazed up in a
tremendous flame, and when the searing, livid fire tore into Buck's flesh,
the old steer bounced straight up in the air. And out of the deep creek he
tore, shooting Will tumbling backwards into the swirling stream.
And there Will was. He was almost drowned, being in his weakened
condition. He finally crawled out of the creek and made for home walking.
By this time Buck was out of sight on his way to the same place. For a mile
or so Will traveled in the freezing wind. When he reached home, he was
almost done for. He was so weak his father and mother had to undress him
and put him to bed. They put hot jars of water around him, fed him some
cornmeal gruel, and so saved him from pneumonia. But that didn't save
him from the salivation effects of the calomel. His gums swelled up, and
during the next month or so most of his beautiful front teeth fell out.
After that Will was not such a rounder among the girls, and at the next
big meeting in the church he went meekly and with snaggle teeth to the
mourners' bench and professed religion. From then on, they say, most of
his wild temper left him.
He later got some false teeth, married a quiet Valley girl, a rather ugly
one, and settled down to making a living as a tenant farmer. He died years
ago well-respected and a deacon in the church.
And as Lonnie Cofield, the local wit, said "I reckon through salivation
Will Elliott got salvation — not a bad swap at that."
ca'm (short a)
Calm.
as calm as night
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Farquahar Campbell
One of the early Scotch emigrants to the Valley. It was said he was knighted
by the king and for a while was called Sir Farquahar. He apparently was
a canny businessman, for he accumulated much wealth, which was something
to do in those 18th century days. He was opposed to violence and the
Revolutionary War, and after the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, which
he somehow got mixed up in, he was sent as a prisoner to Philadelphia, then
to Baltimore. Later he came back to North Carolina, took the oath of
allegiance, and once more became a power in the state, serving with
distinction in the Legislature. His fine home which used to stand some ten
miles from where my folks lived has long ago disappeared — like nearly
all the ancient homes. Many a time I have walked in the field where I thought
the Campbell house stood, but no relic did I ever find. What first attracted
me to this Valley character was his stand against killing.
Reverend James Campbell
The most famous of all the early preachers in the Valley. He founded old
Barbecue Church where Flora MacDonald and her family worshipped, then
Longstreet Church (now enclosed in the Fort Bragg acreage and echoing
with the heavy firing of field guns instead of the word of God), and after
that Old Bluff Church. A fine monument to him stands in the Bluff
Cemetery. He lies in an unmarked grave west across the Cape Fear River
on land that once belonged to him.
camphor
Spirits of camphor for headache.
can
The toilet, commode, the privy. "If you can't perform, get off the can."
Jail, as "in the can."
Ass, arse.' 'Welfare people sitting on their cans doing nothing and us paying
"em!"
To fire, dismiss. "He got canned at the factory yesterday, and he's out today
looking for a job."
To roll a golf ball into the cup. "Yesterday, on the eighteenth green Arnie
canned a thirty foot putt, and that was it."
cancer cure
A folk herb remedy.
"When I was a young man," said Mr. Mac, as we sat in his millhouse
one night while he caught up on his late corn-grinding, "there was an old
woman lived in the Rockfish neighborhood named Miss Zua Smith. She
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
165
was supposed to be one of the best herb doctors in the whole Cape Fear
Valley, and she claimed to have discovered a cure for cancer. Maybe she
did. Anyway she used to make tumor or cancer plasters and sell them for
fifty cents apiece. A few miles off from her near my daddy's place lived
old Archie Norwood, who had a cancer on the side of his face. Doctor John
McKay, the father of Dr. Joe, treated him as best he could and said he ought
to go to a hospital or somewhere and git it burned off. And even that might
do no good, for it was a bad one, mighty bad. But Archie wouldn't go. He
went down instead to Miss Zua and got one of her plasters and put it on
his face. And when the strength would go out of that he would go get another.
I'm a witness to the fact that he was cured. I've seen him at church many
a time, and only a little scar showed where the terrible affliction once had
been. There are many other old folks walking or riding the highways of the
Valley who can testify to the fact of her cures. She would take sheep sorrel,
beat the juice out of it on a pewter plate, put it in the sun until it hardened
like salve, then mix Achilles' heel root and red-oak bark ashes in with it,
pouring in a little flyweed tea to strengthen it, so they said. And then she
would add something else, she acknowledged. And what that something
else was no one was ever able to find out until she died.
"The doctors round about had got interested in old Zua's cures, and
they came many a time to question her. But she would never tell them what
the final secret was in her mixtry. She would only smile at them and say
in her high voice, 'Stir about ye, men, stir about ye.' When she got down
on her deathbed and the news spread, Dr. John invited several doctors up
from Fayetteville and down from Raleigh, and they gathered there in her
little shack on the bank of the creek. I heard about the gathering and went
down to see what would turn up. I was always anxious to collect any folklore
I could. The doctors talked and pleaded with her to tell them what the secret
ingredient was, but she lay mum as a post looking up at the ceiling and saying
nothing. Just before she died, Aunt Lodie Blalock, the sanctified woman
who was waiting on her, said Miss Zua told her she had the recipe written
down and it was in a tin box somewhere in the house. She herself had seen
it once upon a time.
"So forgetting the dying woman on the bed, the doctors got busy
ransacking the place. They stirred about all right, as you might say. All up
in the loft they went, digging among the newspapers and plunder. They even
brought down a little old dusty baby carriage which Zua had bought long
years before at a sale when she was engaged to be married, an engagement
that never came to anything since her sweetheart, Bull Massingill, a sewing
machine agent, ran off with a Croatan girl and on out to the Texas
Panhandle.
"At last they found the tin box behind a loose stone in the chimney.
They gathered around it like flies around a piece of sugar and opened it.
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Sure enough, they found a receipt, or recipe. Dr. John read it out loud. It
told the same story of sheep sorrel, pewter plates and Achilles' heel, old
yarrow, and the rest of it. Then at the last it said that the final ingredient,
and that was the secret one, was to make the patient believe in you.
"Yes, that was the secret of her success. The folks she cured believed
she could cure them. Well, you might know the doctors were a lot of
disappointed fellows, for that part of the cure was outside their science. They
all turned back to the bed to argue with the old woman, saying there must
be something else. But there she was lying dead as a wedge with a smile on
her lips. One of the young doctors spoke up quick-like and said, 'Look at
her smiling. Just like she was glad to have fooled us.'
" 'Yes, she did, she fooled us,' said another.
" 'I wonder if she did after all,' said Dr. John, who was wise in
experience and years.
"A young doctor at Duke University to whom I told this story said
Miss Zua's herbs might very well have cured skin cancer but not the real
carcinoma. 'A cure for that dread killer still remains to be found,' he said,
'and it will be.' Then he asked me if I smoked cigarettes.
" 'A little,'I said.
" 'Then you better quit it,' he said. 'It's my firm belief that cigarette
smoking helps cause lung cancer.' Later I did quit. This young doctor was
a real pioneer, as time has proved, and I regret I don't have his name."
The game is not worth the candle.
Said of any action not worth the trouble.
will neither work nor hold the candle
One who is indolent, too lazy to move in either direction.
to burn the candle at both ends
To dissipate, to waste one's physical resources.
Never light a candle at both ends.
Don't hide a candle under a bushel.
candle an egg
The practice of testing the soundness of an egg by holding it in front of a
lighted candle. "You needn't worry about them eggs. I've candled every
one of 'em."
candleberry
See "bayberry."
The candle-maker's death is dark as anybody's.
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167
Candlemas Day
The religious feast celebrated on February 2 commemorating the purification
of the Virgin Mary—so-called because candles for the altar or other sacred
uses are blessed on that day. It is the same date as groundhog day.
candles on a birthday cake
According to tradition, blowing out all the candles on a birthday cake on
one breath will make one's wish come true. Other beliefs are that —
Number of times you blow—
Number of years before marrying.
Number of candles left after one blowNumber of years before you marry.
Get the candles lighted before you blow out the match.
candy
Sweet doings, an easy job. "Passing that examination is like taking candy
from a baby."
candy-pulling
A favorite social event. Girls and boys would gather for the occasion and
all would participate in the pulling. First, the molasses mixed with the proper
amount of water and a bit of salt would be boiled until it came to a thickened,
gooey condition. Removed from the fire, it was left to cool enough till it
could be handled. Then the pullers with lard or butter-greased hands would
divide it into ropes, and couples would work at it till they had it in a chosen
shape. Sometimes after pulling it would be flattened out with a roller and
cut into small pieces. And ever there were laughter and hearty fun at these
pullings. Since the coming of the automobile and the riding out at night
this custom along with other like ones has pretty much disappeared.
can it
Hush, stop talking. "Aw, can it, will you!"
canker
To be gangrenous or corrosive.
canker weed
The ragwort.
canned cow
Canned milk.
canned music
Juke box music, phonograph music.
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cannon
A pistol or gun.
cannon fodder
Formerly the young men of a nation in time of war, but now everybody.
paddle one's own canoe
To be self sufficient, to go one's way alone.
from can see to can't see
From daylight to dark. "I've snaked logs from can see to can't see, and
me and the steers are plumb blowed."
cant
To tilt, to lean over. "Watch out or that thing will cant over on you!"
can take it
Being able to endure hardship, tough, stout-hearted.
cantankerous
Queer, sullen, cranky.
can't hold a candle to
Poor in comparison, can't be compared in value, strength, talent, etc.
can't put your finger on him
Can't trust him, he is not dependable.
can't see for looking
To overlook the obvious.
can you beat it!
A mild interjection.
cap
The toe of one's shoe. Down in Harnett County we boys used to wear brogans
with copper caps on them, and how proud we were of these shoes.
Captain.
feather in one's cap
An honor, some signal success.
thinking cap
To consider earnestly, seriously, for a long while. "To solve that you'll have
to put on your thinking cap."
If the cap fits, wear it.
If criticism or commendation is applicable, accept it. Same as if the shoe
fits, wear it.
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169
cape jessamine
One of the Valley's most favored flowers. Its bloom is almost as unearthly
as its sweetness. When I was a boy it was always abundant at funerals. But
of late years it has given way pretty much to roses, azaleas, lilies and the
like from professional florists for these occasions. But it is widely grown
still in people's yards. I always like to go to Manteo in the summer, not only
to see and help on "The Lost Colony" play, if needed, but to enjoy the
plentiful cape jessamines that perfume the town.
caper
A wild party.
A lively, happy dance.
cut a caper
Have an angry fit.
in capital letters
To be prominent, obvious. "I was there all diked out in my names and collar,
and, boy, they saw me in capital letters."
capital punishment
The use of the death penalty for crime. There have been many methods in
the past — burning at the stake, throttling, the guillotine, etc.
cap'n
The boss man, Mister, sir.
caps
Little powder-loaded fittings to be put on the nipple of muzzle-loading guns
which the hammers would strike and thus explode and set off the charge
of powder.
captain
A strong-minded, bossy woman. "John's new mail-order wife sure is a
captain and old John walks meek as a mouse."
cap the climax
To surpass, to exceed a high limit, the highest point reached. Pretty much
the same as cap the stack, to top what has gone before.
carbolic acid
Bit of cotton soaked with it was put in an aching hollow tooth for relief.
Wheresoever the carcass is there will the buzzards be also.
card
A comedian, a funny fellow or person of eccentric manners or appearance.
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To score. "He carded a six on that last hole."
cardinal cloak
A long, enveloping overcoat.
cards
Utensils for carding cotton, pronounced by the old people formerly
"cyards," the way the Virginia poor white aristocrats continue to say
"gyarden."
good cards
A position of strength, a strong playing hand, an advantage. "In our
international dealings old Uncle Sam goes in there always with good cards.''
a house of cards
Any wild or unsafe scheme or proposition, false hopes.
in the cards
A true prophecy, a foretelling of facts. "It was in the cards that Adam
Clayton Powell should lose his seat in Congress."
play your cards
To manage your own affairs, keep your nose out of other people's business
and in your own.' 'Play your cards well, son, and life's a game you'll surely
win — win, that is, until the pale white horse comes galloping closer and
closer.'' Also to be astute in timing a move.' 'Play your cards right and you'll
get a good price for your "bacco."
card up one's sleeve
An extra move, something in reserve for use at a decisive moment.
care
Worry, responsibility.
Care and sorrow turn a black head white.
Care killed the cat.
Better take care before care comes.
I care for nobody, no, not I,
And nobody cares for me.
Don't care lives outdoors.
care a pin
Care little at all, of little or no interest. "I don't care a pin whether he loves
me or not."
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111
care for
To love. "He got where he cared for his wife's sister, and all living in the
same house, and then the scandal broke and it tore old Summerville Church
all to pieces."
don't care if I do
To be willing, to say yes, okay. "Have some more peas, Henry." "Don't
care if I do."
careless love
A coquette, a flirt, also a favorite folklore lament by the same title.
She cares no more for him than a crow cares for Sunday.
To have no affectionate feelings at all.
Carolina tea
See "yaupon."
car'n
Carrion.
You may know a carpenter by his chips.
He's not the best carpenter that makes the most chips.
The worse the carpenter the more the chips.
to be put on the carpet
To be reprimanded, placed in a hard situation, be bawled out.
carpet full of children
Numerous children.
carrion
Putrefied flesh.
Where the carrion is there will the buzzards be.
carrion flower
See "creeping Charlie, " also "gill-o'er-the-ground."
Carrots make one's sight keener.
carrot weed
See "ragweed."
carry
To escort, to travel with. "Are you going to carry Lattie Johnson to the
box-party Friday?"
carry a chip on one's shoulder
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Carry no more sail than you have wind for.
carryings on
Loud or indecent behavior.
"Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny"
With words and music by James Bland, this song was a prime favorite with
young folks of my generation. On many a moonlight hayride or summer
gathering we would sing this yearning song. Our male quartet often sang
it at cornshuckings and schoolbreakings.
"Carry me back to Ole Virginny
That's where the cotton and the corn and
'taters grow,
There's where the birds warble sweet
in the springtime,
There's where this old darkey's heart
has long'd to go."
Only Stephen Foster's "darkey" songs equalled the appeal of this one.
carry on
To act or cut up in a boisterous manner.
carry the ball
Be reliable, lead.
carry the mail
To travel in a hurry and with a purpose.
carry the news
To run away, to travel fast.
To gossip.
carry two rows at the time
To be especially busy and adept at it, such as picking two rows of cotton
or pulling two rows of fodder at the same time.
car sick
To be nauseated from riding in an automobile.
cart before the horse
To have second things come first, get things out of order and mismanaged.
cart body
The wooden body of a cart.
An empty cart body rattles most.
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173
cart off
To haul or drag off.' 'You better get a log chain and cart off that choleradead hog."
cartwheel
To turn a flip.
A silver dollar.
case
A love affair. "Joe Johnson and Lilly Cutts have certainly got a case on
between them."
Provided, if, when. "You better be ready in case Gab'el blows his horn."
A comic fellow, an eccentric character, an entertaining person. "That Kay
Kyser is certainly a case."
case-hardened
A toughened person, cynical, hard-hearted.
case-knife
A table knife. In our house in the old days, we had two kinds of knives —
the case-knife and the butcher knife, and also we had our pocket knives,
usually a barlow pocket knife.
case of
An infection, an illness. "He's got a case of mumps on."
get down to cases
To get down to business, to the facts, come to grips with the matter, get
down to brass tacks.
case worker
One who does social and welfare work for the government.
"Casey at the Bat"
The famous song and poem about the mighty batter.
"Casey Jones"
A popular railroad song.
cashier
To dismiss, to fire.
cash in
To succeed, to collect a bet, to die.
cash in one's chips (checks)
To die.
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Cast down your nets where you are.
cast iron and double-bolted
Exceedingly strong, impregnable.
castor oil bean
The castor oil bean is good for the garden. It keeps moles away if planted in it.
cat
A caterpillar tractor.
A lion, a tiger, a leopard.
Also a fierce woman, a harlot.
To fight, to philander.
Cat
A most popular school game, especially among boys. Girls were sometimes
allowed to participate if for some reason there were not enough boys
available. "Choosing up" was the first order of business. Two leaders or
captains would do the choosing. One tossed a bat in the air, the other caught
it in a hand clasp. Then the first leader clasped it above his hand and so
on with right hand and left hand alternating to the top. The one who got
the last hold was allowed first choice for his side. But he must prove it by
being able to whirl the bat around his head three times and throw it.
Sometimes the distance to be thrown was set, say, five feet or ten feet. The
measurement was made by one stride equaling three feet. In our game at
the old Pleasant Union school, as often elsewhere in the Valley, we had two
bases, designated some fifty to sixty feet apart. The pitcher threw the tra'ball
(made of wound old sock and/or stocking threads) at the batter. If he missed
it three times, he was out, and the next batter was up. If he hit the ball, an
effort would be made by the opposition to grab the ball and hit him with
it before he reached the base. Then if the next batter hit the ball, the first
player ran back for the home base. If either player was hit by the ball while
running, he was out. If the hit ball was caught onafly or on the first bounce,
the batter was out. Second bounces didn't count. With three outs the sides
changed. As I remember, we later turned to the regular baseball form with
three bases, but we still called the game "cat" or "old cat."
A cat came fiddling out of a barn,
A pair of bagpipes under her arm.
She could say nothing but "Fiddle-de-dee,
The mouse has married the bumblebee."
(A nursery rhyme.)
A cat has nine lives.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
175
The cat in love catches no mice.
A cat sitting with his tail to the fire is a sign of bad weather.
A cat will always light on his feet.
see like a cat
There are more ways than one to skin a cat.
Take it slow like the cat eating the grindstone.
act like a cat in a gale of wind
Act hysterically, foolishly, wildly.
Whenever the cat o' the house is black,
The lasses o' lovers will have no lack.
There are more ways of killing a cat than by choking her with butter.
He takes to it like a cat to water,
looked like a cat with cream
catalog woman
A wife gotten through an advertising agency. See "mail-order marriage."
catalpa
Smoke inhaled from the parched and powdered catalpa leaves, like Jimson
leaves, was a good asthma treatment. Also the multitude of worms that feed
on the green leaves make good fish bait. Only yesterday I saw an ad in the
local paper — "Catalpa worms for sale, twenty-five cents a dozen."
cat and dog life
A quarrelsome, fighting kind of existence of married couples.
cat and mouse game
To shilly-shally around, to persecute playfully, to use evasive and teasing
tactics.
cat around
To travel about seeking sexual adventure.
catawampus
Wap-sided, twisted.
catbird
A rambunctious fellow. "Yeh, he's a catbird all right, and you girls stay
away from him." Same as a buck or a rounder.
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catbird seat
The place of authority, a superior position.
catbrier
A specially clawing and cantankerous kind of brier. In the swamps and woods
of the South it is also called a bramble.
cat call
Derisive whistles or calls as in a theatre or at a political rally.
catch
A matrimonially desirable person. "She was the one catch in the
neighborhood, and trifling Sam Evans with the big eyes would be the one
to get her."
To help bring a baby. "That old woman's catched thirty-four babies I know
of."
catch-all
A basin or box or receptacle in which all kinds of things, hairpins, chewing
gum, matches, nails, tacks, etc., are gathered.
catch as catch can
To handle a matter as best one can, to attempt experimentally.
catch a tartar
To get hold of something one can't handle. Same as to have a bear, or bull,
by the tail.
catching
Infectious.' 'Miss Minty died of a cancer and so did her boy, Jim — which
proves it's catching, that's what it does."
catching before hanging
catch me up
Set one right if he's wrong or in error. Also bring one up to date.
catch on
To comprehend, to understand.
catch one's death of cold
To get a severe chill or illness from over-exposure in bad weather.
catch oneself up
To stop oneself before making a faux pas, or take charge of oneself, to stick
to a resolution.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
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cat eyes
Knots in timber. Same as cat face.
cat gut
Same as Devil's shoestring.
cat gut scraper
A fiddler.
cat-hammed
Said of a horse with crooked hind legs.
cathead
Prison slang for biscuit.
cat hole
Usually a small rectangular hole cut in the corner of a door through which
a household cat could go and come at night. I heard of one man in my
neighborhood who had seven holes cut in his doors, and when someone asked
him the reason for this, he said, "Well, I've got a lot of cats and when I
say 'scat,' I mean scat."
cat nap
A short sleep.
catnip tea
A brew made from the herb. It is supposed to make babies rest well, a good
sedative.
like a cat on a hot brick
Nervous, restless.
cat o' nine tails
A vicious whip, used in the old days for punishment of rebellious prisoners
on the chain gang especially. These prisoners were often rented out to help
build railroads or used by the State to build and care for its own roads, etc.
I watched a gang one day — and hearing from a prisoner an incident the
day before — my lament followed.
Six shackled figures on the blazing road, swinging their picks, and four
behind with shovels. And they sing, and they sing. The white dust hides the
blackberries in the hedge and the willow clumps are bent under its weight.
Lazy-Lawrence shimmers across the land as far as the eye can see. The sweat
pours down. For the ten mourners on the road the only dampness in the
world. And it has salt in it. On a stump to the left a guard squats, drowsy,
vapid, like atoad. Sleepy, oh, so sleepy! But his rifle keeps alert. Its muzzle
threatens. It is an eye and watches. Fall, picks! Heave arms!
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I called my mother (hanh),
I said my mother (hanh)
I mean my mother (hanh),
Eigh, Lawd!
On the bankside to the right another guard sits. He also is sleepy. But
he is married and has a wife and children. He loves them, he said so. God
forgive. The earth shall receive and the heavens mark it. Swing on, O picks,
dig for my riding. Roll back the clay, O shovels.
I called my father (hanh),
I said my father (hanh), —
Tears be planted under and joy ride over.
I mean my father (hanh),
Eigh, Lawd!
The boy on the end with a moan falls down. His stiffened tongue crushes
a dried loam clod. Watchers for the State stand to now. It is their duty. Duty.
They poke him in the ribs. They cuff him in the collar. Hell, hell, this ain't
no party. I mean no party. He makes no answer. God gives no answer —
eigh, Lord. Bantam Wilson is his buddy, with hands like an ape. But his
head is up, his face is toward the sun.
I called my moster (hanh),
I said my moster (hanh), —
And the willow clumps let forth a barrel. They roll it out and strap him
on. God-damn your soul, Bantam. Hold his legs! And now you'll work,
and I reckon you'll work. Fifteen — sixteen — seventeen — eighteen. Blood
— blood. Sweet earth receive it.
Drink it, keep it till the next harvest.
I mean my moster (hanh),
Eigh, Lawd!
Thirty-seven — thirty-eight — thirty-nine. Thirty and nine, so the law
declared it. He was a boy — Colonel Jones was a boy — eigh, Lord. Wipe
the blood from his fore part, wipe the blood from his rear part. Wipe the
pieces of skin from the strap in hand. Oh, his tongue's grown stiffer. His
eyes begged at them, speech was in them, speech without sound. And the
sun did see it. It made no answer. Lay him in the grass there. Zum — said
the fly. For his body was lovely. As a dear God made him. To run by the
cabin, to play by the corn fields. Dead as a doornail. Fool, too tender! A
little switching, nothing much.
I called my Jesus (hanh),
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
179
I said my Jesus (hanh), —
Not much of a beating. Hell, not much.
I mean my Jesus (hanh),
Eigh, Lawd!
let the cat out of the bag
To reveal a secret, to give forth in gossip forbidden news.
Cats that swim in the ocean all drown.
a gang of old cats
A gathering of gossipy old women.
fighting like cats and dogs
Usually refers to married couples' tantrums. "They just live like cats and
dogs all the time, there ain't no peace in that household — may the Lord
have mercy on the poor little children."
to rain cats and dogs
To rain hard, bucketfuls.
When the cat's away, the mice will play.
Cat's Cradle
A string game which used to be very popular. One child holds a piece of
string, joined at the ends on his upheld palms and with a single twist taken
over each hand. By inserting the middle finger of each hand over the opposite
twist he crosses the string from one finger in a special way. Another child
takes the string off on his fingers in a different way and then assumes a second
form, and so on. Sometimes one child would play the game alone, tying
the string and looping it over his own fingers. We had several figures which
we used, one, the Cat's Cradle, and then we'd make the Sawmill, catching
the end of the string in our teeth and pushing our hands back and forward
making a sawing motion with the crossed strings. And also there was another
shape that we called "Job's Coffin." The game is well-described in Mrs.
Gomme's Dictionary of American Folklore. Like most of our games, this
game came from England.
the cat's foot
An interjection indicating disbelief or disgust.
cat's pajamas
An expression of praise or satisfaction, refers to anything very attractive,
good, satisfactory.
cat's paw
A dupe.
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cat's whiskers
The real thing, much the same as cat's pajamas.
cattail
A common marsh or aquatic plant. Becoming very popular in the lily pools
which the better-to-do folks in the Valley of recent years have been building.
cattle
The herd, the mob, the crowds of worthless people or the masses.
catty
Envious, sharp-tongued, spiteful. "Miss Jones is always speaking catty about
people."
catty-cornered
Misshapen or angular.
catty wampus (catawampus)
Diagonal, somewhat similar to catty-cornered. "Look, you've gone and
put that rafter up all catty wampus."
cat walk
A narrow path or way. A narrow boardwalk.
caucus
A huddle, a get-together, such as a political gathering to discuss important
matters.
caught like a rat in a trap
get caught
To become pregnant in error.
caught flat-footed
Caught completely unprepared or at a misdeed.
caught in his own trap
Much the same as the biter bit, like the man who set a shotgun trap in his
henhouse to catch an intruder and then, forgetful of the gun, rushed down
when he heard the chickens cackling at night and pulled the door open and
was shot by his own gun.
caught in the act
Caught with the goods.
caught short
A sudden urge to defecate or urinate. Also refers to shortage in one's
accounts.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
caul
181
Web over a newborn baby's face, supposed to be a sign of good luck and
some say that one born with a caul is specially gifted in extrasensory
perception. I have not checked with the Parapsychology Department at Duke
to see if the belief is part of their curriculum.
cause why
The reason. "I know the cause why you don't go to see that gal anymore,
she's done kicked you."
caution
An odd fellow, a queer duck, an extraordinary show or performance. "That
Bernie Macintosh is a caution how he makes money."
cave in
To collapse, to yield, to surrender, to die.
cave man
An extra strong man, rough, loud-acting.
cedar-bird
A gull, a gypped person.' 'The sophomores at Chapel Hill make cedar-birds
out of the freshmen — sending them to number one Rosemary Street to
register, that being in the old days the jailhouse."
central
The early village or neighborhood telephone operator, usually a woman.
She was always a good source of local news. In writing a motion picture
for Will Rogers out of a James Gould Cozzens novel I once used this lady
central to good effect. In opening the story I had the camera hold her in
full view as she answered the calls and plugged in the connections. The call
was for Dr. Bull, the part Will Rogers played.
"Dr. Bull? No, I don't know where he is," she said more than once.
' 'No, ma'am, I haven't seen him go by on his way to the drugstore yet. He's
at home so far as I know. He doesn't answer? You know how he is. No,
sir." And so on.
Then the camera goes looking for Dr. Bull — to his home, the barn,
his buggy shelter, and so on. Then we hear a man's half-distinct voice lifted
in gentle song somewhere off scene. The camera looks around. Presently
it fastens its eye on a little narrow building behind the barn — a privy or
garden house. It pulls up closer. Yes, Dr. Bull is inside having his morning
action no doubt. He is contentedly, even if not quite appropriately, singing
' 'Abide With Me.'' We wait expectantly for him to come out of the privy.
But he fools us. He comes from behind it and is carrying a small armful
of firewood. Why this deception? Because the Hayes-Breen censorship office
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had ruled that since showing anyone emerging from a privy was censorable
in Mississippi and many other states and in England, the bit would be cut
out or the film be refused, with resulting financial loss to the studio.
Therefore it was not allowed. The letter from the office said, "We suggest
the scene be filmed as written up to the point where Rogers comes out of
the building. Then change it — let him come from behind the little house.''
Back then (1934) the sound of a flushed toilet was not even allowed.
But today the actor would not only be allowed to come straight out of the
privy in full view but the camera would likely go inside with him and maybe
take a woman along to help.
That used to be a common Hollywood practice in storytelling. Let the
audience enjoy Jean Harlow's sly, immoral doings, say, until just before
the end of the play — (It wouldn't do to let her die like Violetta — not in
Hollywood) — then bring out the fact that after all she is not what we
thought. She is really a good girl. The end of the story proves it.
But of course the psychological effect has already been made, and the
Puritan cleaning up "after the train's done gone'' is dull and pretty worthless.
But this is away from our telephone central. In the cotton fields we
used to sing the old Charles K. Harris tearjerker, with its touching chorus—
"Hello, Central, give me heaven,
For my mother's there.
You can find her with the angels
On the golden stair.
She'll be glad it's me who's speaking.
Call her, won't you please,
For I surely want to tell her
We're so lonely here."
Nothing is certain but death and taxes.
certain sure
Without doubt, absolutely true.
Certain true
Black and blue.
Lay me down
And cut me in two—
Really and truly.
(An asseveration rhyme.)
cess
Disgust, bad luck, curses. "Bad cess to you, you old woman!"
cesspool of the unconscious
The Freudian concept of the unconscious as it has passed into psychiatric
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
183
folklore.
c'est la guerre
An excuse, that's the way things are. Sometime you win, sometime you lose
— "c'est la guerre" or "c'est la vie."
chafe
To irritate, to rub the wrong way.' 'That preacher chafes me to a fare-youwell the way he flings his hands when he's preaching."
chaff
Nonsense talk, foolish thinking, unimportant stuff.
no corn without chaff and no good without dross
like the chaff before the wind
scattered like chaff in the wind
The chaff shall be separated from the wheat.
pull the chain
To betray, to withdraw support suddenly, to wash a thing down the drain.
"He pulled the chain on me at the convention, and I was a goner."
chain gang
Prisoners usually sentenced to hard labor on the state and county roads and
working in gangs. Sometimes in the old days they were hired out to private
individuals or corporations to clear land, dig canals and ditches or build
railroads. They always wore stripes (striped uniforms) and often chains,
and at times some of them could be seen with a heavy eighteen-pound iron
ball fastened to one leg. I got up nerve to speak to one of these prisoners
once, and he said with something of pride, "Yessuh, boss, I wears the ball
and chain 'cause I'se marked 'danjus.' " With present-day and more humane
penology the chain gang convicts now wear ordinary working clothes, and
when you pass a number of them on the road, cutting bushes, briers and
honeysuckles away, you could take them for any group of nice-looking free
American boys except for the fact that a guard, usually a fat and stolid
middle-aged one, is sitting or standing around with a double-barreled
shotgun on his arm.
When the streets of Chapel Hill were being dug up for paving, chain
gang convicts were brought in to do the digging. There were no bulldozers
in those days. As the prisoners worked they often sang, and I would go out
when I could to where they were digging and on the sly try to write down
any of their songs I could. Howard Odum, head of the Sociology Department
at the University and a devotee of Negro folklore and music as his books
show, came out with me one day. He was at that time writing his book,
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Rainbow Round My Shoulder. We sat on the wall and listened to the singing.
One huge black Negro convict would lead away with the call — "Going
away from here!" — this being half-sung and half-shouted into the air as
the picks were lifted, and then as all the picks came down, the whole group
gave the 'sponse "Dig on down!" The rhythm of the piece kept on, never
changing, but presently I heard new words coming in. "Listen, Dr. Odum,"
I said, "they're making up a song about us."
"Is that a fact?" he said joyously. "Yes, I hear it." And we both out
with our notebooks to take it down. It began —
"White men setting on the big rock wall,
Dig on down!
White men setting on the big rock wall,
Going away!
White men setting on the big rock wall,
Easy and cool, don't work a-tall,
Dig on — going away!
EighLord!"
chain lightning
Excessive power, activity, swift movements. Also refers to powerful whiskey.
"I drunk two drams of that chain lightning and, boy, I was laid out under
a shade tree for two days."
chain smoker
A heavy cigarette smoker, one who lights one cigarette from the burning
stub of another.
chain up
To stop, to shut up.
chainyman
Chinaman.
chainy-berry
Chinaberry, a favorite shade tree.
chair
To preside. "He chaired the meeting."
call to the chair
To appoint a chairman or president.
walk around a chair
A good luck action. If one is having bad luck, say, at a card game and gets
up and walks around the chair, this is supposed to change his luck. Sometimes
better luck comes by one sitting on his handkerchief.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
185
chair warmer
An indolent person.
walk the chalkline
To behave discreetly, to mind one's own business, to take care of his P's
and Q's.
chalk up
To credit, to give recognition to. "St. Peter'll chalk up all them good deeds
for you in the hereafter."
chamber pot
This was usually of white china or porcelain and kept in the bedroom under
the bed for use during the night. In our family it was always spoken of as
the mug, for we would have been ashamed to call it by its proper name.
chamois skin
For use in ladies' toilet (make-up, face powdering, etc.). These skins were
often decorated with crochet work around the edges. They later gave way
to powder puffs. There were other uses, even household ones, for the chamois
skin — cleaning glass and silverware and lining pockets.
chance
A group, an exhibit, a number, a supply, a crop. "That's a nice chance of
children you've got there, Billy."
chance it
To run the risk, to gamble.
chancy
Risky.
There may be a change in the mountain.
There may be a change in the sea.
There may be a change in your love.
There is no change in me.
(or There ain't no change in me.)
as changeable as a chameleon
change artist
A card sharper, a flim-flam man, usually as a quick change artist.
change one's tune
To change one's method of talking or thinking or acting.
change over
To change one's position.' 'Change over, you've got your knees in my back,
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woman.
changes
Dress, suits of clothes. "How many changes you got to take to the big
meeting?"
ring the changes
To cover all points or to be especially oratorical or poetic.
chap
To roughen, to redden. "My hands are chapped with the cold weather the
worst."
A boy.
to the end of the chapter
Until death, to the final end.
chapter and verse
The true authority, the especially authoritative reference.
charades
Parlor games usually played with a lot of fun. Most of the charades we used
to play had to do with guessing of words or phrases or imitative
interpretations of words, sometimes with pencil and paper. Their number
is too large to list here.
charge
Emotion, passionate feeling, inspiration. "When I'm with that girl, boy,
I've got a charge on."
charge it to the ground
"Charge it to the ground and let the rain settle it, is that what you want
me to do?" said the storekeeper to an unreliable customer.
charger
A little measuring contrivance used to measure the charge of powder that
went into a muzzle-loading gun, or to measure grain or some other small item.
Charity begins at home.
And though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not
charity, I am nothing.
Charles River
An early name for the Cape Fear.
Charleston or Charlestown
A 17th century town on the lower Cape Fear. It was later deserted, and the
founders moved farther south and founded a second Charleston in South
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
187
Carolina.
In the 1920's the Charleston was a popular dance.
Charles Wain
The great dipper, the constellation of the Great Bear.
charley horse
A muscular strain.
a good time Charlie
A hail fellow well met, a sport, easy liver, sometimes a ne'er-do-well.
Charlie man
Chinaman.
Mr. Charlie (Uncle Charlie)
Negro designation for an old-timey segregationist white man.
charm
The best possible charm against evil is to carry the left hind foot of a rabbit
killed by a redheaded Negro in a graveyard at midnight on Hallowe'en.
charmer
A seductive or irresistible person, usually applied to a woman.
charms
A woman's breasts.' 'With them gals showing their charms all around him,
that fellow went wild."
chase one's tail
To act foolishly, to act to no avail.
chase yourself
A command to go away, to leave, to vamoose.
chassis
The body, the human figure.' 'With a chassis like that, Norena had the boys
after her hot and heavy."
Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.
chatsome
Talkative.
chatter like a parrot
chatterbox
A loquacious person.
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chatty
Intimate, pleasant. "We had a nice chatty time sitting by the fire and parching peanuts."
chaw
To chew. Also to embarrass.
chaw out
To scold, to bless out.
chaw over
To repeat one's words, to consider and then reconsider.
Cheap as dirt
cheap skate
A poor and stingy spender, a sorry person.
cheat
A darnel or hurtful kind of grass. "I've got so much cheat in my wheat this
year I'm in bad shape for flour."
Tares. "Wheat turns to cheat."
Cheat me once,
Shame on thee.
Cheat me twice,
Shame on me.
(A Quaker wisdom rhyme.)
cheat the man with the reaping hook
To recover from a serious illness. Same as cheat the man on the pale horse,
cheat the worms, etc.
check rein
The overhead rein that keeps a horse's head up high.
checks (probably gingham)
Fabric used by housewives especially for their aprons.' 'When you're in town,
get me two yards of checks."
cheek
Brass, gall, impudence, dare, braggadocio, insolence.
Posterior, a buttock.
Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn him the other also.
cheek by jowl
Close together, one on a level with the other.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
189
cheeks
Superstition. If your cheeks burn, that's a sign that someone is talking about
you. Same as ears burning.
cheeky
Insolent.
cheep
To gossip, to tattle-tale, to spill a secret, to turn stool-pigeon. Also the noise
made by a tiny biddy or bird.
cheer
Chair.
Be of good cheer.
A cheerful wife is the joy of life.
cheesecake
A fast turn by a girl in a dance.
cheese it
A command to leave, to run, to hurry away, usually clandestinely.
cheesy
Grudging, stingy, parsimonious.
cheewink
The towhee, the ground robin.
cherce
Choice.
lips like cherries
cherry
A tea made from cherry bark, especially from wild cherry, was one of the
best of home remedies. It was good for colds, coughs, and any and every
respiratory trouble. Many a time my mother sent my brother Hugh and me,
as boys, into the woods to get some wild cherry bark to make tea. We children
were "barking" too much around the house at night.
cherry bounce
An old-timey drink made by adding cherries, sugar and flavoring spices to
hard liquor and left to stand overnight or longer.
Dr. Joe McKay of Buie's Creek gave me the recipe years ago. He was
our family doctor and delivered us six Green children, always two years apart.
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Cherry year
A merry year.
A plum year
A dumb year.
cherub
A winged celestial being, especially popular with the Renaissance painters.
Also applied to a darling baby.
get it off one's chest
To get rid of a poisonous secret, or guilt. Now a Freudian cliche and an
invitation to explosive and violent action.
hairy chest
A hairy chest is a sign of extra manhood and physical strength.
chestnut
Something too hot to handle, also a stale or outworn tale or joke.
chesty
Braggish, boastful.
Don't chew your tobacco twice.
chewing tobacco
There were many popular brands; among them were Apple, Brown Mule,
Black Maria, Bull of the Woods, Beechnut, Drummond, Day's Work, Union
Standard, Plum, Peach, Masterpiece, Brown & Williams Sun-cured.
chew out
To berate, to scold bitterly, same as chaw out.
chew the balls off (the ears off)
To reprimand severely, to scold hotly.
chew the cud
To think carefully, to reflect.
chew the fat
To give and take in easy going conversation.
chew the rag
To talk, argue, gabble. Much the same as chew the fat.
chew up
To blister, to bawl out, to chew the ears off, and so on.
ch 'ice
Choice, an old-timey pronunciation.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
191
chick (chickabiddy, chicken)
A girl.
Chickamy, Chickamy
This game is the same as Old Witch. One child is the witch, one is the mother,
and the rest are the mother's children. The old witch comes hobbling along
on a stick and the children cry out, "Here comes old granny hippity-hop.
Wonder what she wants." The witch then goes through the pantomime of
knocking at the door and the mother calls out, "What do you want?" "I
want one of your children." "Which one do you want?" "Any of them."
"You can't have them." And then the struggle sets up with the old witch
trying to catch one of the children as they string out behind the mother who
defends them, and each child that is caught then joins the old witch and
helps her try to catch others. And so the game proceeds. There are many
variations of this game. The rhyme goes as follows:
"Chickamy, chickamy, craney crow,
Went to the well to wash my toe.
When I got there the well was dry.
What time is it, old witch?
One o'clock going on to two."
Chick, chick, chick!
A call to the chickens, usually at feeding time in the old days when grain
was scattered on the ground.
chicken
A contest game in which usually boys or young teenagers try out their
competitive derring-do. Recently in the paper I read of two boys in the Valley
who lay down on the highway daring each other to remain lying there longer
than the other. A car came along in the night, ran over them both and killed
them.
A girl. See "chick." Also a cowardly person.
You're no chicken for all your cheeping.
chicken feed
Small change, unimportant matters.
chicken gizzard
If a child swallows a chicken gizzard whole, he or she will grow up to be
handsome, according to the old belief. Nebo Reardon tried it twice as a boy,
but it did him no good. Some folks said it worked backwards with Nebo,
for the older he got the homelier he became.
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chicken-hearted
Cowardly, soft-hearted.
Chicken in the bread tray
Peckin' out dough
Come back children
And have a little mo'.
(A recitation rhyme. The first part of this rhyme is in the
popular play party song, "Skip to My Lou.")
O, chicken!
A mild expletive.
chicken one day and feathers the next
To live high one day and low the following day.
chicken out
To back down, to turn coward. "I was all set to speak ag'inst spendin' money
for a new school fence, but when I saw all them people, I chickened out."
She's no spring chicken.
A woman getting on in years.
Chickens come home to roost.
Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.
chickweed
A gardener's early spring curse.
Chicora Cemetery
A plot of fenced-off ground near the site of the battle of Averasboro. A
number of Southern boys who fell in that battle are buried here, and
sometimes a few daughters of the Confederacy meet here to commemorate
their sacrifice in the yearned-after Lost Cause. Professor F.H. Page told
me he had seen a skull a man ploughed up in the field nearby, and it had
a bullet in it.
chickory
This is an attractive perennial weed growing anywhere from one to five feet
tall with sky blue and sometimes white heads, and scattered along on each
side of the highway or in fence jambs or edges of fields. The root was once
used as bitter tonic and also as an adulterant for coffee. It was also used
in jaundice and liver complaints.
chief
The high muckety-muck, the boss, the head man, the president.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
193
chief cook and bottle washer
High muckety-muck, the one in authority, the boss. Also, facetiously, the
one responsible for the most menial labor.
chigger
The Southern red bug, a punishing and infinitesimal mite hardly visible
to the naked eye but a most powerful enemy to peace and rest. After walking
in the woods in the middle of summer unprotected by an insecticide, one
will then spend the night scratching himself. It takes days for the little devils
to die and give up their hold.
child
A simple-minded person.
The child is father of the man.
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
Withhold not correction from the child.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.
A burned child dreads the fire.
Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart
from it.
Every child is perfect to its mother.
Don't step over a growing child. It will stop growing and remain a dwarf.
It's a wise child that knows his own father.
It's a wise child that knows his own mother in a bathing suit.
Children and fools tell the truth.
Children are poor men's riches.
Children should be seen and not heard.
Children thrive better after they are christened.
Suffer little children and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
What children hear at home soon flies abroad.
How often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings and ye would not.
Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
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Children's Day
It used to be a custom at the different churches to have what was called
Children's Day. The young children with their teachers would put on an
exercise and sing their songs and recite favorite verses. I remember one song
we used to sing on Children's Day at the old Pleasant Union Church called
"Little Beams of Sunshine," the beams being the children that did the
singing — beams just for that one day.
child's play
An easy task, a simple matter.
a chill
A dull date or morose companion.
as chill as death
chimbley
Chimney.
chimbley jamb
The corner next to the fire.
chime in
To join in, speak up, add one's own opinion.
Black within and red without,
Four corners roundabout.
(Riddle. Chimney.)
chimney hook
An iron rod on a swivel to be pulled out for hanging pots and kettles on
and then pushing them back over the fire.
chimney pole
A stout pole across the chimney well up over the fire with hooks hanging
down for pots and kettles.
chimney sweeps
Chimney swallows.
stick and dirt chimney
In the old days in Harnett County as a boy I used to see many stick and
dirt chimneys. A wooden frame would be built up above the fireplace height
outside the house to what was called a shoulder, and then dirt and rock would
be filled in (and sometimes mortar mixed in with it to hold it), and then a
pen of split wood would be built atop of that which might be called the throat
of the chimney, and this would be daubed with clay. Sometimes the fire
would reach up to this pen of wood and set the thing on fire, perhaps burning
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
195
down the house.
chin
To talk, to gossip.
An athletic exercise, lifting oneself, chin high, on a horizontal bar.
not for all the tea in China
An absolute refusal, certainly not, never.
chinaberry trees
The old folks say, Mr. Mac once told me, that chinaberry trees planted among
orchards keep worms and rot away from the fruit trees. Also oil from
chinaberry seeds will kill fleas on dogs and vermin generally. A soap made
from these berries used to be called "poor man's soap." But the best use
of the berries was to make wash for sore eyes, or ointment for scald-head.
Chinaman's chance
No chance at all, a hopeless possibility.
chinch
A bed bug. See "boar chinch."
Chin cherry
Moo merry
Nose nappie
Eye winkie
Brow brinkie
Cock up jinkie.
(A baby tickling rhyme.)
On the last line the little baby is tickled under his chin.
chinchy
Stingy, niggardly.
Chinese Tag
One kind of that most popular game, tag. Chinese Tag begins with a group
of players designating a special spot or place or tree to race for. They set
out to reach the goal, and the last one arriving is "It." He must chase the
others until he tags one of them. And this game is played so that wherever
the player touches the one tagged, the tagged one must put his hand to that
spot on his body which was touched. If he happens to be tagged on the knee,
then he has to put his hand on his knee and, while running to tag someone
else, run in that position. He is not permitted to move his hand until he has
succeeded in tagging one of the other players who then becomes "It" and
takes the posture required by placing his hand on his body where he has
been tagged.
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chink
A crack.
Also to daub, to plaster." He chinked his cracks with that old hearth clayey
stuff and it just wouldn't hold."
A little chink lets in much light.
chin music
Windy oratory, idle talk and gossip.
chinning
Talking, tattle-telling.
chinquapin
Tea from the bark of this bush or tree was used for intermittent fever and
chills. The wood is also mighty tough. It makes good fence posts and lasts
for generations in the ground. There's many a fence post of it still standing
in Little Bethel, though because of the blight the tree is getting scarcer and
scarcer. Young girls used to make nice necklaces out of the chinquapin nuts.
chin up
To be brave, to bear up under difficulties, not to give in.
chip
To cut boxes in pine trees for turpentine resin to seep into.
A child.
a blue chip
An important argument, a final reason for action, a compelling bit of logic.
chip in
To share the expense, to add a part.
chip off the old block
Like father, like son.
carry a chip on one's shoulder
To be easily angered, high tempered, irascible.
chippy
A girl of loose morals.
To feel good. "The sun is shining, the mockingbirds are singing, and I am
chippy to a fare-ye-well."
chips are down
The showdown, the crisis test.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
197
The gap in the ax shows in the chips.
Inheritance will show, guilt leaves its mark on the guilty, blood will tell.
chirpy
Cheerful, in good spirits.
chirrup
Noise made by the lips to urge a horse or team on.
chisel
To cheat. "He'll chisel you out of your eyeballs if you'll let him."
chist
chit
Chest.
A little child, a pert young girl. Also an I.O.U. "Mr. Daniels, traveling all
over North Carolina, used to hand out chits wherever he went, and that's
where Jonathan got the habit," Thad said.
chit-chat
Chaffy, light and gossipy conversation.
chitlins
The intestines of hogs. Cleaned, fried and chopped up, they are supposed
to be a Southern delicacy.
chitter
To shiver, to tremble.
chock
To prop, to put a stone or piece of wood against a vehicle wheel to keep
it from moving.
chock full
Completely full, brim full, overrunning.
chock up
To chalk up, to credit, to charge.
Choeffington
An ancient hamlet in Cumberland County which faded away about the
middle of the 18th century or a little later when the courthouse was moved
to Campbelltown, which later became a part of Cross Creek and then was
renamed Fayetteville in honor of LaFayette and his visit there in 1824.1
have searched the field where Choeffington once stood but no remnant of
its existence could I find. According to records, it once promised much. There
was an ordinary there, a silversmith, and a number of' 'places of business.''
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Also a pillory and a whipping post for criminals. According to John A. Gates
in his encyclopedic "The Story of Fayetteville," there was a race course in
the village also.
You pays your money and you takes your choice.
It's as you would have it. To do as one will.
There is small choice in rotten apples.
choke off
Put a stop to, get rid of a tiresome person or subject.
choker
A huge cravat.
A string of close-fitting beads.
cholery
Cholera. This disease used to be a curse to the farmers' hogs. How often
I've seen my father's face grow long and sad when the cholera had broken
out among his "fattening hogs."
cholery morbis
Cholera morbus.
chomp (champ) at the bit
To be restless, uneasy, anxious to go.
Choose your love and then love your choice.
choosy
Fastidious.
chop-logic
An especially argumentative person.
chopped
Chapped.
chopper
A hand-edged blow.
chops
Lips, mouth.
to lick one's chops
To gloat, to drool with satisfaction.
Chop the Poplar
A game. This is very much like "Clap hands." Two players sit facing each
other, so near that the knees almost touch. Then each one slaps both his
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199
hands on his knees, strikes them together, next hits the other's right hand
with his, claps his own hands together, strikes the other player's left hand
with his left, claps his own again, then strikes both palms against those of
the other, claps his own hands, and finally claps both hands upon his knees.
So it is described by Paul Brewster. This action can be begun rather slowly
and then increase in tempo until the thing blows up. Often we would chant
an accompanying rhyme with increased tempo:
"Peas, porridge hot.
Peas, porridge cold.
Peas, porridge in the pot
Nine days old."
Many are called but few chosen.
chouse (chowse)
To cheat. This is a word early in my remembrance. My father used to use
it relative to a shady dealer or a close-fisted trader. He didn't know where
it came from. He only knew it meant to cheat. "Old man John Allen is a
close trader and he'll chouse your eyes out if you don't watch him."
According to something I read, this word is originally a Turkish name. A
Turkish ambassador to London named Chouse became well known for his
shady dealings, and so his name passed on into currency in a way he never
intended it.
chow
Victuals, grub, food.
Christ!
Christ! Christ A'mighty! Jesus! Jesus Christ! and so on. A most common
expletive.
Christian Science
A religious belief which is not science at all. It was founded by Mary Baker
Eddy in 1875, and it holds that man is a spiritual idea of God and, therefore,
is not in reality subject to the evils and causations of the world. Therefore,
pain, sickness, sin, sorrow and death are only figments of man's misguided
thinking. Naturally, one might ask if man is an imitation of God's perfection,
how then can he err in his thinking. I've had several friends who were
Christian Scientists who died horrible deaths of cancer—cancer which earlier
might have been amenable to surgery, but left to go so long neither Christian
Science nor medical science could save them.
Christmas
Liquor.
Christmas comes but once a year.
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I wouldn't have him (her, it) off a Christmas tree, (as a gift.)
Christmas bells
See "yucca."
Christmas box
A box or receptacle for receiving Christmas contributions for the poor.
Christmas cards
Cards of greetings and best wishes, usually of a religious nature, sent at
Christmastime.
Christmas club moss
Ground cedar.
Christmas decoration
Usually holly with berries is preferred, also cedar and mistletoe.
Old Christmas
The twelfth of January. On this day cows, according to old tradition, kneel
in their stalls in salutation to the baby Jesus.
Roosters crow at midnight on Old Christmas.
Christmas serenading
With the coming of motion pictures, the automobile and television this
custom has pretty much died out. When I was young, come Christmas Eve
night, we neighborhood young people would get together and go serenading
from house to house. We would dress up in all kinds of fantastic costumes.
Some of the girls would put on boys' clothes and the boys, girls' clothes.
And we would smear our faces with pokeberry stain or streaks of soot and
in some instances completely blacken up and pretend to be "niggers.'' Some
of us too would put on homemade masks or dough faces, as we called them,
and wear beards of moss, and mustaches made of cornsilks or rabbit tobacco.
And the noise we made was as outlandish as our appearances. We blew on
guano trumpets, beat tin pans, rang cowbells, whistled and shrieked as we
marched back and forth in front of a house. If no fences or bad dogs
hindered, we marched around the house. Now and then our rambunctious
mood gave way to carol singing, and our voices, too often rough and out
of tune, would be raised in "Silent Night" or "Hark, the Herald Angels
Sing." And often too we would be invited inside by a kindly farmer and
his wife and would fill up on popcorn, peanuts and drinks of harmless cider.
Many future marriages came out of these serenadings. See also "John
Kuners."
Christmassing
To go serenading, to have holiday good times.
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201
Christmassy
Festive.
Christmas trees
Don't leave Christmas trees up after New Year's Day, or you will have bad
luck.
It is now the custom in almost every home to have a brightly lighted
and decorated Christmas tree at Christmas time. This is a later-years custom.
When I was a boy, the tree was usually a community one and of rather large
size, say, ten to fifteen feet high. In my neighborhood holly was abundant
and was preferred to cedar. We always had our tree in the church, and in
the afternoon of Christmas Eve the neighbors would bring their presents
and hang them on the tree. Someone would be left to guard the tree. Then
after supper the people would return. Usually there would be Christmas
music and singing — "Away in a Manger," "Deck the Halls," and so on
first, then the gifts would be called off (the names of recipients announced
and gifts given).
chub
A bass fish.
chubby
Dumpy, short, fat, roly-poly, stout. "He sure loves that chubby wife of
his'n."
chuck
To quit, to wipe one's hands of.
To throw out, to discard.
Loose materials, plunder, worthless baggage.
Food, grub.
Chuckaluck
A dice game.
Chuckaluck—the more you lay down
The less you pick up.
chuck it
Forget it.
chuck out
To throw out, to eject forcibly.
chuff
Chaff, nonsense talk.
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chuffy
Puffed out like a bird in the cold, or with cheeks puffed out.
chum
A partner, a pal, best friend.
chumming
Living together, or spending time together as friends.
chump
Bozo, fool, fellow, dolt.
chune
Tune.
chunk
To throw.
To get rid of, to quit. "I got so tar'd of the thing I decided to chunk the
whole business."
A lightwood knot or piece of wood.
chunk of fire
The burning end of a chunk of wood. Fire long ago was borrowed by
neighbors, one from the other, and carried in chunks. "A chunk of fire fell
out and rolled on the floor and set the house afire."
chunk up the fire
To punch up, to replenish.
chunky
Stout, fat. "He's a sort of chunky fellow, and he's allus laughing."
Church
A children's game. Children sit around trying to be solemn, while one is
the preacher until it all ends in squeals of laughter and turmoil. Then another
game is introduced.
the church
A finger rhyme.
This is the church.
This is the steeple.
Lift up the roof
And see all the people.
The fingers are locked together downward toward the palms, and at the
second line the index fingers are pointed upward and joined at the tips to
form a steeple. On the last two lines the hands are turned with their backs
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
203
down and fingers upward.
The wind blows strongest around a church.
church-house
The church building.
churchified
Stiff, unbending, sternly orthodox.
Church of God
An emotional evangelical sect splitting into other sects, as the Only Church
of God, then the Only True Church of God.
church work
Slow work.
churchy
Same as churchified.
churchyard
The cemetery.
churchyard cough
Tuberculosis cough, or cough from heavy cigarette smoking.
churm
Churn.
Big at the bottom, little at the top,
Something in the middle goes flippity flop.
(Riddle. A churn.)
churn-dasher
A wooden staff, usually of oak or hickory, with two cross paddles, or a
disc with holes bored in it, attached to one end of the staff or handle of the
churn. This handle comes up through a circular covering with a hole in it
and is used to move up and down to make the butter come.
churn head
A hardheaded horse or mule of poor intelligence.
much churning and no butter
churring
The voice made by a partridge's wings on sudden rising.
cinch
An easy job, an easy matter, easy pickings.
Conclude a matter, to win, to get possession of. "After trying a dozen
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different things, he finally cinched the job with the undertaker."
Cinderella
A rope-skipping rhyme.
Cinderella dressed in yellow
Went uptown with a green umbrella.
She walked so slow,
She met her beau,
He took her to the picture show.
How many kisses did he give her?
And then the turning of the rope goes on, counting until there is a miss,
and then someone else takes over skipping.
"Cindy"
A favorite fiddling piece and song.
cipher
To figure, to work arithmetic numbers. "That Norton Spence boy has got
so he can cipher right up to old man Bill Byrd."
Circle Base
A game, same as prison base.
to run in a circle
To act uselessly, to do work that amounts to nothing, to hop up and down
in the same foot tracks.
circles
Puffed bags under one's eyes.' Tor weeks after she married that fellow she
had great circles under her eyes."
circumbendibus
Round about, circuitous.
circumstance
A word of comparison. "Talk about Henry Spears being stingy, he ain't
a circumstance to John Allen Matthews."
Circumstances alter cases.
in good circumstances
To be well to do. "Henry Spears is in good circumstances, I'll tell you that."
circus
A laughable hullabaloo, an outlandish display. "The whole thing turned
into a circus — Baltimore beat 'em 16 to 1."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
205
cirrhosis of the liver
See "roaches of the liver."
citreen
Citron.
A city on a hill cannot be hid.
city slicker
Suspected as a specially tricky person as contrasted with rural honest John.
civil
Polite, kind. "She hasn't got a civil answer in her whole makeup."
civvies
Civilian clothes in contrast with military dress.
clabber
Curdled milk.
clabber grass
See "bedstraw."
clack
Chatter, gossip, woman's loud talking.
clacking
Gossiping, loud talking. "As soon as them women got together they went
to clacking like forty."
claim jumper
An interloper, a successful rival in love.
clam
Past tense of climb.
To grow secretive, to refuse to talk, to plead the fifth amendment.
tight as a clam
Secretive, non-communicative.
as clammy as death
clap
Gonorrhea. "I've had the clap seven times," he said, "and it's no worse
than a bad cold."
clap eyes on
To see, to recognize. "It's been a year, man, since I clapped eyes on you."
clap happy
Hasty.
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like a clap of thunder
Instantaneously, with devastating loudness, powerfully. "The news of his
mother's death hit him like a clap of thunder."
clapper
A person's tongue.
His tongue moved like a clapper in a cowbell.
Clarendon River
An early name for the Cape Fear.
claret
Blood.
clasp knife
A large pocket knife.
class
Style, fashion, merit. "Old Clark Gable's got class, yes ma'am."
claw
A hand.
claw hammer coat
A coat of special distinction, affected by musical conductors, elderly
politicians and certain hedge preachers, especially Negro preachers. "When
he puts on the claw hammer coat, he's a different man."
We are made of the same clay.
clay brains
A stupid person.
clay dirt eater
One who has an abnormal craving to eat clay. Near where I live is a big hole
in a clay bank where the local people used to come to satisfy their need.
clay root
An uprooted stump or tree with the clay clinging to its roots.
clay root for brains
To be weak in intellect. I've heard many a fervent Democrat speak thus of
President Eisenhower, saying that he had a clay root for a head.
clay the hearth
The custom of getting whitish clay from a clay bank, wetting it and smearing
the hearth with it at the beginning of summer, when fires would not be built
till fall, and when company was expected, especially the preachers.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
207
clean
Entirely, completely, positively. "When I come to the door, that man shot
me and his bullet went clean through my belt and out of my back."
clean as a cat
clean as a hound's tooth
Honest, above reproach, of sterling character. Professor Horace Williams
used to use this phrase about a number of his students, among them Watts
Stacy and Sidney Robbins, always speaking of them as "clean as a hound's
tooth."
clean as a pin
clean as a whistle
come clean
To confess the facts, to tell all. Much the same as clean breast of it.
clean breast of it
To confess, to tell all one knows.
make a clean haul
To completely rob the premises, to take away everything of value.
Cleanliness is next to godliness.
clean up
To take all the winnings. "You weren't here last Saturday in the game, but
Brother Giduz cleaned up."
Clean your finger before you point it in accusation.
as clear as a bell
Open and above board, obvious.
as clear as a mirror
as clear as crystal
as clear as ditch water
clear as mud
Not clear at all, murky, unclear.
in the clear
To be proved innocent, not responsible, no evidence against.
clear-headed
Sober, a sagacious person, a right-thinking person.
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clear off
Same as fair off, the weather growing fair or clear after cloudiness or rain
or bad weather.' 'The weather man says it's going to clear off Tuesday, and
I'm planning to put in my small grain on Wednesday if it's dry enough."
clear-sighted
Wise, perceiving, understanding.
clear through
Completely. "In the battle of Averasboro a cannonball went clear through
the old Smith house."
clear up
With reference to bad weather clearing into fine. Also refers to one paying
up his account. "He cleared up all his debts, and now he's in favor with
the government in Washington again."
clever
Kind, accommodating.
click
To fit together, to remember suddenly. "Something clicked in his mind,
and then he realized who it was that stood before him."
clickety-clack
The sound of a wobbly wagon or buggy wheel along the hard road. Also
the rhythmic sound of a train passing over the joints in the railroad track.
cliffhanger
A close decision, a precarious situation.
dim (clum)
Past tense of climb.
If you don't climb high, you can't see far.
climb down
To lower one's sights, to eat crow, confess to error, take a lower place,
submit.
climb his frame
A tongue lashing, to jump on or physically attack a person. "One more
word out of you, bo, and I'll climb your frame."
like climbing a greased pole with an armful of eels
An almost impossible task, a job too hard to do.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
209
climbs like a squirrel
The higher a man climbs the more of his behind he shows.
climb Venus'mountain
A man getting on top of a woman for sexual intercourse.
clincher
A conclusive argument or statement, a final proof.
clinger
One who is over-dependent.
clink
A jail, prison. "He sassed the judge, and the next thing he knowed he had
landed in the clink."
clip
Stroke or short space of time. "He made a hundred dollars at one clip."
to clip one's wings
Place restrictions on one's plans or activities.
clobber
To beat unmercifully, to win over by a huge score. "The Green Bay Packers
clobbered the Kansas Jets like I knowed they would."
A long-silent clock suddenly striking means death.
clod
A dull, stupid person.
clodhopper
A dolt, a dull fellow, the same as clod. Also refers to a country man, a rustic.
clomb
Climbed.
close
Hot, murky.' 'The weather's close today, and I'm expecting thunderheads
this evening."
Stingy.
as close as Siamese twins
as close as your shadow
close call
A narrow escape.
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A closed mouth catches no flies.
closefisted
Tightfisted, stingy.
close mouth
A secretive, non-confiding person.
close thing
A narrow escape.
the cloth
A clergyman.
You can't judge a man by his clothes.
Any clothes will fit a naked man.
clothes horse
A dandy, a man who wears clothes handsomely and often has little else to
recommend him.
Clothes make the man.
An ancient proverb, more often false than true. But in the case of one person
I knew in the Valley it was very true, this being a variation of the old
Shakespeare adage that a man's soul is in his clothes. The clothes in this
example, however, were limited to a pair of britches and their relation to
the soul happened in a way you'd hardly expect.
Bernie Randall seemed the last person in the world to whom financial
fortune might come. Nobody ever expected him to amount to much. He
was awkward, timid, and uncertain with his weak, friendly smile, and homely
as an old shoe. His people were poor as whippoorwills and lived down by
the railroad tracks just a block or so from where later Bernie had his livery
stable and then still later his huge automobile agency and used-car lot. His
father was sickly and an addict to patent medicine, and the responsibility
of both parents fell pretty much on the thin shrinking shoulders of this their
only child.
Bernie grew up a drudge. From the time he was six or seven he was
running errands for his parents, sweeping leaves out of the people's yards,
hiring out to pick cotton in some of the fields that came up to the edge of
the town, even trying to shine shoes, or standing on the corner, dumb and
fearful, on Saturday afternoons with an armful of Grit newspapers for sale.
But through all his twistings and turnings of odd jobs, he never developed
the sharpness and quickness that one usually associates with an American
boy in such situations. Rather he continued his humble and lonely
browbeaten way.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
211
He got a little schooling somehow — enough to read and write and do
fairly simple sums in arithmetic — and later when he was big enough for
his daddy to swear him by the child labor law he got a job weaving in the
cotton mill, and there he labored year after year. When he was about
nineteen, May Eppinger came to work at one of the nearby looms. She was
a pretty round-faced girl with a light laugh and a craving for candy and
milkshakes at the corner drugstore. Bernie fell deeply in love with her, and
his devotion was doglike and persistent. May had a lot of other boys
swarming around her, and with whatever levity or even bursts of scorn she
treated Bernie he continued his dreamings and devotions to her.
In time his parents died and left him alone in the little house that had
been their home. It was a rented place and now Bernie indulged in some
planning of his own. From his earnings he was able to make a mortgage
deal with young Ed Weatherford at the bank to buy the little place. So he
started paying monthly installments on it. Every now and then he would
extract a dollar or two from his thin savings and get a box of candy for May,
and once or twice he was able to get ahead enough to take her to the state
fair at Raleigh. But of course come wet weather or dry weather, rain or shine,
he must somehow scrape up enough each month for his house payments.
And regularly he would take his few dollars down to the bank and there
hand them over to young Weatherford, who in a swift round business hand
would write out the receipt and pass it through the grill to Bernie with a
cool and pleasant air.
This young Weatherford was everything that Bernie was not. He was
handsome, educated at the university at Chapel Hill, and sure of a big future
with the power and money he had inherited from his father.
Though May had numerous suitors, somehow time passed and she
remained unmarried. Maybe the men liked courting her better than marrying
her. Whether for weariness from working at the mill or what not, she finally
gave in and married Bernie, and then began to take her ease in the little house
down by the railroad track.
And Bernie liked for her to do that.' 'You've already done your share
of hard work, Baby,'' he would say. He loved to call her Baby. And he treated
her like a baby, and she purred with satisfaction and lay back cool and sweet.
One year, two years went by and May was taking it easy and Bernie
was working like a dog in the mills. But however hard he worked, his
promotion was slow. He never could learn to deal with people, become swift
and to the point, authoritative, a manager. Others younger and less
experienced passed him by and became floor bosses or loom inspectors or
even superintendents. But poor Bernie mostly remained at his loom. He
didn't worry too much though for after all he had May, and in his humble
opinion it was quite fitting that others should become successful and he
continue in the rut where he was, though he would never think of it as a rut.
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But May began to complain about the little house. "It's not fit to live
in,'' she said.' 'We've got to fix it up, it leaks like a sieve.'' And so the patient
Bernie went down to the bank again and, after long talking to young
Weatherford, arranged to borrow three thousand dollars on the house and
lot for remodeling and improvement. So after succumbing to a stiff financing
fee plus the regular six percent interest, he was ready to sign the papers and,
following young Weatherford's instructions, brought his wife May to sign
with him. She was all dolled up for the occasion and it made Bernie proud
to see that young Weatherford looked at her with admiring eyes.
The pinch on Bernie was harder now. It was tough making the monthly
payments on the loan. And once when he fell sick and lost two weeks from
work, the first cold grip of despair got its bite into his stolid and lightless
soul. He looked at Baby propped up in bed reading a murder serial in the
newspapers and for once wrung his hands.' 'What am I going to do, Baby?''
he queried.
"Oh, you'll make it somehow," came her light answer. "You always
do. And, say, I seen an ad in the paper yesterday for salesmen at forty dollars
aweek. That's fifteen dollars a week more'n you're making now," shesaid.
Bernie shook his head. The idea of being a salesman frightened him.
But she insisted. "I bet Ed Weatherford — Mr. Ed would recommend you
and help you get the job," she said.
"Not him," said Bernie. "All he studies is money — and women."
"Women?" she laughed.
Under her insistence Bernie went down and sure enough Ed
Weatherford recommended him highly to the vacuum cleaner company and
he got the job. Not only that, the bank lent him enough money on a second
mortgage to get a secondhand Ford. And so Bernie's days as a vacuum
cleaner salesman began. He worked hard at it. Nobody could deny that.
He was up early and gone to distant points, here and yonder from farm to
farm and village to village and from county to county, pushing his product.
The depression days were coming on down now and sales resistance
was growing. He intensified his efforts. He was up earlier. He worked later
and drove farther. But every night somehow he would get back home to
his Baby. Sometimes when he was up and away at early dawn and an
installment on the house was coming due at the bank, he would have to have
May take the money and go down to Ed Weatherford and pay it.
Things tightened up all along the line now and the banks were pulling
in their horns some. Young Weatherford himself would go visiting among
the farmers, foreclosing and collecting here and there. And sometimes he
would come humming home at night in his blue Cadillac with quite a roll
of money in his pocket, even as much as $5,000, it was said, to be deposited
the next day.
That's the way it was with him. Whatever he went after he succeeded.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
213
And all the while poor Bernie Randall was coming down to bankruptcy.
One day he got up early to start one of his dreary rounds. He had heard
that over in Wilson, a town some fifty or sixty miles away, there were several
prospects. He told May he wouldn't be back that night and for her to get
one of her sisters to come and stay with her. She laughed and said she wasn't
afraid to stay by herself and she put out her pretty lips as usual in a rosebud
pout as he kissed her goodbye.
"I'll be back tomorrow night," he said. And he drove off.
All day he drove through the virgin territory. But sales resistance was
a hundred percent. The tobacco market had just opened and the price was
bad and the papers had given the prospects as being even less encouraging
for the future. Late in the afternoon, completely whipped down, he decided
to drive by Raleigh and talk things over with the head office there. When
he arrived, the first news that hit him between the eyes was that his agency
was being cancelled. A letter was already in the mail to him saying so. He
turned in his sample cleaner and stumbled back to his little Ford car and
sat there numbed and anguished. The darkness came down, the street lights
flared on and still he sat staring at a black wall before him. And all the while
he was thinking of how he had failed, miserably failed his sweet and precious
Baby. Wait till he got home and told her the terrible news of what had
happened to him! How could he tell her, how could he break her heart like
that. And in his mind he could see her lying up in bed, beautiful and sweet,
a wonder and joy for any man to be proud of.
"Yes, lying in bed,'' he said to himself. He wasn't trying to put meaning
in the words. He was only reciting them to himself. Then suddenly they had
a meaning and he didn't like the feeling that came over him, a new feeling.
For the first time in his life Bernie Randall began to feel sorry for himself
as he really was, a poor plodding dull fellow, hard put on by others.
Later a policeman tapped on his car window and told him he would
have to move. And back through the night toward home Bernie drove.
"The bank will foreclose on me now," he moaned. "I know that Ed
Weatherford. He will squash me like a mouse in a steel trap.'' Anger began
to rage in him. "It's a bargain he'll get too when he takes my house. That's
the way them fellows make their money. They get poor guys like me in their
grip and gripe and then squeeze 'em and take away what they got. And then
they turn around and sell it to somebody else for double what it's worth."
There must be some way out, there must be. He couldn't drag Baby
down into complete poverty and have to start living all over again in a rented
two-room mill shack and be back in the mill beaming away—from morning
to evening beaming away, and the lint sucking into his lungs. But what, what
could he do?
When he got within a block of his home he cut his rattle-trap motor
off and let the car roll silently up to the house as was his custom when coming
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home late. He was always careful not to wake Baby. He got out softly and
walked along the grass up to the little front porch. He unlocked the door
gently and went into the hall. Setting his pasteboard suitcase down quietly,
he made his way along the little passageway to the bedroom. He felt for
the door and opened it noiselessly and there in the dark he took off his coat
and trousers and laid them on a chair as ever. And it was just like him, the
awkward fellow he was, to bump into the chair and make a racket. Baby's
voice cried out in sheer and sudden terror from the big bed, "What's that!''
"Sh-sh, nobody but me, Baby,'' he said. There came a stifling, shaking
noise from the bed. "I didn't mean to scare you," he said. "Wait'll I turn
on the light."
"No! No!" And her voice was high and frantic.
"What's the matter, Baby?" he said, all sympathy and concern.
"I've got the most awful headache," she said. "It's killing me, it is.
I don't know what to do with it. Please, please, don't turn on the light. My
eyes would hurt so, my eyes!"
And he could hear her sitting up in bed and rocking from side to side.
Then in his concern he said he would get a hot pad or come and rub
her head, and she pleaded with him not to do it but to go at once right down
to the drugstore and get her some aspirin. "No, no," shesaid. "You'd better
get me some luminol, for this headache come on all of a sudden and it's
killing me, busting my skull with the pain of it! Oh! Oh!"
He told her that the drugstore would be closed that time of night but
she said if he would hurry he could wake up Ned Sauls the druggist and get
something to ease her, seeing that this was such an emergency. Poor Bernie
was so upset that he began feeling around hunting for his trousers on the
chair. Finally he found them, pulled them on, grabbed up his coat and set
off running down toward the drugstore some two blocks away. He threw
gravel up to the second-story window and waked Ned Sauls who came down
grumbling and growling. The nervous and excited Bernie told him about
Baby's sudden and violent sick headache and she had to have help right away.
' 'That's the first tune I ever knowed she had headaches,'' said Ned Sauls
as he grudged out some luminol tablets. "That'll be fifty cents."
"You better charge it, Ned," said Bernie.
"I'd like to have cash if I could, Bernie, seeing how it is," he said.
Bernie had some change in his pocket but hated to spare even a fiftycent piece at this time from his dwindling funds. But what had to be had
to be. He reached into his pocket and then froze for an instant in his tracks.
Slowly his hand came out of his pocket like a thing alive and of itself and
in this hand which he held before him Bernie saw a great roll of bills with
a rubber band around them. He stared at the bills, a wad so big that his
fingers and thumb would hardly shut around it. Ned looked at him with
popping eyes.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
215
"Jerusalem!" he finally exploded. "Business must have been good
lately, Bernie!"
"Looks — er — like it," Bernie finally spoke up stutteringly.
"It does that! How much you got there? Oh, hush my big mouth!"
"Hah, hah, hah," said Bernie again, and he heard the sound of his
own voice high and shrill, like a stranger speaking.
Now Ned the druggist was looking at him with growing admiration in
his face. "Doggone my hide," he said. "You must be some salesman. I
reckon that'll make folks eat their words. Sure, buddy, I'll charge it, charge
it. Anytime you want anything, come and get it and I'll put it right on the
books, yessir."
Bernie let his gaze travel downward. A shock went through his spare
frame again though he made no outward sign.
He was wearing another man's trousers.
He finally turned away, pushing the roll of bulging bills back into his
pocket. "Much obliged to you, Ned," he called and went out of the store.
He took his time in walking home. It was only a short distance but a
lot of things were happening in his head as he walked. Thoughts went flashing
by one another, ideas, happenings, and gears inside were turning as they
never had turned before.
When he got near the house, he tried to whistle. But his lips were so
dry that he had to wet them with his tongue. And after several efforts he
finally got out a stave or two of the only song he knew called "Come, Humble
Sinner, Come," which he had learned in Sunday School years before. Baby
would hear him and know he was coming back. Then he saw that he didn't
have to whistle anymore, for far down the sidewalk he discerned the figure
of a man rapidly disappearing into the darkness. And he knew who the man
was and he knew too that he was wearing away a pair of slick-seated dark
britches with about two dollars change in the pockets.
Bernie doddled around outside the house for a while and then went
into the kitchen and got a glass of cold water and took it to Baby. She was
sitting up on the bed with the light on, bent over and her arms wrapped
around her knees. She didn't look up when he came into the room but just
sat there.
"Here you are, Baby," he said, holding out the glass. "I got you the
luminol." She said nothing. "You got the light on now," he said. "Don't
it hurt your eyes?"
"No, I'm feeling a little better now," she said. And she took the glass
of water and swallowed a couple of luminol tablets, then lay back in bed
and pulled the covers up to her chin. "Have a good trip?" she finally
inquired.
"Well, not so good at first," he said. "But maybe not so bad after all.
I'll tell you about it in the morning."
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"All right," she said, "do. And come on to bed now."
He switched off the light and went out into the hall. He heard her body
jackknife up in bed again as she called out,' 'Ain't you coming to bed here?"
"I'm going to lie down out here,'' he said. "I got some figuring to do."
She said no more and he stretched himself out on the sofa which was set
against the wall in the little combination entrance hall and living room. He
lay there in the darkness thinking, thinking. And presently he heard Baby
begin her snuggy little snoring.
' 'Lordy mercy, she's already asleep!'' he said to himself incredulously.
Then he thought some more.
Presently he got up and with his shoes in his hand slipped out through
the backdoor and sat on the steps looking out toward his small plot of
vegetable garden. The rest of the night he sat there and when the dawn was
breaking and the chilly sparrows were chattering in the maples along the
street, he went in and changed into his one remaining suit of clothes and
came out with a package, which he deposited in the incinerator in the yard
and started a fire burning it. Then he returned to the house and began cooking
breakfast.
Later in the morning he went to the bank.
"Morning, Miss Raeford," he said, as he stood before the teller's
window.
"Morning, Bernie,'' she said without much respect in her voice. It was
the same old thing. He had come about his small payments.
"I'd like to see Mr. Weatherford," he said.
"He's busy," she replied. "You can take the payments up with me as
usual."
"I want to see him," said Bernie. His manner caused her to glance up,
and he was looking at her straight and unblinking.
She went away and in a moment the door to an inner office opened
and Weatherford appeared in it. He held the knob in his hand as if ready
to step back and close the door any moment. Bernie didn't smile. His face
never changed, but there was a sort of queer smile deep in his soul to see
Weatherford holding on to the knob.
"I thought," said Bernie, "I'd like to see you a little bit about my —
about my mortgages."
"All right. What is it, Bernie?"
"I'd like to pay them off."
Weatherford was silent a moment, then spoke up strongly, "There's
no hurry, Bernie. The bank is satisfied the way things are going, your paying
by the month." But Bernie said he was not satisfied and wanted to settle
up "right here and now." Weatherford turned to Miss Raeford abruptly
and told her to bring out the papers. The papers were brought and marked
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
217
paid as Bernie counted out the full amount in greenbacks. Weatherford kept
looking at him unblinking too and saying nothing.
"Thank you, Ed," Bernie said, as he put the canceled papers in his
breast pocket. This was the first time he'd ever addressed the banker without
a handle to his name.
"You're welcome," said Weatherford coldly.
' 'And I reckon this sort of squares things betwixt us," Bernie concluded.
"Well then — all right — glad it does," Weatherford said harshly.
And Bernie walked out of the bank a different man.
The depression came down more fiercely after this and began to wipe
out Ed Weatherford's holdings. Like the fellows on Wall Street he had overextended himself. At the bottom of the market Bernie — with the fifteen
hundred dollars he still had left from the amount found in the britches —
made a down payment on a farm in the edge of town which had formerly
belonged to Weatherford and the bank. He had confidence in himself now,
and he held grimly onto it like a fice dog. And when the depression later
lifted and money was easy again, he cut the farm up into building lots, sold
them off and made a killing. After this there was no stopping him.
Now in these later days as you come driving along the highway toward
our town you are likely to see a good splashing sign carrying the big lettered
name of Bernard Randall, Dealer in Real Estate, Farm Equipment and
Fertilizer. And then when you get inside the town, you are further confronted
with Bernard Randall's success as a businessman. On the corner of Main
and High Street is Randall's Drugstore. A block higher up on the same main
street is Randall's Hardware Store, above which is the owner's suite of plushfurnished real estate offices. And farther south in the edge of town by the
railroad tracks is his huge auto business.
And as for Baby, well, she is completely changed now, and as everybody
knows idolizes Bernie and can't do enough for him. She brings his slippers
at night, she fixes his oatmeal in the morning, she mothers and waits on
him as if he were a child. And he takes it all with never a word and never
a sign to tell how he feels about her or anything else.
But in spite of all his business success, his fine new home, better clothes
and such, he remains outwardly pretty much the same fellow he always was.
He still speaks in his halting, awkward way and goes with slightly bent
shoulders, his face still pale and freckled and his blue eyes dull as ever they
were.
But he doesn't smile anymore, the way he used to do in his more humble
days.
not worth the clothes on his back
Poverty stricken, has no wealth, owns nothing but the clothes on his back.
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in a cloud
To be dreamy, romantic, abstracted.
Red cloud in the morning
Sailors take warning.
Red cloud at night
Sailors' delight.
(Wisdom rhyme.)
under a cloud
To be in disgrace, or under suspicion.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
cloud nine
A condition of balmy happiness.'' We were all up on cloud nine till the second
half, and then the roof caved in."
cloud up
To darken one's countenance, to become surly.
clout
A heavy blow. "In the play the boy clouted his daddy on the head with a
hoe and laid him out for dead."
clout-head
A fool.
in clover
To be all fixed, secure, fine and dandy. Fun, pleasure. Also means riches.
Club Fist
A popular game. The child or young person who is "It" lays his clenched
fist on the table with his thumb elevated. Then the second player grasps this
raised thumb with his own fist and raises his own thumb, and so on and
on until a pile of fists and thumbs is built up. "It" who has kept one hand
free now asks questions of the person whose hand is at the top with the
following dialogue and action:
"What you got there?"
"A club fist."
"Take it of for knock it off?" (Andhere, if the player is especially tough
he often says "Knock it off," and then "It" has to hit the fist with his own
knuckles hard enough to knock it off. Sometimes plenty of squeals of pain
follow this procedure.) If the player gives the more common answer, "Take
it off," the following dialogue ensues:
"What you got there?"
"Bread and cheese."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
219
"Where's my share?"
"The cat's got it."
"Where's the cat?"
"In the woods."
"Where's the woods?"
"The fire burnt it."
"Where's the fire?"
"The water squenched it."
"Where's the water?"
"The ox drank it."
"Where's the ox?"
"The butcher killed him."
"Where's the butcher?"
"The rope hung him."
"Where's the rope?"
"The knife cut it."
"Where's the knife?"
"The hammer broke it."
"Where's the hammer?"
"The saw sawed it."
"Where's the saw?"
"Broke in three pieces and hid behind the old church door."
"And the first child that shows his teeth in a grin receives a pinch and
a hair pull."
And so the children firmly close their lips and look around at one
another. Finally, someone does grin, and a pinch and a hair pull follow.
Sometimes a forfeit is required, and one young person would take another
one on his back and trot around the room, and when he comes up before
"It," "It" says "What you got there?"
"Bag of nits."
"Shake him 'til he spits."
And then follows a terrific jostling up and down.
Another version of Club Fist is given in Brown's folklore book. The
players put their fists on top of each other, each grasping the thumb of the
one just below his. The one whose fist is on top asks the others if they want
to take their fists off or if they want them knocked off. Some choose one
and some choose another. When all but one are off, "It" the questioner,
asks the owner,' 'What you got there?'' Answer, "Bread and cheese,'' and
the play goes on as before, ending with a different penalty — "The first
one that shows his teeth gets four slaps, five pinches, six spankings and four
hair pulls."
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cluck
A person, a fool, usually a dumb cluck.
clucking hen
A woman fussy about her children.
clum
Past tense of climb.
clump
A heavy blow or noise, a bump.
as clumsy as a cow (an ox)
clunk
A sudden bump or sound.
clutch
A difficult situation. "That Sandy Koufax is one of the best clutch pitchers
in the game."
clutch-fisted
Miserly, stingy.
clutter
A crowd, a mess, a confusion. "There they all set about in a clutter — the
governor ready to paint the wee babe's portrait as soon as she comes into
the world."
clyde
Head, brains, mind. "Use your clyde, boy, use it."
CO
A call to animals, especially cattle.
coach and six
In high style, pridefully. "She rides in a coach and six."
coachwhip
A fabled snake, famous in Valley folklore.
When I was a child I was told frightful stories of this dreadful snake,
how he would swirl up out of the bushes or tall grass, wrap himself around
you, pull you to a tree, souse the spiked tip of his tail into the tree and squeeze
the life out of you then and there the while his red smoky eyes gazed deep
into yours and his forked tongue jiggled a graveyard stink close to your face.
Sometimes when he didn't want to choke you to death but only give you
a beating and scare you into fits, this snake would wrap the forepart of his
body around you and give you a thrashing with his powerful tail. Then
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
221
sometimes too in chasing his victim he would put his tail in his mouth and
roll down a hill like a hoop in pursuit of his intended prey.
One day I was out with a group of local historians — Phillips Russell,
Jack Crane, Malcolm Fowler and others — in the Flora MacDonald country
in Anson County. Ed Hill, a local resident, was showing us through the
woods, looking for landmarks, especially for the place where Flora and her
husband Allan's house had been. I noticed a cedar tree that stood bushy
and dead and asked him what caused the death of this tree. Maybe the extra
dry weather had caused it, I said. Hill, a big red-faced, pot-bellied fellow,
stopped and fixed us historians with his eye. "Now that's something
strange," he said, "that tree. I'll tell you exactly what killed it. It was a
coachwhup snake done it. That coachwhup got after me one day when I
was walking in these woods here, and I lit a rag and rode the bushes going
away. But he was right after me with his spiked tail in his mouth, rolling
like a hoop to catch me. I made it by this tree, and 'bam,' he banged into
the tree. I reckon it make him mad, for he hauled off and soused the end
of his spike into that tree, and I got away while he was all tangled up. And
that's what killed it — the poison from his tail."
We all laughed and he looked the more serious. When I asked him could
he show us the sign on the tree where the snake's spiked tail had entered,
he said, "Oh, they don't leave no sign, they're too smart for that, them
coachwhups."
coal of fire
If a coal of fire pops toward you from the fireplace, you will soon receive
a letter.
eyes like coals of fire
carry coals to Newcastle
A foolish act, something superfluous. When I was in Russia sometime ago,
a young lady told me they had a comparable saying in Russia— "Carrying
one's samovar to Tula'' — Tula being the manufacturing center for samovars
for all Russia.
heap coals of fire on one's head
To repay a bad action with a good one, to cause a person to be
conscience-stricken.
to haul over the coals
To bring up sharply, to reprimand, to bless out, to punish by words and
accusations.
coal-up
To take on coal, as a locomotive.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
co-anch
A call to a cow. I can still hear my father calling to our cow down in the
woods. "Co-anch! Co-anch!" Years later I learned his call was from the
old English call of "cow-wench!"
as coarse as hog hair
coarse part
The part of a tune played on the D & G fiddle strings. The fine part is played
on the E & A.
the coast is clear
No danger awaits, everything is easy-going, nobody watching. "The coast
is clear. Come on over, honey," the lady said.
turn one's coat
To desert a party or a cause, traitorous, become turncoat.
wear Uncle Sam's coat
To don a military uniform, to enter the military service.
coattail
A woman's skirt.' 'That boy won't never amount to a row of pins, he's always
tied to his mother's coattail."
cob
The pith of an ear of corn. In eastern North Carolina the farmers often used
cobs in the place of toilet paper.
The cobbler's children go barefooted.
have a cobweb in the throat
To be hoarse, to have a dry throat.
cobwebs
Common folk remedy for excessive bleeding. They were often used by
country people for a mother right after childbirth.
I remember when I was a boy that Wesley Armstrong, a tenant on our
little farm, came rushing up to the house one morning, hollering for cobwebs.
I crawled up through a hole in the ceiling into the loft and helped gather
cobwebs. Wesley grabbed them in his hands and went running toward the
juniper, where he lived, to apply them to his wife Meta who had just given
birth to a baby. It worked fine, he later reported.
CO 'cola (Coca-Cola)
A popular drink, much guzzled in the Valley as everywhere else in the United
States and on into Europe and Asia. When I was traveling and lecturing
in the Orient, I found that this was perhaps the best ambassador Uncle Sam
had and was doing much to undo the ignorant and selfish Yankie diplomacy
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
223
practiced by many of our uninformed representatives in that region of the
world.
And how Ollie Marshall loved it! This Ollie was a grandson of old
Doctor Henry Marshall Turner who once lived in a fine mansion on the bank
of the Cape Fear River some miles below what is now Buie's Creek, the village
that presently houses Campbell University. But Ollie took no interest in the
grand old place. He let it run down and finally become inhabited by a family
of Negro tenant farmers, the while he lived in a little slop-sided bungalow
over in Lillington. Many a time I talked to Ollie about the history of the
house and the old books, letters and documents left to rot in the empty
upstairs rooms, asking him to let me do something about them. Finally one
day he agreed, and I went over and got the trunk of my car filled with this
material, which I gave to the university library at Chapel Hill. There were
dozens of letters to and from Valley people who, because of hard times after
the Civil War, had migrated to Texas.
I well remember the day I talked to Ollie about these old letters. That
particular morning after I had heighhoed a while, he came to the door of
his little frame bungalow and looked out. Lifting his big pole-like arms above
his head, he yawned, showing several of his rotted front teeth, then spat
off into the yard. I told him again what I wanted.
'' Yeh,'' he said,' 'I talked to Sally, and she says she don't see no reason
why you can't take anything you find over there in that old house. But you
won't find much but old plunder."
"Much obliged to you, Ollie," I said, "I'm much obliged."
"Aw, go 'way," he grunted, "you're welcome to it. What you want
with such old mess I don't see."
"Well, I just like to save old letters, books and things," I spoke.
"They're mighty interesting, and sometimes they throw a lot of light on
the history of a section."
"Maybe they do. You're like Grandma Caroline in that. She used to
save everything — most of what's over there was what she saved up. She
was certainly proud of her folks, and she could write things, too."
"I know," I said.
"Ever see that little poetry book she wrote?"
"Yes, 'Starinthe West,'it's called," I said. "I wish I could find a copy
of it. Mr. Mac used to have a copy, but somebody borrowed it, he said,
and he's never found it."
"I had a copy of it around here some'rs," said Ollie, "but I lost it too.
'Star in the West,' that's right, I remember now, mostly about Texas, weren't
it? Because so many of our folks went off to Texas. My Uncle Ken went
out there, Grandma's son."
"Yes."
"I used to think of going to Texas myself, but I never did," he said.
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He yelled out to a Negro boy over at the filling station across the street,
"Hey, Bo, bring me over a co'cola." The boy called most politely back
that it was coming right up, "Mr. Ollie, sir, yes suh."
"I was hoping I'd be able to find some of your Grandma Caroline's
letters over there maybe, Ollie," I said.
"Yen, you might."
"I'll be able to get into the house, won't I? I won't need a key?"
"Lord, no, you couldn't shut the front door if you tried to. The ivy's
all growed into the hall and choked up everything. And you better be careful
too and not let a piece of the roof cave in and kill you. And maybe you'd
better watch out for them highland moccasins. They're fearful pizenous,
you know," he said.
"I'll be careful, Ollie."
And then his face lighted all up with feeling, for a shiny new yellow
Cadillac had come swinging around the corner with Henry Thompkins, now
mayor of the town and cashier of the bank — descendant of one of the white
tenants who used to live on the great Dr. Henry Marshall Turner plantation
— sitting at the steering wheel.
"Jees," Ollie said, "ain't that a honey! Sweetest thing that runs on
the road, they tell me."
"Is it, Ollie?"
'' Yeh, it is. That' s what I' m going to set myself up to one of these days.
Ezzactly that. Come in here and let me show you that new trick I've got
for controlling window shades. I've just had it patented."
"Much obliged, Ollie, but I'd better be getting over to the old place."
"Oh well, I see you're in a hurry to get to that old trash."
"Some other time I'd like to know how you're coming along with your
inventions," I said,' 'the roller and the perpetual motion machine, but right
now — "
' 'Yeh, I'm coming along fine. I had another letter from my patent lawyer
yesterday. One more payment of ten dollars to him and then I'll be ready
to form a corporation for putting it on the market and—"
"That'll be fine, Ollie."
"Yeh, they's a fortune in it. Everybody says so that's seen it. From
now on window shades will stand where you leave 'em — won't be flying
up out of your hand. And as for perpetual motion — "
"Here's your co'cola, Mr. Ollie," theboysaid, coming into the scene.
Ollie with a careless throw-away gesture handed the boy a nickel. And
I went away, leaving this grandson of the great Dr. Henry Marshall Turner
who performed the first appendicitis operation in the southeast and was
a descendant of generals and judges — I left Ollie Marshall sucking on his
bottle.
I hurried across the river to the old mansion and got a load of material
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
225
and took it to the university library. Some weeks went by before I could
go back to the place again, and when I turned into the little field road leading
to where the mansion had stood, nothing was there but emptiness and a
few blistered old elm and maple trees. The beautiful ancient house had
burned to the ground. Some of the Negroes carelessly living in one of the
downstairs rooms had left the fire burning in the fireplace, and a chunk
evidently had rolled out onto the floor and set it afire. So they told me later.
Thus this thing of grace and forgetfulness perished to ashes as so many old
homes in the South have perished.
But Ollie didn't mind — there where he fumbled and worked at his
window shade holder and his perpetual motion machine. When I saw him
on another day he shrugged his shoulders and spoke up carelessly, saying,
"I knowed it was going to get burned up someday. That's the way it goes.
You try to help niggers by giving 'em a home to live in and what do they
do? — they burn your house down for you."
See "Caroline Turner" and "Dr. Henry Marshall Turner."
cock
Penis, also female genitals.
To copulate.
cock-a-doodle-do
A rooster's call at the break of day. Also describes irresponsible behavior.
"He played cock-a-doodle-do all over the place, and nigh broke up the
party."
cock and bull story
A big lie, an outlandish narrative.
cockcrow
Daybreak.' 'My daddy used to get up year after year exactly at cockcrow.''
cockeye
A squinting eye, a crossed eye.
knocked into a cocked hat
Destroyed, flattened, smashed.
cockeyed
Topsy-turvy, all awry, cranksided.' Til tell the cockeyed world I'll not back
down on what I said."
cockiness
Conceit, over self-assertion.
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cockish
Wanton, high-spirited.
cocklebur
Alternate doses of quinine and tea made of cockleburs (gathered before
frost), used for diphtheria or typhoid fever.
a cocklebur under his saddle
One who is excessively irritated.
close as a cocklebur in a sheep's wool
Hard to move, stingy.
cock of the walk
A dandy, a bossman, the champion, the winner.
cockroach
A low-down fellow.
Cock Robin
A nursery rhyme of many stanzas. Often used as a rhetorical question, "Who
killed Cock Robin?" in critical reference to one who is guilty of bringing
about a negative action, as killing a legislative bill.
cocksucker
A reprobate, a reprehensible person, a homosexual.
cocksure
Quite certain.
cocky
Conceited, brash.
cod
The scrotum.
coddle
To cuddle, also to spoil a child, over-pet one.
cod's head
A fool, a dolt.
Job's coffin
A constellation in the sky. Also a kind of string formation we children used
to play with stringed hands.
coffin blow
An especially forlorn wailing of a train whistle. In eastern North Carolina
we often would hear the whistle of a distant train, and when it was especially
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
221
mournful, we would say, "Listen to that train's coffin blow,'' meaning that
we figured the train had a coffin on board.
coffin tack
A cigarette, the same as coffin nail.
coffin varnish
Rot gut liquor.
cohonk
The sound made by wild geese flying through the sky in the winter time.
The Algonquin Indians used the word cohonk to mean winter.
Stuff a cold and starve a fever.
as cold as a corpse
as cold as a dog's nose
as cold as a fish
as cold as an iceberg
as cold as a well-digger's ass
as cold as blue blazes
as cold as charity
as cold as Christmas
as cold as death
as cold as frog's foot
as cold as flury
I used to puzzle over the word "flury" which was in common usage when
I was a boy in eastern North Carolina. I suppose it is a corruption of "fury.''
as cold as hell
as cold as ice
as cold as kraut
as cold as marble
as cold as steel
as cold as stone
as cold as the grave
as cold as the hinges of hell
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cold blood
Bad and sluggish circulation.
Merciless, brutal. "Willie Evans killed his little niece in cold blood, and he
oughta die in that there gas chamber."
cold-blooded as a snake
cold comfort
No comfort at all.
cold day in August
A time far distant, a rare occasion. "It'll be a cold day in August before
I'll shake hands with him."
cold deck
No-luck cards.
cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
Very cold indeed.
cold feet
To be weak-kneed, cowardly, weak-willed.
cold-hurt
Frost bit.
cold shivers
A fit of trembling, the apprehensive shakes. "The story of old Rawheadand-bloody-bones used to send the cold shivers through us children."
cold shoulder
A rebuff, a snub.
cold snap
A short spell of cold weather.
cold turkey
Straight talk, shoulder to shoulder, man to man. "He kept bellyaching about
his job, and so one day I called him into my office and I talked cold turkey
to him. After that he seemed to do a little better."
left cold
To be completely deserted. "She up and left him cold, running off with the
sewing machine man."
out in the cold
Neglected, forgotten, passed by.
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229
cold vittles
Poor fare, sorry food, dull entertainment.
Cold walls make unhappy wives.
throw cold water on
To discourage.
colic
An old cure for the colic was to stand on one's head for half an hour.
collar
To grab by the collar, to choke. Also to girdle or deaden a tree by cutting
a ring in the bark around it. "I've collared five acres of trees, and they'll
be dead by fall and ready for clearing!"
collar and homes
Necktie and stiff collar, courting clothes.
collard leaves
Collard or Jimson leaves, wilted in the oven, will take the fever out of risings;
also for headaches.
collards
A popular green vegetable in North Carolina. Some years ago a group of
us interested in the literary development of the state went around lecturing
and having fun holding symposiums on the subject, "Culture and Collards."
We still raise collards in our own garden and, traveling through the South,
one sees them in nearly every countryman's vegetable plot. In the winter
we used to turn them down with their heads to the south and put dirt on
the upper side to protect them from the cold. How often, year after year,
the same phrase would be spoken by my father: "The winter is really here
now, and it's time to turn down the collards."
collywobbles
Stomach pains, also sentimental feelings. "This here Luther King has got
collywobbles all about the pore nigger, and some day somebody's gonna
up and kill him!"
Let me see the color of your eyes when you talk to me.
Let me see the color of your money.
off-color
Bawdy, vulgar, not fit for polite society.
colt
A frisky young person.
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A ragged colt may make a good horse.
coltish
Wild, frisky, full of gay spirits.
The wildest colts make the best horses — after they are broken.
comb his head
To whip, scold, to beat.
comb the woods
To search thoroughly.
to cut one's comb
To humiliate, to deprive one of honor, to penalize heavily.
come
To have sexual orgasm.
At the time of, on the arrival of. "He'll be six years old come next August
10."
All things come to him who waits.
come about
To happen, to occur.
come a cropper
Downfall, bankruptcy, failure in one's plans.
come across
To meet with accidentally.' 'When I was up in Chapel Hill recently, I come
across one of my old college buddies and, man, did we have a reunion."
To hit upon, to find, to discover. "I come across a verse in the Bible that
told me exactly what to do."
To pay up, to own up, tell the truth, confess.
come and go
A topsy-turvy gathering, a mommick and a mess. "I couldn't stay there,
it was such a come and go all the time."
Come, butter, come
A sort of divination rhyme. We used to chant this as we churned the dasher
up and down.
"Come, butter, come.
For I want some.
Peter's waiting at the gate
�An A Iphabet of Reminiscence
231
For a little frosted cake.
Come, butter, come,
For I want some."
come by
To get, to acquire.' 'Ah, Lord, money's mighty hard to come by these days.''
come clean
To tell the truth, own up, confess.
corned
Past tense of come.
come down on like a ton of bricks
To berate, to humiliate, also to scold.
come fresh
Said of a cow which has just calved. It was a belief in our family — and
throughout the Valley for that matter — that for several days the milk from
a fresh cow was not good to drink. It was usually fed to the hogs for three
or four days.
come hell or high water
In spite of all difficulties.
"Come Home, Father"
A tear-jerking temperance song.
come in
To mature, be ready for harvest. "I'll be ready to go when my corn comes
in."
come in one of
Almost, on the point of. "He come in one of falling into that icy creek."
come it
To do, to measure up to, succeed. "I tried to jump that ditch but couldn't
come it."
come off
Asexual spasm, orgasm. "We both come of fat the same time, eigh, Lord!"
a come-off
A to-do, a bad result, an unhappy condition. "What a come-off when in
this democracy of ours plain blatant lying on both domestic and international
matters has become the policy."
Come off it.
Quit misbehaving.
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come on
A salutation, a greeting, an inquiry after one's health. "How you come on
today, Billy?" The answer usually was, "Well as common."
a come-on
A lure, a seduction.
come out
To fare, to receive treatment. "How did you come out in that poker game?''
come out at the big end of the horn
Make a fine profit.
come out at the little end of the horn
To fail, to be cheated, to lose out, suffer the worst of a bargain. Opposite
of "big end."
come out in the wash
The truth will show, will come out in the testing.
come out strong
To advocate or support vigorously. "He come out strong on the liquor
question."
come round
To reach an agreement. "After an hour's talk," John said, "each come
round to the other's point of view, and they had to start all over again."
comes to
Revived after fainting. "Stand back and give her air till she comes to."
"Come, Thou Almighty King"
One of the many fighting military-spirited songs, beloved by the people.
"Come, thou Incarnate Word,
Gird on thy mighty sword.
Our prayer attend."
It has everything, from fighting to glory and love at the end:
"His sovereign majesty
May we in glory see
And to eternity
Love and adore."
"Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"
Another hymn that has brought comfort to many a soul in the Valley as
elsewhere. It was one of my mother's favorites, and she constantly sang it
about the house. It sent me as a boy to the dictionary too to find out what
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233
a "melodious sonnet" and "raise my Ebenezer" meant. Nor could I
understand, dictionary or not, how he (Jesus) could rescue me from danger
by the use of his "precious blood." Through my long years of studying
religion and teaching philosophy since, I have learned that I'm not supposed
to understand. This brings me no comfort, of course, as I, now in winter's
years, watch the dynamic industrial age hurry us on in spite of all religion
and its faiths toward a conclusion for man not nice to think about.
come through
To pass from a state of sin to a state of grace or forgiveness.' 'They prayed
over that tough fellow, Eddie Kirk Matthews, I bet two hours, and finally
he come through."
To survive a critical illness. "The doctors had done give him up for dead,
but his heart kept on beating and he come through it finally."
come to grief
To run into bad luck, to meet with failure. "Jack Nicklaus was way out
in front, and then he come to grief on the ninth hole."
a come-to-Jesus coat
A long swallowtail coat often worn by Negro preachers or old-time
politicians.
come to the scratch
The test, the showdown. "When it comes to the scratch, you'll see — he'll
weasel out of it."
come to stay
To remain permanently. "That old mockingbird has run every robin off
the place and come to stay."
come undone
To be loosened. "Right in the middle of his holy dancing, Grandpa's britches
come undone, and that was it."
come unglued
To go to pieces, have an angry fit, suffer a nervous breakdown.
come up
To sprout through the soil. "My cotton's come up the worst this year —
too blamed cold and dry."
A command for a horse or a mule to go forward, opposite of "whoa."
comeuppance
Just deserts, retribution. "She gave him his comeuppance all right forgetting
drunk."
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come up to snuff
To meet expectations or needs.
"Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy"
The actual title of this hymn is " I Will Arise and Go to Jesus," but we always
referred to it by its first line. It was a most effective hymn in bringing the
erring ones to the mourners' bench. Its appeal was kind, sympathetic and
understanding, not like the hymns that threatened brimstone and fire.
"Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore,
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and power.
I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in his arms.
In the arms of my dear Savior,
Oh, there are ten thousand charms."
In quiet parlor courtings, a boy and girl would often outwit the "old
folks" (the parents), or thought they did, by silently pointing out phrases
in hymns that expressed their ardor, one for the other, or making marks
with a finger or pencil in the air to spell out the needed word as, say, "In
the arms of my dear Charlie (Lucy)/Oh there are ten thousand charms."
But the old folks were not outwitted. They knew, for they had done the same
in their youth.
as comfortable as an old shoe
comforter
A thickly padded cotton quilt. A strong lover. Also Jesus or the Holy Spirit.
coming
Right away, at once. "Hey you, John!" — "Coming!"
Developing, growing, waxing in power. "He's a coming man in this state
— you watch."
commencing to
Beginning, starting. "It's commencing to rain."
common
Usual, ordinary, as expected. "I'm well as common."
Genial, unpretentious. "I met President Eisenhower at the White House,
and he was just as common as anybody."
as common as dirt
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
235
A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning.
Communion
A religious ritual and observance, the sacrament of the Eucharist, the
celebration of the Lord's Supper when wine is drunk and bread is eaten in
memory of that ancient occasion. The most orthodox and devout believers
maintain that in the mystic process of the ritual the wine actually turns to
blood and bread to flesh — these being of Christ Jesus himself. This has
always struck me as a most horrible and cannibalistic contention. But as
St. Thomas says, one has to believe the unbelievable if his faith is to be truly
tested.
Present company always excepted.
Two's company, three's a crowd.
to keep company with
To court, to accompany.
You're known by the company you keep.
Comparisons are odious.
Compassion will do more than passion.
Whoever shall compel thee to go with him a mile, go with him twain.
complected
Complexioned, the coloring of one's skin. "He's a dark-complected man.''
Compliment another's wife,
Put in danger your own life.
(A proverb.)
Compliments cost nothing.
compost heap
It used to be the custom for the farmers to build large piles of compost in
their fields during the late winter and early spring months for distributing
in the furrows when planting time came. These piles were made of stable
and barnyard manure in which cottonseed and some commercial fertilizer
were mixed. It often went through a heat after being put into piles — usually
rectangular and flat-shaped, waist or shoulder high — and then was ready
for distribution. Often in the early morning I have seen a foggy smoke rising
from these heaps, and it was all a part of a beautiful world to me. The only
untoward thought was that before long I would have to be helping put out
the stuff from heavy baskets, distributing it by hand.
�236
con
Paul Green's Wordbook
A confidence man, a convict.
Be not wise in your own conceit.
As full of conceit
As an egg is of meat.
Egotistical, self-proud.
concern
Business, an undertaking. "He's opening a hardware concern in Lillington."
Confederate monument
After the Civil War and as soon as funds could be got together from a prettymuch wrecked economy, every town of any size in the South put up its
Confederate monument. Nearly always this monument took the form of
a single Confederate soldier, holding his rifle or musket and most often facing
north toward the enemy. For years and years on Confederate Memorial Day
gatherings would be held and Southern patriotic speeches made at the
monuments. And if a brass band was available, "Dixie" would be played
with a whooping-up effect. The custom has died out but the soldiers still
keep their motionless vigil. Perhaps the best known of these monuments
is the one on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The students have named it "Silent Sam," and for years in all their fraternity
initiations and other cuttings up they have never molested Sam. Their respect
perhaps is due somewhat to a sense of the tragedy he represents. I hope so.
An honest confession is good for the soul.
confound it!
A mild expletive.
confounded
Odious, pesky, beastly. "That confounded dog wee-weed on my little
boxwood and killed it."
congress
To defecate, to void, to answer the call of nature.
Often when we fellows were working in the fields, one of us would like
as not on occasion speak out and say, "I've got to go to congress." And
therewith he would disappear into the bushes to attend his natural needs.
It was only in later years when I was working on a people's drama for the
Washington, D.C. sesquicentennial and doing research on the history of
the United States Congress that I found the source of this usage. During
the latter days of the Revolutionary War, that lawmaking body had become
so ineffectual and empty-handed that vulgar aspersions were cast upon it,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
237
and so the term got into common folk parlance. None of us who used the
word in the old days in the Valley saw any connection between it and our
national body of representatives. We had accepted it as a matter of course
without pedigree from our parents and they from parents before them.
Recently I heard Mr. Mac say he didn't misdoubt at all that the term would
soon be coming back into prominence if things didn't change in Washington.
One day in Hollywood when I was talking to Will Rogers about a part
in a picture I was writing for him, I mentioned the word and something of
its history for he was always poking fun at the legislative body in his daily
newspaper column. He gave his high whickering little laugh, chewed his gum
viole'ntly an instant, and said, "That's about right, pardner, just about
right."
conk
To strike on the head.
conk out
To faint, die, to quit.' 'Half way there my old Ford conked out on me, and
I was stuck for the night."
connections
Relatives. "He was there at the funeral and all his connections."
conniption
Usually used as conniption fit, a hysterical performance.
He is the greatest conqueror who has conquered himself.
Conscience makes cowards of us all.
Let your conscience be your guide.
A good conscience is a soft pillow.
A good conscience is the best sleeping pill.
A guilty conscience needs no answer.
Constant dripping wears away a stone.
constitutional
A short spell of physical exercise for one's health. Every day Robert Frost,
when he was staying with Professor Clifford Lyons, walked up and down
Greenwood Road in Chapel Hill for his constitutional.
consumption
In earlier days one of the great killers along with pneumonia and typhoid
fever of Valley people. The poor doctors had no real defense against it. Rest
and fresh air were their only recommended medicines.
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I remember as a boy that Negroes around Lillington, Angler and Buie's
Creek set up some sort of settlement along the Cape Fear River. Consumption
broke out among them, and they died in droves.
What a change today! Now this terrible killer, along with nearly all
others except cancer, can be dealt with successfully, and cancer is gradually
yielding. When we think of the progress medicine has made, including of
course surgery, we can pick up a little hope that man on earth maybe will
learn to control his passions and selfishness in other fields for the common
good and will not destroy himself in a holocaust of fire or suffocating smog
as now threatens.
contempted
To act in contempt of. The judge looked sternly over his spectacles at the
long yellow girl and said, "You say that again and I will declare that you
have contempted this court. Now go ahead and tell how the attack occurred.''
continental
A useless thing, reference to the almost worthless value of the old timey
coin or money. "He's not worth a continental." And often the expression
is, "He's not worth a continental damn."
contraption
A thing, a puzzle box.
contrarious
Contrary, quarrelsome, inimical, ill-tempered, antisocial.
Plunkett Barksdale had all of these bad qualities and then some. He
was a high-living fellow and inherited right much money from his daddy.
Along in his old age, though, he changed his ways somewhat and joined
the church here. Of course there was a lot of jubilation over that — at first
there was. Like so many Scotchmen, Plunkett had a high temper and was
mighty touchous. For some reason or other, some say it was over hogs, others
over a land boundary, he quarreled with one of the elders or deacons named
Merlin McTaggert. The two had a lawsuit before the J.P. (Justice of the
Peace), and the case was decided against Plunkett. Later he attacked Merlin
in the road one day with a stick and whipped him. Both men were had up
in the church for fighting, and again the case was proved against Plunkett.
The brethren waited on him and said he would have to publicly apologize
to Merlin before he was allowed to return to good standing in the
congregation. Plunkett said he wouldn't do it. And he didn't. He harbored
a grudge against all the members from then on.
His spite took a funny shape. He joined the Catholic Church where,
as he said, a man could drink now and then, dance if he wanted to, and
get justice done him. But that wasn't all. He went around among some of
his former cronies and organized a meeting. Now one of the members
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
239
happened to own the land close to Little Bethel Church, just to the other
side of it. So Plunkett bought an acre and put him up a church of his own.
It wasn't much of a building, but it was good enough for him and his
followers and had a cross stuck up on the roof.
I don't guess it really was a Catholic Church. Plunkett just called it
that to spite the Little Bethel Church folks. Anyway some few services were
held there with him doing the reading, and it might have grown into
something if it had stood long enough. Somebody burnt it down after a year
or two. Soon after it burned Plunkett was taken down sick, some said from
too much carousing and others said from the cold he caught the night his
church burned and he overdid himself fighting the fire. He was taken with
double pneumonia, and just before he died he called all his cronies in and
said he wanted them not to grieve after him and be sad and mournful like
most funerals and wakes. No, he wanted them to be joyful. He said he was
ordering a keg of hard liquor and cherry bounce for them all and they must
make merry before they carried him across the creek and buried him there
where he had built his church. I suppose he still wanted to plague the Little
Bethel church members, for his grave would be there where they could look
out the window and see it all lonely and unjustly treated by itself. He bought
a steel casket into which he was to be put, and a whole barrel of brandy
was to be poured in around him to keep him pickled for generations. That
would worry the deacons some and would bother that old teetotaler Merlin
McTaggert no little to be singing his hymns there in the amen corner and
looking through the window thinking of him out there in a sea of liquor.
Plunkett died and the funeral parlor people from Fayetteville put him
in the casket, poured in the brandy and welded him up as instructed. Then
the wake began, and what a wake it was! For a night and day his old
companions drank and held watch over him! In the afternoon of the second
day they started with the corpse toward the church here. The weather was
bad for burying anybody, even Plunkett. A terrible flood of winter rain had
fallen all mixed in with sleet, and when the burying party came to the creek
they found the bridge washed away and gone. So they stopped and held
a caucus. They were all pretty drunk and they came near to blows as to what
to do. Finally they decided to go down the stream a little way where some
trees had been blown across the run in the year of the hurricane and try to
make their way across with the body. So they did. What with the sleet on
the slippery logs and their being half-drunk, they fell into the creek, casket
and all. The bank was steep there and a lot of jagged rocks stuck out from
the sides. The casket fell against some of these rocks and rolled down into
the water. For a while it seemed Plunkett would be washed down the stream
and into the Cape Fear River, but with a lot of shouting and hullabaloo
they finally got him up the bank on the other side. Then they found that
the casket had been cracked from the rough handling and a gush of fine
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brandy was pouring out. For a while they tried to stop up the leak. But finally
seeing it couldn't be done and the brandy would be wasted, they decided
that Plunkett wouldn't mind. So they fell to catching it in their hats and
drinking it like pigs. When the brandy was all leaked out or drunk up, they
started on toward the churchyard and where they had been half-drunk before
they were all roaring drunk now. And they sang all kinds of ballads and
dirty songs as they staggered along.
When they got to the burial place with the casket they hardly knew B
from bull's foot. So they dug Plunkett's grave and buried him but not straight
east and west as decent people should be buried but slanchindicular, cattycornered like, that is contrarious, as you might say. And maybe this was
a fitting thing to do, seeing that he was so like that in life.
Later there was talk of digging Plunkett up and moving him. But for
one reason or another it was put off, and finally the whole thing was forgot
and today trees and bushes cover the unmarked place where he lies.
contrary
Ill-humored. "They say that old beggar man, Good, was one of the most
contrary scoundrels you ever met with."
To oppose or irritate. "It's better not to contrary a sick person."
contrivance
A contraption, a gadget, a thing.
In an interview once with Eddie Rickenbacker's mother in Hollywood,
she told me that as a boy Eddie worked hours and hours and days and days
and on into the nights on his perpetual motion contrivance, and one day
he got it going, "and the whole thing run away with him and busted out
of the shed.'' In doing the picture, 20th-Century-Fox had a perpetual motion
contrivance built, but it never turned out to be much of a thing other than
something queer and outlandish to photograph. After a pile of money was
spent for it we threw it away.
conversion
A change from nature to grace, from a worldly condition to a spiritual one,
according to the Valley preachers and others. It was and is a common
religious belief that when a baby is born, even that tiny helpless one is in
a sinful state and if it should perish as is, its future existence in yonder world
would be terrible indeed. I understand that this is the view of the Pope and
the Catholic Church, cruel and irrational as it seems. The evangelical
preachers work hard, especially at revivals or "protracted meetings," to
clean up the contaminated souls round and about and, through exhorting
sermons and rending warning hymns, cause the sinner to experience a
psychological and inner upheaval that leaves him with the feeling of being
"cleansed," that is, converted.
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241
I was never privileged to go through this experience, though as a little
boy, under the push of an old preacher and to get him off my back, I
pretended I had — that I had found grace and had cast away my sinful nature.
One of the most striking conversions I ever heard of happened to a
soldier from the Valley — a private in the Confederate Army. The account
was given me by an old Confederate veteran. Let us call him Joe.
Joe had deserted, was recaptured and sentenced to die. There had been
a lot of desertions in the long, grinding struggle around Petersburg, and
General Lee, good man that he was, said it had to stop. So that's the way
it was.
Now the sergeant in charge of the death detail that was to take Joe out
and shoot him had been a Baptist preacher in the Valley and one of the best.
Call him Henry.
So strong had been Henry's feeling about the injustice done the South
by the Yankee North that he enlisted early in the cause and, preacher or
not, went to the battlefield r'aring to fight. So the old veteran told me.
Now Joe found out somehow that Henry was a preacher and, standing
there in the edge of the field with his hands tied, he begged the sergeant to
give him another chance. But Henry said he had to be shot. It was General
Lee's orders. Joe was a devious fellow, according to what was told me, and
he upped with an argument.
"You're a preacher, ain't you, sergeant?" said Joe, half-weeping.
"I am that," replied the sergeant, "and a good one if I do say it myself."
"And I'm a poor low-down sinner," sniveled Joe.
"You are and no doubt of that," said Henry, "considering the way
you've treated General Lee. Get ready to die."
"But I ain't ready," said Joe, and he began to howl. Henry ordered
his detail to line up, and he pulled out a white handkerchief of cloth to tie
over Joe's eyes. Joe's howls suddenly stopped and he called out piteously,
"You love your Jesus, don't you, suh?"
"I do that," said the sergeant, "and him crucified for our sins," and
he lifted his eyes confidingly toward heaven.
"And Jesus said have mercy, have mercy, he said — and he said have
mercy, didn't he?" blubbered Joe.
"True our Savior said blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain
mercy," said Henry.
"Ezzactly," said Joe.
"But he weren't talking about deserters," the sergeant declared.
"How you know heweren't?" said Joe, and his voice was a little sharp
as he lifted his tied hands and with their backs scrubbed the tears from his
eyes. His voice hardened a bit more as he went on. "I'm a terrible sinner.
My soul is black with sin — making liquor back home, gambling, running
with women, and you just can't send me into the hereafter to burn in hell
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forevermore. You can't, you can't!" And now his voice was heartrending
in its begging. Henry lowered his head and stared at the ground. Joe went
on. "I tell you I been the turblest sinner they is. I ain't never been converted
in no church — never nowhere. My folks was low-down. They never give
me no chance." And he began to sob loudly. Henry kept looking at the
ground. Here was a bind. True, it was bad enough for Joe to be shot but
for his soul to be sent to burn forever in a fire seven times hotter than any
on earth — that was maybe a bit rough. He hadn't been thinking of that.
The sergeant turned aside and held a short silent prayer, seeking God's help.
Some sort of answer must have come and come quickly. He turned back
and asked Joe if he knew any religious hymn of any sort. Joe studied and
then said 'way back at the big meetings folks used to sing "Come to Jesus.''
"Exactly what we want," said Henry. And he led off in the song.
"Come to Jesus, Come to Jesus,
Come to Jesus just now.
He will save you, He will save you,
He will save you just now."
Joe sang along as best he could, andsomeof the guard joined in. Soon
they were all singing and clapping their hands.
"Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you,
Jesus loves you just now."
With the hymn finished and everybody feeling some effect from it,
Henry took from his pocket a little Bible which he always carried and read
a bit about Jesus suffering on the cross and saying to one of the thieves
crucified with him that "this day thou shall be with me in paradise." Then
Henry began to preach, and if he had preached powerful sermons before,
never had he preached one equal to the one he put forth for this condemned
man's salvation, said the old soldier. He unrolled the glories of heaven and
the horrors of hell. Before long he had Joe on his knees hollering for the
Lord to save him, and one or two of the more sinful members of the guard
were likewise calling for help though not so loudly as Joe. Then the preacher's
voice became gentle and consoling. He spoke of the great love Jesus had
for this erring one, and there in heaven at this minute, standing by the throne
of God, he was reaching out his arms saying,' 'Come, Joe, come, and I will
give you rest. Come, Joe, come, and lay your weary head upon your Savior's
breast."
And the sergeant went on like this for a long while. He dropped down
on his knees by Joe and put his arms around him, saying, "Jesus loves you,
Joe, and I love you. Yea, you are precious in his sight and precious in my
sight. Come to Jesus, come now."
This finally was too much for Joe. His hard, sinful soul melted like
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
243
cold molasses in a hot sun. He jumped to his feet presently and began hopping
around, shouting out the glad news that salvation had come to him. He felt
Jesus in his heart. "Hallelujah, hallelujah!" he yelled.
"Hallelujah," answered the sergeant.
"Hallelujah!" called the guard and one of them spoke a few words
of unknown tongues, so stirred up he was.
It was a long while before they were able to quiet Joe down. Finally
his shouting stopped and so did the holy jerks that had seized him for awhile.
He stood there with the tears of peace pouring from his eyes, his face shining.
The sergeant took the white cloth and wiped the tears lovingly away, then
hugged him to his breast again and kissed him on the cheek. He now gently
but firmly bound the white cloth, somewhat wet in places from Joe's tears,
over the condemned man's eyes. He led him a few paces away, stepped aside
and gave a high, wild cry, "Ready, aim, fire!"
The muskets sounded, and Joe's soul went to its Savior — or didn't.
And the sergeant-preacher went back to camp feeling satisfied. He had
accomplished several things of which he was proud. Never had he preached
a better sermon. Much of it he could use again back home. He had saved
another soul and sent it straight to the bliss of heaven, a place where in certain
scarce moments he wished to be. And he had served as best he could the
great commander he worshipped next to God.
Convince a man against his will,
He's of the same opinion still.
COO like a dove
coob up
Coop up.
cook breakfast with a snowball
This was a well-known crack of Professor Horace Williams to his
philosophy class. Often he would ask an unsuspecting student if he believed
that God was all-powerful, and, of course, the orthodox answer would
always come back that he, the student, did believe the deity was not only
all-powerful but omniscient and omnipresent. Then Professor Williams
would chuckle and ask the student if he thought the all-powerful God could
cook breakfast with a snowball.
The class would break into gales of laughter. Everybody knew that God
couldn't because the snowball would melt. Still there were some orthodox
ones in arguments after the class dismissed who maintained stoutly that all
things were possible with God, for the Bible said so.
cookie
A person. "I'll tell you, that Joe Aiken is a smart cookie."
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cooking
Things going on, activity, bustle, much to-do. "What's cooking, Bud?"
cooking hot
A ruttish, sex-hungry person.
cooking on all four burners
To be doing exceedingly well, also of a motor that's running well.
cook one's goose
To ruin, kill, defeat, to settle one's hash.
cook room
The kitchen, where the cook stove is.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
cook-woman
A cook.
cook up
To fabricate, to invent. "He cooked up the whole story about President
Roosevelt and that woman."
cool
Clever, careful, debonair. "He plays it cool."
To emphasize a figure or an amount or fact. "That McLean boy made a
cool million playing the stock market, and when he lost it he jumped off
that water tower and busted his brains out."
cool as a cucumber
cooler
The jailhouse, the cell.' 'That fellow cussed out the judge, and the next thing
he knowed he was in the cooler."
A galvanized container, usually of some two-gallon capacity, used to lower
into a well for cooling milk.
cooling board
In the old days a dead person was laid out on a wide board for the body
to cool more quickly and to help preserve it if the weather was hot.
cooling-pit
A pit dug under or near the dwelling house for keeping milk, butter,
watermelons, etc. cool in hot weather.
cool one's heels
To wait interminably, to be put off.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
245
cool one's saddle
To rest, to dismount.
coon
A derogatory Southern term for a Negro man.
To go like a raccoon, move on all fours. "The only way to get across on
that log is to coon it."
coon muddle
Brunswick stew.
coon oysters
Poor grade of oysters that grow in muddy water and usually are exposed
at low tide. They are easily reached by raccoons and, therefore, the name.
coon's age
A long time. According to Dr. W.D. Weatherford of Black Mountain, a
coon's age means fourteen years. "I ain't seen you in a coon's age."
COOshee (coosheep)
A call to sheep.
coot
A foolish fellow.
cooter
A land turtle. It is supposed that when a cooter bites you he won't turn loose
until it thunders.
cootie
A body louse. Also a low-down fellow.
cop
To take, to seize, to win. "He copped first place in the midget car race."
cop caller
Squealing brakes.
a copper
One cent, sometimes referred to as a "copper cent."
copperas
One teaspoonful a week per sick hog will insure a cure.
copper cent
A trifle, a worthless item. "He ain't worth a copper cent, he's so lazy."
copper-toed shoes
One of the proudest moments of my life as a boy was when my father
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bought me a pair of copper-toed shoes. We boys were so devoted to playing
marbles that kneeling on the ground around the shooting ring we scuffed
out the toes of our shoes unmercifully. The copper strip took care of this
— at least for a long while. I put my new shoes pridefully on and stomped
braggingly about the house. My mother asked me to go to the woodpile and
get some lightwood splinters to start a fire in the stove for supper. Out I
went quick to obey. Splitting the splinters I struck my foot with the blade
of the axe and cut one of my big toes half off. I fled into the house with
cries of grief, not for my bleeding toe — I didn't notice that — but for my
ruinedshoe. "Look what I've done to my new shoe, Momma! Look, look!"
Ishrieked. "Yes, and look what you've done to your old toe," sheanswered
back. "Mary, bring me a piece of cloth, quick, quick!"
copy-cat
An imitator.
cord bed
A bed with cords attached to the side rails on which the mattress is placed
instead of its being placed on slats.
core
The clay center of an earth dam.
corker
First rate, admirable.
cornball
A dull, stupid person.
corn basket
A basket made of split white oak withes for handling corn in the ear.
corn cob
Often the farmer's toilet paper.
corn dodger
Cornbread in the form of a flat cake, a sort of dumpling made of cornmeal
and boiled in a pot with ham and cabbage or in ham and cabbage pot liquor.
cornering
A deep gash cut in the tree or the cutting of the corners in turpentine farming so the resin will better run into the boxes.
cornfed
Well-fed, especially strong and good of fiber and stamina.' 'These hogs are
all cornfed and their meat is solid as you please."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
247
cornfield hand
A common hired hand, usually a Negro, somewhat different and of lower
status than a house servant. The only thing standing between him and want
and the grave is his own physical strength, his muscles and brawn.
cornmeal poultices
These were in common use for any sort of ache or pain. The cornmeal was
made into a dough, heated and put into a sugar sack or old stocking and
placed on the place that hurt. Heated salt in a bag was also good.
cornshucking
An old-timey custom which has pretty much gone out of style in recent years,
what with the mechanizing of the farms with tractors, seeders, harvesting
combines and the like. In the old days when late October or early November
came on, the farmers would haul the corn in the shuck from the fields, pile
it in a horseshoe-shaped mounding around the barn door, and invite their
neighbors in to help shuck it. This was always a joyous and festive occasion,
and the housewives would cook up a storm of ham, barbecue, beef stew,
chicken pastry, pies, cakes, biscuits, and a multitude of things for good eating
and fun. The shuckers usually ate in sequent groups — the oldest men first
and the younger and yearling fellows last. Sometimes after the supper feeding
was over, the girls would come out to the compile and find their respective
sweethearts and snuggle down beside them and pretend to help shuck corn.
After that, of course, the falling of the shucked ears toward the barn door
slackened down considerably. Now and then someone would find a red ear,
and then a forfeit — or better, a reward — of a kiss would be taken by the
lucky fellow to the merriment and good spirits of all.
I used to look forward to a cornshucking with keen delight. And one
I'll never forget, for a girl was connected with it. I still can see her face,
now perished and gone. She was the sweetest thing under the sun. Yes, for
awhile she was. Not an apple in old Squire Johnson's orchard could equal
her, none was as red as her cheeks. And my thoughts were wild and lyrical
about her.
I would plow in the fields all day with her nestling in my mind, sweeter
than honey in the comb. But she didn't know it, didn't know that I was crazy
about her. Such a fool I was in those days, timid and scary as a fly. I would
go to Little Bethel Church and sit at the back listening to her play the organ.
There she'd be with her head lifted, singing and playing, her face alight like
an angel. What for me then was the preacher's thundering? What did I care
about fire and damnation and the crackling of thorns that might threaten
and mock me?
Sometimes she'd pass along the lane, visiting a girl down the road. I'd
be out in the fields spreading the stinking compost or cutting cornstalks,
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and the sight of her pink dress coming around the bend would send my heart
up in my throat with a sharp ache. And if someone casually mentioned her
name, a sweet thrill would shoot along my spine and down painfully by way
of my saddle into my toes.
I thought about her, dreamed about her, and the year I was seventeen
I began to make plans. Breaking our old stiff bottom land with a heavy twohorse plow, I would ponder in my mind some things I'd do. Before long
I'd get up courage and maybe ask her to go riding Sunday. And then before
long, you watch me, my mule (and oh, if it only were a horse!) would be
tied at her yard fence at least one night a week.
That spring went by, the summer came, and I still had no date with
her. Once or twice — choked in a high collar of those days, my new bow
tie crossed pretty nice and my glass scarfpin shining like a peeping sun —
I had spoken to her at church and commented upon the weather or whatever
popped into my foolish mind. The merry quick look out of her dark eyes
and the tilt of her brown head crucified me with joy. I could never come
near such a wonder.
Along with my loving that summer I took up reading in deep earnest,
for I knew she liked reading. She had been the brightest scholar in our country
school. By josh, I'd up and do something, I would. And some of these days
— well — some of these days. I read a poetry book, by a man named
Havwood, up at Raleigh, novels by E.P. Roe and Mrs. E.D.E.N.
Southworth. And through the last-named amorous lady my feelings ran
amuck. Fool, fool, why couldn't I get up courage to ask her for a date?
She was sixteen and old enough.
Then, lo and behold, on a Sunday following some of my mournful
musings, she went by in the lane, swift as an arrow, sitting with Judd
Hockaday behind his fast race horse. Misery, misery! That long lonesome
Sunday afternoon I sat in the woods on a log with a stub of pencil and a
sheet of paper, pouring out my soul in poetry. The red bugs and seed ticks
did their work on my crotch and thighs, but I paid little mind.
"If the high mountains and the deep sea
Loosed their power and wrath on me,
'Twould not be like the pain I feel.
Bring me your balm, love, my heart heal."
There were fifteen verses as good as that. Then in the gray of the twilight
I went home somewhat eased, scratching and itching but somewhat eased.
Art hath its compensations, even as the philosopher declared. Why couldn't
I be a poet? I might. A great writer. I straightened up. Another thought
came to me — I might send this poem to her. Why not?
By josh, she might like that. She would. I bet she didn't know I had
it in me. It was good, if I did say it myself. I pulled it out and read it again,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
249
walking along the road in the gloom.
"I looked at the birds and looked at the sky,
And hated to think my love would die.
I looked at the moon and looked at the sun
And thought of my love till day was done."
Out of my misery came the poem and out of that the decision to act.
I put it in an envelope and mailed it to her, no letter or anything, just the
poem. Then I waited. Part of my emotion was transferred to the mailman.
The sound of his buggy in the lane thrilled me like the sight of her dress,
but with a different sort of thrill, oh, yes, very different. But the days went
by and nothing came. Lord, I'd ruined things. Of course she was mad.
Anybody would get mad at such brass as that.
For weeks I suffered remorse and embarrassment. That poem! I
wouldn't have her know who wrote it for anything. But too late now. In
the days that followed, even a thought of it and my goose-foolishness would
redden my face and cause beads of sweat to pop out on my forehead.
I was out in the barn lot one afternoon in October when her little brother
came by riding their black mule.
"Heigh," said the brother.
"Heigh," said I.
"Gonna shuck corn tomorrow night and want you all to come," the
ruffian said, letting loose a squirt of tobacco juice at the gate and eyeing
me sternly. Lightning-like visions and plans raced through my mind as I
stood in my tracks.
"Can you come?"
"Some of us'll be there," I answered gravely, as slow and deliberate
as a taciturn Indian.
With a mocking look below his stubby red hair the boy soused his heels
in the flanks of the old mule and sent her grunting down the road. I'd be
there if torment — if hell didn't freeze over.
I watched my time, and the next afternoon when everybody was out
of the house I slipped in and got my daddy's razor and took my first shave.
Uhp, there's a cut. Nothing much though. Other boys with cuts on their
chin — I'd heard them say so casual-like, "My razor slipped this morning."
I slicked down my hair and put on my suit and stood ready to ride. As a
last measure I sprayed myself plentiful with my sister's cologne. Then I
hitched up my father's mule and drove through the country, feeling fit and
ready as a man of God.
The cornshucking was in full swing when I got there. Young men, old
men and boys were sitting and squatting around the horseshoe pile. In the
dusk the shucked ears were pouring over toward the open barn door like
a thick swarm of plunging bats.
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"Heigh, you, bring your shucking-peg?" called Laughing Gus Brown.
"Got ten of 'em," I answered.
"Well, come over here, Sunday clothes, and fall to it."
I took my place among the sweaty overalls and ragged hats. Out of
my vest pocket I fished my shucking-peg, made of the hardest dogwood,
seasoned by sun and fires, and coming to a fine point at the end. In a few
minutes I was ripping the shucks open and shooting the ears over with the
best of them. On and on we shucked, ear by ear, nubbin after nubbin,
throwing the shuck behind with one hand and reaching forward for another
ear with the other. And all the while there was a low drumming and seedy
spattering of the corn ears falling always toward the crib.
Evening was coming on. Presently Gus let out a whoop.
"The man who gets through the pile first finds a silver dollar! How
'bout it, Mr. Mac?"
' 'Dunno," Mr. McLaughlin answered from up the line. He was a dour
farmer and not so free with his money.
"Uh-uh!" said Laughing Gus, winking at me. "That got him where
the hair's short."
All the time I was thinking about the girl in the house, seeing her in
my mind as she helped arrange the table, dishing up the stew and all the
fine things to eat. It was almost time for supper now. The fields out by the
barn were growing dim, and the open door to the hayloft above was a square
of blackness, and looked lonesome. I gazed up at the sky and saw that the
stars were coming out. The sky looked lonesome too. That was a trait I had
— when I thought of something sweet and happy, I thought of something
lonesome. One feeling seemed to bring the other.
"Le's sing some," I said timidly to Laughing Gus. "Sam and Tim's
here."
"That's right, music in place of the dollar," said he. "Heigh, Tim,
you and Sam come over here."
Sam and Tim and Gus and I had been singing as a country quartet now
for some time — 'round at cornshuckings, ice cream suppers and parties
and the like. We sure could make music, as everybody said.
Presently Tim and Sam left their places and came around. We made
room for them.
"How're you?" queried Tim.
"What shall it be?" said Sam, dumping his tobacco wad in his hand
and throwing it behind him.
I was a sort of leader and knew more tunes than they.
"Oh, anything," I answered. "What would you like?"
"Sing about poor Omi," old Yen Yarborough spoke up in his chair
a few paces away. Old Yen liked music, and he especially liked that mournful
piece. He'd seen a lot of trouble in his time and now was dying from a bad
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
251
sore on his nose. Try doctors, herbs, salves, all that he might, including Miss
Zua Smith's powerful plasters — nothing did him any good. But he still
kept cheerful.
"Poor Omi it shall be," said Sam with his bass.
Thereupon we cleared our throats and settled our knees more firmly
in the bed of shucks.
"Ta-la-la-la," said Tim, setting the chord. He was the first tenor and
a good one.
"Do, sol, mi, do," growled Sam.
Then we let loose a harmony that shattered the twilight air and trembled
the cobwebs in the hayloft. Out, around and upward we sent the lady's
plaintive story.
"O pity, O pity! pray spare your babe's life,
And I will deny it and not be your wife.
No pity, no pity, no pity have I,
In yonder Deep River your body shall lie."
How we did make it chord, all with queer minor and mode! And when
we'd reached the end where the poor lady's body, by desperate deed
foredone, is found in the river and the guilty George Lewis is captured and
bound down in chains, there were grunts of approval and scattered clapping
of hands on all sides.
"That sure is a piece," mused Laughing Gus.
Then through the cool October evening I heard a voice that thrilled
me to the bone.
"Come on in to supper, you all." She was outside the lot fence with
some other girls.
"Come on to supper."
The fellows around the compile craned their necks around, snickered
and stirred with enlivenment. The old men would eat first, and seven or
eight of them soon rose, dusted the corn silks from their clothes and went
on toward the gate.
"We need four more," old Yen called back.
"Go on to supper, Tom."
"No, you go, Dave."
"Why, I ain't hungry a bit in the world."
"Charlie, you go."
"No, you go. The old come first. Hee-hee!"
"Pshaw! Looks before age!"
"Since you ain't got 'em, you need sump'n to eat!"
"Allen, you go."
And finally four middle-aged fellows followed the old ones to supper.
The young girls in their white dresses and ribbons clustered around like
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beautiful butterflies beyond the fence.
"There she is," and Laughing Gus punched me in the side.
But I went on with my shucking seemingly as cold and indifferent as
the old dummy that lived by the creek.
"You gals come over here and help us shuck this corn!'' three or four
voices called.
The group of girls beyond the fence were suddenly animated with a
flurry of motion, and there were giggles and whispers among them. Finally
little Cissy Tatum, who had a tongue like a scorpion's tail, shrilled out,
"Who's that all dressed up there in his wedding garments?"
A great shout went up around the compile, and I felt my face grow
hot as fire.
"Come here, little Black-Eyes, and hold its hand!" cried Gus who
seemed to have gone crazy in his head. "Bring your han'kcher and an'int
it, for she smells like the Queen of Sheby."
Sam, who had covered many a bar of balladry with me, suddenly rolled
over on his back and wallowed among the shucks with joy. He let out little
puffing squeals of merriment.
If only the ground would open and swallow me up, or if I might but
burrow my way deep under the corn shucks and hide myself from all human
eyes! I remembered foolishly that Enos walked with God and was not, for
God took him. And so was it with Elijah. I looked up at the sky and wished,
as the Negroes sang — wisht I had-a wings for to fly. Then the girls went
away, and she called back over her shoulder, "We'll all come and help you
after supper."
"Do," shouted Gus, "and a kiss for every red ear!"
' 'How about the Springfield Mountain piece?'' I stammered out to Tim
who never laughed at anybody or anything. He was a solemn soul, he was.
As long as I lived I had never known him to laugh. But Tim had fun, plenty
of it, till he died in France.
"All right," he muttered.
And he lifted up his voice.
"In Springfield Mountain there did dwell
A handsome youth, I knowed him well.
'Twas Deacon Jones' only son—
When he was only twenty-one—"
Ah, that was a piece! — And Tim's high tenor was clear and sweet as a bell.
We three joined in—
"One Monday morning he did go
Out in the field some hay to mow.
He sca'ce had mowed half o'er the field,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
253
When a venomous blacksnake bit him on the heel—
—Sing umble-bumble and a skiddy and a bumble
And a mozi-linkum too.
"He killed that snake and in his hand
He took it quick to Molly Ann—
Says he to Moll, 'Jist look and see
What venomous blacksnake has bit me!'
—Sing umble-bumble, etc.
"Says Moll to him.'Why did you go
Out in the field, some hay to mow?'
Says he to Moll, 'I thought you knowed
Your pappy"s hay it must be mowed.'
—Sing umble-bumble, etc.
"Then Moll she kissed his wounded limb
And sucked the pizen out'n him.
But Molly had a rotten tooth,
And so the pizen took them both.
—Sing umble-bumble, etc.
"And then they died, gave up the ghost
And went to join the heavenly host.
And both cried out as up they went,
'Confound that devil of a sarpeint!'
—Sing umble-bumble," etc.
Handclappings and whistlings of appreciation sounded forth when we
finished. "What a piece!" said Tim.
Soon the old men came back, and it was the turn of the young fellows
to go to supper.
We shuffled on through the darkness and crowded around the pump
outside the dining room. There we washed up with strong homemade soap
and dried our hands and faces on towels hanging from the limbs of a pecan
tree. The young girls hovered about in the gloom and waited upon us as
if we had been lords.
"Here's some soap, Charlie," one said shyly to her husky sweetheart.
"And here's a towel," said another.
' 'Hurry up there,'' the sharp voice of Miz McLaughlin called from the
kitchen.
Through the lighted window of the parlor I could see other girls playing
the organ and singing, and two or three were sitting on the lounge looking
through the family albums. Time would hang heavy on their hands until
the boys were through at the compile. Like a herd of goats we fellows tramped
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in through the dining room and seated ourselves at the table.
Mr. McLaughlin was noted for his closeness, but he hadn't failed to
provide on this occasion. No farmer does. The table was loaded down with
chicken stew, ham, collards, early pork, beef stew and steak, biscuits,
muffins, cornbread, potato pie and custards and cakes, and goodness knows
what all. Two or three stolid Negro women moved about the room, handing
the dishes on. And over it all Miz McLaughlin, with face as dried as a bean
root, watched with hawk-like eye. She was a stingy one, no doubt, but she
did urge everybody to help himself. If she cared for her rations, as it was
said, she was due to suffer this night. And so we began. I being so timid,
and with my mind on something else, like a fool got a whole plateful of
collards from the first Negro woman. I hated "greens" above all things,
and in a few minutes my appetite was gone. It looked like a grimace of
pleasure on the hostess' face when I soon had to say "no" to a proffered
dish of stew.
After a few minutes the girl came in and shyly spoke to Sam.
"Are you going to play for us?" she said.
"We are if we can tote our vittles," he answered.
A bit longer she stayed in the room and then went off along the porch
toward the parlor. Not once had I looked up at her, but sat bent over my
plate diddling with the hated greens, feeling her presence suffocatingly
around me.
Back at the compile we shucked and shucked. Presently the cold moon
came up behind the barn and peered in our faces. Gus suggested another
song, but I, who had grown mournful, said I didn't feel like it.
"And Sam's not here, anyhow," I said.
I was waiting and hoping she would come. Well, if she did, she'd go
and sit with somebody, not me, of course. The corn was dwindling away
under our onslaught, we'd be through in a few minutes. Then I heard the
knock of the latch in the gate and the shout that went up around the pile
told me the girls were there. Through the corner of my eye I saw them come
in. My heart pounded in my ribs and nearly stifled me, but I kept at my
task, erect and with the gravity of that same old aforesaid Indian. I saw
them settle themselves here and there along the pile with their different
sweethearts. Ah, it was all so foolish anyhow. I didn't care, I didn't. Why'n
thunder had I dressed up like a fool? Then a cool voice spoke up behind me.
"Let me sit with you." she said.
I gripped the ear I was shucking. "There's some room here," I answered
casually, making a place for her.
"Un-uh,'' Gus snorted, "red ears, where are you hiding?'' And he went
on making funny remarks, but I heard nothing now. Here she was, right
here beside me, and she chose me before the rest. My head was swimming
and all the fine speeches I had planned were lost in a hazy dreaminess. Bless
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
255
the lord if a sort of sleepiness didn't soon come over me. What ailed me
anyhow? Then I felt her soft hand against mine among the shucks. She was
reaching for an ear maybe, sure that was all. We shucked away in silence.
She would say nothing either. Once Gus stuck a red ear at me.
"Now's your chance," he said. But I made no reply and Gus threw
the ear scornfully toward the barn.
"How's everything at your house?" she finally said.
' 'All right." I wanted to talk out and laugh and cut up like the others,
but something weighed me down like lead. I was happy, but something
weighed me down. Once or twice she looked at me intently and then presently
shivered and stood up. "It's cold here and I better get my fascinator," she
said. She went out through the gate, and Laughing Gus lay back and roared
with glee.
"What's all the fun?" a neighbor queried.
"The cat's got the bridegroom's tongue," he cackled.
Now if I but had a sledgehammer or something I'd kill that Laughing
Gus Brown. I wouldn't mind caving his head in, not a bit in this world. A
flood of wretchedness came over me. I was the biggest fool that ever wore
shoes, no doubt of it. Well, out I would go.
And I did. I stumbled up and went toward the lot gate. I would go home
and go to bed where I belonged. Catcalls and merry gibes followed me out
and cut me to the quick. With a sob in my throat I went toward the fence
where my mule was tied. I began hitching him to the buggy. As I was ready
to drive off, she came out of the gloom with her shawl around her.
"Where you going?" she asked.
"They're about through now and I'd better go on."
"Don't go, we're going to play and have some music in a little bit."
"I better leave," I muttered, but I stood making no move.
She came closer and laid her hand on my arm.' 'That was the sweetest
poem you sent me."
"Oh, Lord! "I gasped.
She looked at me with great admiring eyes. "You're smart as you can
be." She stammered and looked down. "You know, I wrote several letters
about it, but I was afraid to send 'em. You're so — proud and standoffish.
You are."
"Good gracious alive!'' I said. Mechanically I tied the mule again and
stood by her silent. There were no words to be had now. Fool!
"The moon's so beautiful," she murmured, "let's go walking down
the lane. We'll come right back."
We went along and soon she put her hand in my arm the way I'd read
in books. "The wheel ruts make hard walking — so," she said.
"I'll write you some more, Nan," I said with some confidence now.
"Oh, do, and I'll try to send you a letter some of these days,'' she added.
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"Oh, do," I whispered.
The moon looked down with smiling face, and the fields lay wide and
peaceful on either side. There in the hedgerow the flowers stood dead and
sore from the early frost. The yarrow that Achilles knew held up its blistered
hands, and the proud old mullein nodded its gray fuzzy head at us from
the shadowy fence jambs.
"It's a beautiful night," she murmured again. "Look at the man in
the moon!"
' 'And everything all around us," I answered foolishly and in a choking
voice. At the turn of the lane we stopped and leaned against the fence.
Presently she laid her hand on mine, and I caught it in a tight convulsive
clutch.
"What's the matter?" she whispered. I looked at her with shining eyes.
"Oh, me," she cried. And I put my arms gently around her then.
"That's all right, that's all right," I kept saying. For a long while I
held her so. Then a few words came stammering through my lips. "I've been
thinking a whole lot. I'm gonna do something in this world, gonna be
something somehow. I'll do it, do it for you, you wait and see. They can
laugh at me — I don't care — I'll—"
"They don't laugh at you." She leaned her head timidly against my
shoulder and I kissed her fabulous hair once.
"Let's go back," she said as if afraid. And I could feel her tremble.
For a while we stood there, and then hand in hand we went up the lane toward
the house. The music had already begun, the fiddle and banjo ringing out
through the night. Boys and girls could be seen having fun on the porch.
Near the barn I stopped and gestured around with a quick sweep of my arm.
"You know, I'm going to do something."
"Yes, you will."
"I'm gonna write about all these things, make poems and such — tell
'em how purty — how beautiful it is—"
I let go her hand and we went on toward the house and toward our future
together — as I foolishly believed.
With a cornstalk fiddle and a shoestring bow,
Off to court Miss Sallie I'm bound to go.
(Nonsense rhyme.)
cornstalk /linger or thrower
We boys used to cut a hole near the end of a length of a cornstalk, put a
pebble in the hole and swing the cornstalk through the air with a sharp jerking
motion, so the pebble would fly off at tremendous speed and to a great
distance.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
257
Lord Cornwallis
The brave, resourceful and intrepid commander of the British forces during
the latter phase of the Revolutionary War. His name became a part of
folklore of North Carolina. His march from Hillsborough at the north of
the Valley to Wilmington and thence to the surrender at Yorktown was
especially famous both historically and traditionally. Numerous Valley
places were connected with his name. "Here's where Lord Cornwallis spent
the night," "This is the road along which Cornwallis marched," and so
on. The private home in Wilmington where he stayed has since been known
only as the "Cornwallis House."
corny
Dull, stupid, vulgar.
corporation
A prominent belly. "In the Nero Wolfe stories, Archie is all the time referring
to Nero's corporation."
corpse bird
A bird of foreboding and omens, the owl.
corruption
Pus. "That boil's full of corruption and ought to be lanced."
cost free
A redundancy meaning without cost, free, gratis.
cotch
Catch.
cotton basket
A basket usually woven from white oak withes, much like a corn basket,
and used to pour the picked cotton in for weighing or emptying into the
wagon body.
cotton candy
A frothy, bubbly candy usually on sale at fairs and circuses. Also nonsense,
silly talk, sentimental stuff.
cotton in one's ears
It used to be a custom to wear cotton in the ears to keep from catching cold,
also as a cure for earache.
cotton-picking
A term of disparagement.' 'Keep your cotton-picking fingers off my leg."
cotton root tea
A drink made from boiling cotton roots, supposed to be a prevention for
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pregnancy. Many a colored woman has tried it and later woke up with' 'them
pains just the same."
A COttonstalk too close to the weed
Will find the hoe gives it no heed.
cottontail
A rabbit.
cotton to
Bow down to, pay subservience to, flatter unctuously.
high cotton
Fine spirits, easy doings, financially okay. "Since I bought myself that new
Ford I'm in high cotton."
low cotton
To be melancholy, to have heavy feelings, to be down in the dumps, hard
doings. "Since the finance company took my Ford away from me, I'm in
low cotton."
wrapped in cotton (wool)
Well protected, petted, spoiled. "No wonder that fellow ain't no 'count,
his mother always kept him wrapped in cotton."
cough up
To disclose, pay up, ante up, meet one's commitment.
could be
Perhaps so. "You say Dean Rusk is telling the truth about the war in Vietnam
— could be."
coulter
A straight steel blade attached to the beam of a plough to cut the roots or
ground in front of the point and wing. How often have I ploughed a
newground with one of these coulters. We always called them jumping
coulters because of their proclivity for hanging a root and then bouncing
out of the ground. The root would come back against your naked shin, and
for a moment the newground and the fields would echo with a wild wail
of a persecuted boy.
Keep your own counsel.
In a multitude of counsellors there is safety.
counter jumper
A salesman in a drygoods store usually.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
259
counterpin
Counterpane.
counting out rhymes
These are popular among children the world over, and each country, region
or locality has its own. The rhymes are used to choose a player who is to
be "It." The players sit in a circle on the floor or around a table and put
out two fingers each. Then the speaker — one who has shouted out first
or loudest for the privilege — counts or designates each of the players'
extended fingers in turn as he speaks the rhyme, a syllable or beat for each
finger. This counting out goes on until only one player is left and he is "It."
The following were among our favorite counting-out rhymes in the Buie's
Creek neighborhood.
Eenery meenery dippery dee,
Delia dolya dominee,
Hotcha potcha dominotcha
Hiya pon tus.
O-u-t spells out
On your way home.
Eeny meeny miny mo,
Catch a nigger by his toe,
If he hollers let him go.
Eeny meeny miny mo.
O-u-t spells out
On your way home.
William Trembletoe
He's a good fisherman,
Catches hens
Now and then,
Puts 'em in pens.
Some lay eggs,
Some don't.
Wire brier limberlock
Sit and sing till ten o'clock.
The clock fell down,
The mouse ran around.
O-u-t spells out
On your way home.
as countless as the stars
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count noses
To check those present, sometimes to call the roll of the loyal ones as against
the disloyal for some matter of concern or matter before the house.
count on
Rely on. "I'm counting on you to help me in a pinch."
To expect, estimate. "I didn't count on so many people showing up, so we're
short of fried chicken."
take the count
To die, to be knocked out, to be made bankrupt.
countrified
Boorish, lacking in refinement, not citified.
the country
The outfield in baseball, also means pasture.
My country, right or wrong!
Very patriotic slogan.
country cousin
The boorish awkward side of the relatives, not fashionable or citified.
country mile
A long distance, longer than a mile.
to go through the country
To drive, to motor, as opposed to traveling on the train, or these days by
plane.
couple
To copulate, to marry.
To hitch a horse or a team to a conveyance. "Son, go out to the barn and
couple the mules to the wagon and we'll be ready to ride."
coupling pole
In the old days a four-wheeled wagon was held together with a coupling
pole, usually a 2 x 4 white oak scantling. A bolt was inserted through the
front end and attached to the middle of the axle. It reached back through
the center of the rear axle and was bolted there likewise.
course
A line of bricks. Also the chop-markings along the side of a log for the broadaxe to hull off for making hewn logs.
The course of true love never runs smooth.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
261
Cousin Betty
A madam, a keeper of a bawdy house.
cover
To get the draw on. How many little boys have darted out from a hedgerow
with toy pistols in their hands and yelled to the unsuspecting passerby,
"Hands up, I've got you covered.'' All part and parcel of the gun psychosis
in these United States.
Usually refers to a male animal covering a female.' 'My stallion is available
at ten dollars a cover." Sometimes, instead of the word cover, the word
"leak" was used.
coverled
Coverlet.
covers it
To take in all phases of a question.
Thou shalt not covet.
COW
Woman.
to feed the COW to catch the calf
Pay attention to the mother to win her daughter.
better to be a coward than a corpse
better a live CO ward than a dead hero
cowcumber
Cucumber.
cowdab
A wad or dump of cow dung.
cow doctor
A sort of veterinarian. Usually in our neighborhood there was someone,
an elderly man most often, who gradually got the reputation of being a cow
doctor. And any time that any of the cows got into trouble, lost their cud
or got belly swollen, the cow doctor was sent for. I remember one who used
to come around. And sometimes when a cow had a swollen stomach, he
would out with his long-bladed knife and stab a hole in it. "That lets the
pizen wind out," he would say.
cow dung
Applied as an old-time remedy to cuts and burns.
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cowgrease
Butter.
cowhide
To beat with a whip. "If that old beggar man, Good, comes around here
again, I'm going to cowhide him from A to Z."
cow itch vine
The trumpet vine.
cow juice
Milk.
cowlick
A peculiar curl in a person's hair, usually just above the forehead. This is
supposed to be a mark of good luck.
cow-mooing
Fervent gossiping or talking by a group of vociferous women.
cowpath
A path through the woods or fields made by the cows. Many a road has
been laid out along a cowpath. I often have heard it said that Durham was
laid out by a cow. If this is true, then Boston certainly must have been laid
by a herd of them.
Cow Poker
A game played by children riding in a car, with one child choosing one side
of the road, one the other, and counting the number of cows on either side.
The one that has the largest number when the journey is over wins. It happens
that if one child sees a graveyard on the side of his opponent and calls it
out before the other one sees it, that unlucky child loses all his cows and
has to start over again.
like a cow that's lost her cud (or calf)
Forlorn, lonesome, downhearted.
He looks like his COW had died.
An appearance of grief.
Many a good COW has a bad calf.
cow-like
Bovine, dull, lethargic.
until the cows come home
A very long time indeed. "If that dog Bruno ever gets you by the leg, he'll
hold on until the cows come home!'
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
263
Cows off yonder have long horns.
like a cow's tail, always behind
Refers to a usual late arrival.
Feed the COWS that give most milk.
coyduck
Decoy duck.
crab
To complain.
crab apple
Juice from the fruit made a good poultice for sprains. Also it was used in
dyeing.
crabgrass
A luxuriant grass that grows in the farmers' fields and will' 'take the place''
if not ploughed out in time. In the old days the farmers used to keep flocks
of geese to eat this grass from their cotton fields.
crabs
Body lice of a vicious kind, usually found in houses of prostitution.
crack
To talk in good spirits intimately. "There they sat cracking jokes and
drinking co'cola, and all the time the grass was eating up their cotton."
Excellent, first rate. "I seen Annie Oakley once, and, man alive, she was
a crack shot from high low jack and the game."
A faux pas.' 'Everything was going okay at the party till he made that crack
about the woman with the tin drawers and the preacher with the can opener.''
To have a nervous breakdown. "From the way Floyd Mclntosh is acting
over television about the race question, he seems about to crack."
Crack-a-loo
A game, sometimes played by pitching pennies, tobacco tags or other tokens
at a chosen mark.
crack a smile
To smile unwillingly or to have a half smile on one's face.
crack-brained
Foolish, harebrained, wildly irresponsible.
crack down
Stern judgment, sudden exercise of authority.
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cracked
Open. "Leave the door cracked a bit."
Loony, crazy.
cracker
The string-woven, or hide string, end of a bull whip or a buggy whip.
A story that has a logical but unforeseen ending. O. Henry, the short story
writer, was famous for his cracker endings. For example. "The Gift of the
Magi," where a loving young couple became the butt of their own irony.
The girl had beautiful hair, and she had it cut off and sold to buy a Christmas
present for her young husband. He had a watch he prized very much, and
he sold it to get a present for his wife. The wife's present was a new fob
for the watch. The husband's present was a set of lovely combs for his wife's
abundant hair. This all comes out in the final few lines of the story.
The tail-end player in the game of Pop the Whip.
crackerjack
A dependable person, a first rate person. "That Smiley boy is a crackerjack."
cracking
First rate. "It's my belief that Senator Fulbright is a cracking good man."
cracklings
The crisp leavings of hog's fat after lard or oil or grease has been dried out.
It had many uses, one being to mix it with the bread batter, helping to make
the famous Southern crackling bread.
crack of day
The first glimpse of daylight, especially when seen through a low rift in the
eastern morning cloud. "He was up at the crack of day."
crack of doom
Doomsday as especially prophesied in the Book of Revelation.
crackpot
An irresponsible, wildcat scheming person.
Crack the Whip (Same as Pop the Whip)
A very popular game among school children.
Back in the old days at Pleasant Union School, between Lillington and
Angier, North Carolina, we used to play it with great delight. Sometimes
I would get into the game and get hurt, for I was crippled in my knees and
arms for a long time with "white swelling" and couldn't keep up with the
other children, but I would manfully try, and sometimes I would get flung
to the ground and turn sick at the stomach from pain.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
265
In the game several players join hands and form a long line, usually
a strong boy at the head end and then the others stringing out behind him.
The leader boy would start running and then turn in a wide circle, pulling
all the others after him, and after the line had attained considerable speed
he might suddenly reverse his course, pulling along with the others as strongly
as before. Then those on the end of the line would be accelerated to such
a pace that sometimes they would be turned somersaulting in the air. We
had a girl in our school named Lena Overby, and she had the most beautiful
dark eyes and peaches and cream complexion I ever saw — a velvety
complexion — and she was the most modest thing alive. While other girls
in the schoolroom might sit with their dresses careless about their knees and
with the boys snickering and whispering and watching them, she always was
very demure and kept her dress far down toward her ankles. Well, one day
she had the bad luck of being near the end of the whip and, in turning the
corner, Piercy, who was last in line, let go her hand on purpose and she was
left on the end. Poor Lena was sent flying through the air, her dress over
her head. And Piercy let out a cry, "I see 'em, they're old outing flannel!"
crack wind
To fart, same as break wind.
by cracky or crackles!
A mild expletive.
cradle
An instrument for cutting small grain, that is rye, oats, wheat, with a blade
attached to the frame with long spokes or fingers to hold the grain as it fell
back under the swipe of the blade.
I remember once trying to break a record in Harnett County by cutting
with a cradle. I cut five acres of grain for Mr. Joe Johnson in one day. I
started at daybreak and cut all day long until dark, round after round,
reaching stroke after stroke with the right hand, the cradle coming up to
rest on the thigh, the left hand gathering the grain and laying it aside, and
on and on. When night came he paid me $ 1.50 and wrote the check out with
a stub pencil. The check was good.
Rock an empty cradle and soon it will be filled again.
cradle robber
An elderly man who marries a girl very much younger than himself. The
same applies to an older woman getting her hooks on a young man. "That
Ed Jones is a real cradle robber. He took that fifteen-year-old girl to South
Carolina and married her."
as crafty as a fox
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cram
To study hard for an examination.
cramp
To hinder, restrain, cripple. "I don't like that fellow, he always cramps my
style."
cranksided
Twisted, crooked, all awry.' 'The old wheel stood cranksided under the heavy
load."
cranky
Abnormal, irritable. "I wouldn't bother him. He's kinda cranky."
Unsteady, unreliable, shaky. "He lives in a cranky old shack down by the
river with his one cow staked out in front of the house."
crap
Excreta. Also nonsense.
Crop.
to take a crap
To defecate.
crape hanger
A kill-joy, a pessimistic person, one who looks on the dark side of life.
crash dive
To dive headlong down as a kamikaze pilot. When I was writing a picture
on Eddie Rickenbacker, he said, "There I was with my wing on fire and
it blazing more every moment. The only thing to do was to try and put it
out, and so I crash dived toward the earth for ten thousand feet, and finally
the flames went out when I was a few hundred feet off the ground and I
was saved."
crate
A cheap vehicle, a term of disparagement for an automobile.' 'Hey, move
that crate out of the way so a real car can drive in."
crawfish
To back out, to renege on a promise.
crawl
To beat up, to attack with physical violence. "If that fellow keeps pickin'
on me, I'm going to crawl his frame."
crawling
Crowded, alive with people or things.' 'Memorial Hall there in Raleigh was
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
267
just crawling with people."
crawls
Shivers, goose pimples.' 'When John McCormack hits that high note, boy,
it gives me the crawls."
crawly
Sensation of having crawling things on one's body.
craw sick
Nauseated, vomit-sick.
craze
A fad.
crazy
Abnormal, queer. " 'Fesser Johnson lives in that crazy house down there
on Franklin Street — you can't miss it."
He's as crazy about liquor as a steer is for pond water.
crazy as a bedbug
crazy as a bull bat
crazy as a coot
crazy as a fly in a drum
crazy as a horse in a windstorm
crazy as a loon
crazy as hell
crazy as the devil
crazy bone
Funnybone. Sometimes refers to the elbow when one accidentally hits it and
a temporary numbness results. "Oh, I hit my crazy bone on that cupboard
door."
crazy house
A mental ward, an asylum.
Crazy is as crazy does.
A folk proverb common in the Valley as elsewhere.
The truth of this old saying — with a difference — is well illustrated
in the story of Dr. J. T. McRae, son of one Allen McRae, a piddling small
town politician. Of all the McRae boys, and there were four of them, J.T.
was the most determined. His father Allen loved to read about Indians and
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so had named him John Tecumseh — the Tecumseh having reference to
the great midwest Indian chief and prophet. This J. T., as they called him,
worked his way through college at Chapel Hill and finally, after many years
of hard going through thick and thin, became a doctor.
While he was studying, so the story goes, he hired himself out as an
assistant to one of the new-fangled medical men who had begun appearing
in the South about that time but who since then have become thick as thieves
in the land, namely, psychiatrists or psychoanalysts — take your pick, as
J. T. would now say.
J. T. was a funny-acting fellow, and people said he never would amount
to much. In fact most of his neighbors thought he was a little queer in the
head and off balance mentally, but later they changed their minds. He had
a jerky way of walking and moving his body, and his eyes when he talked
would now and then flare up and widen as if they were going to shoot out
of his face, and then would narrow down again. This was just a mannerism
he had inherited or taken up from his grandpa Turkey Bill Slocumb McRae,
and he later got over it. It might have been that the analyst, or whatever
he called himself, took him on as an assistant because of this behavior of
his. Anyway, after about a year the medical man let J. T. know that he had
been studying him all the time and keeping records on him.
"You have, have you?" said J. T., his eyes flaring wider than usual
at the great psychology teacher — at least this is the way it was told to me.
"Yes, I have," said the doctor firmly, "and I've decided that you are
schizophrenic — in other words crazy."
And some folks said that perhaps the outspoken doctor would have
had J. T. shut up in Dix Hill or sent to Morganton because of his findings
but for the fact that out comes J. T. now with a big pile of notes and stuff,
telling the doctor he had been studying him the year he'd been there and
by his findings the doctor was skitzy and crazy.
And so the psychology professor was put out of countenance. After
much hemming and hawing back and forth, the two of them called a
compromise. The professor was now so much struck with J. T. that he
offered him a job as a first class assistant and with more pay, saying he
believed he had a great future ahead as a psychiatrist. But J. T. had other
fish to fry. He said he didn't want to waste his life in any such foolishness,
comforting rich old women and the like. He wanted to practice real medicine.
So he finished his degree at Chapel Hill, went on to Pennsylvania, somehow,
and at last got his license. He's back in his hometown now with his sign on
his office, and he is already becoming popular up and down the countryside.
It is "Dr. J.T." here and "Dr. J.T." there, and he is on the go both day
and night. As his proud father Allen said, "He's coining money right sharp."
He's already bought half interest in a brick mill.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
269
You 're crazy!
A jocular interjection.
cream
To hit viciously, to knock out. "In the ninth round old Ali creamed him."
cream of the crop
The best.
cream through
To bluff, to always take the easy way out.
creasy
Cress.
creasy sallet
Upland cress for cooking greens. Early in the spring, often in February,
in the fields in the South, Negro women especially can be seen bending down
here and there gathering creasy.
creation
The beginning of the world as recounted in the Bible.
Everywhere around, all over. "He's the best man in the whole creation."
That beats all creation.
Tops everything, an outlandish happening or thing.
a creep
A misfit, low-life person. "We'd a-had fun if we hadn't had that creep
along."
creeper
A hanger around, gigolo. "Whilst Sam was on the chain gang a creeper kept
coming to the back door and messing with his wife. When Sam got free,
he made for that creeper with the old quietus and shot him full of holes like
a sieve. Now Sam's back on the chain gang again."
creeping about
Half sick but able to be up.' 'I'm just creeping about these days, but when
spring comes my dander'll be back and I'll be whooping and hollering like
always to plant corn."
creeping Charlie
A most pestiferous ground plant. It will creep strangling-wise all over your
lawn if it's not destroyed. The herbalists say it has fine medicinal value as
a stimulant and tonic. Whatever its virtues its knavery outweighs them for
me. Also known as gill-o'er-the-ground.
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creeping crud
A low-life person, dirty, objectionable.
creeping Jesus
A whining, pious, hypocritical person.
creeps
Shivers. "He gives me the creeps to look at him."
crepe myrtle
Perhaps this has finally become the most typical of all the Southern shrubs.
In the botany books it is referred to as a shrub, though I have seen single
crepe myrtle "shrubs" twenty-five or thirty feet high and with trunks ten
to twelve inches in diameter near the ground. From late June and on through
September the pink or red (and sometimes white) gushes of blossoms decorate
the world. When my wife and I bought an old house near Chapel Hill and
remodeled it, the first thing we did was to line the driveway on either side
with crepe myrtles.
crib
To steal.
a crib
A literal translation, usually of Greek or Latin, which is often secretively
used by the students in a college or university.
I remember one day in the old classroom there in Chapel Hill when
Tom Wolfe was asked to read from the Latin text, and for the first time
he read glibly. Dr. Henry looked out, chuckled and complimented him on
his reading and then added quite innocently that he'd better put up his
translation and read the original. And, of course, then Tom was stumped
and stuttered out what little he could of the Latin original. See "pony."
crick
A muscular affliction in the neck, the shoulders or back.
Creek.
cricket
Fair play.
To have a cricket in the house is to have good luck, and it's very bad luck to
kill one.
by cricky!
A mild expletive.
cried up
To praise highly. "He cried up that woman's charms till we were all sick
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
271
of the subject."
If a child cries a great deal when it is an infant, it will make a good man or woman.
crimp
Cramp. "He crimped my style."
crinkly
Wrinkly, corrugated. "Young Henry Spears keeps his hair all crinkly with
the curling irons."
crip
An easy matter, an easy course in school.' 'Professor Collier Cobb's course
in geology is a plumb crip."
Also an abbreviation of a cripple.
cripes!
An exclamation.
croak
To die. "Old Man John Rand, the fiddler that used to wear seven shirts
at a time — well, last night he croaked."
croak like a frog
croaker sack
A tow bag.
croak in her throat
Hoarseness.
Croatan Indians
A tribe that had an up and down, sometimes tragic, history. Many of the
tribe claim to be descendants from Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony of
Roanoke Island. At one time they were classed by North Carolina law as
Negroes, or "people of color." They fought this classification and were
in time designated Indians. Under the old system many inconveniences
resulted. For instance, in public places six restrooms were required, one for
white men, one for Indian men, and one for Negro men. Likewise the same
sort of separation applied to women. I remember years ago that a lawsuit
was brought for the admission of Croatan Indians to the Dunn high school.
The Indians won. And in the first year of schooling there an Indian girl was
elected by the students — nearly all white — to be senior class president.
crocodile tears
Hypocritical tears, simulated grief.
A crooked stick will have a crooked shadow.
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A crooked tree casts a crooked shadow,
as crooked as a corkscrew
as crooked as a dog's hind legs
as crooked as a lawyer
as crooked as a pig's tail
as crooked as a pretzel
Dishonest. "I cain't do business with him. He's as crooked as a pretzel."
as crooked as a sick cow's tail
as crooked as a snake
as crooked as a stick
as crooked as hell
as crooked as sin
That which is crooked cannot be made straight.
There was a crooked man
And he went a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence
Against a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat
Which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together
In a little crooked house.
(A nursery rhyme.)
crook the elbow
Take a dram of liquor.
crop
To earmark an animal by cutting a notch out of an ear or a piece of the
ear off, denoting a particular ownership.
crops
Past tense of creep.
crops in
The conclusion of a matter, the finish. "When he said that, the crop was in."
cross
Ill-tempered, contrary. To oppose, to antagonize.
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273
as cross as a setting hen
as cross as cats and dogs
as cross as scissors
as cross as two sticks
Cross two of your fingers when you are lying and the lie won't count.
Never cross a bridge till you come to it.
Take up thy cross and follow me.
The way of the cross leads home.
No cross, no crown.
When you cross your fingers, you don't really mean what you say.
Cross Creek
The early name for Fayetteville because of the manner in which the creeks
intersected there. In a flood one creek drove its waters across the other.
cross-cut saw
A two-man saw with upright handles used especially in the old days of
timbering.
cross-eyed
Poor judgment, mistaken. "That's a cross-eyed verdict if ever I heard one."
cross-furrow
A furrow ploughed across other furrows at an angle, usually a right angle,
to control water.
cross-grained
Perverse, stubborn, sullen.
cross knife and fork
When we were children in eastern North Carolina, it was good manners to
cross one's knife and fork on his plate when he had finished eating. In fact,
this was a sign that a child or person had enough. How often have I heard
my mother say to forgetful me, "Cross your knife and fork, son.'' Of course,
it was very bad manners to drink one's coffee out of his saucer, but everybody
did, especially the older persons. The method was to pour hot coffee into
the saucer, blow on it to cool it, and then sip it — much the way the Japanese
people drink their sake.
cross-lift
Sometimes in the log-rolling days when four men, two to each hand-spike,
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were lifting logs along and the load proved too heavy, others would take
their hand-spikes, two at a time, and put them under the end of each of the
former spikes, and there would be four men to each hand-spike. Thus the
lifting power would be much increased.
cross-mark
Making a cross-mark on the ground and spitting in it will break bad luck.
cross my heart and hope to die
A mild oath, an asseveration much used by children.
Cross patch draw the latch,
Sit by the fire and spin.
Take a cup and drink it up,
And call your neighbors in.
(A teasing rhyme.)
Cross Tag
A children's game.
cross the River Jordan
To die. "Yeh, last night Aunt Sallie crossed over the River Jordan." (Usually
pronounced Jurden.)
crotchety
Irritable.
croton oil
A most powerful laxative. It was supposed to work so quickly that there
was a saying in our neighborhood, "Croton oil goes through you before you
can get your britches down." Another saying expressive of speed as to
laxative was, "It goes through you like croton oil through a duck."
crow
To brag, to boast loudly.
eat crow
To have to swallow one's words, reabsorb an insult. After the fiasco of the
Bay of Pigs, Herblock had a cartoon showing a waiter bearing a dish of
crow to a waiting table of government powers — CIA, Secretary of State,
Defense officials, and including the military. The caption read: "There's
plenty for everybody."
crowd
To jostle, push up against another. "Don't crowd me, big boy, or else..."
A crowd is not company.
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275
crow-hop
A jumping about sort of dance, also said of a horse that jumps about
unbroken.
A crowing hen is a sign of bad luck.
A whistling woman and a crowing hen
Are critters that'll come to no good end.
(Wisdom rhyme.)
crown
To hit on the head. "You call me a liar and I'll crown you."
crows
Big blackbirds about the size of a bantam hen or larger and so well known
in North Carolina and throughout the land as to need no introduction or
description. It is enough to say that this, my friend the crow — for so I count
him now—is one of the most intelligent and enterprising creatures on earth,
and he has to be in order to survive and thrive as he seems to be doing in
this technological automobile-speeding age. His example of industry and
forethought—his up early and out late working for his living—is something
that could put to shame all hippies and gays and welfare deadbeats with
their government sponsors now infesting the land, if they could but take
it to heart. The example of the crow should be preached to them until they
had to take notice. But nothing will be done, of course, for neither they
nor Uncle Sam knows the difference between a crow and a crowbar and
doesn't want to know.
Nearly every time I see a crow I think of Izzy Izzard. His name actually
was Israel, Israel Izzard. The Izzards lived between Elizabethtown and
Wilmington close by the river, and Norman Izzard, the father, was mainly
a corn farmer. Every spring he was mightily tormented by the crows pulling
up his young sprouting corn. Like the other farmers he put up scarecrows
in the field, and as always the crows got onto the sham and came in the early
daybreak to go after the sprouting corn as hard as ever. Izzy the son was
about fifteen the year Norman was laying out plans for his biggest corn crop.
During the winter he and the hands had got in several more acres of
newground and he was counting on his biggest harvest.
"We ought to make the best crop we've ever made," he said, "if the
dang crows will but let us alone."
Now Izzy had already shown a sharpness for making a trade here and
there and he had quite a bit of small change saved up in a tin can in his bureau
drawer. For instance, when Norman would take the children, say, on an
excursion to Wilmington and give each of them two dollars to spend, Izzy
would bring most of his back to go into the tin can. He would look a lot
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and buy little. And another thing that showed his saving and already stingy
nature was the way he got his pencils at school. He'd find a student who
had a new lead pencil and would say to him, "I'll let you break that there
pencil over my head if you'll let me have the piece that falls." And then
often crack, crack would go the pencil until it was broken in two. But Izzy
never flinched, and he always had a piece of pencil to write with that didn't
cost him a penny. So he up and says to his father, "About the crows. What
would you give me, Pa, for each dead crow?"
"Plenty," said his daddy, "but you can't shoot a crow. They're too
smart. You know that, for we've been down there in the field many a time
before light waiting for 'em and they didn't come. They knew we were there.
And when you try to creep up on 'em, the watchman crow they always have
sitting off in a high tree gives the alarm and off they go — caw, caw. No,
they ain't no getting by a crow."
"Looks like a crow hadn't ort to be smarter than human folks," said
Izzy.
"Yen, but they are," said his daddy, "smarter about not letting you
kill 'em."
"But how much would you give if somebody could kill 'em, Pa?" asked
Izzy.
"I'd give a whole silver quarter apiece for 'em," he said, "and I mean
it."
"Shake hands on it, Pa," said Izzy.
"Sure thing," said his pa. And they did.
Sometime before this Izzy had heard an old wild-turkey hunter say that
the way to kill turkeys was to bait them a long while beforehand and then
lie hid in the bushes or behind a stump ahead of time till they came down
as usual and then let fly at 'em and get your meat. Izzy had noticed a large
hollow blackgum log lying at the edge of the cornfield with its open end
pointing out to the field. The tree had been cut down many years before
for a bee-tree. So he did some thinking and planning. He got a shovel and
dug a long v-shaped trench leading from the log out into the field, and into
this trench he scattered a peck of shelled corn. At first nothing happened.
When he went down during the first day after, the corn was untouched,
and then a day or two later he saw it was being eaten and crow tracks were
all around in the soft dirt. He replenished the grain with another peck. The
next time he went down, a great flock of crows flew up out of the ditch before
he got within two hundreds yards of the place. He put in still more corn,
and for two weeks or so he continued to do so. Then one morning long before
day he felt the time had come. He got up about three o'clock in the morning
to put his plan into execution. His father heard him stirring about and asked
him what he was up to.
"I'm going after them crows," Izzy said. "And a silver quarter for
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277
each dead one — right?"
"Right," said his daddy, "and it ain't gonna cost me a red cent, baiting
or no baiting."
"They've been eating that shelled corn right hearty lately," said Izzy,
' 'and I expect there's mergins of em. I'll come back later and get the wagon
to haul 'em in — after you hear my muzzle-loader go off down there in the
field."
"You and my muzzle-loader," said his daddy, "and I'll bet you five
dollars to a nickel too you don't kill crow one."
"I'll take the bet," said Izzy. "Shake?" And they did.
"You'll never get close enough to 'em," said his pa. "You can hide
in the bushes but they'll see you."
"Wanter make another bet I can hide where they don't see me?" said
Izzy.
"Go on with your bets, boy, and be careful not to load that gun too
heavy, it'll kick your teeth out."
"I reckon I've shot it plenty times," said Izzy. He went out into the
kitchen and there by lamplight loaded it. And a big extra load of powder
and handful of number 4 shot he put into each barrel and rammed them
home with double wadding. Yes, sir, the crows better watch out this time.
And he hurried off across the fields in the dark. Reaching the hollow log,
he backed inside it, and propped his muzzle-loader all capped and cocked,
with the barrels pointing straight down the trench where the supply of corn
shone white in the starlight and waiting for the crows. He put a scattering
of twigs and little brush stuff in front of his face, and there he lay all
camouflaged and snug peering out, waiting.
Just as daybreak was beginning to show, the crows started arriving.
And crows, crows! Never had Izzy seen so many. And they kept coming
and lighting down, cawing away, flapping their wings, dipping their heads
down and up, down and up, guzzling away at the corn. Before long the vshaped trench, some hundred or more feet long, was jammed full of them.
Now was the time! Izzy sighted carefully down along the seam between the
barrels of the old muzzle-loader, aiming full along the trench. Then he pulled
both triggers.
Up at the house Mr. and Mrs. Izzard were having breakfast when the
sound of the gun was heard.
"Well, Izzy finally has shot at something down there in the fields,"
Norman said.
"Seemed like it sounded mighty loud, don't you think so, Norman?"
"Well, it did for a fact," he said, as he reached for another flapjack.
"He'll be on in a minute and I'll collect that bet out of him from his tin
box. I bet him five dollars he wouldn't kill crow one."
"I hope nothing's happened to him," his wife said.
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' 'Nothing can happen to Izzy,'' Norman said and laughed. "You know
what he said, he said he'd come get the two-horse wagon to haul up the dead
crows. Hah, hah!"
Time passed, Norman milked the cows, came in and helped his wife
clean up things. But Izzy hadn't shown up.
"Maybe you'd better go down there and see if anything's happened,"
Mrs. Izzard said.
He set out across the field, and when he came to the edge of the
newground piece where Izzy had baited the birds, he saw a sight the like
of which he'd never seen before. Dead crows were lying in piles on top of
one another, the long ditch full of them, and a few crippled ones were
flopping about, trying to fly or walk. Norman looked anxiously around for
Izzy. "Izzy, Izzy, where are you?" he called. But no Izzy. He stood there
thinking, and then he put two and two together and figured the shot that
killed the crows had come from the edge of the woods there. He walked
over and saw the half-concealed end of the hollow log, and he saw something
else. He saw Izzy's limp arm lying there in the opening of the log across
the barrel of the old muzzle-loader. In no time he had dragged the boy out
of there and into the sunlight.
Izzy seemed dead to the world, and blood was seeping out of both his
ears. "Izzy, Izzy," his daddy called, and rolled him back and forth. Finally
Izzy opened his eyes and asked what had happened. He didn't hear what
his daddy said, for he was deaf as a post. The concussion of the gun inside
the log had really clobbered him. Out in the air it would only have given
him a hard kick but inside the log and with the extra heavy loads of powder
and shot, the shock waves had almost killed him. His daddy spoke to him
again, but Izzy couldn't hear a word. And for several days he was deaf as
could be.
But what did Izzy care, for he had really massacred the crows. Just
as he had said, they had to get the two-horse wagon to haul them in, and
they put them in a great heap in front of the house to show the astounded
neighbors. By count there were 879 crows, including the few crippled ones
he and his daddy killed with a stick. And true to his word Norman paid up
the full amount at a quarter a crow which with the five dollar bet came to
$224.75. Izzy took it all over to the bank in town and opened a savings
account. By this time he could hear again.
"Ah, that Izzy," the neighbors said, "ain't he something! He'll be a
millionaire someday and even maybe governor of the state."
"Or who knows," said another, "maybe president. I wouldn't put
nothing past him."
But Izzy never became the man they prophesied. Perhaps the concussion
inside the log had addled his brains, I don't know. But for one reason or
another he never amounted to much. Until he died, a poor farmer, the big
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
279
day in his life was the day he murdered a mass of crows. For that the Valley
remembers him.
crows like a rooster
Usually said of someone who brags a lot.
Crows of a feather will flock together.
crow's feet
Wrinkles to the sides of one's eyes. Such wrinkles around the eyes of elderly
men used to mean that they were good-natured, genial. Also a well-known
damp-meadow grass.
Crow's Nest
A child's finger rhyming game. One child crosses his fingers and tells another
child to feed the crow, saying:
"Stick your finger in the crow's nest.
The crow is not at home.
The crow is at the back door
Picking at a bone."
And then as the child's finger is inserted, the one with the crossed fingers
gouges with his thumbnail, saying: "The crow's at home!"
a crow to pick
To discuss an embarrassing matter with someone, or to take up a subject
that has been left unfinished, to criticize. "Come here, young man, I've
got a crow to pick with you," said my Aunt Laura.
crud
A loathsome fellow or thing.
cruddy
Dirty, lowdown.
crumb
A dirty, low-life fellow. "I worked in Child's Restaurant for a year and
I thought I'd met every crumb in the world until I met up with you."
crummy
Cheap, poor quality, sorry, dirty.
crupper
Buttocks.
crush
A maudlin, sentimental attachment.' 'My wife's got a crush on that fellow,
and every night she just sits palpitating until he comes on the TV."
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A large crowded gathering. "There was such a crush at Governor Moore's
reception that you could hardly breathe."
upper crust
The elite, high society, the hoity-toity.
crutch
One to depend on. "That old selfish woman just kept her daughter there
as a crutch, and all the boys passed on by. Now she's an old maid, drying
up in that there great big house."
Great cry and little wool, as the devil said when he sheared his hogs.
cry-baby
An irritable child or whiny, complaining person.
A person who weeps easily. My cousin, Cara Little of Lillington, was one
of the most emotional and easily religiously stirred persons I've ever met
— a real cry baby. Nearly every time we saw each other, she'd take hold
of my hand and cling to it and look deeply into my eyes and shake her head
in sorrow over my sinful and lost condition. And then her lips would begin
to tremble and the tears would begin to roll, and always she would say, "Paul,
I'm praying for you, I'm praying for you all the time."
Cry baby, cry
Stick your finger in your eye
And make the water fly.
(A teasing rhyme.)
A fourth line — "Tell your mama it wasn't I"—
is sometimes added.
It's no use crying over spilled milk.
crying shame
A very great shame indeed.
"It'sacryingshame," said my old philosopher friend, Mr. Mac, "how
the preachers tried to get Tim Messer to burn up his fiddle after he got
converted. He didn't do it, and I'm sure glad."
"And I hear," I said, "that he fell from grace later and went back to
playing and sinning again."
"So he did, and I'm glad of that too," he said.
"And so am I," I said heartily enough.
"Yes sir," Mr. Mac continued, "music is a powerful thing. Take the
case of Christopher Mitchell. He and I grew up as boys together. You didn't
know Chris, did you?"
"No sir," I smiled, "I guess he was a bit before my time."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
281
"That's right, he was. Well, Chris was a wonder on the fiddle and,
like Tim Messer, he played from here to yonder at dances and shindigs. He
won a lot of first prizes at fiddlers' conventions too. Well, like Tim, he got
converted at a revival and the preacher ordered him to burn his devil's
instrument. A number of the sympathizing neighbors, including a deacon
or two, gathered at Chris' house to console him the night of the burning.
It was a mighty cold night and a big log fire was going in the fireplace, and
this would be the right place to burn the fiddle, all easy and quick-like.
"Chris brought out his fiddle to consign it to the flames. I've seen it
— a purty thing to look at. First they had a little prayer. Chris wanted it
that way. Old Reuben Welken, the head deacon, led the praying, and he
called on the Heavenly Father to bless Chris for this good deed, and so on.
And Sister Martha Wiggins amened two or three times in her high squeaky
voice. She had once in her younger days been a quick stepper in the square
dance but long ago had found salvation and had quit it.
"Then Chris, with the tears pouring from his eyes, caressed his fiddle
like a baby before he was to consign it to the flames. He swept his fingers
across the strings careless like, and a little moan came out of his mouth.
" 'That's the way "Money Musk" used to start out,' he said, not
thinking, so deep in sadness he was.
" 'I thought "Leather Britches" started like that,' said old Reuben.
" 'No,' said Chris, 'you're thinking of "John Paul Jones." '
" 'Reuben's right,' said old Martha. 'It's "Money Musk" and what
a tune! I remember once when I was about seventeen at a party at —' She
clamped her mouth suddenly shut. 'No, no, 'twon't do,' she said.
"Then Chris made a mistake — or didn't, whichever, you choose —
he said that 'Money Musk' went this way and 'Leather Britches' this other
way. And lifting the fiddle to his chin he illustrated with a few pulls of the
bow. Well, when those heart-touching and fast-tingling tunes poured forth
in the room, old Reuben was deeply touched, and so were the others. Then
Reuben, who was a fool about music of all sorts, up and said he didn't see
why, seeing as how this was the last time they would ever be able to hear
Chris play, they couldn't listen to a few final pieces before they put the
'instrument into the far.'
"Old Martha said she thought it would be all right and the Heavenly
Father would understand, 'bless His holy name.'
"So Chris started fiddling, and in no time at all he had forgot his tears,
and others were forgetting and as they forgot they remembered the old days.
"On and on Chris played, one old favorite piece after the other —
'Money Musk,' 'Leather Britches,' 'John Paul Jones,' and 'Turkey in the
Straw.' By the time he got to 'John Paul' a number of the listeners were
patting their feet in rhythm to the music. Chris' old close-mouthed and tightfisted father Hosea began to move his bony shoulders back and forth to
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the beat of the music, and the patting of the feet increased. And when Chris
broke out with 'Get along home, Cindy,' a few voices sang a bit with
exclamations of 'Say on,' 'Tell of the good news,' 'Let the fiddle talk,'
and the like. Next it was 'Sally Goodin,' and this was too much to sit still
and hear. One just had to move, and old Martha Wiggins moved. She did
more than that, she cut a step or two. This prompted ancient Reuben Welken
to step out beside her and give a few matching turns, clapping his hands
the while. Hand-clappings now broke out all over the place. Whether Chris
intended it or not, he had saved the best tune for the last. It was now 'Old
Joe Clark' he fiddled.
"This was too much for restraint. In no time at all everybody was
dancing, and Chris was walking up and down calling out the figures as he
had so often in the days gone by.
' 'Well, to make a long story short, under the spell of his music, I guess
you might say, the work of the preachers in converting Chris was wiped
out. Whereas he had been changed from nature to grace before, he changed
back from grace to nature. After old Martha had given out and had to be
helped gasping back to her seat, the music and dancing stopped, and quiet
came over the scene, an embarrassed quiet at that. Then it was Chris kissed
his fiddle, held it up proudly and announced loudly that he wasn't going
to burn it. And he didn't. Some of the people agreed with him. Others shook
their heads and went away no doubt wondering what had come over them
to make them behave so.
"Ah, music!" said Mr. Mac.
See "devil's music box."
crying towel
Belly-aching, excessive apologizing. The crying towel is used a great deal
by football coaches at the beginning of their season. "Well, I was talking
to Coach Howard of Clemson the other day, and as usual he brought out
the crying towel about the condition of his men. And so you'd better watch
him next Saturday when he shows up there with his gang of roughnecks in
Kenan Stadium."
cry Lord and follow devil
To be hypocritical.
cry on one's shoulder
Seek comfort, a maudlin begging for sympathy.
cub
A young inexperienced fellow.
cubby hole
A hole usually cut in the ceiling through which one could climb into the attic.
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cucklebur
Cocklebur.
cuckoo
Drunk, crazy, loony.
cuckoo's nest
A sell, a foolish mess, a silly stew.
One flew east and one flew west,
One flew over the cuckoo's nest.
(Nonsense rhyme.)
cud
The dictionary defines cud as "that portion of food which is brought up
into the mouth by ruminating animals from their first stomach to be chewed
a second time." In our neighborhood a person with the melancholies or
mulligrubs or dumps would often be spoken of as having lost his or her cud.
We children were raised to believe that the cud was a certain kind of
rubbery-like object which a cow, say, kept in her stomach all the time, and
now and then when she wanted to lie about and take a rest, she would bring
up her cud and chew on it awhile and "ruminate." I remember once our
cow Liza got very disconsolate and took no interest in anything, and old
Abel Short, the cow doctor, was sent for. He came and rendered a verdict,
as he cocked one red-rimmed eye at the western sky, that she'd lost her cud.
"Mr. Billy, " he said to my father, "there ain't nothing for it but to make
her another cud and get her to take it. If she don't get a cud to work on,
she's a dead duck, take it from me. She'll grieve herself to death."
"But what you going to make a cud out of?" my daddy asked.
And the cow doctor said, "Just wait and see." He'd fix up one. He
did come forth with some kind of little hairy object with strings tied around
it about the size of a small walnut. And then it was something to see him
try to insert this cud in Liza's mouth. The long and short of it was that Liza
got so mad that she chased the cow doctor out of the lot, and from then
on she was much improved. The next day in fact she was chewing on her
own cud placidly enough.
"So who can say my cow-doctoring don't do no good?'' Old Abel asked
with a grin. "She's well, ain't she?"
to lose one's cud
To be dejected, downcast, in the grip of the melancholies.
cuff
An iron shackle.
To strike in and about the head, neck and face.
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off the cuff
Off the record, something said not to be reported by those who hear it. Also
snap judgment.
cuke
Cucumber.
Culloden
The site of a bloody meeting of the Scotch and British forces on April 16,
1746, which resulted in the terrible defeat of the Scots. The English were
led by the Duke of Cumberland, afterwards known as the "bloody duke,"
and the Scots by Prince Charlie of the house of Stuart, pretender to
Scotland's throne. Because of this defeat, hundreds of Scottish people left
their homeland and settled in America, the majority of them in North
Carolina. And on down through many decades the memories and the legends
from that battle were recounted in the Valley. Poems and songs were made
about it. One of the loveliest songs I ever heard — and my old friend used
to sing it and accompany himself with soft banjo strummings — was "The
Flowers of the Forest." Mr. Mac said it actually was written as a lament
about the battle of Flodden, but he, like many others, made it apply equally
to Culloden. Sir Walter Scott loved this song and said it was so imitative
of ancient minstrelsy that it was hard for him to believe it was written in
his own time. It begins with —
"I've heard the lilting at our yowe-milking,
Lasses a-lilting before the dawn o' day;
But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning,
The Flowers o' the Forest are a' wede away."
Then the song goes on to tell the story of the battle and how the English
"by guile won the day," concluding with—
"We hear nae mair lilting at our yowe-milking,
Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning;
The Flowers o' the Forest are a' wede away."
I've often wondered why the people of Cumberland named their county
after the "bloody duke." See "Battle of Culloden."
Cumberland Academy
One of the many academies established in the Valley during the 19th and
early 20th centuries.
This academy was at the old and long-ago perished town of Summerville
in Harnett County near the present town of Lillington. In fact, it was the
first county seat of Harnett. Later the county government was moved to
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285
Lillington. The Academy was founded in 1852, some thirty-five years before
the nearby Buie's Creek Academy, which later became Campbell College
and, more recently, Campbell University.
The Cumberland Academy's rates were low, from four to eight dollars
the quarter for tuition and one dollar and a half a month for room rent and
servant help. My father attended it a while when he was a boy and spoke
now and then of the head of the school, a Reverend Simeon Colton, D.D.
This educator was evidently a forward-looking man. In reading old records
in Fayetteville I found that while he was principal of Donaldson Academy
in Fayetteville he was had up for what his Presbyterian accusers called heresy.
A member of the church, a widower, had expressed his intent to marry the
sister of his deceased wife. The church was outraged, and he was accused
of possible incest. The Scriptures forbade such a marriage, they said. Dr.
Colton took the man's part and thereby lost his job. He moved to
Summerville and took over the school there. Later he returned to his former
home in Connecticut. It would be interesting to know what he, a Yankee,
thought of the South.
cundum
Condom.
cunning
Cute, adorable. "He's the cunningest baby I ever laid eyes on."
as cunning as a cat
as cunning as a crow
as cunning as a fox
to cunny-fuggle
To play with a woman's private parts.
cunt
The female pudendum.
cunt colic
A female in the throes of sexual hunger — maris appetens.
cup
To treat by cupping. The old doctor used to cup my father for the backache.
He would first lance the back, then take a glass tumbler, insert a burning
piece of paper in it, fasten it to my father's naked back, and as the oxygen
was burnt out, a tremendous vacuum was created which would suck the flesh
up into the cup an inch or more, drawing the blood out plentifully. I
remember reading that when George Washington was near death's door,
he pleaded with the doctor to cup him, and the doctor did until the father
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of his country was so weak he could hardly whisper. Then the end came.
not my cup of tea
Not my style, not my concern.
in one's cups
To be drunk.
cups and saucers
A child's playtime use of acorns. When we were tiny children we used to
gather acorns, take the little hulls and drink water from them and pretend
all sorts of eating doings.
cur-dog
A cur.
cure-all
Drink whey and lie still.
What cannot be cured must be endured.
cure for dropsy
One of Dr. Marshall's famous folk cures for dropsy was to take one tablespoon of steel dust, two tablespoons of powdered Virginia snake root, two
tablespoons of ginger root, two of dogwood root bark, two of black china
tree bark, two of low myrtle root bark, and mix it all in honey or molasses
until liquid-soft. A dose was one half a teaspoon three times a day in a glass
of water. Then the dose was gradually increased to one teaspoonful three
times per day. The patient was ordered to avoid damp air and wet feet. Many
a person said he owed his life to this old remedy.
cure for fits
Like the cure for corns or warts or styes, the cures for fits were varied and
numerous. I remember one old man in our neighborhood who claimed he
had a certain cure for fits. He would murmur some hocus-pocus words over
the afflicted one and then take the green bough of a pine tree, row out into
the pond and stick it up in the shallow water and, as it aged and turned brown,
the victim would gradually be free of his fits. So he said and so he practiced,
and he picked up a little fee now and then.
curiosity
A peculiar or outstanding thing or person, something striking. "The new
fellow at the crossroads is sure a curiosity with his medicine show."
Curiosity killed the cat.
curl
The twisted stem of a watermelon. We were taught on our farm that when
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287
the curl grew brown, then the watermelon was ready for pulling. Also, we
used to always thump the watermelons, and by the muffled sound of the
thump one could tell whether it was ripe.
To kill, especially by shooting. "If that sonofabitch fools with me, I'll curl
his fingers."
makes one's hair curl
A horrifying piece of news or experience.
curl up
To become silent, fold up.
curly-cue
A cowlick, also the flourish of a signature.
Curly locks, curly locks,
Wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes
Nor yet feed the swine,
But sit on a cushion
And sew a fine seam
And feed upon strawberries,
Sugar and cream.
(Nursery rhyme.)
"Less currying and more corn, please," said the horse to its owner.
the curse
A woman's monthly period.
curses like a sailor
curses like chickens come home to roost
curtains
Death. "After four years lying on death's row, they finally put old man
Adams in that electric chair, and it was curtains for him."
a curve
A surprise, a deceit. "I had my deal all set, then that SOB threw me a curve
and I was out in the cold."
dead man's curve
Any dangerous sharp curve on a road, also refers to a woman's bosomy
curves.
cush
A sort of gruel made of cornmeal, mixed with milk and flavoring. Mother
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used to add bread crumbs. We children loved it. Where the name came from
I've never been able to find out.
cushions
Luxury, comfort. "That man's in cushions since he married all that money.''
CUSS
Curse.
cussedness
Perverseness, obstinacy, sullenness.
custard apple
Same as pawpaw.
cut
To castrate. "I want you to help me tomorrow — I've got to cut my hogs."
Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
a cut above
To be superior somewhat, to be a degree better than another.
cut a caper
To blow up in anger, to become hysterically active.
cut a dido
To behave hysterically. According to Greek legend, Dido was the founder
and queen of Carthage, and when Aeneas, after the fall of Troy, stopped
at Carthage Dido fell in love with him. On his departure she, broken-hearted,
mounted a funeral pyre and died in the flames. Henry Purcell, the gifted
17th century English composer, wrote an opera about Dido and Aeneas.
Nahum Tate furnished the book.
cut a fine figure
To play the dandy, to act pridefully, to show one's fine feathers.
cut and dried
Arranged beforehand, obvious, all set.
cut a rust
To misbehave, to be brash and loud, to create a ruckus.
cut a shine
To act in such a way as to show off in an obnoxious manner.
cut a splash
To show off in a big way.
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289
cut corners
To economize, to act more swiftly, efficiently, etc.
cut dead
To deliberately ignore a person, to pass on by without speaking.
cut down
To outspell. At our Pleasant Union country school, which I attended as a
child, the custom was to have a spelling match the last thing on Friday
afternoon. I always looked forward eagerly to this. The teacher would select
two of the best spellers, boy and girl, to choose students to line up on opposite
sides. I often was selected, and the yellow-haired girl I was crazy about was
chosen. Then the spelling would begin, the teacher walking up and down
between the opposing lines giving out the words from Harrington's Speller,
the successor to the old blue-back speller. The student was given two trials
at the word, and if he failed, the next one was given a chance. If he/she
was successful, then he had "cut down" the preceding student. More often
than not the final two left opposing each other were the yellow-haired girl
and myself. In this contest, as I later observed it in life, when ambition is
involved, rarely is any mercy shown.
as CUte as a kitten
as cute as the devil
cut fine
To reduce to a minimum, to leave only a tiny margin.
cut for heart
To go for the prize, to try to outdo another.
George Alston who did a lot of manual work with me used to tell me
of his prideful axe-cutting days. He could souse his axe up to the eye in a
green pine — and when he would tangle up with some other champion they
would often cut for heart. George said, "I never was out-cut by any man,
Mr. Green, and though I'm 80 years old right now, I bet I could out-cut
you for heart in any of these big trees standing around here.'' "Yes, George,
yes."
cut for wind
George used to tell me about this contest also. Two cutters on opposite sides
of a big tree would try to match blow for blow, the one moving faster and
faster and the other trying to keep up until finally one would call out, "I
got to blow." His adversary would be the winner. George told me about
tangling with a great brute of a fellow once and how they cut into a tree
four feet in diameter. "Well, I'm here to tell you, Mr. Green, I ruint him,
I plumb ruint him. From that day on he was a bellowsed man. I cut for wind
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and winded him."
cut his comb
To take one down a peg or two, to deflate a person's ego. In the play,' 'The
Lost Colony," there's a line about Sir Walter Raleigh which is spoken by
the comedian, Old Tom — ' 'Well, watch your crowing, Sir Walter, or they'll
cut your comb some day like His Worship the bishop."
cutie-pie
A term of endearment.
cut it out
Stop, quit, cease from doing. "Sawing on that old fiddle you're going to
drive me crazy, boy. Cut it out!"
cut it short
To hurry to an end. Senator Robert Reynolds speaking in the "Lost Colony''
amphitheatre on Roanoke Island once spoke for an interminable time. He
was supposed to talk for only seven or eight minutes. Now and then he would
say, "Well, folks, one more point and I'll cut it short." At this, applause
broke out.
cut loose
To untie, to unhitch, to let go quickly.
cut no ice
Made no difference, not important.
cut one's coat according to the cloth
To act in line with circumstances, to live within one's means.
cut one's teeth on
A hard subject that one deals with, a difficult undertaking that one matches
his strength with in an experimental way.
cut out
To stop, to quiet down. "Cut out that racket — hear me!"
To supersede, to be the successful rival. "She used to love John best, but
then when Neil come along he cut John out and got her."
Extinguish. "Cut out the lights before you go to bed." Same as put out.
to be cut out
Meant to be, intended. "From the first he was cut out to be a preacher."
cut the dust
To go fast.
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291
cut the gravel
To start an automobile swiftly.
cut the mustard
To have high spirits, plenty of sex power though old. "Old Reuben Bland
was 90 years old and had had thirty-four children but, boy, he could still
cut the mustard!"
cut up
To misbehave.
a cut-up
A rowdy or broiling person.
cyard
Card. An old pronunciation, like gyarden (garden).
cymling
A round squash and also a watch. I've heard one man at church ask another,
"What time is it by your cymling, Joe?"
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D
dab
To strike or pat softly, also to peck at gently.
A tiny bit, a touch of, a small portion. "You've got a dab of smut on your
nose."
dab (dibs) on
Claim on. "I've got dabs on that last apple."
dad
An elderly man, usually used affectionately.
dot drat (drot, dum, gast) it!
A mild interjection.
daddy
A lover.
To beget. "Old Broadhuss daddied more young'uns in the Cape Fear Valley
than any man that ever lived."
sugar daddy
Usually an elderly male lover who gives freely of his substance and what
love he can eke out to his young doxy.
daffodil
Perhaps the most popular of all flowers. In early spring they can be seen
in golden plenty in nearly every flower garden in the Valley and in clumps
or rows in front of or near every home, no matter how humble. Also like
the onion, its bulb when split and applied to an arthritic or aching joint is
supposed to bring relief. Of all William Wordsworth's poems, his
"Daffodils" is perhaps the most often quoted. I used to get great comfort
from saying it aloud to the empty fields as I ploughed round and round.
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293
"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
And in the last stanza of this short poem, Wordsworth states his poetic
philosophy of "impassioned recollection," states it in unmatched words
that thrilled me through-though I was not lying on a couch but was struggling
with a sweat-heavy plough.
"For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with rapture fills
And dances with the daffodils."
daffy-down-dilly
(a daffodil)
Daffy-down-dilly has now come to town
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown.
See "wake-robin."
by dag!
A mild expletive.
daggone it!
A mild expletive.
/ be daggone! (or doggone)
Also an expletive.
daid
Dead.
dairy
A small utility house over a spring in which butter, milk and other perishables
were kept. Sometimes called a dish house. We didn't have a spring on our
farm but we lowered milk, butter and other items down in the well for
cooling.
turn toes to the daisies
To die, to be buried.
daisy
One of our most popular wild flowers, its blossoms adding a cheerful, almost
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gay, feeling to the landscape in early summer. It grows plentifully in
meadows, pastures, and along the roadsides and is widely used in flower
beds and lawn borders. The Valley girls, as elsewhere, used to tell love
fortunes by reciting a divination rhyme as they plucked the petals away one
by one"One I love, two I love,
Three I love, I say.
Four I love with all my heart,
Five I cast away.
Six he loves, seven she loves,
Eight they both love.
Nine they come and ten they tarry,
Eleven they court and twelve they marry."
daisy cutter
A sharply hit baseball that goes close to the ground, same as grass cutter.
daisy petals
A children's game of reciting "He/She loves me, he/she loves me not,"
as each white petal of the daisy is pulled out.
ups-a-daisy
Often said in jollity when tossing a baby or small child up into the air.
damage
Expense, cost, price.' 'Now that we've finished the job, what's the damage?"
damageous
Damaging.
damfino
Damn if I know!
damn
Expletive, used in multitudinous ways, as damn your eyes, damn it to hell,
damn fool, damn scoundrel, damn, double damn, etc.
don't give a tinker's damn
Doesn't care, not interested.
not worth a damn
Worthless.
be-damned
Usually used for intensification. "That J. Edgar Hoover is as tough as bedamned."
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295
dampen one's fingers
To aid in better working, to help in a stronger resolve, much the same as
to spit on one's hands.
We used to dampen our fingers now and then with a swift lick of the
tongue in cotton picking. This helped us the better to pull the sun-dried locks
of cotton from the open bolls.
close one's damper down
Stop one's wild doings, said of a person who is over-amorous.
dance
To jump about in pain. "I burnt my hand on the stove, and man, did it
make me dance!"
Them that dance must pay for the fiddling.
dance on air
To be hanged.
dancer
A little top. In the old days we children made our tops which we called dancers
from cutting thread spools half in two. Then, setting a little sharpened axle
and trimming the spool to a point, we made the upper point of the little
axle somewhat flat. And then grasping it between our thumb and forefinger,
we made it spin.
dancing
In the old days this was considered a sin and many a church member was
turned out of the congregation for indulging in it. Most often when he or
she promised to quit it, the erring member was reinstated.
dandelion
The familiar early spring weed. It grows in woodlands, meadows, fields,
along roadsides, anywhere and everywhere. We sometimes gathered it for
salads and early greens. The juice or tea was supposed to be good for
children's kidneys. Also the ground-up dried roots were sometimes used
as a substitute for coffee.
dander
Choler, anger, high spirits, pep. "You get to fooling with old man Martin
Matthews' watermelon patch and you'll get his dander up."
dandle
To bounce up and down as with a baby on the knee.
dandruff
(dander)
"The way Congress is behaving just gets my dandruff up."
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dandy
In good shape, usually used with the word "fine." "It's spring and I feel
fine and dandy."
dang! (dang it!)
An exclamation.
in danger
To be near death. "Have you heard about Miss Millie Upchurch — she's
been in danger since day before yesterday."
'Tis dangerous marrying a widow, because she hath cast her rider.
dangle around
To court.
from Dan to Beersheba
Much, completely, inclusively. From the references in the Old Testament
such as the Lord's curse spoken of in the Second Book of Samuel 24:15,
' 'And there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand
men." The phrase "from Dan to Beersheba" occurs a number of times in
the Bible and always in this incorporative sense.
dap
To dip. "She dapped her handkerchief in the branch and washed her face
right in front of him."
Dare Base
This is a game of chase and is much the same as prison base. The young
people choose two leaders, and then these two leaders alternately choose
their followers. Each group selects a base some fifty yards from that of his
opponent, and then each one dares the other. Any member of either side
who is tapped by anyone belonging to the other side must stand in prison.
This prison is a ring marked on the ground a few yards behind the opponent's
base. The prisoner may be won back if one of his own side runs to him and
taps him before the opposition taps him. The game ends when all the
members of one side have been caught or the young people are tired and
wish to turn to something else.
daresent (dassent)
Dare not.
dare you
A challenge, a dare, often in the sense of a race or a competition. "I'll dare
you to the millpond first." And then the footrace follows. "I dare you, I
double dare you, I nigger dare you."
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297
dark as a cellar
dark as a dungeon
dark as a pocket
dark as midnight
fifar& as night
dark as pitch
dark as the grave
flfarA: as the inside of a grave (tomb)
darky
An old-time word for Negro. "The state has promised me five hundred
darkies to work on the railroad, and I know some of them will have to work
wearing the ball and chain. But what can you do? When you need help, you
need it — and besides, it's the cheapest you can get," so said Boss Little.
an old man's darling
A young girl, usually mistress, kept or got in marriage by an older man like
"the girl in the gilded cage."
"Darling Nelly Gray"
B.R. Hanby's beautiful lament for a lost one. "Oh, my darling Nelly Gray,
they have taken you away, and I'll never see my darling any more." Like
Stephen Foster's "Old Black Joe" and "Old Uncle Ned," it makes the throat
tighten and the heart ache. It used to be popular with our male quartet and
with young people generally on hayrides and at picnics.
darn!
An expletive.
a darning gourd
A small smooth round gourd over which an article which is to be darned
is stretched. I remember when I was a child seeing many old women around
carrying little darning gourds in their apron pockets. When they'd sit down
to talk, out would come the gourd and the darning needle would get busy.
dash
Splurge, show off. "Rass Easom certainly cuts a dash since he got himself
that new car."
dash it all!
An interjection.
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date back
To remember.
daubing (dabbing)
Mud or mortar used to fill in between logs in a cabin or tobacco barn wall,
also in a "stick and dirt" chimney.
dauncy
Mentally unstable, ailing, squeamish, also bad-tempered.
put on the dawg
To show off.
day
Lucky time. "Yessir, this is my day—I've already got my bag limit."
The dawn. "I get up about day every morning, winter or summer."
Come day, go day,
God send Sunday.
(Divination rhyme.)
The day has eyes, the night has ears.
day-down (day-dark)
Sunset, the gloom of evening.' 'That little be-shame bush closes up at daydown."
a day late and a dollar short
To be lazy, laggard, remiss.
call it a day
To finish a job, to stop work, the end of a task.
rainy day
A time of need, as in old age. "When you're young and able to work hard,
you'd better lay up something for a rainy day."
red letter day
An unforgettable time, most important occasion. From the ancient custom
of printing holy days on calendars in red letters.
good day for ducks
A rainy day.
great day in the morning!
An exclamation.
Daylight can be seen through a small hole.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
299
to burn daylight
To waste a light by having it burn in the broad daylight.
to put daylight through a man
To shoot him, to kill him.
daylights
Common sense, equanimity, coolness, bravery. "When the old sheep rose
up in the moonlight and tore out of that penned-in grave, it scared the
daylights out of me and I burnt the wind going away from there."
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle.
dead as a dodo
dead as a doorknob
dead as a doornail
dead as a herring
dead as a nit
dead as a wedge
dead as Billy-be-damned
Very dead indeed.
Dead men tell no tales.
The dead should be carried always head first.
Speak no evil of the dead.
The wishes of the dead are sacred.
dead against
Strongly opposed to, absolutely against. "It seems that the Governor is dead
against doing anything harsh or punitive to the Ku Klux."
dead-broke
To be absolutely penniless.
a dead certainty
An unassailable fact, an undeniable happening.
in dead earnest
Absolutely in earnest.
deaden
To cut the green bark around a tree so that it will die, same as girdling.
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deadening
An area where the trees have been killed by girdling.
deadfall
A trap made by propping up a board or log so that when a bird or animal
touched the baited trigger, the heavy log or plank would fall down and trap
or kill the animal or bird.
I remember how when the snow came we children would set up our
little deadfalls, scatter cornmeal under them, and often have a string running
from the propped-up little post, which held up the wide plank, through the
door into the house. Then we would stand by the window. When any of
the snowbirds got under the plank, we would jerk the prop out and then
dash out with squeals of joy to pick up the little crushed, mute and still warm
bodies. Never once did it occur to us that this was cruel. We were just having
fun.
dead giveaway
A body or facial mien suggesting guilt or evasion. "The way that bond
salesman would look off when he was trying to get you to buy stock in the
factory was a dead giveaway that there was something about it he didn't
believe in."
dead gone
Utterly exhausted, tired to death.
dead hand
A term used to denote the control of affairs by a person already dead.
In a poker game a hand without any good cards in it.
deadhead
A sponger, a bum.
Don't beat a dead horse.
dead letter
A dead and passed matter, no longer important, out of circulation.
deadman
A buried log, or anchor to hold a guy wire, usually made of concrete.
dead men
Empty bottles, same as dead soldiers.
dead of night
Depths, stillness, middle. "The Ku Kluxes crope upon Uncle Reuben's house
in the dead of night."
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dead on one's feet
To be completely exhausted.
dead ringer
An exact copy, a facsimile. "He's a dead ringer for his daddy."
dead stand
A dilemma, a precarious fix, to be brought to a standstill, prevented from
acting. "He is at a dead stand since they busted up his whiskey still."
dead to the world
Unconscious, deep in sleep or drunk.
to play dead
To pretend, to be hypocritical. We used to catch 'posssums and lay them
on the ground, and they would lie still with a queer grin on their faces, and
we would say, "Look, he's playing dead." Also playing 'possum.
to have the dead wood on one
The advantage, the upper hand. According to Valley tradition the phrase
"to have the dead wood on one" got started by way of a crane and a grass
snake.
One day a crane saw a grass snake sleeping in the sun and, creeping
up, he seized the snake and quick as blinking swallowed him. But the snake
was slick and, like croton oil, went through the crane and out again in no
time. The crane grabbed up the snake and swallowed him a second time.
But jook, glug, glug, and the snake was out once more. The crane did a
little thinking. He saw a dead log nearby. The snake tried to wriggle away
but the crane grabbed him again, swallowed him the third time and quick
as thought jammed his rear end against the log.
"Ho, ho," laughed the crane, "I've got the dead wood on you this
time!"
And so he had.
deaf as a post
deaf as a stone
Who so deaf as they that will not hear?
deaf to reason
Hardheaded, unreasoning, hopelessly prejudiced. "When it comes to the
Negro question, it seems that Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama are deaf
to reason."
dear me!
An interjection.
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At death lice and fleas leave a body.
All men are equal in the presence of death.
In the midst of life we are in death.
death bells
See "death prophecy."
death bird
See "bird omen."
death coppers or death pennies
When I was a boy coppers (usually English ha'pennies because of their
weight) were used to hold down the eyelids of a dead person till burial. The
wild senseless stare of the lifeless open eyes was too much for the survivors
to bear. Nowadays the professional undertakers see that all is in order without
the pennies, even to the rouged cheeks of the corpse.
death dew
The sweat that is supposed to come on the foreheads of persons when they
are dying.' 'Miss Gate reached over and felt her forehead and said that now
the death dew's coming on, it won't be long."
death prophecy
The foreseeing of death to come. I have known many people in the Valley
who say they have had this experience in relation to others. My Aunt Emma
Blalock said she knew Sister Betty (my mother) had died on that dreadful
January day in 1908 because the death bells rang in her head early in the
morning and announced its coming to her. She didn't tell any of us about
this prophecy, of course, until long after the terrible thing had happened.
Most often these prophecies, if the truth be told, turn out to be false alarms.
But such was not the case with old Myatt Northington. See "prevision of
death."
Of course most everybody laughed at old Myatt and made no little fun
of him, for they felt about him the way most of us feel about these ignorant
sanctified people who are always prophesying the end of the world on a
certain day. And also they remembered Gaster French and his prophecy
a few years before. Gaster had got religion at a Pentecostal camp meeting
at Falcon and soon after that heard a voice telling him to get ready, for the
end of the world was coming soon. So he sold out his little farm and one
mule and sat down to wait for Gabriel to blow his horn. This was not hard
for him to do, for he was a notoriously lazy fellow. The fateful day came
and passed and nothing happened. Of course Gaster had to get up from
where he was sitting and go to work again or starve, for the sun rose just
the same. Later he died in the county poorhouse. Myatt was a better prophet.
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On the day before he was to die he went around to see all the neighbors
and say goodby, asking them for messages they might want to send to loved
ones in yonder world. A lot of wags, like Ezzie Gunter, sent messages to
folks in hell, including Bull Broadhuss, saying tell Bull he'd like to bring
him some ice but he was providentially hindered. Old Myatt laughed and
said he wasn't going there where Bull went. And maybe he didn't.
Well, when the next day came, he dressed himself in his burying clothes,
put out the two big English coppers he'd saved to place on his dead eyelids
to hold them shut, and lay down in his bed. And as the clock struck three,
as the vision said, he turned his face to the wall and quietly breathed his
last. At his funeral a great concourse of people gathered. And many of them
got converted to God because of that, believing that there must be some
kind of spirit or spirits that could speak to men and tell them the future if
we only knew how to listen and watch. And Ollie McNeill, the local windowshade-catch inventor, was there and was so convinced of it, he tried to make
a contraption to listen to spirits talking. He finally lost his mind working
at the thing and at his perpetual motion machine and had to be shut up in
the asylum in Raleigh. And there they say he hears spirits all the time now
and does a lot of preaching to the bare walls behind his restraining iron bars.
death speech
It is widely believed that when a person dying makes a speech, it is one in
which he reveals his true nature. Leo Tolstoi's last words, according to his
daughter Alexandra, were' 'Truth—I have love.'' She also said he struggled
to say more but couldn't.
death song
Sometimes a dying person, especially a religious one, will break into a hymn
when dying. Nellie Upchurch said her Aunt Laura did.
"There we were," she said, "all sitting around the bed, tears pouring
from our eyes, when she started to sing.
'Just as I am without one plea
But that thy blood was shed for me ...
O Lamb of God, I come.'
' 'Then she said, 'I hear the angels singing,' and she died happy and smiling.
And you know, that smile stayed on her face I bet an hour or so."
death watch beetle
The sound of this beetle boring inside a wall is a sign that somebody in that
house will soon die.
done to death
Over-cooked.
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To wear out a subject in talk.
dressed to death
Overdressed, same as dressed to kill.
A man in debt is caught in a net.
Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.
hit the deck
To fall on one's face, to suffer a bad fall, to fling oneself down for safety
from an air attack.
"Deck the Halls"
Next to "Silent Night," the most popular of our Christmas songs. We always
sang it on our Christmas serenades.
/'// declare!
An exclamation of emphasis.
Deeds speak louder than words.
deef
deep
Deaf.
Sly, artful, crafty, devious.
deep as hell
deep as the ocean (sea)
deep-end
A morass of trouble, lunacy.
"Deep River"
A favorite Negro spiritual.
deep water
A difficulty, a dilemma. "Since that Baucom boy splurged so much on his
daddy's money, he's now in deep water."
dehorn
To deflate, to puncture one's balloon of self-esteem.
delicate condition
Pregnancy.
deliver the goods
To be reliable, up to scratch, to be able to provide what is required.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
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demi-rep
A person, especially female, of dubious reputation.
as demure as an old whore at a christening
Den
A boys' out-of-doors game. Each boy is supposed to represent some sort
of wild beast and has a separate tree, or rock, or spot which represents his
den. Now, any player who leaves his den is liable to be tagged by anyone
who has started out after him. The best runner usually ventures first, for,
of course, all the young people are not going to stand dead still, for then
there would be no game. A second person pursues him, etc. If a player can
tag anyone whom he has a right to capture, he takes him on home to his
own den, and then this person must be on his side and help him to take the
rest. A pursuer cannot be tagged while he is bringing home his game.
See "Ku Klux Klan."
It depends on whose ox is gored.
depth charge
A deep copulation on the part of a male, and often a braggart will boast
of this. "I give that woman a depth charge she'll never forget."
derisive pantomime
The putting of one's thumb to the nose and waggling the four spread-out
fingers means "kiss my ass." Also the turning of one's posterior in the
direction of a person and slapping it with the open palm means the same.
The thrumming of one's ear with a forefinger signifies disrespect, "bad cess
to you," etc.
desk together
In our old Pleasant Union School, space was so lacking that two or more
students would occupy the same desk seat. "Can Milton and me desk
together, Mr. Biggs?"
desperated
Desperate, a desperado, a bandit. As the old song says, "John Hardy was
a mean and desperated man, he toted two guns every day."
despise
Dislike, be unwilling. "I despise to get my hands all sticky with dough."
dest
Desk.
the deuce!
A mild expletive.
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the devil
The fabled evil one who presides over hell and who, as he will, wanders the
earth in invisible or visible forms tempting people to do evil so that he may
carry their souls off to his everlasting keeping in the infernal fires below.
His influence was so widely felt that the people knew him by various names
— Beelzebub, Belial, The Evil One, Lucifer, Mephisto, Old Bad Boy, Old
Black Boy, Old Harry, Old Ned, Old Nick, Old Scratch, Satan, and so on.
An interjection.
The devil can cite scripture for his own purpose.
The devil has all the good tunes.
The devil is not as black as he is painted.
The devil is old and knows a lot.
The devil knows his own.
the devil to pay and no hot pitch
To be empty-handed.
The devil you say!
Usually in question of a statement just made by someone or even as an
exclamation of surprise.
Speak of the devil and his imps will appear.
He's between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Talk about the devil and you'll see his smoke.
like the devil before day
He swapped the devil for the witch.
Give the devil his due.
If it rains while the sun is shining, this means that the devil is whipping his wife.
looks like the devil on horseback
She's the devil on wheels.
When the devil was sick,
The devil a saint would be.
When the devil was well,
The devil a saint was he.
(Nonsense rhyme.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
307
If you sup with the devil you'll need a long spoon.
devil child
A child born with the devil in him, sometimes even born with little sprouting
horns. It is told that a pregnant woman got angry with a Bible peddler and
bawled him out. The next day her baby was born with little horns, showing
that the devil had entered into this woman.
go to the devil!
An abjuration.
heat devils
Little waves of heat that show across a wide field on a hot summer's day.
Another name for this is Lazy Lawrence.
devil's hole
Any dark and dangerous or frightening place. Many Negroes maintain that
in these dark holes the devil's hellhounds live, and if a person comes up and
leans over one of these holes on a quiet day, he can hear these hounds barking
where the devil keeps them hid away deep in the earth to bring them out
at night to run howling across the sky in pursuit of sinful souls.
devil's music box (devil's instrument)
The fiddle. Both the fiddle and the banjo have for generations been
instruments of evil — the fiddle being first in sinfulness and the banjo a
close second — among the strict orthodox Christians in the Valley. In Harnett
County where I was born and grew up the fiddle was associated with wild
parties and dancing and therefore was the more forbidden.
Tim Messer lived in my neighborhood and was one of the best fiddlers
for miles. Hardly any shindig from Linden to Angier to Dunn to Sanford
could be held without efforts to get Tim, along with his banjo-picking
partner, Sam Adams, to make the music. A fiery and brimstone-hurling
preacher, Mr. Roland by name, came to Little Bethel Church one summer
and held a two-week meeting there, and such was his power that he cleaned
up the sinners far and wide. He even converted Sam Adams and after him
the toughest musical wrongdoer of all, Tim Messer. Sam gave his banjo away
in his new state of grace and Tim was ordered by the preacher to burn his
fiddle. The poor fellow almost wept over the verdict and finally compromised
with himself by wrapping it up in thick quilting and secretly burying it under
a holly tree behind the barn. He even took care to put a double layer of planks
over it the way folks did over the coffins of the dead.
In time Sam Adams backslid and repossessed his banjo. Under his
pleading and a merry flooding of a few godless tunes he played to Tim's
thirsty ears, Tim himself backslid also and dug up his fiddle.
' 'You had it buried mighty snug and safe,'' said Sam, who was helping
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him in the disinterring.
"Yeh, I wouldn't have it hurt for a purty," said Tim.
' 'And from the planking and all it seemed like you might a-had in mind
the time when we'd — we'd be going back into sin."
"It don't matter now," said Tim as he laid the bow sweetly across the
strings and sent out a swirl of sounds.
After that, folks said Tim's fiddle was better than ever, and where he
was a fine fiddler before, from now on he was the greatest to be found from
Fayetteville to Raleigh.
Tim later was killed in France in World War I. I've never been able
to learn what happened to his fiddle. See "crying shame."
the devil's papers
Playing cards.
devil's pincushion
The cactus.
devil's riding horse
The praying mantis.
devil's snuffbox
A puffball.
devil's walking stick
A thorny shrub known also as the Mexican mulberry or Hercules' club.
Also known as prickly ash. It grew in abundance on the plantation of my
ancestor, Colonel Alexander McAllister.
An idle brain is the devil's workshop.
dew
Sweat.
No dew in the morning foretells rain.
If a girl washes her face in dew on the first of May, her beauty will be helped.
dewfall
The evening time.
dew poison
Sores that come on the feet and legs of children who go barefooted in the
summertime.
mountain dew
Corn liquor, also recently the name of a popular carbonated drink.
Heavy dews portend no rain.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
309
diacwnbellicos
Diarrhea.
It takes a diamond to cut a diamond.
diamond in the rough
A sterling but uncouth person.
diarrhea of the mouth, the jaws
Gossip, frothy talk, said of a garrulous person.
dibble-dabble
A mess, a stir, a messy mixture.
dibs
dice
dick
Claims. "I've got dibs on that hat!" Often the same as dabs.
The results, the answer, payment, etc. "I went for my check, but no dice."
Abbreviation for dictionary.
The penis. The young suitor at the table spilled hot coffee on his leg. His
sweetheart anxiously inquired, "Did it hurt you, Dick?" "No, it just burnt
my leg a bit," he answered.
queer dick
Same as queer duck, a square, a misfit.
the dickens!
A mild expletive.
diddles
Titties.
diddle
To cheat, make a fool of.
To copulate, to indulge in sexual play, especially with the fingers.
diddle-daddle
Foolishness, idly messing about.
Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John,
Went to bed with his britches on.
One shoe off and one shoe on,
Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John.
(A baby rhyme.)
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did do
Emphasis on do. "After all he did do it."
didies
Diminutive for diapers.
didn 't go to
Didn't mean or intend to. "I didn't go to hurt you like that."
die like a dog
Die shamefully, bankrupt, in the ditch.
die like a rat
die like a rat in his hole
You will die when your time comes and not before.
as well die with the disease as with the remedy
die-back
Dying twigs or limblets of shrubs or trees. "When I cut the die-back out,
the tree will look better."
die in harness
To end one's days hard at work as usual.
He that dies pays all debts.
die with one's boots on
Usually refers to one who is killed in a gun fight, to die in action.
differ
To quarrel. "The two Matthews brothers are differing again, and the next
thing you know they'll both be back in court."
as different
as day and night
Different sores must have different salves.
difficulty
A quarrel, a controversy.
Two brothers in the Valley were notorious for constant difficulty one
with the other. They had fallen out over a little strip of hog lane that ran
between their farms, each claiming it as his. Again and again they would
be listed in the county paper's court docket as "Johnson versus Johnson,''
the trial would be held, and one would win a victory. Then the other would
file a counter suit. So it was that as time went on the village lawyers got the
majority of their cotton and tobacco money.
One August at an especially fervent protracted meeting held by that
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
311
mighty preacher, hairy Neill Hodge, the two brothers got converted. So all
filled with brotherly love and spiritual grace now, they met, hugged each
other and wept in each other's arms.
That evening when they got back home these newly washed and purified
souls went out to have a look at the strip of land, which by this time had
become known in the neighborhood as' 'the Devil's Lane.'' Standing there
side by side and in good fellowship, they considered the cause of their
animosity and their conversation ran as follows—
"I'll declare," said John or Young, it makes no difference which, "ain't
it a sight to think that you and me all these years have been suing one another
over this little old bitty piece of land?
"That it is. It's a sight," said Young.
"I been thinking a lot since we stood up for the right hand of fellowship
at church this morning," said John.
"So have I too," said Young.
"And I tell you what I'm going to do," said John. "I'm going to give
up my part of this Devil's Lane complete. I want you to have it."
"That's what I been thinking about," said Young. "I want you to have
it, John."
"Nah, nah," said John, "it's yours, Young. I give it to you and I'll
have the deed drawed come Monday morning in the courthouse, denoting
it's yours."
"No, I can't allow that," said Young. "I'll have the deed drawed in
your name."
"Dad blame it," said John, getting a little testy. "It'syours, Young."
"Well, dadgum," said Young, "it's your'n, John, and that's the last
I want to hear about it. Your'n!"
"I won't take it," said John.
"Yes, you will," said Young.
"You got to take it yourself," said John, "and that'll show you there
ain't no more hard feeling in my heart agin' you and that I'm gonna live
in a state of grace from now on."
"No, you take it, and that'll show you how I feel and am gonna live."
"I'm the oldest," said John, "and my word ought to count. It's
your'n."
"You remember what Pa used to say, John. He said, 'John, Young
may be younger than you in years, but he's got a better head on him.' "
' 'Well, I reckon I ain't never heard of that before,'' says John, getting
a little more ficey-like.
"Well, that's what Pa said, and I say on account of my judgment being
better—"
"Your judgment ain't better," says John. "I deny that on a stack of
Bibles a mile high."
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"So you don't think Pa said it, do you?'' said Young, getting somewhat
red in the face.
"No, I don't," said John. "I don't believe he said it."
' 'Well, I reckon you know what that makes me," said Young,' 'makes
me out an outdacious liar."
"Well!" said John.
"Well!'' said Young. And there they stood looking at each other, their
eyes turning red as a terrapin's. And Young hitched up his britches and his
hands quiled themselves up into two fists. "Ain't nobody ever called me
a liar before and got away with it," he said.
"And I reckon there ain't nobody that ever drawed back his fists that
made me take cover,'' said John. And with that they squared off and started
walking around each other like two game roosters looking for the first chance
to make an attack. Seeing an opening, Young suddenly hauled off and kerblip let John have it in the burr of the ear. That brought him down to his
knees and Young flew on him, but John came back butting at him and got
him in the pit of the stomach and piled him over in the weeds.
And from then on they had it, fighting and gouging. Finally some
neighbors came along and separated them or I reckon they would have killed
each other. For by that time Young was chewing on John's ear and had it
about half-eaten off and John had got one of Young's fingers in his mouth
and was chewing it to a pulp.
At the next term of court there was the same old notice in the newspaper,
"Johnson versus Johnson,'' and assault and battery was the charge this time,
one against the other.
They were tried in the court and both put under a peace bond, and the
judge had the lane re-surveyed. A line was run down the middle of it, and
the court ordered a fence put up along the line. Now for a good long time
John and Young have lived in peace, and each one still stays on his side of
the wire fence.
But since the big fight between them, neither one has been the man he
was. The side of John's head is still disfigured, his looking like a dried-up
prune, and Young's hand is about half useless because the long finger John
chewed on remains stuck out, stiff as a stick and useless.
Old Dan Truelove, the 90-year-old surveyor and godless liquor
reprobate, said that's what they got for messing with religion. If they had
stayed away from that preacher, he said, they'd be hale, hearty men to this
day. But then old Dan didn't have much more character than an egg-thieving
dog, being a tattletale and liar the way he was, and no attention was paid
to him. And besides, as everybody knew, he was drinking himself fast into
the grave and had been doing so for the last fifty years.
Difficulties are opportunities.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
313
Through difficulties to the stars — Ad astro per aspera
This is the Latin motto of Campbell University and many states and
institutions.
dig
An uncomplimentary reference. "Jesse Helms in his regular Viewpoint T. V.
appearance took a dig at you the other night, Paul," said the barber as I
sat down to get a haircut.
digger
A hippy, a no'count young sponger, beatnik.
well-digger
A lady's man, a swordsman. "Who are you?" said the lady. "I'm a welldigger," I said, and I showed her. "Lordy mercy," she said, "you really
are!"
Many a person digs his grave with his teeth.
dig up the tomahawk
To start trouble. To begin a war.
diked out (or up)
To be in one's best dress, wearing Sunday clothes. "Lord, I'm here to tell
you, he was all diked out for commencement day."
By diligence and care
You may finally get there.
(Folk wisdom rhyme.)
a diller-a-dollar
Late, tardy, from the child's rhyme:
A diller-a-dollar
A ten o'clock scholar.
dime
A great many people, especially Negroes, used to put holes through dimes
and wear them around their necks or ankles to prevent toothache,
rheumatism and blood disease. A few still do.
Put a dime around a baby's neck to make him cut teeth easier.
a dime a dozen
Very cheap.
dimple
To curtsy, to flirt.
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Dimple on the chin,
The devil within.
Old Aunt Dinah
A cutting up, loud behavior. "He got out there and, me, my, did he play
Old Aunt Dinah."
dinahs
Cheap little marbles, usually to be put into the ring with others like them
to be shot out.
din-din
Dinner, food, baby's pap, milk from the mother's breast.
ding-buster
A humdinger, an important thing or happening.
ding-dong
To quarrel, to complain.
The buttocks, the setter. "I'll rap on that boy's ding-dong if he messes with
me."
dinger
A fine example, an outstanding thing. Same as dilly.
ding it in
To instill it in one's memory by constant repetition.
dingus
The penis.
dinky
A trifle, cheap looking, silly, disgusting. "And then for all his big talk, he
showed up on Sunday courting me riding the dinkiest little old mule you
ever saw."
dinner
The midday meal.
The dinner bell is always in tune to a hungry man.
There never was a fieldhand that found the dinner bell out of tune.
dip
Syrup or gravy.
dipper gourd
A dipper made from a gourd.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
315
dipping
A baptizing by immersion.
dipso
A dipsomaniac, an alcoholic.
dipsy-doodle
Silly, irresponsible. "You wouldn't want a dipsy-doodle fellow like George
Wallace for president, would you?"
directly (torectly)
Right away, soon. "You go ahead, I'll be up there directly."
dirt
Uncomplimentary gossip about a person.
Obscene talk.
Everybody eats a peck of dirt before he dies.
dirt cheap
Very cheap indeed.
do dirt
To treat wrong, unfairly, to injure. "He done me dirt when he took my girl
from me, and this switchblade knife says I'm gonna get even with him."
eat dirt
To accept humiliation. Same as eat crow.
to dirty
To defecate. "I got to go dirty first, and then I'll be with you."
as dirty as a hog (pig)
dirty work at the crossroads
Suspicious doings, secret criminal acts.
discord
A way of tuning a fiddle to produce a harmonious effect when the bow is
drawn across two or more strings at the same time. "I can't play that piece
right lessen I discord my fiddle first."
Discretion is the better part of valor.
the running mouth disease
Over-talkative, gossipy, frothy-worded.
disencourage
To discourage.
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disfurnish
To unfurnish, fail to furnish.
dish
Awoman, usually a complimentary term. "Shewasaprettydish, allright."
dished in
Bowlegged, also cranksided.
dished out
The angle at which the spokes of a wheel become weakened. "There that
old wagon stood with its wheels dished out.'' Also handed out, a retaliatory
action.
dishfaced
A flat face, concave. "That dishfaced fice dog of his was one of the best
coon dogs I've ever seen."
dishrag
Weakwilled, long-suffering, patient.' 'He's nothing but a dishrag under his
new wife's feet."
dish water
Feeble stuff, imitation, poor argument. "Lady, this soup ain't nothing but
dishwater."
dismals
The blues, the mulligrubs, the melancholies.
disposed to
Inclined toward, in favor of. "My son is disposed to Duke instead of
Carolina."
disrecollect
To forget, to fail to remember.
disremember
Unable to remember, not to remember. "He's just moved into that house
up there where the road turns to Farrington, but I disremember his name.''
distaff side
The woman side.
Distance lends enchantment to the view.
to ditch
To jilt.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
div
317
Dived, past tense of dive.
to dive in
To begin, to start eating, to initiate an action.
"Yes, sir," said Herbert, "just as soon as grace was said at a meal in
our house, my daddy would call out, 'Dive in, folkses!' I remember one
night when we really did dive, and we dived in such a hurry that we got our
ding-dong rapped on to a fare-you-well because of it.
"In the old days we didn't get hold of good beef meat often. Well, once
the old man went into town with a bale of cotton to sell, and I guess he wanted
to sort of reward us young'uns — there were five of us — for all our hard
work in the cottonpatch, and he brung back a great big piece of steak which
Ma fried and put the platter of it on the table. And there we all were sitting
ready to get at it. The grace was said — 'Make us thankful for what we're
'bout to receive, amen,' —and just as Pa said 'Dive in, folkses,' a gust of
wind blew out the lamp. Well, when Ma got the lamp lighted again, there
sat the old man with five forks sticking in his arm, and his fork was sticking
in the steak. We young'uns had made for the steak but in the dark he was
ahead of us. Pa looked at us as we pulled our forks out one by one, then
made for the firestick over in the chimney corner. And then — man, man,
did he ding-dong our ding-dongs."
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
dividing molasses (whiskey, wine or other liquid)
A measurement puzzle. A man came to a neighbor to get four quarts of
molasses. He brought an eight-quart jug, but he wanted only four quarts,
no more, no less. The neighbor had a cask of molasses but only three-quart
and five-quart measuring containers. How did he get exactly four quarts
measured out?
He poured the three-quart container full, emptied this into the fivequart container, drew the three-quart container full again and emptied two
quarts into the five-quart container, filling it and leaving one quart over.
He then emptied the five quarts back into the cask, poured the one quart
into the five-quart one, drew three more quarts and poured that in with the
one, making four quarts exactly.
divine power
An omnipotent god who, it is believed, controls the universe and all that's
in it.
divining rod
See "dowsing rod."
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"Dixie"
The whooping-up song of Southern patriotism. It was written, words and
music, by a Yankee, one Dan D. Emmett, in 1859 for use in a minstrel show.
Since the minstrels were black, the association of the tune with the South
was easy. The song also became popular in the North and is now part of
our American heritage. It was reported that when President Lincoln first
heard it in 1860 in New York City, he shouted out from his box, "Let's have
it again!" Gradually the name Dixie was accepted as meaning the
Confederate South — "Dixie Land.'' The word "Dixie,'' the linguists say,
comes from the French dix, dixie, a $10 note widely current in Louisiana
before the Civil War. So in this matter it seems that for once paper money
was really worth its weight in gold, pure gold.
At Buie's Creek Academy's commencement when I was a boy,
Professor Portis and his brass ensemble (we proudly called it a brass band)
would, for a climax to their playing, tear loose in "Dixie." Without failing,
the audience in the Old Tabernacle Building would stand up and yell and
shout and wave handkerchiefs and hats in the air. Under the spell of the
song the Old South was ready to rise again.
Dixie
The South.
dizzy-dance
A wild and crazy dance, especially a holy dance of one caught in a religious
hallucination, as often the case with the Holy Rollers.
do
Task, duty. "Do your do, fellow, that's all God asks of you."
Swindle. "I bought some stock in that fish factory in Wilmington, and did
that man do me."
Fit, serve satisfactorily, be reliable, trustworthy.' 'This Richard Nixon just
won't do."
To behave or act towards one. "Why do you do me like you do?"
Do as I say and not as I do.
Do as you would be done by.
Do it, then talk about it.
Do one thing at a time.
do or die
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
�An A Iphabet of Reminiscence
319
Never do anything of which you are ashamed.
They who can't do as they would must do as they can.
You never know what you can do till you try.
Do As I Do
A tricking game.
doated (doaty)
Decayed.
dobbin'
Daubing.
doc
A colloquial address of familiarity to a man. "Hey, doc, better stay out
of that house or that old woman will fly on you like a wet hen."
as docile as a sheep
In nettle and out dock.
Dock shall have a new smock.
(Nonsense rhyme.)
New doctor, new churchyard.
Doctor, doctor, can you tell
What will make poor Annie well?
She is sick and she might die.
That would make poor Johnny cry.
(In this teasing rhyme, the name of any one
of the group may be substituted.)
If the doctor cures, the sun sees it,
And if he kills, the earth hides it.
what the doctor ordered
The proper remedy. "Miss Molly Ferrell was forty years old and then she
got married, and that was just what the doctor ordered."
doctor-snake
The partner of a wounded snake, or another snake that comes and makes
the wounded one well. This, no doubt, comes from the fact that often a
snake being left for dead revives and escapes. Of course, it may be that the
mate of the wounded snake is seen in the surroundings.
do-dads
Frills, ornaments, little odds and ends.
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Dodge Ball
This is played in different ways. Usually the players are divided into two
teams, and the members of one team form a circle while those of the other
team get inside the circle. The first team has a volley ball or some soft ball
and, when the signal is given, this ball is thrown at members of the team
inside the circle. Anyone who is hit must either drop out of the game or join
the circle, according to an agreement. Finally, when all have been hit, the
game is over, and sides change. Those who were in the circle now can go
inside, and those inside become the circle, and the game proceeds again.
dod rabbit! (drabbit!)
An expletive.
do-funny
An outlandish thing or person, a foolish trinket.
A dog howling at night presages someone's death in the neighborhood.
A dog in the manger neither eats nor lets others eat.
A dog is man's best friend.
A dog runs for his character, but a hog runs for his life.
A dog that bites off its own tail sets a bad example for the puppies.
The dog that fetches will also carry.
A dog that will bring a bone will carry one.
If you give a dog a bad name, you'd just as well kill him.
The hit dog always hollers.
It's a poor dog can't wag his own tail.
A good dog deserves a good bone.
a lean dog for a long chase
as many excuses as a dog has fleas
Every dog has his day.
Every dog has his day and the bitch her evenings.
I don't need a dog if I have to do my own barking.
A living dog is better than a dead lion.
Let a dog lick a sore place to make it well.
It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
321
Keep a dog tied up too long and he'll lose his nose for the trail.
every dog to his own vomit
A dog will not cry if you beat him with a bone.
dog biscuit
Army hardtack.
dog bite him! (it!)
An execration.
dog cheap
Excessively cheap.
dog damn!
An expletive.
dog days
The hot days in August when diseases are most rampant. In the old days
typhoid fever used to break out especially in this hot time.
dog-down
For emphasis, same as stomp-down. "He's a dog-down (stomp-down)
gentleman."
dog-drunk
Completely drunk.
dog fennel
A plant common everywhere, except in the extreme North. Found in waste
places and along roadsides. In the old days tea made from its foliage or root
was used for all sorts of troubles — nerves, overweight and stomach
disorders.
dog-fight
A ruckus, a loud quarrel.
hair of the dog
A homeopathic remedy in which the medicine to cure the sickness is that
which caused it, such as a drink or drinks of liquor the morning after.' 'Hey,
Paul, I've just come over here to see if you'd let me have a little hair of the
dog."
By doggies!
An expletive.
'Y doggies!
An exclamation.
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Doggone!
An exclamation.
doggoned
A trifling person. "He's the doggonedest fellow I've ever seen."
doggy
Stylish, a wearer of sporty clothes.
in the doghouse
Disfavor, disgrace. "He's in the doghouse now, and his wife won't speak
to him."
dog in the manger
A snarly person who selfishly prevents another's good luck or advantage
with no gain to himself.
dog Latin
A barbaric made-up language by the transposition of a vowel, especially
"A," in front of a consonant, or at the beginning of a word.
dog leg
A chevron stripe.
dogleg fence
Worn rail fence.
dog on the sun
A splotch of foggy light above the sun, usually in the morning, which
indicates a change in the weather.
dog run (trot)
The covered passageway between two parts of a cabin or house, same as
breezeway or windsweep.
like a suck-egg dog
Low-down, sneaky, starveling.
dogs
Feet. "Let's rest, my dogs are killing me."
Dogs follow the man with the bone.
Lie down with the dogs and you'll get up with the fleas.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Barking dogs rarely bite.
Old dogs bark sitting down and puppies standing up.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
323
the dog's foot
An interjection.
dog's life
Miserable life. Sometimes said facetiously in observation of the ease of a
well-kept pet.
A dog's nose and a maid's knees are always cold.
go to the dogs
To degenerate, to become dissipated, to fall to low estate. Same as to go
to the bow-wows.
dog-stud
A childless husband, usually supposed to be barren.
dog's tail
The constellation of the Great Bear. Same as dipper with the handle and
drinking gourd.
in a dog's tail
A rebutting comment. Same as in a pig's eye.
dog tallow
An early kind of round, white stick chewing gum.
dog-tired
Tired to death, to the bone, exhausted.
dog-trick
A mean trick, a practical joke.
dog-trots
Diarrhea.
dogwood
A beautiful flowering southern tree.
When the dogwood blooms it is planting time.
When dogwood leaves are the size of squirrels' ears it is time to plant corn.
Land where dogwood trees grow well will, when cleared, grow the best cotton.
dogwood winter
A cold spell that often comes when the dogwoods are in bloom, comparable
to blackberry winter.
do-hickey (do-hinkey)
A thing, an item, a device.' 'Undo that do-hickey there and it will fall apart.''
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Do how?
A query. What? It is used to ask one to repeat a question.
doing
Why? What's the reason for, etc. "What are those books doing here?"
Doing everything is doing nothing.
Doing nothing is doing ill.
doings
Celebrations, activities, fun. "There's big doings at our house tonight."
doit
To finish, to complete. "That'll just about do it."
do it up
Wrap up, tie up.
do it up brown
Finish a thing with extraordinary care, put the fine touch to a thing.
dolefuls
The melancholies, the dumps, the mulligrubs. "Since her sweetheart kicked
her, Fanny stays drooped up in the dolefuls."
He squeezes the dollar til the eagle screams.
If you would know the value of a dollar, try to borrow one.
Dollar, Dollar, Where's the Dollar
A game which is usually played by having chairs placed in a circle with a
person sitting in each one, and "It," or the person who has the dollar with
which to do the guessing, stands in the center. The people sitting in the circle
pass a silver dollar or coin from hand to hand. The object is to keep the
person in the center from guessing whose hand has the dollar. And while
the dollar is being passed around, the players sing or chant:
Dollar, dollar, how you wander
From one hand into the other.
Is it fair, is it fair
To keep Mr. Henry standing there?
The name of the actual person is used in the last line. When the guess is made
correctly, the one in whose hand the dollar was when it was guessed goes
into the center, and the center man takes his seat.
dollars to doughnuts
Usually in the form of a jocular dare or wager. "It's dollars to doughnuts
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
325
those two will never marry."
dolly
A mistress.
do-lolly
A thingamajig, a contraption.
domestic
Unbleached muslin, or clean white cloth, used in the old days especially for
bed sheets and often for boys' underwear.
domestic trouble
Menstrual period.
done
For emphasis. "I done forgot what you said."
Dead. "Don't shoot him anymore, he's done."
Well-cooked.' 'This corn is not done, you'll have to put it back on the stove.''
What is done cannot be undone.
When a thing is done, it's done.
It is easier said than done.
done for
To be finished, ruined, killed.
done gone and done it
Used for emphasis.
done in
Same as all in, exhausted.
done to death
Overdone, trite, over-familiar, tiresome.
done up
Completely exhausted, ruined.' 'I've been scouring all day, and tonight I'm
plumb done up."
Tied up, put in a package. "The laundry is all done up."
dony
A sexy female sweetheart.
do-nothing
An inactive, a lazy person.
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Don't call on the Lord unless you know his name.
don't care
Slovenliness, laziness, improvidence. "Don't care keeps a big house."
dontcha?
Don't you?
Don't go around your elbow to get to your thumb.
Don't make me laugh.
A jocular expostulation.
don't mind me
A semi-satirical phrase suggesting that the speaker or one acting has little
care for "me."
doodads
Fineries, trinkets and jewelry.
doodle
A little insect, more professionally known as an ant lion. He drills a little
top-like hole with dry sand grains around it, and an ant who tumbles over
the edge keeps falling toward the center because of the loosening grains,
and there the doodle waits to seize him and have his feast.
To play with a woman's private parts.
doodlebug
There was a folk belief in our neighborhood that if you put your finger down
in the doodle's house and stirred it around and around and chanted the
following couplet, the doodle would appear. Naturally he would, because
the finger would dig him out, that is, if he was there at all.
"Doodlebug, doodlebug,
Your house burning up,
Doodlebug, doodlebug,
Your house burning up."
doodler
A trifler.
doodly-squat
A faux pas, a goof.
doo-jiggers
A thingamajig, a contraption, usually small things.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
327
the crack of doom
The instant when the end of the world comes, a bit of the Bible folklore.
doomsday
A folk term designating the end of time. It also means an indefinite length
of time. "Hurry up, you expect me to wait here til doomsday?"
do one's business
To evacuate, to defecate, and often in Negro terminology "to void."
do one's stuff
To show one's ability or character. "Get out there on that mound, Bob,
and do your stuff." Same as show your stuff.
doorknob
A white china knob. My mother used to take all the eggs from a laying hen
and leave a doorknob in the nest to keep the hen coming back, for it was
well understood that if all the eggs were taken away the hen would quit laying
in that nest and hunt another place, or quit laying altogether. The doorknob
fooled her and she still apparently thought there was one egg left.
The doors of wisdom are never shut.
next door to
Almost, nearing, coming nigh.' 'He is next door to being crazy as a coot.''
do out of
To cheat, to chouse.
do over
Remake, re-do.
doozy
A lily, a honey, a lulu, an exceptional thing, good or bad.
dope
Instructions, the lie of things, the facts. "Say, miss, what's the dope on this
Rinaki murder?"
Coca-Cola.
dopey
Dull, lethargic.
do pray
A mild expletive, also a comment of encouragement to continue talking.
do proud
To make one proud. "She sure did me proud up there on that rostrum with
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all the people looking on."
dose
Enough of, a surfeit. "I've had my dose of these politicians."
Venereal disease.' 'He kept going to that sporting house and finally got his
dose."
do-se-do
A command or call in a square dance.
like a dose of salts
Quickly, of almost instant reaction.
on the dot
Punctual, at an appointed hour.
Do tell!
An exclamation.
do the trick
To be satisfactory, to solve. "He got a long wire and slipped it through the
door and that did the trick."
do time
To serve a sentence in prison or on the chain gang.
doty (doaty)
Decayed, somewhat rotten. Also means weak in one's head, a bit crazy.
dot your I's and cross your T's
Tend to small things, be circumspect, be attentive and polite.
a double
A copy, a likeness. " I looked up there and thought it was John, but it was
that Henry boy, his very double."
double-barreled
A big breasted woman. "Yonder she comes down the street all doublebarreling at us."
double damn
For emphasis.
double duck fit
A frenzy, a burst of excessive temper, etc.
double harness
Marriage.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
329
double-jointed
A long, tall person. Large, muscular. This term has pretty much passed out
of usage now that so many double-jointed young men are becoming
basketball heroes.
double-take
An exaggerated visual response. "He did a double-take."
doubting Thomas
A suspicious person, one demanding special proof or incontrovertible
evidence. The Gospel of John, Chapter 20, verse 25, reports that Thomas,
one of the twelve disciples, said he doubted that Jesus had risen from the
dead. "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails — and thrust
my hand into his side, I will not believe," he declared.
doubtsome
Doubtful.
douce!
An expletive. My father used to use this word very often. It was common
with him.' 'The douce you say!'' He pronounced it''dowse.'' Perhaps this
is a corruption of deuce.
doughface
A mask. Also homely, ugly.
doughy
Sticky. "That clay path is all doughy after the rain."
do up
To tie, to wrap. "Do up the clothes, the laundry man'll be here in a minute.''
do up brown
To deal with a matter or person thoroughly and authoritatively.
dove
A gentle girl.
A dove hovering around a house presages death.
down
Sick.
Melancholic.
To drink, to swallow. "He downed six beers, one right after the other."
Down is not always out.
He that is down need fear no fall.
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down and out
In a penniless or spiritless condition. Also, to be knocked out as in the prize
ring.
down in the dumps
Despondent, discouraged, same as down in the mouth.
down in the I'ins (loins)
To be crippled in the back, unable to raise up the hind part. "Well, Betty,
I've been up to the hog pen, and my big fattening hog is down in the I'ins,"
said my father one doleful winter morning. "I'll have to kill him."
down in the mouth
Discouraged, melancholic, sad, pensive. "Every time I see Joe Knapp he
looks down in the mouth. How come?"
down my alley
Suitable to my ability, just what I wanted.
down on
To dislike. "He's down on me, that's why I never get a promotion."
down pat
To have by memory, full know-how.
down the country
A bawling out, a tirade against. "With that sharp tongue she could give
a man down the country."
down the drain
Wasted, lost, gone beyond recall.
down the road
In a weakened or incurable condition, aged. "Too bad but old John is down
the road."
down to the bottom of the barrel
The last penny, to the last crumb or bit of supply, down to one's last chip.
down to the ground
To the limit, extremely. "Everybody was plumb ashamed down to the
ground."
dowsing rod
A forked twig or small limb fork, usually from a hazel bush, used to locate
underground springs and good places for digging wells. I've known dowsers
who claimed that a peachtree fork or even dogwood would work just as
well. And some more scientific ones now say that metal rods held before
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
331
the dowser as he walks will do the trick too.
Recently I looked out through the window of my work cabin and saw
a man moving back and forth in the meadow with two little rods extended
in front of him. A service truck with the big insignia of the University of
North Carolina (Lux et Libertas) on its side stood near by, and two other
men were standing leaning against it. Curious, I left off working on my
"Cross and Sword" play and went out and asked the gentleman what he
was up to — if he didn't mind saying. He said he was locating a water line.
In his hands he held two little brass rods sticking far out at right angles from
his hands and free to swivel in the small metal collar pieces he grasped.
"When these rods start cutting up, I will be near the pipe," he said.
"You mean they will tell you where it is?" I asked somewhat
incredulously.
"Sure do," he said. "And when I get right over the pipe, the rods will
cross themselves one over the other in front of me and stay crossed. Yes, sir."
"Wonderful," I said. But I didn't believe it, for just the night before
I had been reading a lot of stuff Joseph Wood Krutch had written about
the New England dowsers.
I stood around quite awhile watching this representative of the
University trying to find the pipe.
"Doesn't the University have a survey that shows where it has laid its
pipelines?" I asked.
"Not this one," he said, "It's a private line to your house anyhow and
hooks up to the main line yonder in the Raleigh Road."
"Yes, but the University put it in. Maybe you did," I said, "though
I paid for it."
"I might have," he said, "but I've put in so many I can't remember
them all."
He kept walking around to no avail, and I began mentally to estimate
the cost he and his truck and the two fellows were penalizing the taxpayers.
Seeing at last that he wasn't making any progress, I told him I knew
where the water line was, and so I showed him.
"I remember the day it was put in," I said, "and it went along near
this pine here, first to my cabin and then on by it to the house." The
information didn't seem to matter to him one way or the other.
"I would a-found it afterwhile anyhow," he said. "These rods never
fail me. Now if it's terra cotta pipe, that's another thing. Clay don't seem
to attract them, but metal does. When I walk in the woods, for instance,
say, on Sunday, I carry a pair of these with me — not just these two, for
they belong to the University Buildings Department, but two like them. You
never know when you might be walking over metal or even silver or gold
in the ground," he said.
"Will they find silver and gold too?" I queried.
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"I'm sure they will," he said.
"I wonder if I could get me a set of these rods?" I asked.
"Sure thing," he said, "just phone Mr. Branch at the Buildings
Department and he'll fix you up." He now called out to the two men at
the truck, "Heigh, fellows, bring your shovels, Mr. Paul says this is where
we'll have to dig."
The next day I called up Mr. Branch and for two dollars he ordered
me a set of rods. I now keep them on my wall to look at and, I guess, to
remind me that all of us are folklorists and filled with folk customs and
superstitions from the cradle to the grave. I had first tried them out before
I laid them up.
Sometime after this, two scientists from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology were visiting us. I told them about the rods and showed them
to them. When I started to replace them on the mantel, one of the scientists
took them again in his hand and felt them. Then I saw "that look" come
into his eyes.
"I believe I'll go out and try them," he said. We went outside and for
a good while he too wandered up and down the meadow holding them
extended in front of him. Presently he came back and handed them to me.
"There's nothing to it, of course," he said.
The other scientist laughed a bit jeeringly. "I mark that 'of course,'
he said. "Then why did you try them?"
"Just a prank," the other one said.
As we started back to the house, the second scientist said, "Wait a
minute, I believe I'll try those things too."
I handed him the rods.
Doxology
I can still see Mr. Tom Long, with his white beard, standing up in old Pleasant
Union Church in the days when they had no organ and leading off this song
in his strong hollow voice, a voice that used to send the shivers down my
spine as a little boy sitting there awed by the great presence.
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him, all creatures here below,
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost."
Orthodoxy is my doxy.
baker's dozen
Generosity, one extra, thirteen.
thirteen to the dozen
Outlandish, wild, exaggerated.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
333
twelve to the dozen
Honesty, good measurement. "He always gave you twelve to the dozen."
put him in the dozens
To berate, to shame.
drabble-tail (draggle-tail)
A slovenly woman, a slut.
drag
Influence, power. "He's got a lot of drag with the boss."
A term in fox hunting.
dragass
A procrastinator, a deadbeat, one who moves slowly, wastes time.
dragged out
Feeble, feeling poorly.
dragging feet
Slowness, lethargy, deadbeating.
dragging one's spurs
To be exhausted, excessively lazy, soldiering on the job.
draggle-tail
A slovenly, dirty person, usually in reference to a woman, a trollop, a slattern.
drag hound
A dog especially trained to follow the scent of a drag.
drop
drat
Drop. "He drapped corn all the morning barefooted and he's tard out."
A mild swear word. Drat it, drat him, drat you, drat that thing, etc.
draw a long bow
To exaggerate, to tell a lie or wild stories.
To act authoritatively, to be a man of power.
draw in one's horns
To economize, cut down on plans, or withdraw from an argument.
draw it fine
To run a close risk, to make a fine distinction.
draw straws
A method of deciding a bet or luck or something to be done. Usually the
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one drawing the short straw is the unlucky person, and the one drawing the
longest straw the lucky.
draw up
To shrink, shrivel. "After I fell in the creek my seersucker suit drawed up
so I couldn't wear it."
To move closer, draw nearer. "Draw your chair up to the fire and warm
yourself."
Always take a dream backwards.
dream book
The Sears-Roebuck catalog. Same as wish book.
dreen
Drain.
dregs
Drugs.
drench
To dose with liquid orally. "I've got to drench my mule, he's all drooped
up." See "twitch."
dressed for the part
To fit a part, to have an appearance that fits one's calling.
dressed to kill
Overdressed.
dressed within an inch of his (her) life
Overdressed, outlandishly dressed.
a dressing down
A bawling out, a scolding, a berating, a tirade against.
dressy
Especially fastidious, smart and elaborate.
dribble derby
A basketball tournament.
driblets
Tiny bits, piecemeal things.'' She j ust practices her Beethoven in driblets.''
dribs and drabs
Bits and shreds.
dried apple damn!
A mild expletive. "I don't give a dried apple damn" means "I don't give
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
335
a hoot," "don't care," etc.
drift
A herd, as a drift of cattle.
Intent, meaning. "I catch your drift, brother."
drill
To plug, to put a bullet in the exact spot." He drilled that guy right between
the eyes."
To teach, to instruct thoroughly.
In rows, to sow in the drill. "He drilled his wheat this year and he's got a
better stand."
drink
The ocean, the water. "He had to set the plane down in the drink."
drinking gourd
The Great Bear in the Northern sky with its pointers toward the North Star,
often called the dipper, or box with the handle to it or the drinking gourd.
This last was the term mainly used in the old days by the Negroes. In slave
times a slave escaping to the North was told to follow the drinking gourd.
There is a plaintive folk song entitled,' 'Follow the drinking gourd, follow,
follow, follow, follow." The chords of a guitar go well with it.
Sitting with Mr. Mac, the old miller and local historian, in his mill house
one night I heard the story of a slave named Jim who escaped from the Valley
to the North by following the drinking gourd. He traveled at night and lay
hid in the woods and swamps in the daytime. He followed it to a future of
great success, a success, however great, that couldn't kill off the influence
of his childhood raising.
"This Jim was born in slavery," said Mr. Mac, "and, with his father
and mother, belonged to old Colonel Silas Montgomery down in the lower
part of the Valley. His father was a Negro overseer on the colonel's
plantation, and a proud and sullen sort of fellow they said he was. This Jim,
as he grew up, got a smidgin of book learning from his father and mother
and, by the lightwood fire at night and with the door to the cabin shut tight,
he heard bitter talk from his father about the oppression of the black man
and how there was no haven or 'biding place for the poor nigger unless he
could escape to the North. That idea got into the boy Jim's head and stuck
there. With the connivance of his father and mother, he finally did escape,
carrying what money they could get up for him and his old McGuffey spelling
book. With the blessing of his parents he slipped away and by following
the drinking gourd finally made his way to the North. The old colonel
suspected the father and mother and for revenge sold them both separately
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down the river toward New Orleans. So they disappeared from the Valley
and were never heard of again.
"This boy Jim must have had the real stuff in him, for somehow he
beat his way up. No doubt some of the Northern white folks, nigger lovers
they called them, helped him. Anyway he got a chance to go on to school,
finally studying law, and by the time he was a middle-aged man, he had
married himself an almost white wife and had a big business going. The
Civil War came on and passed, and the South, as the local orators have put
it ever since, 'lay under the despoiler's heel.' Many changes took place. The
people that had been powerful and rich before now became helpless and
poor. And some who had been nothing but poor white rose up to places
of wealth and domination like them tobacco kings around Durham and
Winston-Salem. Jim had sent many an inquiry about his parents but could
never hear anything as to what had happened to them. Over the years he
subscribed to a Valley newspaper, hoping to keep up with news of things
'back home.'
"Well, one day this Honorable James Montgomery sitting in his fine
office there in Boston read in the paper about how the famous old plantation
of Colonel Montgomery was going to be sold. The family was in hard straits
and now that the colonel was dead and the widow, his old missus, was left
alone, she was having to sell all the heirlooms and so on in order to keep
soul and body together. James had a hankering to go back to see the place
of his birth, and also he had the daring thought now that he might go back
there and maybe buy some of those heirlooms himself. Who knows, he might
even see about buying the plantation itself. And thus some of the shame
and suffering of his people would be wiped away and he would be the proud
avenger of their wrongs. So he got his several trunks together, had them
packed, and set off south.
"When he got down to Washington, he had to change trains and go
into the Jim Crow car as was the custom then. It took two or three porters
to handle his baggage, and one of them joked at him saying, 'Well suh, ya'
boss sho' has got a lot of baggage. Must be one of them diplomats or
something.' The Honorable James politely informed them that it was his
own baggage. 'And where are you going with it?' one of the porters, who
happened to be a Southern Negro, asked him. He said he was going back
to North Carolina. The Negro broke into laughter and said something about
maybe that was being too much of a good thing and he better watch out.
James thought it over and finally decided it might be wiser to leave some
of his baggage behind. He was proud and had planned on the big impression
he was to make back in the old home neighborhood, and it was hard to forego
that. But still when his train pulled out headed south, half his baggage
remained behind. And it was a somewhat sobered James who sat in the Jim
Crow car as the train crossed the Potomac. All around him were Negroes
�An A Iphabet of Reminiscence
337
of the poorer class.
"All day he rode through red hills, sandy fields, pine forests with
paintless houses, and weatherbeaten shacks which dotted the landscape. He
saw the Negroes working in the fields, gathering corn or picking cotton,
and the sight of a young boy standing with a sack string over his shoulder
staring close at the train as it went by brought back to him the old feeling
when he as a slave had labored in the fields and gazed at the carriages of
the white planters or their proud wives passing on the highway.
' 'Down at Raleigh he had to change trains again. In those days the town
was much smaller, and the finely dressed Negro attracted a lot of attention
from the few hangers-on around the depot. By this time the Honorable James
was becoming full of the old South feeling and was conscious now how his
appearance stuck out in sharp contrast to the surroundings. Well, when the
little woodburning train drew up to take him down the Valley, he had already
checked the rest of his trunks in the baggage room and carried only his fine
hog-skin brown valise. Through the swamps and little clearings the train
went. A sense of the poverty and darkness of ignorance descended on him,
and when he got off at the little home station he was forlorn and unhappy
enough. A few Negroes and poor whites were at the siding. The 'one-gallused'
agent looked at him in astonishment. And James was glad to get away as
soon as possible. When he asked a nearby Negro if there were any
'conveyance' that might take him out to the old Montgomery Plantation,
the Negro broke into deep dog-yelping chuckles.
" 'Big Boy," he said when he had got control of himself, 'they ain't
no conveyance and furdermo' besides'—And his voice died out, as he bowed
up and down again, slapping his thighs.
" 'What's the matter with you?' asked the Honorable James.
" 'Ain't nothing, nothing,' said the Negro. 'But 'uhm reckon they is
too. It's them gold specs you wear and them bandbox clothes, and yo' shiny
grip. Whew, they do tickle me.'
"Other Negroes and whites standing about laughed and showed they
were tickled too.
"James left his suitcase in the station and set out walking down the
long sandy road. But the farther he walked, the more the warm remembrance
of the past, the smells and sights and sounds of his boyhood, came back
to him. He soon began to recognize the boundaries of the colonel's ancient
plantation and there was the big oak tree by the creek they said the colonel
hung one of his slaves on one time. And over there toward the Bear Cat
Swamp was the field he and his parents had labored in many a day, chopping
and picking cotton.
"The Honorable James stopped and looked about him. Then he did
a strange thing. He took off his fine hat and coat and laid them behind a
bush by the road and went on bareheaded, with his white shirt and his silver-
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buckled suspenders shining in the sun. Soon he met a ragged sweaty Negro
toiling along toward him. The Negro was a little drunk, and that's maybe
how it all happened. Anyhow, it was said that the Honorable James stopped
and talked with him a while. And then they went off into the bushes together.
Pretty soon out came the drunk wearing the fine clothes and the Honorable
James wearing the ragged ones, greasy cap and all. He went on and turned
into the lane toward the old Montgomery mansion. The drunk stood
watching him a while, then threw up his hands and staggered on his way.
"The Honorable James went up the walk to the old mansion. He started
to mount the sagging steps to the wide columned, paint-peeled portico, then
stopped, turned and went around the house. At the back he knocked on
a sagging bannister. Soon the kitchen door opened and a little old whitehaired woman came shakily out.
" 'Yes?' said the little old woman, peering down at the ragged Negro
standing before her, 'what do you want?'
" 'I—I'— said the Honorable James. Then suddenly his hand went
up and pulled off his cap and his words blurted from him — 'Missus, missus,
your boy Jim done come home again.' "
drinking whiskey
Especially fine mellow whiskey fit for drinking without weakening with water
or soda. "Freddy B. always says, 'Uhm, that's good drinking whiskey.' "
"Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes"
A popular favorite often sung on picnics, hayrides, etc.
drip
Nonsense, empty talk.
drive like the devil
drive one up the wall
To run one to distraction, to infuriate.
Don't drive in where you can't turn around to get out.
in the driver's seat
To be in charge, to be on top, to have the position of authority.
drive two horses
Show off, splurge.
dromedary
A husband who is put upon.
drooped up (droopy)
Sick, ailing.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
339
droop-tailed
Discouraged, down in the mouth, unhappy.
droopy-ass
Same as dragass.
droopy-drawers
A slouchy, unkempt girl, also a dull and stupid girl, much the same as drip.
drop
To give birth to. "My cow dropped her calf last night."
drop a bomb
To create a stir, an excitement, like making a shocking remark at a party,
or disclosing horrifying tidings.
drop a stitch
To make a faux pas, an error, a mistake.
drop by
Come by incidentally on one's way from another place. "While you're in
Dunn could you drop by Grantham's Drug Store and get me one bottle of
Cardui and two bottles of Lydia Pinkham's Compound."
drop corn
In the old days people dropped corn in an open furrow and covered it with
a foot. How often hour after hour have I dropped two or three grains in
the furrow, stretched out my right bare foot and swept the dirt over it and
stepped on it, then took two steps forward and repeated the act over and
over, round and round, and the sun burning down on me.
Drop dead!
Term of reproach or anger or reprimand. "When the reporter tried to
interview Adam Clayton Powell, all the interview he got was the snarled
out words, 'Drop dead.' "
drop in on
To visit unexpectedly or incidentally.
drop in the bucket
A bit, a trifling amount. "$10,000 is only a drop in the bucket compared
to his total salary."
at the drop of a hat
Quickly, instantly, at once. "He'll fight you at the drop of a hat."
drop off
To go to sleep, to take a nap. "Dr. Lay could lie down and drop off for
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ten minutes any time he wanted to."
drop one's uppers
To be totally surprised, suddenly shocked. This expression originated from
the failure of ill-fitting false teeth to hold when the wearer opened his mouth
suddenly in surprise.
Little drops of -water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.
dropsy
The habit of dropping things, loose-fingered. "Seems like I've got the dropsy
today the worst a-tall."
A folk term also for edema, an abnormal accumulation of serous fluids in
the body.
cure for dropsy
In an old notebook I found the following prescription for it — "One
tablespoon of steel dust, two tablespoons of powdered snake root, two
tablespoons of ginger root, two of dogwood root bark, two of black China
tree bark, two of low myrtle root bark, and mix with honey or molasses
until soft. A dose was one half of a teaspoonful three times a day." The
patient was asked to avoid damp air and wet feet. As my friend Dr. Leonard
Fields says, "It's a wonder that as many people survived these old cures
as did."
Drop the Handkerchief
A game. What fun we used to have playing this, and when little Lattie
Matthews got the handkerchief and was running around, how my heart beat
hoping she would drop it behind me. Players form in a circle standing up,
and one of the number is outside. He runs around the ring and drops the
handkerchief behind a chosen player. Then the latter grabs up the
handkerchief and chases after the other. And if the dropper of the
handkerchief is caught before he can get around to the spot vacated by his
pursuer, then he can be kissed and must go into the center of the circle. Here
he is to remain until he can seize the place of another player by getting the
handkerchief up before the latter player can discover the handkerchief behind
him and grab it. When this lucky one has succeeded in doing this, he becomes
the next dropper, and the player from whom he snatched the handkerchief
must go into the center.
dross
Waste rosin from turpentine stills, used to start fires in the old days.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
341
If men had their drothers,
There'd be no room for others.
a drought
A long spell without a drink of liquor. The governors of North and South
Carolina had this in mind no doubt when they agreed that it was "a long
time between drinks."
In a drought all signs fail.
drove hard and put up muddy
To be overworked, to be badly treated, to work hard and have little to show
for it.
drownd
Drown.
A drowning man will clutch at a straw.
drudge
Dredge.
drug out
Tired, exhausted.
drugs
Dregs.
drugstore cowboy
A derisive term for a loud talker, a loafer.
drummer
A traveling salesman.
drunk as a boiled owl
drunk as a coot
drunk as a dog (hog)
drunk as a doodle
drunk as a fiddler's bitch
drunk as a lord
drunk as an owl
drunk as a sailor
drunk as blazes
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A man shows his real nature when he's drunk.
on a drunk
On a spell of drunkenness, a boozing tear.
drunkards
Small flies in fermenting fruit or fruit juice.' 'Put them grapes away or else
the drunkards will be after them."
Drury Lane Theatre
A temporary hall in Fayetteville for theatrical performances, named for the
famous old Drury Lane Theater in London. According to some of the old
playbills I found in the archives at Williamsburg, Virginia, a traveling actor
by the name of Llewellyn Lechmere Wall came into Fayetteville in the late
century. He played various roles with a Mrs. Herndon, and afterward settled
down in the town. He gave guitar and lute lessons to the young gentlemen
and ladies at five shillings apiece. Another old handwritten playbill I found
announced a production of "Robinson Crusoe," showing a dance of the
savages, the rescue of Crusoe's man Friday, also a curious dwarf dance,
etc., etc.,' 'the whole to conclude with an Epilogue, addressed to everybody,
not aimed at anybody, to be spoken by somebody in the character of nobody
— tickets 1/6, pitt 5 shillings to be had at the Drewry (sic) Lane Theatre."
Another — this a large lettered printed playbill I found — announced
' 'An Evening's Lounge'' in the Fayetteville Theatre, presumably the Drury
Lane, for December 31,1795, "An antidote for the spleen." Mr. and Mrs.
Henderson "from the theatre Charleston" were starred, offering "several
pieces selected and comprised in several parts, where the follies of life are
exposed in laughable and striking colours — being a satirical, whimsical,
humorous, moral and illustrative dissertation and display of the passions,
humours, whims and oddities in song and dialogue... with Dibdin's 'Sound
Argument' or 'Let us all be unhappy together.' "
Mr. and Mrs. Henderson also offered selections from "The School for
Scandal" and numerous other items of entertainment, including John Bull's
comic song, "Expedition to Church."
druthers
Rathers, wishes, preferences as before. "If I had my druthers, I'd stay in
bed all day."
druv, driv
Past tense of drive.
dry
Thirsty. "I'm so dry I have to prime myself to spit."
A wry, comic way.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
343
a dry
One who is opposed to liquor or alcohol in any form.
dry as a bone
dry as a chip
dry as a stick
ofry as dust
dry drizzle
A light sprinkle of rain.
dry grins
Chagrin, embarrassment.
dry heaves
Retchings without actually vomiting.
dry hole
A failure, a hole which gives neither water nor oil.
drying room
A place where tobacco is hung on sticks to dry out.
dry-rot
A sinking into ineffectuality. "He quit going to Broadway and he sat down
there in the South and just dry-rotted."
a dry run
Empty results, a phrase used in seining. Sometimes in Middle Prong Creek
when we'd run the seine along a deep hole and lift it up with nothing in it,
one of the boys would call out" a dry run.'' Another one might say "a water
haul."
dry shave
A shave without lather. As a boy I once heard of the story of a stingy Irishman
who came into Lillington to get a shave. He asked the barber about the price,
and the barber said a dry shave would cost him a nickel and a wet lather
shave would cost him a dime. The stingy Irishman said, "Gimme the dry
shave.'' While he was being shaved, a donkey tied down in the street below
let loose a wild and terrific braying. The barber jerked up his head.' 'What
in the name of goodness is that," hesaid. "Why," said the Irishman, "that's
another man getting a dry shave."
To skin, cheat, to deceive.
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dry up
Hush, stop weeping, to cease making a racket or noise. "Dry up your
blubbering or I'll whup you again."
to dry up lard
To put chunks of pork fat into a pot and boil it, same as drying up fat.
In dry weather all signs fail.
dry wilts
Emaciation of old age. "What do you know! Old Bill Searcy's done married
a right young pullet and him with the dry wilts."
d.t.'s
Delirium tremens. The wild hallucinations that seize upon alcoholics
sometimes when excessive drink has fired their brain to ruination.
duberous
Dubious, same as jubious.
dubersome
Doubtful.
dubs
Doubles. This is an expression we would use in playing marbles. If one player
happened to knock out two dinahs at one time, he could keep them if he
shouted "dubs" ahead of one of the other players who might cry out
"venture dubs." In case the venture dubs man was first, he would have to
put one of the marbles back. The same applied to "thribs" (threes), etc.
duchess
A madam who keeps a brothel.
duck
Usually used with "queer." "He's a queer duck." A peculiar person.
duck fit
Hysterics, an explosion of temper.
duck in
Visit hurriedly. "Just duck in and see what's cooking."
duck-legged
One with very short waddly legs.
duck out
Slip away, escape.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
345
duck puddle
A muddy, mirey place, the delight of ducks.
duck soup
Something easy, pleasant. "Standing up and reciting before folks is just
duck soup to her."
duck -walk
A waddling walking.
dead duck
One who has lost out, no longer influential, worse off than a lame duck.
lame duck
An office-holder who has been defeated for reelection. During the remainder
of his term he is spoken of as a lame duck and his term is a lame duck term,
ineffective.
Lord love a duck.
A mild expletive.
like water off a duck's back
make ducks and drakes of
To make a mess of things, to scramble matters.
get ducks in a row
Have things all shipshape, organized, fixed. "You better have your ducks
in a row before you go up there and try out for that School of the Arts."
ducky
An expression of fondness, usually from a man to a woman. Safeandsnug,
everything fine. "Yessir, all is ducky at my house."
dud
A failure.
A dull, empty-pated person.
duds
Sunday clothes, dress-up clothes. "He dressed up in his best duds while the
earthquake was on, saying he was getting ready to go to meet his Lord."
dueling
A barbaric practice in the old days when with pistols or swords for honor's
sake men tried to kill each other. The last duel I heard of in the Valley took
place between old Miles Stevens and young Robert Jefferson.
"Yes," said Uncle Myron Lassiter as we were sitting by his fire one
winter night, "fighting duels has long gone out of fashion — between
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individuals — men, that is. But the nations keep on doing it crazy as ever.
It takes humanity in the mass a lot longer to learn anything than it does a
man singly, I reckon.
"Well, old Miles Stevens was a big landowner here at the upper end
of the Valley before the Civil War and owned a lot of slaves to boot. He
was one of the most highf alutin and prideful men, my daddy said, that ever
was. After the war his slaves were freed, but it seemed to make no difference
to old Miles. He was just as proudish as ever. Though his worldly goods
had shrunk mightily, he still kept his aristocratic ways and lorded it over
folks. He used to wear a wide white pleated shirt and top hat and a wing
collar and swelled-up black tie, and he carried a silver-headed walking stick
and wore a square coat that hung down like the one Governor Hoey wears
now. Perhaps the most noted feature about him though was his nose, big
and red and I mean red — maybe from drinking so much cherry bounce
when he could get it. And wherever old Miles appeared — him and his big
face and nose and clothes — he made an impression on everybody. As I
say, he was an aristocrat of the old South, sure enough. And as for size he
was over six feet high and weighed well over two hundred pounds, my daddy
said.
"He lived up there in Haywood, and Haywood was right much of a
town in the old days. Must have been five or six hundred people there. It
was built in the forks where the Haw and Deep Rivers come together to make
the Cape Fear. There were three churches, a Presbyterian church, a Baptist
church, and a Methodist. Might have been an Episcopalian too, but I
disremember. But anyhow, I know there were at least three churches. And
there was a drugstore and a big hotel run by old Captain Brown — but it's
all passed away now and gone."
"I was out there a few years ago and saw the remnants of the old hotel,''
I said.
"Yes, there was a big hotel and mighty fine house there, a race track
and plenty of betting and gambling and cockfighting going on in those days.
The aristocratic Scotchmen from way down toward Fayetteville and
Wilmington would come up there in the summer with their families to get
away from the chills and fever down in the lowland. And so old Haywood
was right much of a place and had a lot of big folks in it, as I say.
' 'About the biggest one in it of course was old Miles Stevens. Now there
was another special fellow there in Haywood and no aristocrat. His name
was Bob Jefferson. In fact, he was a grandson of one of the poor white
Jeffersons who had been a bound boy in his young days to old Miles' father.
Bob had the stuff in him, though, and he had worked himself up and finally
got a pretty good grocery store. Miles would run up an account there in the
store and wouldn't pay him. Bob would send him a notice and old Miles
would ignore it. Sometimes he'd meet Miles on the street and tip his hat
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
347
polite enough and say 'Mr. Miles, I'm needing that account settled mighty
bad.' And Miles would look down his big nose at him and nod, and say,
Til be taking care of it right away as soon as I get some money that is overdue
me from my investments.' And in fact he did now and then pay a little on
his debt, if he happened to sell a bit of timber off his dwindling piece of
land. But all the time his indebtedness to Bob increased.
"Finally, young Bob lost his patience. He was a kind of waggish fellow,
too, and one day when old Miles come walking into his store in his pompous
way and started to pick up some oranges and English walnuts and put them
in a paper bag without a by-your-leave, Bob's temper began to boil. Miles
had his Negro boy with him to tote the groceries and fruit home, and poor
Bob just didn't have the grit to tell him no, for all his boiling. But while
he was standing there, with old Miles getting his groceries together, his mind
was a-working. So when he weighed the groceries and handed them over
to old Miles, what did he do? He just reached out and grabbed old Miles
by his big red nose and give it a terrible twist to right and left. Then he broke
out laughing.
' 'Well, that was a foolish thing to do, as you might imagine. And why
Bob done that I don't know. Maybe it was just some kind of a wild impulse
that made him seize it all of a sudden. Anyhow, as I said, old Miles' nose
had got to be much like a headlight from his drinking so much cherry bounce
and highland liquor, and maybe it stood out like the challenge of a headlight
or something. Anyhow, when Bob give it that twist, Miles let out a yell.
He staggered back, dropped his groceries and, with his hand to his tortured
member, declared to all and sundry that his honor had been insulted.
"Bob then said he didn't care a hoot about his honor, he wanted his
money. His courage had begun to rise by this time, I reckon. Old Miles
couldn't take that, so with his insulted honor he drew himself up to his full
six feet and said, 'I challenge you to a duel, seh. My seconds will wait on
you. I bid you good day!' And he swept out of the store swirling his cane
in front of him. The Negro boy grabbed up the groceries and followed.
"One of the neighbors, acting as Miles' second, did come down and
have a huddle with Bob. He might have been beholden to Bob, I don't know.
But anyhow, he and Bob fairly cooked up a deal between them — after Bob
cussed old Miles out and said the damned scoundrel hadn't paid a red brownie
on his bill in eighteen months, and he'd do anything to get even with him,
for he knew he never was going to pay it. Of course, the duel business had
been outlawed in North Carolina fifty years before that, but old Miles' honor
went away back beyond the outlawing, and so he resorted to this manner
of settlement.
"Now according to the law of dueling, I've been told (and old Miles
knew all about it), the challenged man, that is, Bob, had the right of choosing
the weapons. So Bob ups and tells the second that he would choose
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blunderbuss pistols. He had a couple of these old critters that had been given
to him by an old soldier, and he had them back there in the store. So they
brought 'em out and figured out how to load 'em with cap and ball and
get ready for the duel.
"Well, down that way," and Uncle Myron gestured, "livedDr. Wyche.
He was an awful good doctor, that fellow was, and they called on him and
put him onto the secret, and the secret was this — they would go through
with the duel, but they would make the whole thing a prank. At Bob's
suggestion, thinking of that big white shirt front, no doubt, they decided
to load one of the big blunderbusses with a heavy charge of ripe pokeberries,
for it was the time of the year for them and they were all standing around
in the fence jambs just hanging down. That would be Bob's pistol. The other
would have only a charge of powder and paper wadding in it.
"So, next morning, bright and early, they met as planned out on the
field of honor — a potato patch — some distance outside of Haywood. Dr.
Wyche was there with his instrument case. He opened it up and laid his saws
and forceps and bandages out while the seconds conferred. And old Miles,
as grim and as grave as a judge, and with a special shirt on now, shining
brighter than ever, all ironed up with his collar and big black tie
accompanying for the occasion — was waiting directions.
'' 'These are your instructions, gentlemen,' the seconds said. 'You will
stand back to back with your pistols raised, and you'll march eight paces,
and at the word "fire," turn and fire.'
"Old Miles put a devastating eye on Bob and asked did he have any
last words that he wanted to say on earth. 'That's just what I was going
to ask you, sir,' said Bob, but his teeth were chattering, and he was acting
like a man scared out of his wits. He knew old Miles' pistol didn't have a
thing in it but a weak charge of powder and paper while his own was loaded
with an extra heavy charge of powder and the rest of the barrel jammed
tight with a long wad of them ripe pokeberries. But he acted scared just the
same.
"So they put themselves back to back and the seconds counted. The
two opponents started walking away, and at the word 'fire' they turned and
fired. And they said Bob's pistol sounded like a small cannon had gone off.
Well sir, that charge of pokeberries come out of Bob's gun in such a terrific
wad and at such speed, it hit old Miles right smack on that shirt bosom,
spattered all over his face and knocked him flat on his back. His own
blunderbuss had just fired paper into the air, of course.
"They all rushed up to Miles and made a terrible to-do over him,
whooping and hollering and carrying on. Now old Miles' wife and daughter
had got word of the duel and they had pleaded with him not to go through
with it, but he had insisted, and the wife was at home that very minute,
weeping and grieving. It happened that Miles' granddaughter, Lucy Belle
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349
Bryant, whose parents lived in Raleigh, was visiting the Stevenses at this
time, and she had added her voice trying to persuade the old man from his
foolish and dangerous course. But no go. And so unbeknownst to Miles,
Lucy Belle and his old-maid daughter Pearl had followed to the field of honor
and hid themselves behind a tree nearby. When Pearl saw her daddy fall
and with a terrible mess of blood all over his shirt and splashed up in his
face, she let out a scream and started back across the fields home, crying
as loud as she could, 'Lord God, Mom, he's shot. Papa's shot clean through
the heart, and his blood and brains are splattered all over him.' And she
run wailing through the town telling the dreadful news. But Lucy Belle
hurried over to the fallen grandfather. And that's how she and Bob Jefferson
first met up with each other.
"So it was they laid old Miles out under a tree and were gathered
sorrowful around him. And Lucy Belle tried to kneel by him and do what
she could, but Bob with his arm around her lifted her away and said it was
too terrible a sight for her to endure. He no doubt was afraid for her to get
too close to Miles right then for she might get onto the fact that all the blood
was all a fake. And too she was mighty purty and maybe Bob didn't mind
lifting her off just to be doing it. The fellows took off their hats now, and
the doctor knelt by and examined Miles. Bob stood there holding Lucy Belle
by the hand to keep her from getting too close, his face all broke up and
said he never meant no harm and was sorry as he could be. The doctor told
Miles how he didn't 'spect he had long to be on earth, did he have any last
words, any unfinished business to attend to.
"Well, the old scoundrel said maybe he hadn't lived just right but at
the time he couldn't think of any particular sins he had committed lately
and the Old Moster would have to take him as he was, bless his name, for
he would understand and pardon the weakness of the flesh and his love for
his dram which he had been taking as a morning pyeartner for his health's
sake — lo these many years — Amen. And then Bob, mad as hops, asked
him what about the bill he owed at the store. Old Miles said yes, it was a
sin, that was, that he hadn't paid it. He realized it now, he said, and he didn't
want to go to meet his Maker with that on his conscience and that he had
a little money from the last turpentine he had sold and to tell his wife, his
brokenhearted widow, and his desolated daughter and weeping
granddaughter to take care of this debt, because after all it was a debt of
honor.
"But the granddaughter Lucy Belle there wasn't really weeping now,
for by Bob's winking at her and making some signs to her with his hands
where Miles couldn't see, she was beginning to catch on, and so she was
more pretending to weep than not.
' 'And then Bob called on all to witness that the dying man had promised
that his debt at the store would be paid. They all said, 'That's right,' they
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were witness to the fact and they'd see to it that the debt was paid.
' 'After this then they all broke out laughing, and it didn't take old Miles
but a minute to catch on. And he didn't say a word. He was fighting mad,
but he didn't say a word. He climbed to his feet, got his hat and cane and
marched straight off, walking proud as ever to his buggy and so drove away.
Bob had to take Lucy Belle home in his buggy, and that' s how their courtship
began.
' 'Well, in no time the story was everywhere, and the people were bending
up and down and shouting and hollering with laughter all along the streets
of Haywood. Old Miles took to his house and stayed shut up for weeks.
But finally his proud spirit broke down, and he came forth again. And in
church on Sunday he stood up in front of everybody and acknowledged his
foolishness and sinfulness, saying that from this time forth he was going
to live a different and better life. So he said, and people believed him —
for a while they did. But to tell you the truth, he didn't change one iota,
and when he died a couple of years later he still owed his account to Bob.
But Bob said he didn't mind now, not at all. In fact he considered the account
paid in full and more than in full and had marked it off the books, for out
of it all he got Lucy Belle for a loving wife."
duff
Doff. "He duffed his hat."
Posterior, the buttocks. "The thing to do is get up off your duff and go
to work and forget your troubles — as long as you keep talking about 'em
to that head shrinker you'll never get well."
duffer
A codger, a stiff fellow, a useless fellow, often used in reference to an older
man.
dugs
Titties.
dukes
Fists or hands. "Put up your dukes there, and I don't mean maybe!"
dull as a froe
dull as dishwater
dull as ditch water
dumb as a dog
dumb as an ox
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
351
dumb as a post
Silent.
dumb as a wedge
dumb baby
An effigy made in human form, usually out of old clothes or rags or old
sheets, with a soot-painted horrible face, and used to frighten people,
especially children.
Sometimes we young folks in prankishness would make a dumb baby
and put it in an older person's bed under the sheet so that when that person
pulled back the covers at night to go to bed he would find this thing glaring
at him and be terribly frightened.
Louis Clark told me of the time he and Tatum Brown, a pal of his,
went to see a couple of fast girls in Clinton. As part of their fun they made
a dumb baby and put it in the father's bed upstairs. They were sitting in
the parlor courting away and, as Louis put it, getting in the short rows with
the girls, when they heard a yell upstairs and the old man came tearing down
as if frightened to death, and dressed only in his shirttail. He had come into
the house the back way and they hadn't heard him. He was sobbing and
pretending that the ha'nts were after him, and every now and then he would
lift his shirt and wipe his eyes, scandalizing everybody with his nakedness.
Louis and Tatum were so outdone and flabbergasted that they hurried out
of the house, climbed into their buggy and drove away from there. "We
thought we were bold enough," said Louis, "but when the old man stood
there, and pulled his shirt up and scandalized us again and again, we knew
we'd had enough. No, we never did go back to see them girls and when one
of them had a woods colt boy born on her later and went about for a while
saying it was mine or Tatum's, she was entirely wrong. We hadn't got that
far with the girls that night, though no doubt we would have if the fool old
man hadn't come in earlier than we expected. Yessir."
dumb bull
A section of a hollow log with a rawhide covering like a drum, pierced by
a thong, which, when pulled, makes a roaring sound.
dumb cluck
A stupid person, a dullard.
dumb critters
Farm animals — horses, mules, cows.
dumb devil
Sometimes we country juvenile delinquents would creep up to someone's
house, usually a farmer we didn't like, and put a dumb devil on him. We'd
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take a tin bucket and tie a string to it and fasten the string to the house
weatherboarding. Then we'd rub rosin back and forth. It made a strange
weird sound.
dumb Dora
A stupid girl.
dummy
An effigy. "They made a dummy of Governor Reagan and burnt him on
the campus."
dump
A sorry place, a slum, a ghetto.
Defecate. "I've got to go take a dump."
To break off relations with, to quit, to set aside.' 'When Prince Hal became
King he dumped old Falstaff and his former cronies."
dump into one's lap
To put the responsibility on.
dumpling
A term of endearment.
dumps
The blues, glooms, the dismals, usually "down in the dumps."
dunce cap
A tall paper cap put on a student's head as punishment for misbehaving.
The student usually was sent to stand in the corner of the room wearing
the cap.
dunghill
The field near the house used for dung. No doubt it got its name from the
fact that during the night the members of the house would slip out and tend
to their natural needs in the surrounding field.
durn!
An expletive, same as dern.
dursn 't
Dare not.
dusk-down
Twilight.
dust
A small amount, especially of meal or flour. "He wouldn't lend me but
a dust of meal for all my begging."
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353
To put insect poison on farm plants, such as tobacco and cotton.' 'I finished
dusting my tobacco last night, but it took me on into the moonlight."
Speed. "Mess with me, bo, and I'll show you my dust."
He who blows dust will fill his own eyes.
throw dust in one's eyes
To confuse, to mislead.
dust off
To throw a baseball intentionally too close to a batter.' 'Every time old Bull
of the Woods hung over the plate with his bat I dusted him off with a fast
ball."
dutch
Bad luck, a hard situation, a difficulty. "I got in dutch with her old daddy
that time I kept her out too late."
Dutch auction
The sale of specific items by reducing the price a certain amount each day
until they are bought.
Dutch concert
A songfest or gathering where everyone plays or sings a different tune at
the same time.
go dutch
To share costs equally, each one to pay his own expense, say, at a dinner.
Dutchman's breeches
A patch of blue in the sky, something denoting clearing weather. There's
a belief that if you see enough sky to make a Dutchman's pair of pants,
the weather will clear.
Dutch treat
A get-together where each one treats himself, same as going Dutch.
dying day
A phrase of emphasis as to duration. "I'll hear that man crying as he fell
from the derrick till my dying day."
Dying is as natural as living.
dynamite
A powerful thing, a hyperactive person, a go-getter.
Anything dangerous or likely to cause a stir.' 'Perversion is dynamite when
it comes to politics."
High grade narcotics.
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E
each
Itch.
From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.
Each man prays to his own God.
eager-beaver
A go-getter, one who seeks opportunities.
He spreads himself like an eagle.
He's like an eagle among crows.
to ear
To bear ears, as of corn or wheat. "My corn eared well this year because
there was plenty of rain in July."
The heaviest ear of corn hangs its head the lowest.
ear cleaner
An ivory toilet article, spoon-shaped at one end. Sears and Roebuck sold
them years ago for 10$. "Add 1 cent postage."
Deaf in one ear and can't hear out of the other.
put a flea (bug) in one's ear
To give a hint, to tip off.
throw out on one's ear
To be unceremoniously kicked or dumped out, fired.
in one ear and out the other
Pay little attention to, not care for, nor remember.
The early bird catches the worm.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
355
Early rest makes early rising sure.
Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
earrings
A decoration in the ears. I can remember the to-do at our house when one
of my sisters would get her ears pierced. She endured suffering in order to
wear the ornament. In the old days sailors wore earrings because it was
believed that they would protect them from drowning.
ears
The handles of a pot or jug.
Two ears don't mean you hear twice.
There are ears on both sides of the fence.
He that hath ears to hear let him hear.
When your ears burn, someone is talking about you.
beat back one's ears
To overcome in an argument, or to whip in a fight.
can't hear one's ears
Not being able to hear. "There's so much racket going on in the courtroom
the judge can't hear his ears. Silence! Silence!"
pin one's ears back
Same as beat back.
The poetry of earth is never dead.
earth apple
Jerusalem artichoke. The bulbs are edible, nutritious and were much prized
as a food by the Indians.
no earthly good (use, chance, way, etc.)
No good whatsoever.
earwig
A little insect that is often thought to crawl into a person's ear and make
his home there. I have heard an older person say to a young one who
happened to lie down on the ground, "You better watch out, the earwigs
will get inside your head."
ease oneself
To relieve the bowels.
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ease up on
To creep up on. "I eased up on that rabbit asleep and grabbed him with
both my hands."
It is easier said than done.
It is easier to tear down than to build up.
east
Yeast.
East is east and west is west,
And never the twain shall meet.
East or west,
Home is best.
east and west
A burial custom with the feet to the east, the head to the west. See "Second
Coming."
Easter eggs
The custom of painting eggs in all sorts of colors in the old days and putting
them on the table for decoration. We also used to hide them about the
premises and have children hunt for them, giving some sort of prize to the
one who found the most. "In our Easter egg hunt that little crippled
Upchurch boy found the most."
easy as eating
easy as falling off a log
easy as one and one make two
easy as pie
easy as taking candy from a baby
easy as taking money from home
easy come, easy go
Easy is as easy does.
It's easy to win a race when you run by yourself.
easy does it
To do a thing in a relaxed manner.
easy meat
A girl easily persuaded to sexual intercourse. Also a fall guy, one it is easy
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
357
to get the best of.
easy on the trigger
Quick on the trigger, irritable, quick to anger.
easy street
Financially secure. Also used ironically as on welfare, government relief.
easy to look at
Pretty.
easy virtue
Sexually loose, as a woman of easy virtue.
eat
The flavor, taste. "If you slice ham too thin it doesn't eat good."
eat (eat up)
To cheat, to get the best of.' 'That Joe Ligon will eat you up in a land trade
if you don't watch out."
To worry, to pester, to trouble. "There's something always eating him, I
don't know what it is."
Eat an apple a day
To keep the doctor away.
Eat an onion a day
To keep everybody away.
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die.
Jack Spratt could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean,
And so you see between them both
They licked the platter clean.
eat crow
To have to retract one's statement, to change one's attitude, be forced to
recant. "President Johnson and the War Department had to eat crow over
that Vietnam War, and there was plenty for everybody."
eat dust
Accept humiliation, same as to eat humble pie, eat crow.
eat humble pie
To apologize humbly, to be subservient. Much like eat crow.
eating table
The dining room table. "Take these flowers, child, and put them on the
eating table."
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eat my hat!
An asseveration, used for emphasis. "I'll tell you what I'll do — if he wins
first place in that contest, I'll eat my hat — and eat it without salt."
eat one out of house and home
To devour one's substance, to be improvident. "The way you folks behave
you're going to be et out of house and home."
eat one's head off
To be gluttonous, devouring.' 'Them old mules just eat their heads off and
still stay poor as quilting frames."
eat one's heart out
To suffer greatly and in silence.
eats
Food.
eats like a bird
eats like a hog (pig)
He that eats the kernel must crack the nut.
eat up
Berate excessively, or even to love excessively. "That fellow was so mad
he about et me up." "Up at Buckhorn I met a widow woman, and before
the picnic was over I thought she'd eat me up."
Eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves.
edge
To be partly intoxicated, showing a bit of the effects of liquor. "He's got
an edge on and I wouldn't pester him."
on edge
To be nervous, irritable.
on the edge of one's seat
Be apprehensive, in suspense. "The game between Duke and State kept me
on the edge of my seat all the time."
edge up
To move up quietly and stealthily, to grow slowly. "I edged up behind that
old rooster and, blam! I grabbed him, but all I got was a handful of tail
feathers."
Like a man climbing a pole with an armful of eels.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
359
eeny, meeny
A counting out rhyme.
Eeny, meeny, tipsy teeny,
Apple jack and josephiny,
Hotcher, potcher, dominocher,
Howyuh pontus
Tus in, tus out,
Tus around the water spout.
Have a peach, have a plum,
Have a stick of chewing gum.
O-u-t spells out
On your way home!
Another counting out rhyme runs as follows:
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
Catch a nigger by his toe,
If he hollers let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
O-u-t spells out
So out you go.
Also another one popular in the Valley was:
Eeny, meeny, miny, min,
Catch a nigger by his chin.
If he hollers make him pay
Fifty dollars every day.
O-u-t spells out
On your way home.
An egg before an eagle, a thought before a thing,
better an egg today than a hen tomorrow
As I was walking through the wheat
I picked up something good to eat,
Neither fish, flesh, fowl nor bone—
I kept it till it walked alone.
(Riddle. An egg.)
egg bag
The sack in which hens are supposed to keep their developing eggs. When
they quit laying, it used to be said in my neighborhood, "She's laid out her
egg bag latter (litter)."
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egghead
An impractical pedant, also a dumb cluck, a fool.
eggnog
A special Valley Christmas drink, usually made of eggs, sugar and cream,
with liquor added.
In Harnett County when I was a child there was very little drinking
among our folks, but when Christmas came, eggnog was popular and the
older people, and the younger people, too, would indulge in it with some
exhilarating little sense of sin because it had liquor in it.
egg on
To encourage, to incite to action. Same as agg on. "He kept egging me on,
and finally I had to fight."
a bad egg
A mean guy, a trouble-maker.
nest egg
Money put away for a rainy day or for some special purpose. "When that
young fellow come a-courting, Miss Laura took out her nest egg and turned
it slam-dash over to him."
eggs
Bombs. "Right over the middle of Dresden we let loose our whole nest of
eggs — great God!"
He moves like he's walking on eggs.
The man who puts his eggs all in one basket better watch the basket.
Always have an odd number of eggs for a setting hen to hatch well.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
They're so trifling that they have to use their nest eggs when company comes.
setting eggs
Eggs that are chosen to be set under a hen for hatching.
Feeding chickens crushed eggshells will cause them to lay better.
egg-skin
The white skin inside an eggshell, if dried and taken as a powder, is food
for sick stomach, indigestion, etc.
ego
The conscious part of a person. According to the Freudian mythology the
ego is that organization or entity of the personality which has supervision
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
361
and control, more or less, of the id — the id which obeys the pleasure
principle. The ego controls the id through the demands of the environment.
This control Freud calls the reality principle. It is partly conscious and partly
unconscious, he says. This ego goes to sleep at night, but it still senses and
keeps a watchful, wakeful eye on the id. According to William James the
ego refers to the self. I prefer James, and time will tell the fraud of Freud.
Egypt
Darkness, ignorance, lack of understanding. "I stay down in Egypt most
of the time so far as the young folks go these days."
Egyptian
A folk misnomer for a gypsy.
eh law! (eh Lawd)
An interjection.
Eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep, and eight hours of play make a
healthy man.
eightball
An unlucky situation. To be behind the eightball is to be in hard luck indeed.
See where the cow kicked me on my elbow.
This was a pantomime trick we children used to play. One player would
crook his elbow with his fist up near his face and ask another child to look
at his elbow and see where the cow kicked him. And when the child would
lean forward to look for the wounded place, the first player's fist or hand
would come smack down against the second child's face or head.
elbow grease
Stamina, energy, hard work. "All a chopping hoe needs is elbow grease."
elbow room
Space or freedom in which to accomplish a task.
to go around your elbow to get to your mouth
This means to take unnecessary trouble, of course, a wasteful procedure.
out at the elbows
To be in a penurious condition, beggarly, down and out.
elder
Alder.
elderberry
A shrub pretty common in the Valley, the history of which goes 'way, 'way
back. Ancient Hippocrates (400 B.C.) praised its medicinal virtues, using
its tea against colds and throat troubles. The herb doctors declared the berries
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made a good medicine against nearly every physical ailment or discomfort,
including the women's monthlies.
elebum
Eleven.
electric belt
A contraption for improving health generally and for increasing and
restoring manly powers. Popular in the Valley years ago. The old Sears and
Roebuck catalogues used to advertise these belts in glowing terms, saying
that they were' 'the result of scientific study and experiment"... Wonderful
in the "quick cure of all nervous and organic disorders arising from any
causes, whether natural weakness, excesses, indiscretions, "etc... "Worth
all the drugs, chemicals, pills, tablets, washes, injections, and other
remedies." " Perfect in relief for trouble of the sexual organs.'' Priced from
$4.00 to $18.00.
electric chair
The chair in which criminals were and are executed. Some years ago it was
supplanted in many places by the gas chamber.
I used to have good acquaintance with the warden at the penitentiary
in Raleigh when I was working hard for the abolition of capital punishment.
He had pulled the switch on nearly a hundred men to send them into eternity,
and he was frank in his opinions. "Killing these folks here don't do a speck
of good in keeping down crime," he said.
When I asked him which he preferred, the electric chair or the gas
chamber, he replied, "Oh, the gas chamber! It's just as quick" (I doubt
this) "and when the juice is shot into a body, it often leaves the dead man
in a cramp, and you have to break his leg or legs to get him into a coffin.
But as I say, neither one don't help any in keeping numbers down. In fact,
it adds its own murder to the list. Don't you think so, Mr. Green?"
"Yes, I do, for death adds to death."
element
A satisfactory condition, surroundings or situation. "That Norman
Matthews is just in his element when he gets a chance to sit down at a piano.''
elements
The sky, the weather.
Eleven Up
A hand slapping game. Any number can play it. The players stack hands,
palms down, one on top of the other, and often one palm is brought down
on another with a fire-burning slap. The one on the bottom each time is
pulled out and put on top until number eleven is reached. Number eleven
is taken off. When all the hands except one have been taken off, the person
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
363
whose hand is left is asked,' 'Which will you choose, yes or no?'' He makes
his choice. Then he is asked three questions, and if he chose "yes," he must
answer "yes." If he chose "no," he must say "no." Often hilarious
embarrassment resulted. Say a boy and girl who are in love are present. The
boy may be asked if he loves the girl. He may have to say no. "Would you
like to marry her?" "No." and so on.
The game was sometimes called "Hands."
at the eleventh hour
At the latest possible moment.
elf locks
Knots in one's hair supposed to be made by the elves.
ell and yard
The three stars in the belt of the constellation Orion.
ellum
Elm. The bark of a slippery elm tree dried was used by spitball pitchers.
When I was pitching sandlot ball in the Valley, I would buy the stuff at the
drugstore in Angier to chew, and sometimes with the spittle just right and
the motion just right, the ball would be sent toward the plate almost without
turning. Then as it approached the plate it would dart downward and the
batter usually missed it by a foot. But sometimes the slippery elm spittle
would cause the ball to get away from me and a wild pitch would result.
else's
Another's, belonging to someone else. "Here's someone else's hat left
behind."
emblem charms
These charms were usually worn on watch chains. The widespread use of
wristwatches has pretty much put them out of style, although now and then
they are worn in the coat lapel. When I was a boy, nearly every man you
met wore an emblem to decorate his vest, denoting membership in some
fraternal or social organization. Among the most common ones were
Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Order of Red Men, and Sons
of Veterans. Prices for these charms ranged from 35$ to $12.00.
Emma
A conjure ball. A little black hairy thing big as a dollar.
John Henry, the country quack doctor, said in a play I wrote, "Never
try to see what's in that ball for the power would evaporate like the morning
dew. A little packet for the men is called 'Emma' and them for the women
is called 'Joe.' You folks look at me, how come I got money, dress so well,
know so much, and walking the earth happy and a-smiling? My little
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package. How come you folks all so tired, miserable, weak, hungry,
quarrelly, fighty, ignorant? Because you got no little ball, no little packet.
I can give somebody one. You? You? To start things off with, the regular
price is two dollars — two dollars once, two dollars twice! Have one and
receive light to heavenly truth. Hebbun, hebbun, everybody talking about
hebbun ain't going there. O yes, step right up now, you men folks get your
Emma, and you women folks get your Joe, and bring good luck and
happiness to yourselves, each one and separate. Individual. Yes, ma'am.
And yes, sir. Hallelujah!"
Employment brings enjoyment.
empt
To empty. We children picking cotton in the fields in Harnett County always
used the word empt. We'd get our cotton sacks full and one would announce
proudly, "I've got to go empt." And so he would go off with his bag to
the spread-out cotton sheet where the cotton would be emptied in a pile for
tying up and weighing when the sun went down.
empty
To defecate.
empty as a dream
empty as a drum
empty as a gourd
empty as air
empty as a sieve
An empty belly hears nobody.
An empty cart body rattles most.
It's hard for an empty bag to stand upright.
end
The buttocks.
The end is not justified by the means.
The end of mirth is heaviness.
In everything consider the end.
go off the deep end
Have a complete nervous breakdown, risk everything on a wildcat scheme.
can't see farther than the end of your nose
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365
end for end
Horizontal, contiguous. "Lay that lumber end for end."
end over end
Somersaulting through the air.
come to the end of one's rope
Come to a complete hindrance or stoppage, play one's last card, make a
final and desperate effort, come to the end of one's patience, come down
to one's deathbed.
keep one's end up
Bear one's responsibility, one's share of a job, to bear up under difficulty
and disaster.
make both ends meet
Balance one's income with one's spending.
at loose ends
Uncertain which way to go, all undecided, scatterbrained. "Since he lost
his sweetheart to that fellow over the river he's all at loose ends."
enduring
A measurement of time used for emphasis. "There he sat without saying
a word the whole enduring time." Also during, continuing.
endwise
Upright. "Stand the scantlings up endwise."
enemies
Head lice.
If thine enemy hunger, feed him.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Engine, engine number nine
Running on the Chicago line.
When she's polished she will shine.
Engine, engine number nine.
(A counting out rhyme.)
English plate
A plate entirely cleaned off by the eater. We had an English contributor
to the London Observer staying with us, and he would always sop his plate
shiny clean with his last morsel of bread and say, "I was brought up always
to end my meal with an English plate."
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enjoy
To have, to experience. "He's enjoying poor health." A catachrestic use
of the word.
Enough is as good as a feast.
Enough of anything is enough.
Well enough is soon enough.
Let well enough alone.
Enough's enough.
Epsom salts
Next to calomel, the most popular laxative in the Valley.
equalizer
Pistol, switchblade knife, any implement of arms.
<?r/(oeuf)
The pronunciation of the French word by the doughboys in the First World
War. We fellows on furlough sometimes would go around among the
peasants and try to buy some "erfs." It was about as hard to get the peasants
to understand what we wanted as it was for us to locate the eggs in the first
place.
To err is human, to forgive divine.
espen
Aspen.
by the eternal!
An imprecation, a favorite with Andrew Jackson.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?
evangels
The "authors" of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
evaporate
To run away, to vanish, to go AWOL.
even dollar
Exactly a dollar. "I bought that there coon hound for an even dollar."
evening
The afternoon, the time between 12 noon and "good dark."
Evening brings the cows home.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
367
Even or Odd
A guessing game. We used to play the game with grains of corn, but pennies
or beans or any small object may be used as counters. One child will take
a number in his hand and hold up his closed fist and call, "even or odd?"
The other child in the game will make a guess. If he guesses correctly, he
gets the grains or pennies in the challenger's hand. If he misses, then he must
give the challenger a number of grains or pennies to equal the amount in
the hand. And so it goes until one player has lost all of his tokens or counters.
Much like Jack-in-the-Bush.
even-steven
The one equaling the other, a balance, share and share alike. "Let's get some
ice cream and all go even-steven."
Coming events cast their shadows before them.
ever
Always, forever, used for emphasis as the best ever, the finest ever, the worst
ever, etc.
everage
Average.
ever how many for how much)
"It makes no difference ever how many come, we'll have plenty rations
for all."
everlasting
The rabbit tobacco plant. Also an emphatic noun. "I'll knock the everlasting
out of you."
ever so much
A limitless amount. "I love you ever so much."
everywhere
Everywhere.
Every tub must stand on its own bottom.
every bit and grain
An inclusive statement of every item, every consideration or point of view.
"That Steve Lowry is every bit and grain as mean as his brother, Henry
Berry."
"Everybody Works but Father"
A satirical song we children used to sing, often in reference to someone else's
father — and we knew of one or two in the neighborhood which the song
fitted — but never to our own who was hard-working, much to our pride
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and bragging—
"Everybody works but father.
He sits around all day
Baking his feet to the fi-ah,
Smoking his pipe of clay.
Mother takes in washing,
So does Sister Ann.
Everybody works at our house.
But my old man."
Everybody's business is nobody's business.
Every couple is not a pair.
Every man must eat a peck of dirt before he dies.
Every man Jack
Everybody, used for emphasis, same as every mother's son.
Everything turns out best in the end.
Everything works for the good of those that love the Lord.
Everything works out for the best.
A place for everything and everything in its place.
Every well-made person owns
Just two hundred and six bones.
every whichaway
In disarray, this way and that way, a condition of confusion.
Every why has a wherefore.
Eve's darning needle
Same as yucca.
Evil communications corrupt good manners.
evil eye
A person with an evil eye has an eye which can work curses upon a person
it fixes in its glare. Conjure and voodoo doctors are supposed to be able
to invoke the evil eye and so put a spell on a helpless person.
Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased.
He that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
A good example is the best sermon.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
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The exception proves the rule.
excursion
A holiday trip usually on the train to some nearby town, indulged in mainly
by country people. Excursions were very popular in early decades of this
century.
Around Lillington where I lived an excursion to Durham or Raleigh
was always a big occasion, and I remember one vividly. I wasn't a passenger
on the train but I observed the happening at the little station where the train
stopped — a tragic happening.
I had come to the neighboring town of Angier with my father on a bright
day in spring to get a load of fertilizer for our farm. I stood by the little
shack of a railroad station waiting along with several others, among them
an old Confererate soldier leaning on his walking stick, for the train to put
in its appearance. I have always liked to see trains. Soon the locomotive
with its brass trimmings showed its round black moon of a face around the
bend. It puffed and wheezed along toward us and finally drew in with a
rusty squealing of its brakes. It was an old wood-burner, and the climb into
town had been tough. The engineer piled out of the cab. He was greasemarked outside and full of spleen and frustration inside. He began to work
on the old locomotive, squirting grease here and there into its aged joints.
I looked down the track and spilling out of the Jim Crow car—there were
only four in all, a white car, a Negro car, a freight car and a caboose—
spilling out was a swarm of little Negro school girls all dressed in their pink
and white and blue picnic garments and with ribbons in their hair. Also there
was a sprinkling of young Negro boys ironed and pressed and scrubbed clean
by their mamas for this great day. At the head of them was a tall yellow
Negro man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and with a wide expanse of white
stiff-starched shirt front and wing collar, and a big black bolster tie. The
little children twittered and chirped in the sunny air, looking happily about
them. They were on their way to Durham, North Carolina, on what was
called in the parlance of those days a' 'skursion.'' The big yellow man was
the teacher and he was taking the children on this jaunt as a wind-up for
his year's school teaching. He came strolling forward toward us and toward
the irate and working engineer. He felt good. He was expansive. The world
was sitting to his hand.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said graciously to us.
The old Confederate soldier blinked up at him, continued leaning on
his stick and said nothing. I, a little boy, naturally said nothing. But I was
already in my heart admiring this gracious, this genial, this successful and
respectable representative of the Negro race.
' 'What time do the train get to Durhams, sir?'' the Negro teacher asked
of the engineer.
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"None of your damned business,'' the engineer snapped back, still bent
over one of the drivers with his oil can. Then he looked around. He
straightened spasmodically up and glared at the colored man. The Negro
already had taken a shocked and rebuffed step backward.
"Sorry, sir, sorry," he said, and he was beginning to bob his head up
and down a bit, bending his body at the waist.
"Take off your hat," the engineer suddenly shouted. Off it came in
the culprit's hand. The little children down at the end of the train began
to see something was wrong, and in the blink of an eye they were huddling
closer together as if some fearful threat were being felt in the air — and it was.
"Take off them specs too!" the engineer snarled as he stood up.
"But I ain't done nothing, white folks, ain't done a thing," said the
colored man, and he backed away a couple of steps more.
"Don't white-folks me!" the engineer squealed. He flung the oil can
behind him, snatched the heavy walking stick from under the old Confederate
soldier's resting hand and quick as lightning struck the Negro teacher aterrific
blow across the face.
A little babble of shrieks and meanings rose from the school children,
and, like a gang of terrified goats, they bounded up the steps of the Jim
Crow car and inside to safety. The old Confederate soldier had almost fallen
on his face when his support was jerked away. He righted himself with spreadout legs as the engineer handed his splintered walking stick back to him.
The old soldier resumed his resting on it without a word. I couldn't look
at the dreadful stick. I couldn't look at the Negro teacher. I shivered as if
some bitter freezing pall had overspread the world. A low whimpering sound
came from the Negro. Then he spoke out simply, almost coldly, "Lord,
white folks, you done ruint my shirt."
"All aboard!" yelled the engineer. He climbed hastily into his cab,
pulled the whistle cord a couple of times. The Negro schoolteacher turned,
still holding his big white handkerchief, now dyeing itself all over crimson,
against his face.
The scene haunted me for years. And later when trying to do some work
for the Negro people, I sat down and wrote a drama of a schoolteacher who
tried desperately to help his people and failed. It wasn't a Confederate
soldier's walking stick that laid my hero low, but something more up-todate and final — a mob's shotgun. The schoolteacher of that spring morning
long ago is dead and gone. A bad scar showed on his face as long as he lived,
running from his forehead down to his chin. And there must have been a
scar in his heart too. There is in mine still, and always will be.
A poor excuse is better than none.
excuse-me-ma'am, thanky-ma'am
A little dike or j ump for turning water across a road, often called a bullhead.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
371
as many excuses as a dog has fleas
excusing
Except. "We're all here, Mr. Green, ready to start to work, excusing Bozo,
he's sick today."
exle
Axle.
exom salts
Epsom salts.
expect
To suppose, conclude, suspect.
Experience is the best teacher.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
as extinct as a dodo
extrasensory perception
The perceiving or response to some object, event or even thought by a means
other than through the senses. J.B. Rhine of Duke University adopted the
term "extrasensory perception," and this has become popular. At his
invitation I took his laboratory tests and came out with a score pretty much
like that of a retarded child or moron.
Mr. Mac, my old friend the miller, and I once were talking about signs
and omens and the like and the fact of coincidental happenings now and
then. We both agreed that a coincidence could cause people to believe in
miracles and such — clairvoyant insight, precognition, and the like.
"Take these experiments Rhine is doing up at Duke University about
this extra sense people have got," he said. "I've been reading in the paper
about it — about all that card-guessing stuff. It's but a game to play. There's
nothing to it. They speak of what they call a variation from the average.
Well, there's no such thing as the average or, if there is, it's rare as hen's
teeth. It's just a theory they've worked out by mathematics. It's as hard
to hit the average as it is to vary from it, yes, much harder, maybe. Say you
throw up a quarter and let it fall a thousand times. According to their
figuring, it ought to fall heads about five hundred times and tails five
hundred. But let's see you make it come out that way. They just as well pick
the fellow that fitted the average as having that psychic power as one who
varies from it. Well, that's the way it goes, and you can't keep people from
projecking with every sort of fool thing — that is, when they've got the time
and money to do it. But it does seem like a waste, don't it? To think of putting
up buildings and hiring teachers and sending young folks to school to mess
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with that!"
"I think you're right, Mr. Mac," I said, "but still that's the only way
to make progress, they say, by experimenting."
"Well, maybe so," he replied. "But it's a waste just the same — waste
of something, I won't say brains. Now if these problems were learning and
teaching computer work, or ploughing, or how to spread manure, there'd
be some reason to it. Still, as Scrubblin' Archie McNeill used to say, it takes
all kinds of ingredients to make haggis, and then you're not always sure
you've got good haggis at that."
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
The old Mosaic law of tit-for-tat.
eye-opener
An informing surprise, exceptional new knowledge. Also an early morning
dram.
People with blue eyes are true; people with black are not.
eyes as big as saucers
eyes as blue as a gander's
eyes like an eagle
Grey eyes, greedy gut.
Black eyes, eat the world up.
(A teasing rhyme.)
eyewash
Nonsense, baloney.
�An A Iphabet of Reminiscence
373
F
face
To answer an accuser. "Don't worry, I'm not afraid to face anybody."
Appearance, meaning. "That puts a different face on the matter."
To consider, to have a look at, study a fact, agree. "Some day they'll make
a historical place out of that house, let's face it."
Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
Her face is like the full moon.
straight face
To remain calm or unperturbed in a harsh or troublesome situation.' 'There
he sat with a straight face hearing the lawyers condemn him to death."
faddle
Nonsense, almost the same as in the word fiddle-faddle.
faddy
Full of fads and whims, frivolous.
fagged out
Tired out, exhausted.
Three failures and a fire make a Scotchman rich.
Faint heart ne'er won fair lady.
fainty
Languid, exhausted, out of breath.
fair
To be honest, to tell the truth. "I'll be fair with you, I don't know what
kind of rose bush that is."
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fair as a bell
fair as your hand
Fair outside doesn't prove a fair inside.
All that's fair must fade.
It's always fair weather
When good fellows get together.
fair enough
Said of an equitable trade or arrangement.
fairies' table
An edible mushroom.
to fair off
A clearing of the weather. "The day faired off for Easter, and we all had
a glorious time."
fair to middlin'
In a so-so, intermediate condition. "How're you today?" "Oh, fair to
middlin'."
fairy tale
A hard luck tale, a panhandler's plaint.
Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death.
Faith dares, love bears.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
I have kept the faith.
O ye of little faith
Thy faith hath saved thee.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
faithful as a dog
faith healing
The healing of disease, pain or hurt by the power of faith in the healing agency
whether worldly or divine.
The man who helps in the yard and around the house told me the other
day that he had finally been healed of his "arthuritis,'' and that by television.
(I had never known he had any arthritis until then.)
"Aw, go 'way, Rollo, you don't mean you really got healed," I said.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
375
"Yes sir, Mr. Green, it worked. I feel like a new man right now. And
it didn't cost me a nickel, not a nickel. All I had to do was just do what
the man on television, Mr. Roberts, said — look straight at him and believe
in his power. And I done it, and him saying 'You are being healed, healed.'
I could feel myself getting better. Yes sir, it's a wonderful thing, and it didn't
cost me a nickel."
I've had some experience with faith healers from the time I was a boy.
When I was a student at Chapel Hill and was getting interested in collecting
words and phrases and superstitions and folk practices — some of which
I put into plays and stories, and some of which I stored away — I went several
times down to the Holy Roller camp at Falcon, a settlement some distance
below Dunn, on the way to Fayetteville.
At Falcon I was a witness to all kinds of hocus-pocus of healing, holy
dancing, unknown tongue talkings, prayings and happy weepings. People
would go up to the pulpit where the preachers stood or walked about smiling
and seraphic, shouting, clapping their hands, and calling on the name of
God with great unction and authority to heal them. And God would, or
they said he did. I remember one woman who declared that her ribs had
been broken and that through prayer and the laying on of hands she had
been healed. Finally, one night I myself was moved to go up and try to get
healed. When I was a boy of eight or ten I had had a long and serious attack
of osteomyelitis and my right arm was somewhat stiff and pained me still
at times. And so I was prepared with my rigmarole. I was also prepared
with a pencil and a little hid-away notebook. While I was sitting up there
at the platform, or standing waiting my turn, I could blindly write down
some phrases that were being spieled there, some foolish, crazy, barbaric
words used by these holy men of God. Finally, one of the preachers came
over and wanted to know what my trouble was, and I told him about my
arm, that it pained me a great deal, which was true. So he put his hand on
my arm and sent up a keen prayer for me, and then asked me if I didn't
feel better, and I shook my head. He prayed some more and asked me if
I didn't feel better. I shook my head. Then the liar let out a great whoop
and called on all to witness that this young man was feeling better, bless
the Lord.' 'And no doubt from now on the power of God will be with him,
amen!" he said.
And then there was Aunt Sudie Horton near Buie's Creek. I used to
go to her house as a little boy and play with Larry and Fred, her sons. We
had lots of fun building little dirt furnaces and putting a tin smokestack
in them and seeing the smoke come out, and wandering in the woods and
making hawk callers and doing all sorts of wonderful things.
Aunt Sudie was famous in our neighborhood for being a sanctified
woman and able to live without sin. She had no teeth, because as she told
me one day and as she had told others, "I talked to the Lord, and the Lord
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told me to have the old ones pulled out. So I had them pulled." My father
who was more practical once said to her, "Sudie, why don't you get you
some teeth?" And her reply was, "Billy, I talked to the Lord, and he told
me that if he had wanted me to have another set of teeth, he would have
growed me some."
Aunt Sudie was a wonderfully kind woman and as unshakable in her
faith as she was kind. Sometimes when I would be walking home late at
night from Buie's Creek Academy up the sandy road — maybe I had been
staying late for a society meeting or some practice of singing — I'd come
by old Pleasant Plains Church, and I could hear her inside praying. The
first night I heard her I was frightened. But I stopped long enough to go
to the door and peep in and, looking down the aisle, I saw Aunt Sudie
kneeling on the floor in front of the pulpit with an old lantern sitting beside
her, and she was praying aloud to God, praying for her friends and thanking
the Almighty for all the good things he'd done for her. She heard my footstep
or some movement at the door, and, without looking around or being
frightened in the least, she called out,' 'Whoever it is, come on in and kneel
with me, and we'll both pray to our Savior."
"It's me, Aunt Sudie — Paul," I finally quavered.
"Comeonin, son, and kneel with me, come on in, bless you. And bless
the Lord, bless the Lord," she sang out.
But already even then — I was about sixteen years old — I was beginning
to look down on this kind of religion, and so I didn't go in and partake of
all the blessings that she would have been able to give me.
Aunt Sudie was a great worker for foreign missions, too, in addition
to her belief in faith healing, and she labored hard in milking the cow, making
butter, saving eggs and selling them down at Buie's Creek so she could send
her little gift to foreign missions, especially to the starving children in India
who, according to The Christian Herald, were now reduced to gnawing bark
off the trees in the forest.
For healing purposes, she kept in her house a supply of sanctified
handkerchiefs. She would pass these around to neighbors who might be
troubled with a pain or with some affliction such as a boil or inflammation
or grippe or kidney colic, whatever it might be. And she would give
instructions that the handkerchief should be laid on the sore spot and the
suffering and pain would go away. These handkerchiefs cost her a quarter
apiece. She got them from a Mr. Yokum in California. Then when the power
had been used up, the handkerchiefs would be returned to Aunt Sudie, and
she would send them back to "Brother Yokum," as she called him, with
a quarter for each one, and he would endow them with more prayer and
mystic power and return them to her, and she would distribute them again.
One cold morning in winter she went out to milk her cow — while Uncle
Luke lay in bed and snoozed as usual. She happened to step on a garden
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
377
rake hidden in the snow, tripped and fell, and one of the prongs pierced
her side. We all heard about it and soon learned that Aunt Sudie couldn't
live. The neighbors gathered around her, a concourse of them, and she lay
on the bed and endured her suffering with great patience and calm. She talked
to all her friends in a consoling way, saying they should grieve not, she was
happy that she was going home to glory. And as she was dying — I wasn't
in the room, but I heard my father tell about it — she cried out she could
hear the angels singing — welcoming her home to heaven! And so with a
smile on her face, this sweet, patient and enduring little woman passed into
eternity.
Falcon
A small neighborhood some twelve miles north of Fayetteville, with several
rough buildings and a central Holiness Church. Every summer it was and
still is the custom to have revivals and pentecostal meetings there. I used
to attend these meetings, not to get myself converted and filled with grace,
but to look on and make notes — a most godless attitude and practice. But
even so, I've never felt any need to repent.
One summer there was an especially great volume of talking in tongues.
My cousin, who was planning to be a preacher, said Miz Rebecca Parrish,
under the power of the Holy Spirit, spoke a whole splurge of Chinese talk.
To my questioning look — I didn't have the heart to speak out my doubts
in words — he answered he was sure it was Chinese, for it "was the most
outlandish language I ever heard." Later Miz Rebecca said it was Chinese
and no doubt about it. She had asked the Lord and he had assured her' 'that's
what it was."
I have seen in the series of stable-like pews or rooms there young boys
and girls, men and women, too, lying side by side on the sawdust-covered
floor in a state of catalepsy or hypnosis from the power of their religious
seizures in the church. The rhythmic poundings and stompings, the beating
of clapping hands, the singing and hallelujahing of the preachers and
congregation had finally proved too much for an emotional searcher and
he (or she) had fallen to the floor in a seizure. Then he was borne out and
placed on the sawdust floor by cooler-headed ones until he came back to
his right mind.
My cousin who was to be a preacher (he fell from grace later because
of a dark-eyed girl and turned to farming) often had these seizures — after
great bouts of shouting and holy dancing. He told me more than once that
after these he always felt "so good" in his soul.
fall
To commit sin, to fall from grace.''Old King David saw Bathsheba taking
a bath in a tub, and, brother, that's when he fell and fell hard."
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fall by the wayside
To fail.
falling axe
An axe for cutting trees down as contrasted with a hewing axe, in the old
days used to hew logs for cabins.
falling picture
A picture suddenly falling from the wall means bad luck to someone in the
house.
falling star
When you see a falling star, make a wish and it will come true.
A falling Star is a soul of a person dying.
falling weather
Rain, snow or sleet. "The almanac says there'll be falling weather around
the first, and so I'm fixing up things against that."
fall in with
To agree with.
fall off
To lose weight, to lose flesh. "Lord, you ought to see him — he's fell off
the most."
fall off the wagon
To start drinking again after an abstemious spell, to go back to alcohol.
fall of man
The folk belief that Adam and Eve were sinless in the Garden of Eden till
Eve ate of the forbidden apple and persuaded Adam to eat too. This
disobedience caused God to drive them out of the Garden and condemn
them to live by the sweat of the brow. This sinful condition continued for
hundreds and hundreds of years. And the children of Adam and Eve
multiplied in the earth. After most of them were drowned in a flood which
the divine father sent to punish them for their evil-doings, the struggle began
again, and once more they multiplied on the earth and waxed in sin. This
time a strange plan was hit upon by the maker of heaven and earth. He would
send his only son down to the world and through him produce a way of
salvation for man. It is easy to imagine dialogue for this plan, since the father
knew what was to come just as he knew all that had happened in the past.
The son might say —
"Papa, you say that man is deep in sin in yonder world and we must
save him."
"So we must, my son," says the father.
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379
"But if I go down there, Papa, they will nail me to a tree and kill me.
I already see that. Won't that mean they commit more sin — be more sinful
than they are now?"
"But it is my plan," answers the father.
"And what you plan has to be," says the son, "I know that."
"It has to be," says the father. "I see what is to be, and what is to be
must be or else—"
And I can imagine the father for a moment communes with himself.
Then he goes on and tells his son the plan of salvation, on to his final death
on the cross. The Holy Ghost hears all this, no doubt in silence, except when
the father says that his son will be sent into the world as a body conceived
by the Holy Ghost in a virgin named Mary. I would think that a question
would be raised by the Ghost here.
I once in a play tried to explain this plan of salvation to an American
Indian chief. He could never understand it, even when I showed that Jesus
in his love laid down his life for us and in that example of sacrifice and love
showed us the way to salvation. In his name then, I said, we should put away
hate and violence. Love is the only answer, I said. He showed us that.
But Red Cloud could not understand.
fall on one's face
To fail, to come a cropper, to make a foolish mistake.
fall sawyers
Cicadas, same as June bugs. " I can always sleep when the fall sawyers start
working."
fall through
To fail, not to succeed.
false alarm
A phony, a deceiver. Also, to have signs of pregnancy and then learn that
they are not true — which reminds me of a little story going the rounds about
a conversation of a young woman with a doctor. She went to him, saying
she didn't know whether her pains were a false alarm or not. He examined
her, and then he said, "I have good news for you, Mrs. Brown."
"Miss Brown," she corrected.
"I have bad news for you, Miss Brown," the doctor continued. "The
alarm was not false."
false face
A dough face, a mask or an extremely ugly person.
false-faced
Hypocritical, crooked.
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falsies
Inserts for bras used to make women look as if they have fuller breasts than
they really have.
fambly
Family.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
familious
Familiar in an offensive way.
in the family way
To be pregnant. "Miss Lucy Avez is in the family way, and everybody knows
that new Holy Roller preacher done it."
After a famine in the stall
Comes a famine in the hall.
famous
Of heavy growth, luxuriant, thick.' 'Them's famous oats you got there, Mr.
Green."
fancy
A sweetheart.
fancy Dan
A dude, a foppish fellow.
fancy piece
A sweet-doing woman. Also a joyous copulation.
fandangle
A fantastic or extravagant ornament.' 'That old fortune-telling woman had
them brass fandangles hanging down from her ears, and when she shook
her head you could hear 'em rattle."
David Fanning
The Tory scourge of the Valley in the Revolutionary War. In a foray he
captured Governor Burke and marched him to Wilmington as a prisoner.
After the war Fanning fled to Canada where his career was a checkered,
even disgraceful, one.
fan the breeze (the wind)
To run fast.' 'When old man Sam Johnson got after that feller for messing
up his girl, that guy fanned the breeze going away from there."
far
Distance. "To the crossroads is all the far I'm going with you."
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Fire. This pronunciation used to be common in the Valley but with more
education it is rapidly, like other folk speech, passing away. I heard recently
of an uneducated fellow who took part in a local Christmas pageant at his
church. He portrayed one of the wise men who came to see the baby Jesus,
as the Scriptures tell. He showed up for the performance dressed like a
fireman — helmet, red suit, and all. When asked why such a costume, he
said, "Just the way it says in the Bible — the wise men came from afar."
Far from the eyes, far from the heart.
fardest
Farthest.
to a fare-you-well
Completely, thoroughly.
The Farmer in the Dell
A game for small children. This is a ring game in which one child is selected
to be the "farmer." The others march around him, singing. And as each
stanza is sung, a child is chosen representing the one named. Sometimes
the children make up their own words and cause great hilarity in naming
the different ones to be chosen and brought inside the ring. The last one
chosen becomes the next'' farmer.'' The game down in Harnett County that
we played went as follows—
"The farmer in the dell,
The farmer in the dell,
Hi-oh the dairy-oh,
The farmer in the dell."
And then follows a series of stanzas in which the lyrics are acted out by
choosing:
"The farmer takes a wife—
The wife takes a child—
The child takes a nurse—
The nurse takes a dog—
The dog takes a bone—
The bone stands alone."
And now the bone becomes the "farmer," and the game continues.
Farmyard Charms
A children's game. This is a sort of practical joke game. A leader assigns
each player the name of the farm animal whose voice he's supposed to
imitate. All are to crow, to whinny, to moo or whatever it is, at a given signal.
However, the leader has secretly instructed all but one of the players to remain
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silent and then, when the signal is given, this one player brays out while the
others are silent, and his embarrassment is equaled only by the fun of the
others.
far side
The right side.
fart
To break wind.
fart around
To trifle, to play about.
no more use than a fart in a whirlwind
No use at all.
I could go farther and fare worse.
fast
Loose, a woman who is active sexually with men.
as fast as greased lightning
as fast as lightning
fast mare
A fast woman.
fat
In playing marbles, if the shooting player's taw stopped in the ring, it was
"fat," and he had to stop playing until the next game. He was out of the
game for the time being.
fat as a butterball
fat as a hog
fat as a pig
You must take the fat with the lean.
dry up the fat
To render chunks of hog fat in a pot to make lard. This was one of the
important parts of the hog-killing ritual when I was a boy.
"The Fatal Wedding"
The first of Gussie Davis's heart-throbbing lachrymose songs, the second
being "In the Baggage Coach Ahead" [q.v.]. This once pullmancar porter's
rise to fame is an inspiring story. Against all difficulties of poverty, race
prejudice and denied opportunity he beat his way on. I haven't been able
to find out where he is buried. If there isn't a monument in stone to him
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383
somewhere, there should be. But at least he has a monument in his songs
that will last like stone.
The words to "The Fatal Wedding" were written by one W.H. Windom
who, so far as I know, was never heard of again. Mother sang this song
to us children. We learned it by heart and shed some tears like her as we
sang it in our own way — and often with a word changed here and there—
"The wedding bells were ringing on a
moonlit winter's night,
The church was decorated, all within
was gay and bright.
A mother with her baby came and saw
these lights aglow,
And thought of how these same bells chimed
for her three years ago!
" Td like to be admitted, sir,' she told the
sexton old,
'Just for the sake of baby, sir, to protect
him from the cold.'
He told her that the wedding was but for
the rich and grand,
And with the eager watching crowd outside
she'd have to stand.
"Once more she begged the sexton old
to let her step inside.
'For baby's sake you may come in,' the
gray-haired man replied.
'If anyone knows reason why this couple
should not wed,
Speak now, or else forever hold your peace,'
the preacher said.
" 'I must object,' the woman cried, in a voice so
meek and mild.
'The bridegroom is my husband, sir, and this
is our little child.'
'What proof have you?' the preacher said. 'My
baby, sir,' she cried,
She raised the babe, then knelt to pray—
the little one had died.
"The parents of the bride then took the outcast
by the arm,
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They said, 'We'll care for you through life, you
saved our child from harm.'
The parents, bride and outcast wife in a
carriage drove away.
The bridegroom died by his own hand before
the break of day.
"No wedding feast was spread that night, two
graves were made next day,
In one the little baby, in the other its
father lay.
This story often has been told by firesides
warm and bright,
Of bridegroom, bride, the outcast wife and
a fatal wedding night.
"While the wedding bells were ringing,
While the bride and groom were there,
Marching up the aisle together
While the organ pealed an air,
Telling tales of fond affection,
Vowing never more to part—
Just another fatal wedding
Just another broken heart."
fat and sassy
In happy circumstance.
fat-ass
A broad-bottomed person.
fatback
A poor type of hog bacon, usually all fat, but especially good for cooking
with beans, collards, and various greens to give them the proper flavor.
Near our home lived Nathan Gibbs, a tenant farmer, a very industrious
fellow, who worked hard and was for a rarity ambitious and wanted his
children to have an education. Over the years he was able to accumulate
enough to buy a small farm of his own. But unfortunately for his reputation
he lived in a neighborhood where everybody except himself was a Democrat.
He was a Republican and a staunch one at that, and accordingly was much
and sharply gossiped about. And, too, I'm sure some of the disfavor in which
he was held was due to the fact that he was more energetic than most people
and was sharp too in his dealings — not dishonest, say, but sharp and a
bit stingy.
I used to hear him brag that there never had been a butcher knife in
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
385
his house sharp enough to cut a ham. After killing his hogs, he always salted
down the hams, to be put on sale later. And he fed his family, and the
preachers too when and if they came, on fatback, so it was said.
It was told — mainly as fun criticism — that Nathan would hang a ham
up in the window, put a pan of water on the floor and let the sunlight shine
on the ham and cast its shadow into the water, then later he would feed it
to his kids for ham soup. It was also told of him that he would often hire
his children to go to bed without supper by giving them a nickel apiece and
during the night he would steal the money out of their pockets and then
the next morning whip them for losing it.
Such were the stories the neighbors out of their loving-kindness told
about this most estimable man. He was my friend for many years. I admired
him very much, for he raised a fine family of children, gave every one of
them a college education, though his learning was of the poorest kind, and
died rather well-to-do.
And all these bad stories about him were told, I'm sure, mainly because
he was a Republican and because, for instance, he would never subscribe
to The News and Observer newspaper, the Democratic Bible in the Valley,
but always threw off on it with scorn for what he considered its narrowness
of political thinking and its exaggerated devotion to rape cases, calling it
always, with a finger to his nose, "The Nuisance and Disturber."
fat chance
Little chance at all.' 'Fat chance you've got of being promoted, young man.''
like father, like son
Father Is Dead and Laid In His Grave
A children's singing game. What fun we used to have playing this on Sunday
afternoons up at Uncle Tom's, or at our house or up at Mr. Harmon's —
Laura Green, Lula Green, Josephine Harmon, Stuart Harmon, Gordon
Long, Hugh Green, Mary Green, Lena Turlington and myself — most of
these merry voices and lightsome feet long silent and nerveless in the grave.
I can still see their dancing luminous forms, I can still hear the merry laughter
there among the old oak trees as we sang and marched about and acted out
what we sang—
"Father is dead and laid in his grave,
Laid in his grave, laid in his grave.
Father is dead and laid in his grave—
Oh, oh, oh!
"There grew a green apple tree over his head,
Over his head, over his head,
There grew a green apple tree over his head,
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Oh, oh, oh!
"The apples were ripe and ready to fall,
Ready to fall, ready to fall,
The apples were ripe and ready to fall,
Oh, oh, oh!"
On the last" oh," the marchers suddenly stop. The child nearest Father's
head becomes the Old Woman of the next stanza and steps into the ring,
being watchful not to get too near the recumbent Father. Then she begins
the pantomime of picking up apples and putting them in her gathered-up
apron, real or not. The song has gone on.
"There came an old woman and gathered them all,
Gathered them all, gathered them all,
There came an old woman and gathered them all.
Oh, oh, oh!
"Father rose up and gave her a kick,
Gave her a kick, gave her a kick,
Father rose up and gave her a kick.
Oh, oh, oh!"
On the last "oh," Father springs up and aims a kick at the Old Woman.
If he misses, he has to lie down again, and the game goes on as before. If
he hits the Old Woman, the ring opens and she goes hobbling off for a
distance to the accompaniment of the derisive singing—
"Then the old woman went hippity-hop,
Hippity-hop, hippity-hop.
Then the old woman when hippity-hop.
Oh, oh, oh!"
She now returns and lies down as the Father — all to much merriment
— and the one who was the Father joins the ring. Since this game is a sort
of theatre of the imagination, sex makes no difference. A boy is easily the
Old Woman, and a girl the dead Father.
OUT fathers which were wondrous wise
Did wet their throats before their eyes.
fat in the fire
The devil to pay, an explosive situation. "When he accused that girl of leading
his boy astray, the fat was in the fire."
A fat kitchen makes a lean will.
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387
fat lightwood (often pronounced lighter'd)
The rich resinous pine wood. We used to burn this with great delight, pushing
it in big splintered sticks under the green oak wood, and before long we had
a merry fire going. Lightwood has pretty much disappeared from the Valley.
Once in a while you can find a stump and sometimes deep in the woods a
dead lightwood tree. We used to use lightwood splinters set on fire for all
sorts of illumination. We would use them at night in marching along
serenading if we didn't have a lantern handy, also in bird blinding. Great
splintered pieces of fat pine were used in tar making.
fat meat
Fat meat applied to a wound will take out poison. Also good to bring a rising
(a boil) to a head and for healing sores.
fat part
A good part in a play.
fattening hogs
In the fall a pen usually was made of rails, and the hogs chosen to be
slaughtered were put in the pen and fed heavily on corn and mash and slops
to make them gain weight. And then on some cold day in mid-winter the
farmer would be up before daylight, having a great fire going around his
pots and the water being heated. He and some of his neighbors would make
their way to the hog pen and there either brain the hogs with an axe or shoot
them with a .22 rifle between the eyes.
I happened to get a rifle when I was about twelve years old, and I became
the hog executioner in the neighborhood. When I thought of the awful
crushing thud of the axe against the hog's forehead, I considered my method
of killing much more humane. Later on I rebelled at the whole thing, got
rid of my rifle and stayed away from all hog killings. And as the years have
gone on, I've become more and more "chicken-hearted" so that now I find
myself catching a wasp or a bee inside the house and carrying it tenderly
in my handkerchief to the front door and letting it go free. And I keep
planning to quit eating meat. I have not yet got so tender-hearted that I'd
do as I used to see some of the monks in Thailand do — take indoor
mosquitoes gently in their cupped hands and carry them to the front door
and liberate them. But if I live a few more years, maybe I'll get as soft-hearted
and as foolish as that.
fatten up
To grow or to stouten, or to fleshen up. I met a friend of mine on my first
return from Hollywood, and she took me by the hand and looked in my
eyes and said, "I'll declare, Paul, you've fattened up out there in Hollywood
the most."
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A fault confessed is half redressed.
His only fault is he has no fault.
There's none without & fault.
However blind a man may be
Another's faults he's sure to see.
He has had food who feeds on another'sfauIts.
Faults are thick where love is thin.
Forget others' faults by remembering your own.
favor
To ease up on, to treat amiably or gently. "Is your leg sore? You seem to
be favoring it."
To resemble, to be like another. "Sho', you's your Uncle Bob's kinfolks.
I see the favor now."
favored
Referring to one's features. "She's a hard-favored woman."
fawk
Fork.
Fear a man who blows both hot and cold.
Fear God and keep his commandments.
fearder
More afraid.' 'Old Goliath was fearder of little David than anybody when
he seen that sling with the rock in it."
feast or famine
Excess in either direction, either plenty or want.
feasts
Three feasts are due to every man — the feast of baptism, the feast of
marriage, and the feast of death.
feather in one's cap
An honor, a prideful accomplishment.
feather one's nest
To get rich, to look after number one. "I'll tell you what I think — I think
Bobby Kennedy is always feathering his own nest or the nest of the
Kennedys."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
389
in full feather
Riding high, in full swing, exuberant with expectancy.
white feather
Cowardice.
feathers rubbed the wrong way
Irritated, made angry.
Fine feathers don't make the bird.
gathering goats'feathers
Dawdling about,sharpening pencils, cleaning up one's desk, trying to get
ready to sit down and write — a favorite pastime of harried authors. "As
soon as I quit gathering goats' feathers I reckon I'll be able to start on my
book."
to get one's feathers up
To be angry, ready to fight.
make the feathers fly
Work like a whirlwind, fight like a wildcat.
Feed much to expect much.
off one's feed
To be sickly, puny, ailing, to have no appetite.
put on thefeedbag
To go to the table to eat a meal.
feeding time
The time to feed the farm animals, usually has reference to the ending of
the day.
feed shucks to a goose
Attempt something foolish, irrational, something obviously silly and
unworkable.
Back in the old days in the Valley, the Irishman was the subject of many
a good anecdote and joke. In the 1840's when the great effort to canalize
the Cape Fear River was made, many laborers were brought in from a
distance, especially Italian and Irish ones. Why the Italian didn't become
the butt of fun and the source of joking also I don't know. Anyway, I was
raised on the stories of funny Irishmen, and when there were two of the
characters they were always named "Pat" and "Mike." If only one of them,
he was usually called "Pat."
For instance, an Irishman showed up at a farmer's house there in the
Valley one day and wanted a job, they said. The farmer asked if he could
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split rails.
"Faith and me Christ, surely I can," said Pat.
The farmer told him to take the ax and maul and wedge and go down
into the swamp and choose the nice straight trees, cut them down into tenfoot lengths and split away. Well, that evening when Pat returned to get
his supper, the farmer asked him how many rails he had split.
"Faith and me Christ," said Pat, "when I get the one I'm working
on and two more I'll have three."
"Lord God," said the farmer to his wife, "he's been trying to split
them old sweet gums, I know, and God A'mighty's lightning can't do that."
"Well," he said to Pat, "maybe you're better at other things, so go
out there and feed the geese for me." So Pat went out to feed the geese.
When he came back, the farmer said, "Did you feed the geese?"
"Yes, sor, I did," said Pat.
"What did you feed 'em?" asked the farmer.
"Faith and me Christ, I give 'em an armful of shucks."
"Did they eat them?" said the farmer.
"No, sor, but they was talking about it when I left," said Pat.
Feed the Crow
A child's game. The one who is going to show the other how to feed the
crow crosses his two first fingers over the first two of his other hand, leaving
an opening, and then he recites the following little verse:
"Put your finger in the crow's nest.
The crow's not at home.
The crow's at the back door
Picking on a bone."
And if the second child is induced to insert his finger, then it is nipped by
the nail of the thumb of the first child. This game is the same as "Feed the
Crab" or "The Crab's Nest."
feed the fishes
To be seasick, to hang vomiting over the ship's railing.
feed trough
The place where one gets paid off. Same as pie counter.
"Everybody flocks to the feed trough in Washington. Let a little bit
of wind blow and it's called a hurricane and a disaster area, and off go the
politicians to Washington to get money for the farmers. And all the time
everybody's cussing about high taxes and Uncle Sam's messing in
everybody's business."
Feed your mule well if you expect a good crop.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
391
fee larks
Field larks.
feel for Jesus
It was told of a Holy Roller meeting that during the high cuttings-up
and holy dancing and talking in unknown tongues the lights went out and
the deacons and some of the young ones started to feel for Jesus, that is
put probing hands up the skirts of the females. And one deacon was heard
to shout out in the terms of the old timey hymn, "Lord, I've found it!"
Another vulgar story I heard as a boy was about a Methodist camp
meeting. A farmer was anxious to attend this meeting, and he didn't want
his wife to go because she would give the glad eye to the young men. So,
as the story went, when he left, being afraid that some of the neighbors left
behind would bother his wife, he fitted her with a pair of tin drawers. Well,
it happened that two Methodist preachers on their way to the convention
or to the gathering passed the farmer's house to get a drink of water and
met up with the young woman. And it was told that, expecting such
emergencies, they both had come armed with can openers. They started
feeling for Jesus with the can openers. And I, a little boy around a sawmill
hearing these things, began wondering very early about human nature and
its sacred beliefs.
feeling hand disease
A roving hand of a lecher. "At the party last night Bill got to messing with
Sarah over in the corner, and she called out for all of us to hear, 'Say, folks,
old Bill here has got the feeling hand disease,' and I reckon that stopped
him all right."
Where feelings are high common sense is low.
feel in one's bones
To have a premonition, a hunch.
feel like
To be inclined to, to look favorably upon. "I feel like standing up and
shouting every time I hear Billy Graham preach," said the old lady as she
put out her cigarette.
feel like a boiled lobster (especially after being in the sun)
feel like a boiled owl
feel like a stewed owl
feel like the devil
To be less than well, or to be depressed.
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feel one's oats
To be full of pride, high spirits.
feel under the table
To be in low spirits, sickly.
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
Don't let the feet outrun the shoes.
feet foremost
Dead, a corpse. It was a custom to carry a corpse feet foremost in the old
days. "It won't be long before I'll be carried out through that door, feet
foremost to the grave."
feet in the trough
Hearty eating.
felloe
The circular rim of a wheel in which the spokes were inserted.
fellow
The mate to, one of a pair. "Have you seen the fellow to this sock?"
bone felon
An inflammation of the finger, ending often in the fingernail coming off.
fence rail
In the old days in the Valley farmers fenced their farms in to protect them
from the cattle and hogs which were let run loose in the forest where they
could feed on the reed thickets and acorns. These rails were usually split
from ten-foot lengths of longleaf pine logs and the fences were built up to
stand about ten rails high. They were called snake fences, sometimes worm
fences, because of their shape. And keeping them mended, for they were
always rotting down, especially the bottom rail, was a chore I despised as
a boy and young man, next to digging potatoes.
Old Sid Gates, like many another farmer, got up in arms when the nostock law was passed by the state, which said that from now on the situation
was to be reversed — where before the farms were fenced in and the cattle
left free, now the cattle must be fenced in and the farms left free.
"Why, my God A'mighty!" said Sid, "The gover'mint's gone slam
crazy." And he got out his shotgun and threatened to shoot anybody that
tried to keep his cattle from running wild. "My hogs and cows have been
free to go where they wanted, so did my daddy's, so did my gran'daddy's
and beyond him to the founding of this country. Yessir. A man's got his
rights and liberties g'arnteed by the Constitution and now they're trying
to take 'em away from him. Why, our forefathers fou't at Lexington for
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
393
just that, and I'm ready to fight now."
So did old Sid and others like him in the Valley talk and threaten. But
to no avail, and the juggernaut of progress rolled on over them.
'fess up
Confess, speak out.
fetching
Attractive.
fever blister
Shows one has been telling lies. Also if a girl, she has been kissing a boy.
fever stick
A doctor's thermometer.
few and far between
Scattered, seldom. "Kind words from that woman are few and far between.''
f.h.b.
A sort of secret code between the members of a family, for family to hold
back on certain items of company food until the guests were satisfied.
fibber
A liar.
fibs
flee
An expression in a game of marbles, same as five. If a player happened to
knock out five dinahs at once and shouted "fibs" before one of the other
players shouted "venture fibs," then he could keep all five of the dinahs.
But if he failed to be ahead of another player in the calling out, then he had
to put the dinahs back into the ring and the game went on as before.
A feisty little dog.
fiddle about
To waste time, to trifle around.
fiddle-faddle
Trifling ways, nonsense.
second fiddle
A lesser or supporting position.
fiddling tunes
For decades "fiddlers conventions" have been popular in the Valley. The
winner's first prize was usually a five- or ten-dollar gold piece. After we
went off the gold standard, paper money had to do. Though not pretty and
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shiny, it is still money. Among the hundreds of tunes popular at these contests
and parties were: Arkansas Traveler; Billy in the Lowgrounds; BoogerMan;
Brother Easom Got the Coon and Gone On; Bucking Mule; Buffalo Gals;
Cackling Hen; Casey Jones; Catfish and Little Minnow; Cindy; Cumberland
Gap; Dancing Gal; The Devil A mong the Tailors; Drunken Sailor; Fisher's
Hornpipe; The Girl I Left Behind Me; Golden Joy; Gray Eagle; Green River;
Jeff Davis's March; John Paul Jones; Julie Ann Johnson; Katie Hall;
Leather Britches; Listen to the Mockingbird; Little Brown Jug; McCuller's
Dream; Mississippi Sawyer; Old Bow Back; Old Joe Clark; Old Zip Coon;
Peek-a-Boo; Pocahontas; Polly Put the Kettle On; Pop Goes the Weasel;
The Preacher and the Bear; Raise a Ruckus Tonight; Redwing; Root Hog
or Die; Run, Nigger, Run; Rye Straw; Sally Ann; Sally Goodin; Sally With
Her Shoes Run Down; Shortening Bread; Skip to My Lou; Sourwood
Mountain; Sugar in My Coffee; Sugar in My Toddy; Sweet Betsy from Pike;
Turkey Buzzard; Turkey in the Straw; The Wabash Cannonball; Walking
in the Parlor; Weevily Wheat; Who Will Shoe My Purty Little Foot. And
on and on.
field
There are only three things a field needs — good seed, good weather and
good elbow grease.
fieldhand
A worker in the fields as contrasted with a house servant. A house servant
would never be called a househand, nor would a fieldhand ever be called
a field servant.
as fierce as a lion
fiery furnace
The bad place, torment, hell in the hereafter, also a crisis or hard trial.
Not worth a fig (trifle).
A fig to you!
Same as nuts to you.
fighting cock
A young braggart and bully.
fighting mad
In a rage, ready to take on all comers.
fight like the devil
With determination.
He that fights and runs away
Will live to fight another day.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
395
filliloo bird
A mythical bird that sticks its head in the sand and whistles through its
rectum. Applied to a foolish person.
fill the bill
To suit, to be satisfactory.
A lively, even wanton young woman.
filth
A heavy growth of grass or vines among corn, cotton or tobacco — weeds,
trash, straw. My father used to use that word all the time when his crops
were so overrun. "We've got to get down there, boys, and clean out that
filth."
filthy lucre
A jocular term for money.
find
Give birth to. "The old sow has found pigs down in the pasture."
Finders, keepers;
Losers, weepers.
as fine as frog's hair
as fine as lace
as fine as silk
one of these fine days
Sometime, an uncertain occasion in the future, same as one of these fair days.
Fine feathers don't make the bird.
Finery is foolery.
fine voice
High-pitched voice. "You sing the fine part, Gordon, and let Ernest do
the gross."
Fine words butter no parsnips.
One finger won't catch fleas.
Don't cut off a finger to spite the thumb.
finger game rhymes
The fingers are interlocked and then turned inward, and the person playing
the game, usually with little children, speaks the following rhyme:
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"Here's the church,
Here's the steeple,
Open the door
Here are the people."
On "Here's the steeple" the forefingers are stuck upward for the steeple. On "Open
the door" the closed fingers are turned upward. It is very much the same as another
finger game with the following verse—
"That's the lady's forks and knives,
And that's the lady's table,
And that's the lady's looking glass,
And that's the baby's cradle."
Cutting a baby's fingernails will cause it to steal.
hang on by one's fingernails
To be able just to carry on, to be in a most precarious situation.
finger of scorn
A term of contempt.
finger stall
A finger-shaped covering of cloth, sometimes of leather, to protect a hurt
finger.
fingers
If two people say the same thing at the same time, they should hook each
other's little finger and make a wish.
Anyone who can make the first and fourth fingers touch over the backs of
the others may marry anyone he chooses.
fingers all thumbs
To be awkward, stumbly, inept.
Keep your fingers out of holes.
Fingers were made before forks.
finish
The end, death. "When a man comes down to the finish, he better have
some faith in God."
fight to the finish
"When the forts of folly fall,
Find my body by the wall."
Matthew Arnold
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
397
finished
Bankrupt, undone.
fire
High temper, spirit, anger. "I tell you you better be careful how you handle
old Cindy, she's full of fire."
The electric chair. "Yeah, put me in that fire and burn me on down, but
I can take it, yeah man, I can take it."
Fire a gun or cannon to bring a drowned body to the surface.
Fire may be talked out of a burn if one recites certain verses from the Bible.
Fire often sleeps in the ashes.
Don't pour oil on the fire.
out of the frying pan into the fire
spreads like fire
works like fighting fire
You can hide the fire, but what about the smoke?
like afire in high grass
How great a matter a little fire kindleth.
Heap coals of fire upon his head.
afire at one end and a fool at the other
A cigarette smoker.
fireback
The back part of a fireplace made of good brick or rock or, in some places
where one was able to afford it, of iron plate.
I remember once that my father and Clinton McNeil, a local fieldhand
and semi-mason worker, went down toward the Cape Fear River and got
some rocks, came back and put in a fireback. Later on that winter night
we children were all sitting with our father and mother around the glowing
fire and thinking how fine this piece of handiwork was. Suddenly there was
a terrific explosion and the whole fireback blew out at us, and a piece of
rock hit my father on the side of the head, but didn't hurt him too much.
Later we figured out that the soft rock had some dampness inside it and
this, in the heating, turned into steam, and therefore the explosion. After
that, my father was very sure that he got the hardest kind of rock for our
fireback.
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fire board
The mantel piece.
fire dogs
Andirons.
all-fired
A term used for emphasis. "He's all-fired faithful to the Ku Klux Klan."
fire-eater
An excitable, high-tempered person.
fire-fishing
The spearing or gigging of fish by the light of burning lightwood splinters.
fire in the hole!
A cry given out by a dynamiter to warn all the nearby people that the fuse
was lighted and to get to a safe place before the explosion occurred.
like a house afire
Swiftly, frantically, wildly, furiously. "Cleveland Jones can pull fodder like
a house afire."
fire stick
The poker. In the old days for lack of iron or steel the farmers would use
a hickory or white oak stick.
fire tongs
The grapplers to lift coals or fire chunks about.
fire up
To burn with a drought or sometimes with too much rain. "My corn's all
fired up from the drought, and I don't expect to make much this year."
To get angry easily.
as firm as Gibraltar (a rock)
The first the worst,
The second the same.
The last the best
Of all the game.
(A recitation and counting-out rhyme.)
won't get to first base
To make no impression, get no good results. "If you send a well-written,
educated letter to the President, you won't get to first base. But if you write
something with a pencil and scrawled on an old tablet sheet, you'll get some
recognition, for all the politicians are looking for the vote of the people,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
399
and a half-illiterate fellow is to them the people."
first come, first served
Equal treatment for all.
first hundred years are the hardest
A jocular statement concerning a tough job or proposition.
"The First Noel"
A favorite Christmas song, very popular with us on our Christmas
serenadings.
first off
Right away, immediately, instantly. "First off, he let loose some holy
shouting and singing."
first thing out of the box
Immediately, at once, same as "the first news you knew."
first whippoorwill
The first notes of the whippoorwill signify winter is ended, and it is time
to plant corn.
Fish
A child's game of cards in which one child draws blindly from the hand
of another, hoping to match a card in his hand. And when one player gets
all his cards in matching fours, he wins the game.
Fish bite best when it's raining.
Fish is brain food.
drink like a fish
swims like a fish
There are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught out of it.
as much at home as a fish in water
like a fish out of water
Use a small fish to catch a big one.
If the first fish you hook gets away, then your luck is ruined for that day.
I'll make you fishers of men.
As I was walking through the wheat
I picked up something good to eat,
Neither fish, flesh, fowl nor bone,
I kept it till it walked alone.
(Riddle — An egg)
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fishhooks
Scrawly, undecipherable writing.
fishing
Pointing the conversation so that one may receive compliments. "There
you go again, Maisie, always fishing."
fish in troubled waters
Stir up trouble where trouble already is.
fish or cut bait
Come to a decision, make a choice.
fish swimmer
The inflated air sac inside of a fish. When I was a little boy, I had a playmate
named Rassie (see "barlow knife") and he taught me all sorts of things,
among them to believe that if I swallowed a fish swimmer, as we called it,
I would be able to swim like a fish. So we caught a little pike in Middle Prong
Creek and I finally swallowed the sac. I jumped in and nearly drowned.
Rassie saved me, then stood on the bank, bowing up and down with shrieks
of laughter and derision at my gullibility.
a nice kettle offish
A quandary, an ironical situation. "L.B.J. has got himself a nice kettle
of fish in that Vietnam War."
have other fish to fry
Business to attend to.
Fishy, fishy in the brook,
Daddy caught it with a hook,
Mammy fried it in a pan,
Sonny et it like a man.
(A recitation rhyme.)
fist
Handwriting.
fist and skull
A bare-fisted, knock-down and drag-out fight.
' 'There is nothing like a lightning fist and skull tangle to work the grudge
out of a man," said Uncle Robert Light to me one day. "Yessir. I can
remember 'way back to right after the Civil War when I was a teeny boy.
I had a bad fight with Len Ragland. I was standing on the school ground
at Crowder's Grove when Len slipped up behind me and tripped me up.
Ah—ee, I was never hurt so bad in all my born days. He like to have killed
me. I swore then that some day I'd get it back on him — I'd whip him if
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
401
it was the last thing I ever did. Well, his family moved out'n the Harnett
country and I didn't see him for long eighteen years. Come to think of it,
it might have been fifteen years, but it was a long time. Then one day I met
up with him at Uncle Josh's ferry on the river. I was coming out of Lillington
and he was going toward town. We recognized each other. Yes, we did. I
was riding a horse and had a pistol strapped around me. I was a deputy sheriff
then. I stopped the horse and called out to Len. 'Well, Len,' I said, 'it's
been long enough now and we might as well settle our little matter.' So I
got down and started taking off my coat. 'Great God, Bob,' he said, 'you
sure can hold a grudge a long time.' 'Yeh,' Isaid, 'and if you had been hurt
that day as bad as I was, you'd hold a grudge a long time. You liked to've
killed me and I never have forgot it.' 'But Lord, Bob,' he said, 'you're an
officer of the law now and I can't fight an officer.' 'I ain't no officer no
longer,' I said, and I pulled off my badge and flung it on the ground. 'But
you got a pistol too,' he said. 'No, I ain't got a pistol,' I said. I unstrapped
it and laid it aside. 'Come on, Len,' I said.
"And we went to it.
"Well, sir, I'm here to tell you that fellow near 'bout killed me again.
He was a man! And I was a man too! I weighed a hundred and eighty-five
in them days and had done a little boxing on the sly. And I can tell you we
tore up the ground down there by the river that day — Len and me did. Ahee, he was a much man! And as I said, he near 'bout killed me again.
"We finally quit. I helped him all bloody-faced up in his road cart,
and I got on my horse somehow and made it home. And the part of my shirt
that was left was the collar band with part of my necktie rolled in it.
"Well, after that, next Sunday, or a few Sundays after — as soon as
we were able to get about — we met at the church. And he was a sight to
see! He was walking with two walking sticks and his head was sorter
cranksided. It pleased me so to see him in that condition that I felt right
friendly toward him. We shook hands and called it square. And we kept
good friends until the day he died. You know what they put on his tombstone
— some words that I told 'em to put — 'the bravest man I ever knew and
the truest friend I ever had.' "
fistes
Fists.
fist law
A law of physical force.
fist-raised dick
A penis toughened through masturbation practices. Dr. Lloyd of Chapel
Hill told me about this, saying that he preferred that to the kind that was
toughened by intercourse with prostitutes."It's a dang sight less dangerous,''
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he said.
fit
Ready to, about to. "He laughed till he was fit to die."
An exasperated condition, to be bothered to the point of explosion.' 'That
girl with her talk always gives me a fit."
Past tense of fight, fou't.
fit as a fiddle
To be in fine health, good spirits, everything just right.
fits like a glove
To fit exactly, to be exactly suitable.
fitten
Fitting.
fittified
Subject to fits.
fit toaT
An exact fit.
fit to be tied
In a wild hysterical condition.
five fingers
Shaking hands to confirm an agreement.
five of clubs
A fist. "Lawd, that boy shouldn't've messed with that big man. That five
of clubs laid him low."
a fix
A frame-up.
fix
To cheat.
To prepare, to get ready. "He's fixing to go."
A critical condition. "Have you heard about Rex Johnson? He's in a fix,
I'll tell you."
in the middle of a bad fix
To be in a tough situation, precarious condition.
fixings
Decorations, side-trimmings, adornments, pretties, doodads.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
403
Eddie York's pretty wife Ola loved fixings, and Eddie loved the land
and the crops he could grow on it. I knew these two young people and was
something of a witness to the tragedy that fell upon them. My sympathy
as well as my imagination mainly went with Eddie.
A wonderful worker Eddie was — one of the best in the whole Valley.
Let it be rolling logs, splitting rails, or cutting with a cradle, he stood at
the top. And many a hot August day when "the monkey" (the heat) was
riding old man McLaughlin's hands in the bottom, Eddie's loud halloo could
be heard among them, urging them on to their fodder-pulling. Three hundred
bundles a day was easy for him. Yea, he could pull five stacks in a week,
had done it all right. And on a particular boiling July day — a day I visualize
to myself—he had set a new mark for hoeing cotton. Three acres of grassy
stuff chopped out by one man was a record. He thought about it. Who could
equal it? He was mad, mad to the bottom now he was. Mad and hurt. And
his hurt and anger drove him, beat on him like a flail, hooked and prodded
him on like an iron goad. He had quarreled with Ola. Aih, worse than that,
he had slapped her. A little slap, not much — he glanced at his heavy hands.
But he had stood enough to make any man mad. What had got into
her nohow? Here he was with the grass eating his cotton up and he hoeing
his liver out trying to save it. So much rainy weather, and the grass growing
two inches a day. And she — lying up in the house down there in the field,
doing nothing — ready to spend every copper cent she could get on fixings,
buying lace and jewelry from the peddlers who passed in the lane. "Says
she's done working in the fields, she does,'' he muttered wrathfully. "Yea,
but I'll see!" And his hoe flew to the ground. He had had no dinner, his
stomach was empty. Evening was coming on. Everything looked gray,
lonesome, it sure did. And now he'd have to go on home. The mule and
the cow had to be fed and there were the shoats too.' 'Dang, I didn't never
plan on things like this!"
He loved Ola, always had. Temper it was. Too much temper. His mother
used to say it would bring him trouble. He'd ought to be patient. Still, Ola
had tried him — worried him nigh to death it seemed. And now he
remembered that in their courting days old man McLaughlin had warned
him of Ola's dressing and finery. Her pappy and mammy couldn't satisfy
her. They were too poor. Take a bank to hold her, he had said. That's right,
she didn't treat him decent, and he slaving day in and day out to get ready
to buy a piece of land of their own. They were both the children of tenant
farmers, the grandchildren of tenant farmers, the great-grandchildren, and
on back. But he'd change it for himself. He'd pay taxes on his own land
before he died, he would. Aih, she knew his ambition, knew what he intended
when she married him and she seemed glad.
He stamped and spat upon the ground.
He tore through a dozen more rows before the dusk came sifting in
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from the east. And when the moon had begun to shine up in the middle of
the sky, he stopped his hoe and stood gazing over the wide rich fields. He
would make big cotton here, a bale and half to the acre and more maybe.
And over there toward the hollow was his corn, popping with strength and
as green as poison. He was a farmer and this was his, the earth was his. It
was fine, aye it was, bless God! This level forty acres would be his in a year
or two. McLaughlin had promised to sell it to him for his very own as soon
as he could pay a thousand dollars down. Money.
Ola would have to quit spending his money. Not another cent to waste,
not another brownie. No sir, not a damn red! It was foolish. It was foolish
for her always to be looking through Sears Roebuck's catalogue, picking
out lace curtains and tablecloths and window shades. He'd told her a
thousand times. And then this morning — yea, God! With a muttered oath,
he turned and went off through the darkness home.
He fed the mule and cow and the clamorous pigs. As he came up the
walk to the house where Ola had wasted a lot of good guano planting a border
of cannas, he saw her sitting on the porch in a cool white dress. And then,
fool that he was — his heart suddenly softened toward her and he could
have taken her in his arms. She was sweet. She was always clean and cool
and sweet. He stopped before the steps embarrassed, trying to think of
something to say. The lamp was lighted on the table in the room behind,
and he saw the waiting supper spread out on a new white tablecloth. Aih,
that was it — finery, fixings! She would ruin him yet. His heart hardened
again.
"Supper's ready," she said. "I got tired of waiting and had mine."
He went on into the kitchen, soused his face and arms in a pan of water
and dried them hurriedly on a fresh towel, then seated himself to his meal.
"Don't you want nothing more, Ola?" he called.
"I've had my supper," she answered.
He leant over the table eating in huge mouthfuls. He fed his hunger
with beans, sidemeat, cornbread, preserves, and a few pieces of fried chicken,
washing it all down with great gulps of black coffee. His powerful sweaty
arms made streaks on the new cloth, but what did he care, consumed as
he was by hunger and the fiery thought within?
When he had finished, he sat picking bits of meat from his teeth with
his fingernails. Ola had reproved him for this and other bad manners. Yeh,
let her. Now and then he could hear her stirring in her chair on the porch.
He was tired and sleepy, and if all was right he might go happily to bed against
the next day's labor. But now — no, he was too worried to sleep. She was
out there thinking things. He would go out and talk to her, find out some
of these things that were always working in her mind.
Sitting down on the steps, he took off his shoes and stretched his feet
in the soft sand of the walkway. He waited, hoping she would say something,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
405
for he could find no words. But she held her peace. Time went by and
drowsiness began to steal over him. Like a dream he heard the frogs croaking
down near the millpond and an owl screaming further in the swamp beyond.
"You're sweaty. The tub's by the well there." Her words startled him.
He fumbled with his shoes and made no answer. Presently she went into
the house and brought him a cake of scented-smelling soap and a cloth. As
she came near him the odor of rich Fayetteville cologne entered his nostrils.
She was sweet enough to eat — sweet — ah, Lord!
"Peddler been by today?" he asked quietly, choking down his anger,
the while the cake of soap and cloth trembled in his hands.
"No," she answered coldly, "no."
"Looks like a new tablecloth. Thought maybe you'd been a-buying."
"Yourmoneydidn'tbuyit. It was brought to me." She turned sharply
and sat again in her chair.
"Who brung it?"
"Ella and her friend from Raleigh. They had dinner here."
"A high-collared dude, riding round this busy time of the year. He'd
better stay away from here. I could take him in my two hands and break
him like a dead dog-fennel stalk." Ola laughed softly. "Now what do you
mean by that?"
"I'm going to Raleigh tomorrow with him to visit Ella a while,'' she said.
"And the grass eating up our crop!" he cried incredulously.
"Yes, eating up your crop."
"By God, you won't!" he roared wrathfully, as he got up and began
walking back and forth barefooted in the yard. "Not with that loose
woman!"
"I'm going, I tell you," and her voice quavered. "I'm going to get a
rest from your slaving and sweating and your dirt and all."
"Well, for God's sakes, listen at her! Listen at her!"
"I won't be run to death. Pa didn't run me to death."
"Pa didn't — and look at him. He's gonna die in the porehouse. And
I ain't, I tell you." He felt a piece of broken glass cut into his bare foot
but paid no attention to it. "Do all you can to rob and ruin me — I won't
let you do it!" he snarled. Then turning he slumped down on the steps,
hugging his knees in anger.
"And then this morning you hit me. If Pa knowed it, he'd come over
here with his gun and shoot you down like a dog.'' Now she began sobbing.
"Dry up, dry up, I tell you. Hanh." He snorted scornfully, "I'll grab
him up and bust his brain out ag'in the ground." He got to his feet and
slammed his way into the house. "All right," he called back, " go on if
you wish. See if I care! But you won't carry off none of my money. No.
And you'll be back in a week." And he went to bed.
All night Ola sat on the porch, listening to his heavy snores coming
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from the little back room. When the dawn broke beyond the old mill and
the chickens flew out of the China tree with a clatter, she got up and started
breakfast. While the biscuits were baking she went out and milked the cow
for the last time.
Eddie rose and ate his meal in silence. When he' d filed his hoe and started
into the fields he stopped and called, "Going, are you?"
"I am," she said.
"Well go and be damned!" he shouted. And off he went up the path,
kicking the dust before him.
Again a second day he hoed from morn till evening. The fiery sun burned
down upon his back, drying up the sweat and leaving splotches of salt upon
his shirt. When night came he had another three acres hoed clean and standing
up for the siding plow. Again he went home under the moon, devoured by
hunger and thoughts within.
The house was closed and there was no light. He found a note stuck
inthedoor. "I am gone, "it said. "Don't look for me till you see me coming."
He could read the clear letters in the moonlight. Tearing the paper into bits,
he made his way to the lot to feed the stock. When he had cooked his supper,
he gorged himself like an animal and lay down in his sweat-fouled clothes
on the bed. Soon again his snores echoed through the house.
The next morning he woke and called her. And then he remembered
that she had left him. It seemed as if his head flew all to pieces, for he began
cursing in loud oaths, cursing her curtains, cursing her trimmings, and he
even seized one of her flowerpots and hurled it crashing through the window
into the yard. The calendars and magazine covers shook on the wall with
the violence of his voice. He cooked his breakfast in the same unwashed
pans and ate out of the same dirty plate of the night before. Why should
he clean up now? Let the house rot down. Let the maggots work in the dishes.
God knows, he didn't care.
All that week he did mountains of work. He hoed and plowed and
plowed and hoed, driving his mule up and down the windy fields like one
possessed. Old McLaughlin came and tried to commiserate with him, but
grief and anger were eating in his heart like lye. He said, "Please let me
alone."
The loneliness of the house, aih, that harried him to death. He became
restless and unable to sleep at night. And on Sunday morning when he had
shaved himself and sat alone on the porch staring across the wide burning
fields, he gave in. Fishing out a stub of pencil he wrote:
Dear Ola,
Won't you come back? i speck i done you wrong. I'll do
better, honest i will, the crop is in good shape, and there aint
so much to do. there aint nobody to churn and theys a pile of
eggs i cant eat. im well and hope the same. — Ed.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
407
He set off up the road, dropped it in the mailbox and waited.
The next week he worked, worked and waited. The grass was killed,
the cotton sided, and all looked fine. Then came a note from Ola saying,
"I am having a good time. Please look in the top bureau drawer and send
me my white slippers. Don't work too hard. —Ola." He was stupefied with
rage. All that afternoon he sat on the porch unmindful of his crops and the
world about him. A vast and molten wrath consumed him, bloodshotted
his eyes and made the back of his head thick with pain. Near night he rushed
into the house and began putting on his store-bought suit. "I'll go get her,
I'll go get her!" he kept shouting to himself. Hurrying to the barn, he hitched
the mule to the buggy and went driving away in a cloud of dust to the north.
Late that night he drove up the shining main street of the capital city.
The bright lights astonished, even frightened him. But he held his way.
Turning to the right near the middle of town, he went several blocks eastward
and stopped before a small frame house. There was a stir inside and light
came on as he hammered on the door. "Who's that, who's that?" Ella's
sleepy voice called. And then he heard a man's voice in the room speaking
to her.
"It's me," he cried, pushing his way into the hall. "And I want Ola."
A door opened in the hall and Ola came out, all beautiful in a clinging
blue robe.
"Ola, Ola," he said, "come home."
"Ooh!" she screamed. And then she laughed queerly and said, " I'm
not going — now!"
"When you coming, Ola? When?" he begged hoarsely.
And then she overdid it. "Maybe next year," she said, and gave that
little laugh again. Ella went away and left them alone.
"Git your things, I tell you," he almost whispered, "and get out of
this bad house."
"I ain't going. Good night. You're crazy as a fool, Ed."
Temper, temper, that was it. For he couldn't keep his hands off her
— hands that could lift a bale of cotton. She couldn't make a whisper, not
a sound as he choked her.
Then he stumbled down the walk to his buggy. He'd done it all right.
He'd killed her all right. He could still feel the softness of her throat in his
fingers. He knew all the time, every long mile to Raleigh, that's the way
it'd be. He'd choke her to death. Temper, temper. With a clatter of blows,
he urged his mule toward the south. A big star shining above the road he
traveled caught his eye as he drove, and he rocked his head in grief, "I wisht
I was where that star is, clean away, Oh, I do—" And he sobbed as he passed
the moonlit hedges.
When the sheriff came for him in his little house, he was quiet and
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dignified. Aih, he was sitting on the porch dressed in his Sunday best with
his head bent over in his hands. The dishes were washed, the floor swept,
the flowers watered, and all in order. He went away like a child and stayed
so till the last day.
fixments
Trimmings, decorations, same as fixings.
fixture
One who has a settled position, a long-term job holder. "Miss Durham is
a fixture in the bank."
fizzle
To fart.
flabbergast
To confuse to undoing, to mystify, to bother unduly.
woman with her flag up
In her menses. "Say, Bo, you just as well let that woman alone, she's got
her flag up."
sweet flag
Sometimes called calamus root. It grows along banks of streams and ponds
and in swampy meadows. Its dried root was once used by the Indians for
chest troubles. It is also supposed to be good for the digestion.
I remember old Miss Minty Gaskins who used to visit us and stay to
tiresome irritation. I can still see her sitting in front of the fire, taking out
her stained handkerchief with her bony yellow trembling hands and getting
out a little piece of flag root. She would break off a pinch, put it into her
toothless jaws and sit there munching contentedly away and staring emptily
before her.
flam
Nod, jerk of the head that says go, okay. "And his flam of the head said,
'Go baby, go!' "
flame
A sweetheart.
flang
Past tense of fling.
At a Negro camp meeting the spirit was especially active and a lot of
shouting and holy hopping took place. One hefty old woman caught in the
fervor of the occasion jumped and hopped down the church aisle and out
into the open. In her wild cavortings she fell sprawling into a mud puddle
and lay there puffing and blowing and giggling with happiness.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
409
' 'We better help her — she might get drownded,'' said one of the sisters,
appealing to the preacher who had come out.
"Nah, nan" he said, "leave her lay where Jesus flang her."
I was told of a court case where the word "flang" was also vividly used.
A long, tall yellow girl had indicted a little sawed-off black fellow for raping
her — and raping her while she was standing up. This was bemusing not
only to the court audience but to the judge. He addressed the plaintiff kindly
and asked if she would explain to the court how this happened.
"Well, suh, yo' honor," she said, "he flang a bucket over my head
and hung down by the handle."
flannel
A soft woolen cloth much used for underwear.
It was also used in the old days in the making of poultices and plasters.
For this purpose red flannel was preferred. Why, I don't know. If any of
us children had colds or were threatened with colds, Mother would out with
a good sized piece of red flannel, plaster it thoroughly with mutton tallow
and fasten it on our chests. It always helped.
flannel mouth
A sycophant, a soft-soaper.
flap
The front part of a man's trousers, the fly.
Also gassy talk. "Don't give me all that flap."
A faux pas, also a quarrel, a row.
flapper
A term used years ago for forward young girls.
There was a song that went about in those days that could apply also
to the miniskirt craze. It ran somewhat like this as I remember:
"If the dresses get any shorter,
Said the flapper with a sob,
There'll be two more cheeks to powder
And a lot more hair to bob."
I recently sent this to a newspaper columnist, hoping he might use it.
He confessed he'd like to but he didn't dare to. This reminded me of the
Hays Code in Hollywood, used to judge and pass on the "moral" nature
of the movie scripts. For instance, the office would forbid a writer's including
the sound of a flushed toilet in his script. And I remember when I was writing
a picture for Will Rogers called Dr. Bull, I had a shotgun wedding in it.
John Ford was the director, and he and I were both irritated and had some
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laughter at the ruling of the Breen Office which said we couldn't use shotguns,
because this was censorable in Kansas and many other states, and suggested
that we use baseball bats — let the two irate brothers show up and stand
in the background with baseball bats when the ceremony was taking place,
so it was filmed that way. How timid, priggish and hypocritical can we be.
flare out
To burst out in a tirade. "Don't flare out at me like that if you know what's
best for you, hosscake."
flare up
To get angry easily.
flash in the pan
A phony, one who promises much and can give little, one who has first success
and then can't follow it up with any other.
A flash of lightning means God is winking his eye.
flashy
Showy, ostentatious in one's dress or behavior.
flat
A gust of wind. "A flat struck him, and over in the gulley, bicycle and all,
he went."
A level-topped ferry. I remember the old flat on the Cape Fear River that
used to carry us over to Lillington. It was run by old Uncle Josh. He would
pole it across and haul us with our wagon or buggy, and what a wonderful
piece of seagoing machinery this was to my childish eyes. I remember hearing
how on the day they hanged Negro Purvis there in Lillington the hundreds
of people returning home swamped Uncle Josh and his flat. They rushed
on and nearly sank it, and some of the folks fell in the water and were almost
drowned. Finally, some strong-armed and strong-minded people took charge
of things and Uncle Josh with the helpers finally got them all across. Tired
out and weary but satisfied in seeing nigger Purvis dangling from the gallows,
they reached home.
flat as a floor
flat as a flounder
flat as a fritter
flat as a pancake
flat broke
Completely broke, without a penny.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
411
flatform
A platform.
flathead
A wood grub under rotten pine bark. We boys used to strip the bark off
rotten logs in the woods hunting for flatheads to fish with. They were
supposed to be the best bait of all. I remember when I was a little tiny boy
I made myself a fishhook out of a crooked pin, went in the woods and got
a flathead and, being too small to go to the creek, I fished in a dry ditch,
imagining it was full of water. Now and then I would have a bite and jerk
up a most wonderful shining bouncing fish and look at him there wiggling
in the grass, so proud in my mind that I could dance.
flatiron
The heavy iron usually heated at the fireplace and used to iron clothes.
flat of one's back
Lying face up, supine.
flat out
Completely, violently, etc. "In the scene where Father Martin christens little
Virginia Dare, the baby flat out bit him."
flatWOOds
Level timberland.
flaxseed
To get a cinder or grain of sand out of one's eye, we used to put a flaxseed
in and the flow of hot water washed both seed and cinder out.
fleabane (colt's tail)
A tea from this plant was used as a stimulant tonic and general health builder.
Also it was supposed to be a good cure for gonorrhea.
fleabite
An insignificant thing, an insufficient quantity, an unimportant word or
happening.
fleabitten
A horse covered with small brown freckles.
He would skin a flea for his hide and tallow.
Excessive stinginess.
flea in one's bonnet
A hidden purpose or intent. Same as bee in one's bonnet.
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put a flea in one's ear
To give information, also to warn.
He who sleeps with dogs will scratch fleas,
fled like rats from a sinking ship
fleece
To cheat, to rob.
fleet as the wind
flesh and blood
Close kin.
make one's flesh crawl
Same as make one's flesh creep. Horrifying, outrageous, distasteful. I
remember how the sound of filing hoes out in the cotton fields used to make
my flesh crawl. I still don't like the sound.
fleshen up
To grow stout, increase in weight.
neither flesh, fowl nor good red herring
To be in a dilemma of indecision, indeterminate, wishy-washy.
fleshly
Worldly, not spiritual.
flibbity-gibbet
Harum-scarum, wildly eccentric, silly.
You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than a gallon of vinegar.
no flies on him
Impeccable, also industrious, quick-moving.
Flinch
Card game.
flinders
Small pieces, splinters. "He beat him to flinders."
to fling a fit and fall in it
To go into hysterics, wild behavior.
flint
A hard person, a cynical person.
An arrowhead. "Down in that old field there below Blake's hill you can
pick up Indian flints anytime you want to."
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
flip
413
A light blow, a thump on the head.
Disdainful, pert. "Don't give me any more flip talk, woman, for they's a
creeper been here — I can smell him."
flipper
The hand.
A flat-ended piece of springy wood which we boys used to use to shoot peas
or BB shot or tiny pebbles. We usually made them from hickory or white
oak. They were held in one hand while the other hand was used to hold a
small pebble or BB shot against the flat end and, bending it back, we let
it go. It would shoot sometimes forty or fifty yards. We boys used to use
them in war games, and at times to sting the girls there at old Pleasant Union
schoolhouse.
flippity-flop
Draggle-tailed.
flirting of the heart
Fluttering of the heart.
flirting with death
Be overly-reckless, like lighting a cigarette in front of an open gas jet.
flitters
Pieces, bits, rags, same as "flinders."
flitty
Flighty.
floater
A lazy kind of pitch in baseball, a sort of knuckle ball that would come toward
the batter seeming to float and not spin.
A ne'er-do-well.
floating heart
A congestive heart.
flog a willing horse
To urge on someone who already is doing his best.
floodgate
A watergate in the forebay of a grist mill. It is opened to turn the mill wheel
for grinding.
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floozy
A loose woman, a trollop.
Florida handshake
The beggar's outstretched hand for alms.
flounce about
To show off.
To move with self-conscious display or temper. "She flounced out of the
house and banged the door."
flourish like a green bay tree
flowering dogwood
A small tree which grows well under larger trees and is common from Canada
to Florida and west to Kansas and Oklahoma. Among the Valley people
it is perhaps the favorite of all trees and its shower of white blossoms over
the landscape in spring is a wonder to behold. In autumn its foliage is a
beautiful burnished red. Its berries are succulent food for the birds after
the first frost.
The wood is close-grained and, when dried out or cured, is almost as hard
as iron. The butt of a good-sized tree made a tough and long-lasting maul.
Also we used it for gluts (wedges) in the splitting of fence rails and posts.
My shucking peg was always made of a piece of dogwood, fire-cured at the
point.
I've had different explanations for the name "dogwood." One was that
because of its hardness daggers were made from it, and dagger-wood became
dogwood. Another was that dogs (blocks) used in weaving were made of
this wood.
Tea made from dried leaves of the tree was once used as a tonic, also as
a purgative.
like a flower in the hair of a corpse
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.
like a flower on a dung heap
say it with flowers
To speak sympathetically or politely, to praise something, to extend
sympathy.
"Flow Gently, Sweet Afton"
A popular picnic and hayriding old song. I always thought it was Scotch
through and through. It is in feeling, though the music to Robert Burns'
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
415
poem was written by an American minister living in Bardstown, Kentucky,
a Reverend I.E. Spilman.
flub-dub
A bungler, a nonentity. "And then Senator Markham brought down the
house when he said in that charming way he had, 'Our president is just a
Hub-dub.' "
fluff
A girl.
fluke
A chance happening, good or bad. "State College won at the last minute
by a fluke."
flumadiddle
A mommick, a mess, a bust.
flummox
To distress, upset.
To cheat or confuse.
flury
"The morning was cold as flury." My father used to use that word flury
all the time, never fury.
flusteration
Frustration.
flusticate
To confuse, to embarrass.
flute player or flutist
A homosexual, same as a piccolo player.
flutter wheel
A little waterwheel made of crossed pieces of very light wood with small
paddles. We boys used to make them and dam up little branches after a rain.
Then we'd set up our flutter wheels in a sluice and watch them with delight
as they merrily turned.
floodyflux
Diarrhea.
stuck like a fly in flypaper
like a. fly in hot manure
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fly around
To court. "That Mason boy is flying around Sally Matthews these days."
Fly Away, Jack
A children's game. The leader or speaker sticks a bit of paper on each
index finger and places these fingers, nails up, on the table, then recites:
"Two little birds sat on a hill,
One called Jack and the other called Jill.
Fly away, Jack."
At this command the hand is lifted quickly, the index finger doubled under,
and the second finger brought down on which there is no paper. The
command to Jill follows with the same action. The change of fingers is rarely
noticed. Then wonder of wonders at the command of "Comeback, Jack,"
the finger reappears with the bit of paper restored. And so with Jill.
I remember how amazed we children were when Mother first tried this
magic onus. How in the world did those bits of paper disappear from those
fingers and then quick as blinking get back on them!
fly-blowed
Damaged, partly decayed. "Don'ttryto palm off thatoldpieceof fly-blowed
mutton on me."
fly bonnet
A bonnet, usually stiffened by the insertion of pieces of cardboard in the
lining, and coming down covering the back of the neck and the sides of the
face. The women working in the field always wore them as a protection from
the sun. They varied in color and were sometimes very charming.
take a flyer
To make a risky gamble usually for big stakes.
fly-flapper
(fly-flap)
A brush or homemade paper-cut fan to keep the flies away from the table.
We used to make them by taking pieces of crepe paper, cutting little serrated
teeth along the edge and then, inserting a long-handled stick in the upper
part of the roll, we used them to fan the flies. Usually when we had fieldhands
or people coming for log-rolling or fodder-pulling, someone would stand
beside the table and work the fly-flapper during the meal. Otherwise the
flies would about take things. It was not the same as a fly swatter, because
we didn't kill the flies, we simply frightened them off.
fly high
To show off, spend money excessively.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
417
flying mare (jenny)
We used to have more fun with these flying mares than most anything. We
would go into the woods, clear a place with a medium-size tree in the center,
cut it off about four or five feet above the ground, and then chop around
the upper part of that to leave a little pivot, usually an inch and a half or
two inches thick, a sort of a round axled protrusion. Then we'd cut a pole
some ten to fifteen feet long, split an opening in the middle, drop a wedge
into this middle and then insert the opening over the little pivot of wood.
With that pole horizontal we had us a flying mare, a sort of merry-go-around.
We'd hang over the ends of the pole and go flying around, and it never
occurred to us that our plaything was crude and we were to be pitied for
having such makeshift entertainment. We thought these things were
wonderful, and they were wonderful. All we needed was a little time to get
free from our labors to make us a flying mare. And about the best time we
would have would be Sunday. But the usual forbidden authority of the
Sabbath hindered us, because if we went in the woods and were heard
chopping with an axe, we would be severely reprimanded as being sinful
and breaking God's holy Sabbath. The best thing we could do would be
to kneel down right there and ask forgiveness of Old Master in the sky.
flying squirrel
An extremely interesting animal, smaller than the usual squirrel, and with
such loose skin that it can fly or spring out from great heights of trees and
spread the skin in such a way as to parachute down, as it were. These creatures
are becoming very scarce in North Carolina.
fly in the ointment
A drawback, a difficulty of bad sorts, the penalty.
fly off the handle (hinges)
To get excited, angry, explode in a temper.
fly one's kite
To brag, to self-advertise.
fly out
To rage or have a burst of temper.
fly-specked
Anything covered with the minute droppings of flies.
fly the coop
To run away, to escape, said of a young girl sometimes when she runs away
to get married. In the old days it used to be the custom down in Harnett
County that if young people under age wanted to get married they would
run away and cross the border into South Carolina. McColl was a haven
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Paul Green's Wordbook
for these runaway marriages.
My great-great-great grandfather, Colonel Alexander McAllister, had
a daughter named Janet who ran away and married Malcolm McNeill, later
the first sheriff of Moore County. Recently I came across an old letter of
the Colonel's in which he was writing to his brother, and he said that two
of his daughters had made runaway marriages and he had not asked after
them since nor did he ever expect to.
I also found a letter from Janet dated 1774 which she wrote to the
Colonel.'' Honored Father, it is no longer in my power to Consele the gref f
of mind that I have fealt Seance I Comitted so ondutifull a crime as I shall
Ever Call it — and that which hath aded to my gref f the seeing of you twice
or thre times without you Ever takeing the Lest notis of me which has allmost
broke my hart."
Her grave is in the old Tirzah (Summerville) churchyard some two miles
west of Lillington. Where her husband is buried I don't know.
fly time
The hot summer time, especially July and August, when flies are most
numerous and the farm animals are most persecuted. I remember how I used
to plough the corn or cotton in the late summer and how the horse flies and
all kinds of dog flies would persecute the poor mule to madness almost.
We always welcomed a little buzzing bumblebee sort of insect which we called
horse guards, a yellow striped insect which came around and was supposed
to chase the horse flies and persecuting flies away. I never did see such chasing
going on, but I always felt comforted when I saw one of the horse guards.
I imagined that the persecution of the pestiferous flies grew less during the
appearance of this insect and the mule seemed to plough better.
flytrap
The mouth.
See "pitcher plant," also "Venus's flytrap."
go fly a kite
Mind your own business, leave me alone.
on the fly
Hurriedly, hit or miss, on the run. "They got married on the fly, but they've
had plenty of time to repent and settle down since."
foalded
Foaled.
fo'by
Forebay. The wooden-framed bay cut through a dam where water from the
dammed up pond or lake can enter before it is released to pour down into
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
419
a turbine and stir it into action. The turbine axle is part of a millstone axle
or of a belted wheel axle that turns the stone. Meal or flour resulting from
this grinding is usually described as "waterground" and is supposed to be
better than other grindings such as electrical, steam or oil power. The reason
for this, an old-timer told me, is that a water-turned millstone grinds more
slowly and doesn't heat up the meal.
fodder
Food. "Chris Green looks like she's off her fodder—she's pale and peaked.''
fodder bundle
In the old days we used to pull fodder, that is, strip the ripened blades from
the corn stalks, tie them in what we called "hands," double up the stalk
and stick the hand on top of it for drying. Then the following evening when
the dew fell and the fodder hands had cured, we would march up and down
the rows tying three hands to the bundle and throwing the bundles into a
center row to be carried to a waiting wagon or to the fodder stack and packed
there for later use. This was our main staple for animal forage. In recent
years, though, fodder pulling has passed away and an acre or two of hay
on the separate farms can furnish much more forage than several acres of
pulled fodder. But we used to have fun trying to outpull one another, racing
one another to the end of the row. Mr. Joe Johnson, a neighbor, was the
fastest fodder puller around, even faster than Cleveland Johnson. But the
way he did it, he would grab a few blades, stomp down the stalk, and move
on to the next one.
fodder-forker
A hayhand or farmer.
fodder stack
A cylindrical stack some eight to twelve feet high in which the fodder was
stacked with the heads in toward the central pole and the tails of the blade
outward. At the top they were capped with other blades to help turn the
water during the winter. And as a farmer needed them, he brought the stacked
fodder to the barn and fed it to his cattle.
fog
Ignorance or lack of understanding. "The solution of the poverty problem
is all fog to me."
To throw with great speed. "Old Big Train really fogged that ball by 'em
today." Big Train was the affectionate title of Walter Johnson, the great
Washington baseball pitcher. As a young man I saw him pitch one game,
and my mouth stayed open in admiration for the whole two hours. He was
one of the quickest pitchers I ever saw. He didn't have much of a windup
and he didn't wait to put on any gymnastics or pantomime, but received
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Paul Green's Wordbook
the ball back from the catcher, whirled around, and fogged it back toward
the batter.
A rising fog foretells rain, a falling fog no rain.
foggiest
Unclear, murky, to lack knowledge of. "I haven't the foggiest notion what
to do about my boy."
foggy
Tipsy, half-drunk, confused.
foghorn
A loud blatant person, especially a ranting politician, a type quite common
in the South since the Civil War.
in the fold
A religious believer.
folk beliefs
Concepts, ideas, attitudes of the people as to life, death, the hereafter, and
as to pragmatic matters, daily living, sickness, cures, etc., most of them
unscientific, ranging from ethics to religious superstitions. These folk beliefs
are not limited to the country people or the ignorant ones of the land, but
they are part of the life of all our people. Some of the most superstitious
people are the so-called scientists and, of course, I always think of the
extrasensory perception people at Duke University, as well as the extreme
Christian Scientists, faith healers, patent medicine addicts, the phony
advertisings, etc., etc.
folk cures
Usually home remedies or remedies handed down from generation to
generation, such as cures for warts, stomachaches, headaches, etc., etc.
About 90 percent, I should say, of the cures dispensed through the presentday drug stores are folk cures. From the point of view of science they have
no value, but from the point of view of folk belief and comfort they have
a great deal of value.
I remember being in Grantham's Drug Store in Dunn once, and talking
to Mr. Grantham, who happened to be a trustee of the University of North
Carolina, about the huge display of patent medicine he had on his shelves
— Dr. Pierce's Golden Remedy Discoveries, sarsaparilla, cardui, Lydia
Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, etc., etc. And he told me that he eased
his conscience in selling the stuff through the fact that so many people got
cured or helped by it because they believed in it. "For instance," he says,
"take peruna. I sell hundreds of bottles of that stuff and, of course, a lot
of our prohibition guys who can't get liquor drink it for its kicks. But patent
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
421
medicine is here to stay," he said. While we were talking, a Negro woman
came in with a little boy. She called Mr. Grantham "Doctor." She said,
"Doctor, I brung the boy here for you to look at him like you said." Mr.
Grantham took the boy and, followed by the woman, went into the rear
of the store. I heard him back there saying a few things, and then pretty
soon he came out and got a little tin box of salve and sold it to the woman
for fifty cents which she fished deep out of her pocket, and she and the boy
went outside. Mr. Grantham continued, "Take that boy there, now he's
got what you call a dropped palate, and his mother brought him in here
two or three days ago. I tried to get her to go to the doctor, but she didn't
believe in them regular doctors. She said that I must have some kind of
medicine here to help her boy, and she asked me to work on him. And so
back there a moment ago I took a bit of his kinky wool, got hold of it on
top of his head, gave it two or three jerks, and looked in his mouth and told
him that his palate was getting all right, and then I sold her this slave to
rub on his throat." I stared at Mr. Grantham in shocked surprised. He
shrugged his shoulders, laughed and said, "Human nature's funny, ain't
it?" I nodded and started out of the store, and then stopped. "Thatreminds
me," I said, "I wanted a bottle, large size, of Vick's nosedrops."
"Coming right up," said Mr. Grantham, as he turned to the shelf with
a smile.
Then there was the case of Dr. Hyde. One day I was sitting with Mr.
Mac in his millhouse, eating a barbecue lunch snack, and he told me about
one of the most famous fake doctors of the old days in the Valley, this Dr.
Hyde.
"Now you may know," he said, "that back in the old times people
in the Valley believed more in healing by prayer and laying on of consecrated
hands than they do now, though you might not think so, seeing the doings
at Falcon and in so many of the Pentecostal Holiness churches. But they
did, at least I think so. Anyway the story of Dr. Hyde would seem to prove it.
"During a long protracted meeting at old Moriah Church all sorts of
people with aches and pains came in to be healed by prayer and laying on
of hands, and the Holy Ghost, they say, was powerful in their behalf. Right
in the midst of things, though, this Doctor Hyde showed up trying to sell
his folk medicines. But the Holy Spirit had been doing so well with the sick
and infirm that business for him was no good at all, that is, at first.
"Hyde had a light wagon fixed up like a peddler's outfit. And on each
side of the wagon body he had painted in big letters Doctor Hyde's Home
Remedies. He had a little Negro boy that drove for him, all dressed up like
a monkey with a red cap and a coat with bells on it. And remedies! Dr. Hyde
had them. He had madstone cures for snakebite and rabies, wart cures, pills
for chills and fever, tonics for rundown feelings and lost manhood, cures
for boils, tetters, scurvy, scrofula, dropsy, piles, fistula, gravel, female
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obstructions, nightmares, purges for bile and yellow ja'ndice, and powders
for dysentery, liver complaint, and salivation — everything you could think
of. He even had a yellow turpentine salve for cure of the seven-year itch.
"So this 'doctor' drove around from door to door in the neighborhood
but he sold little or nothing. Next day when the revival meeting was in full
swing at the church he showed up there. The little Negro sat outside while
the doctor went in. The testimonies were going on, and different people were
standing up one by one to give thanks unto Jesus and Him crucified and
bespeaking the list of their bountiful blessings. When he got a chance, Doctor
Hyde stood up. He too humbly thanked the Lord for all his tender mercy.
This time he said he was especially thankful for the privilege God had given
him in helping to cure the misery of the wide and suffering world. He went
on and told something about his medicines. God had called him to be a
doctor, he said. And God told him what to fix to cure folks. Yessir and amen,
God had watched over him and instructed him in the healing herbs and mystic
mixtures.
"Well, that warmed 'em up a little more. And the next day he got so
far as to go around in the congregation and talk to sinners with the rest of
the sanctified. And after Aunt Sudie Horton had brought up her dozen
handkerchiefs to be prayed over to be put on the sore and afflicted — the
way she'd been instructed through the mail by old Brother Yokum out in
Los Angeles — then after all this had happened, Dr. Hyde rose and said
he wanted the sisters and brothers to pray over his medicines so they might
be increased in the power of their healing.
"After the church meeting broke up, they all went out to his wagon
and stood around with their hands on it and consecrated it to the glory of
God and the uplift of man. That made him one of them. And a number
of folks bought some of his stuff. He told them he hated to charge them
for it, and all it cost them was what it cost him. The government made him
pay to bring the original ingredient stuff into this country, else he'd give
it away free. He said he got the height of it from somewhere away in Asia
or Africa.
"Then, lo and behold, the next day at church he just about took charge
of the meeting. He stood up and praised God and slapped his hands and
said he'd just got news from Virginia where two blind people had been cured
with his medicines. And he went on telling of this and that, what he had
done and what he could do. Everything, he said, was by the grace of God.
Nothing in his own strength. When he spoke about the blind folks, everybody
thought of Em Lucas and her bastard children — every one of them blind
and Em herself blind. Everybody knew it was some bad blood disease made
it, old rale or something. But they all had got to believing in him so by this
time that they hoped he could do something for Em and her young ones.
So some of the freehearted bought several bottles of this rain water and took
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
423
it down to Em. David Vance and Green Mumford, two unregenerate sinners
who had lasted out the meeting, chipped in about half of the price. They
said they didn't believe in it but still you never could tell. They too had felt
the persuasion of Dr. Hyde, no doubt. That day Dr. Hyde did a rushing
business. It was the last day of the meeting and he made it count. But he
wasn't satisfied. The next day was to be the big baptizing at the Williams'
millpond. And he announced that he was going to prove his loving devotion
to his God by working a miracle. He wanted everybody to pray for him that
it might be so. Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee he said, and if the spirit
was with him he might try the same in Williams' millpond.
' 'He showed up with his wagon loaded down with remedies. No doubt
he and that little Negro had worked part of the night down at the creek by
lantern light coloring water, filling up bottles and sticking on labels. Another
part of the night they had been busy at something else, as David Vance and
Green Mumford found out.
' 'Dave and Green were coming along home about three o'clock in the
morning from sparking some fast gals over by Barclaysville. The weather
was hot and the two rounders had been drinking mighty freely of Jamaica
rum and needed to cool off. So they stopped when they got to the millpond
and went in swimming, muddy as it was. And in paddling around they
bumped into a narrow plank walkway built somewhat under the water. At
first they didn't know what in the dickens it was, for foot-planks usually
went over the water, not in it or under it. Then by putting two and two
together they concluded that it was part of Dr. Hyde's doing and was
connected with his miracle for the baptizing. The old rapscallion and the
Negro had been there earlier in the night and put it up. So Dave and Green
to surprise the doctor quietly lifted out a long section of the planking and
carried if off.
' 'Dr. Hyde came next day with mergins of medicines. He told the folks
he'd been to the siding where a fresh new supply had just been shipped in
from the old world. He got the preachers and deacons to give him a little
time before the ducking began. He stood in his wagon and soon had the
whole crowd about him. And there was a crowd there that day, everybody
for miles and their neighbors, it seemed like. Such a roll of talk as he turned
loose! And all the time that little Negro sat there without saying a word.
He was on to it all and he must have been snickering in his sleeve at the gang
of fools handing up their fifty-centses and dollars. Dr. Hyde did a business
that was a business that day. Lord, he was a greedy man! He wasn't satisfied.
When he'd sold out, he told the fold that he fully believed God had given
him power to work miracles.
"And while the Negro boy drove off to get another load of his mess
that he had hid somewhere in a fence jamb, he announced to the crowd that
through the strength of his medicine and the power of God he was now going
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Paul Green's Wordbook
to try to walk on water. By this time he had just about everybody hypnotized.
Blest if he didn't tear loose into the water, right spank! He fluttered and
floundered about a minute and then stood up with his hands crossed in front
of him and praying c..iu carrying on like he was talking straight to God. And
he walked right on off where the water was about ten feet deep. And it didn't
come up much above caif-leg high. The folks fell down on their knees and
shouted and cut up, same as if the Savior had come back. In a minute the
doctor was back on the bank and when he struck dry ground he struck it
singing. And everybody else joined in with him. And the preachers led in
prayer. I don't know how many fresh converts were made. But I know Dave
Vance and Green Mumford weren't among them. They stood on the outside
of the crowd looking on, waiting. By this time the little Negro was back
with a load of bottles, and the doctor started haranguing the crowd again.
But sales were slowing down now. No doubt the old glutton had got about
all the money present, but he still wasn't satisfied. So he announced he would
walk on water even farther, and for everybody to believe in the power of
himself and his medicine sanctified. So he hauled off and made another
floundering out in the water, got set and walked as before except farther.
And that's where he hung himself.
"For while the people looked on, all overpowered with awe, the doctor
came to the pitfall prepared for him, even as the scriptures say, except this
time it was dug in the water. And down he went like a rock kerchoog and
out of sight. Well, to sum the thing up in a word, the old hypocrite nigh
drowned before it occurred to anybody to jump in to save him. For he
couldn't swim a lick. Then several of the brothers dived in after him, while
the women screamed. But not Dave Vance and Green Mumford. They were
a stonyhearted pair all right, and they kept whooming about and laughing
out loud. And then the folks found the f ootlog contraption, and so exposed
the doctor.
"It looked for a while as if the people would lynch the old devil when
they found out the trick he'd played. Dave and Green helped protect him
from the wrath of the crowd, but in spite of them he got his britches torn
off of him, and his money with them. And he was whipped black and blue
before he got loose and struck a lope toward the mountains to the west.
The little Negro had already bolted — when he saw his master sink under
the water.
' 'And neither one of of them was ever seen in Little Bethel from that
day to this. The folks gave the horse and wagon to poor blind Em Lucas.
That helped her some. The medicine didn't."
folk practices
Like folk customs. Practices dealing with health, weather, man's final calling
and election on earth.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
425
folk toys
Hawk callers, turkey callers, whirligigs, bean shooters, sling shots, shucking
pegs, dancers (made from spools), popguns, waterguns, whammy doodles, etc.
Follow the river and you'll come to the sea.
Where he leads me I will/O//OW.
Follow the drinking gourd.
See "drinking gourd."
Follow the Leader
A boys' game. This is very much like fox and hounds. A player designated
as a leader, usually by a counting out rhyme or drawing straws or a majority
decision, is followed by the rest who must imitate his every action. The course
often includes hazards, the climbing of walls, walking on fences, jumping
over little streams or wading through them, climbing over barriers, crawling
under other barriers, etc. I have known some of the daring leaders to run
under a mule's belly, or between a horse's legs, or go through a barn lot
where maybe a dangerous bull is shut up or is wandering around.
Follow your nose is the best way home.
following like sheep
foody
Useless, over-ornamented.
A. fool and his money are soon parted.
A. fool can make money; it takes a wise man to know how to spend it.
A. fool flaunteth his folly.
As the crackling of fauns under a pot, so is the laughter of a/00/.
Answer afool according to his folly.
There's no/OO/like an old/00/.
Send afool to market and a/00/ comes home again.
fool around with
Free and easy loving.
fool-catcher
Used in derision. "How did the fool-catcher miss you?"
foolish
Mentally retarded, often applied to an idiot,' 'Mrs. Matthews and her foolish
Charlie were there in the men's corner, drinking in the sermon like always.''
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fool killer
An imaginary retributive agency or medicine. "The fool killer's about this
morning and you'd better watch out."
Fools' names are like their faces,
Always seen in public places.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Experience keeps a dear school, butfools will learn in no other.
fool's hill
Youthful foolhardiness. "He has to go over fool's hill, let him alone."
foot
To walk, to hoof it. "You'll have to foot it."
A going foot always gets something if it's only a thorn.
One foot in the grave and the other edging up.
Don't hist one foot till the other's setting flat.
foot-and-mouth disease
Garrulity, over-talkativeness.
footback
On foot, as contrasted with horseback.
foot free
At liberty, loose and fancy free, without responsibility.
foot in one's hand
Hurried, fast moving. "So I took my foot in my hand and I made it over
to Grandpa's house and told him what I thought."
foot log
A log over a stream placed for crossing. We children attending the old
Pleasant Union schoolhouse in Harnett County had to go through a long
swamp and across a creek. My father and some other farmers interested
in the school had planks sawed and put on little trestles for crossing. We
thought this was the finest thing of all, for before that we had been walking
on a series of round logs, and they were hard as heck to stay on. Often we'd
slip off, and into the cold water we'd go.
my foot!
An exclamation of disdain or disbelief.
put one's best foot forward
Be on one's best manners, try to make the best impression possible.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
427
put one's foot in it
Make a faux pas, do an unintentional or awkward thing, or make a backfiring
remark.
put one's foot in his mouth
Same as put one's foot in it.' 'Every time that fellow speaks to a girl he puts
his foot in his mouth."
foot up
To add up, to total.
foozle
To bungle.
for
Used for emphasis. "I'm not as old as you think for."
force
Manpower, fieldhands, workers. "He has a force of twenty men working
in that newground, and he ought to have it soon cleaned out." "I'm gonna quit farming for I ain't got any force (children) to help out anymore."
forehead band
A band of cloth once used by ladies in the old days tied tightly around their
foreheads to keep wrinkles from appearing.
foreign parts
A woman's privates. "I visited foreign parts last night and, Lord God, the
wonders I encountered."
forever
An intensification of frequently. "I'm forever leaving the electric stove on
high."
Forewarned is forearmed.
Forfeits
A young people's game.
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Forgive and forget.
for good and all
Finally, completely. "Well, at last I paid that bill for good and all."
forked
"His tongue's as forked as a 'possum's prick."
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forkedy
Forked.
forks
Fingers.
forrud
Forward.
hold the fort
Wait a minute, hold up everything for a bit.
for the birds
Worthless, untrustworthy.
for to
Emphasis. "He had a call for to go to the garden house, but on the way
he ran into a clothes line. When he come back, finally, hesaid, 'Don'tmake
no difference, I wouldn'ta made it nohow.' "
forty fits
To be upset, in a dither, disturbed.
forty 'leventh
A vague and huge number. "I reckon old Colonel McAllister would be about
a forty 'leventh cousin or something."
forty winks
A short nap.
like forty
Used for emphasis, intensification. "That bone felon hurts like forty."
forward
Thriving. "My corn is mighty forward this year."
fotch
Past tense of fetch.
fought like a cornered rat
four-eyes
A bespectacled person, was used in reference to Theodore Roosevelt.
fourflusher
A crook, a pretender, a braggart, an incompetent person posing as
competent.
four-leaf clover
Always brings good luck.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
429
four-legged burglar alarm
A watch dog.
fox
To mend a shoe by renewing the cap or the upper leather.
Br'er Fox he lay low.
The old fox is caught at last.
An old fox is hard to catch.
Don't have afox on the jury when the goose is tried.
like setting afox to guard the geese
Fox and Geese
A good indoor game, much of the checkers variety. A wooden board or
stiff piece of cardboard was marked off in the shape of a large-armed cross,
with lines on the cross designating the points where the geese are to be placed.
The fox is placed in the middle. There are seventeen geese on the board at
the start. The fox in the middle of the board faces the geese. The object is
for the geese to hem up the fox so that he cannot move, and his purpose
is to catch as many geese as possible until their thinned-out number shows
they cannot hem him in. The geese move first. They may be moved along
in the direction of any line but only one hole at a time. The fox can jump
a goose and take it from the board when, in his turn to move, there is a vacant
hole behind a goose to which he can jump.
My brother Hugh and I loved this game to distraction, even playing
it in our dreams after a long evening's struggle. He usually won. We used
grains of corn for the geese and a button or penny for the fox.
Fox and the Hen
See "Chickamy, Chickamy."
Fox and the Hounds
A game of chase. The fox, chosen by agreement or by a counting-out rhyme,
is given a start, say, of one minute or bit of time agreed on or even a distance
of one hundred yards or so (both by estimate), and then the other players,
the hounds, give chase. The bounds of the chase are set by certain trees,
or other landmarks, and the fox must run within those bounds. He, of course,
uses every trick he can think of to elude the hounds, hiding, doubling back
in his track, etc. The one who catches him becomes the next fox.
foxfire
A phosphorescence. There are many folk tales about fox fire. It has often
been identified with that weird creature "Jack-muh-lantern." I've heard also
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fearful tales of fox fire in graveyards. A Valley doctor told me once that he
had actually seen a sort of fox fire above the grave of a recently buried neighbor of his, and he explained it as being an actual phenomenon due to the
gas coming up out of the grave from the decomposing body buried there.
foxglove
A popular ornamental flower with upright white or purple blossoms
somewhat resembling fingers in their shape. It is a source of the heart
medicine, digitalis, and is sometimes called the digitalis plant. The name,
the botanists say, probably comes from folk's glove. It grows in various
parts of the world and therefore has various names, such as bloody fingers,
dead men's bells, ladies' thimble, etc. It was used in the old days for treating
neuralgia, dropsy, asthma, palpitation of the heart and even insanity.
fox, goose and corn
A ferrying puzzle.
A man has to take across a river a fox, a goose and some shelled corn.
He can only take one at a time. If he takes the fox, the goose will eat the
corn. If he takes the corn, the fox will eat the goose. How does he do it?
He leaves the fox and the corn together and takes the goose over.
Leaving the goose, he comes back for the corn and carries that over. He
leaves the corn and brings the goose back. Leaving the goose now, he takes
the fox over, then comes back for the goose and carries it over.
fox squirrel
The longer reddish squirrel as distinguished from the grey squirrel.
fraction
A fight, a quarrel, a faction.
as fragile as a leaf
as fragrant as a flower
fraidy cat
A coward, a weak-willed, timid person.
frail (flail)
To beat, to whip unmercifully. "If you children don't behave yourself, I'm
going to get them brushbrooms and frail the living daylights out of you."
Frailty thy name is woman.
from
To beat, to pound, to whip. "I frammed the tar out'n that bully."
francis
A mulatto.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
431
"Frankie and Johnnie"
One of the best known of all American jealousy murder songs.
"Frankie and Johnnie were lovers,
O Lawdy, how they could love.
Swore to be true to each other,
True as the stars above
He was her man, but he done her wrong."
Johnnie went straying after a gal named Nelly Ely, and Frankie went after
Johnnie with her old forty-four.
"O roll me over easy,
0 roll me over slow.
Roll me on my right side, honey,
For the bullets hurt me so.
1 was your man, and I done you wrong."
franzied
Frenzied.
franzy
Frenzy.
frazzle
A sniption, a small amount. "The baby weighed ten pounds and a frazzle
when it came."
worn to a frazzle
Completely worn out.
frazzlings
The remnants, the unravelled bits.
as freckled as a guinea egg
freckle's
difference
Hardly any difference at all, a small difference. "It don't make a freckle's
difference with me whether you come or not."
freckly-faced
A face marked with freckles.
free and easy
Good natured, easy-going, lacking in ambition.
as free as a bird
a&free as the breeze
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as free as the wind
free fight
A fight in which the combatants grab anything they can to attack the
opponent or defend themselves.
free-gratis
Same as gratis.
free-handed (hearted)
Generous.
free-of-charge
Without cost.
afreewheeler
One who does pretty much as he pleases.
freewheeling
Loose-ended, uncontrolled. "Looks like now the whole money system in
this country is just freewheeling."
free, white and twenty-one
To be on one's own, to be responsible for one's actions, no longer at the
beck and call of one's parents.
freeze
To stop still, to stand suddenly motionless. "The dog froze on the bird."
freeze in one's tracks
Same as above.
freeze onto
To take a great fancy to, to cling to or hold fast to in an objectionable and
tiresome way.
freeze out
To be snubbed.
Frenchified
Finicky mannered, precious, over-precise.
French kiss
A perfunctory kiss on each cheek. And then there's another definition of
the French kiss: a deep sucking one.' 'Where did you learn to kiss like that,''
asked the girl. "From siphoning gas," replied her sweetheart.
French leave
To leave suddenly on one's own decision, often AWOL.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
433
Frenchmen
Tall, spindly tobacco plants of poor or useless quality.
fresh
A freshet.' 'The Cape Fair is up so high on account of the fresh that Uncle
Josh ain't running his flat today."
fresh as a daisy
fresh as a fresh turd
fresh as a rose
fresh as spring
fresh as the flowers in May
fresh as the morning dew
freshen
To replenish. "Let me freshen your drink."
freshening
Said of a cow or other animal whose udder is enlarging in pregnancy.
freshen up
To add new touches to one's toilette.
freshes
A swamp with different little streams running in it at flood time.
freshman's bible
A college or university catalog.
freshman's trot
A derisive whistling indulged in by sophomores or upperclassmen in teasing
a passing freshman, a practice once common at UNC.
fresh meat
A newcomer on death's row.
'freshments
Refreshments.
fresh out of
Just run out of, a stock of supplies recently exhausted. "I'm fresh out of
peppermint candy, son."
Fret and fry never shod the mule.
Fretting cares makes gray hairs.
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fretty
Irritable, prone to worry.
Black Friday
Execution day in the State prison. Friday the 13th is known as Black Friday.
And also Friday the 13th is especially unlucky, according to general folk
belief.
Good Friday
The Friday before Easter Sunday and believed to be best suited for planting
beans and certain other garden vegetables.
fried
Executed in the electric chair.
fried pies
Little pies turned over and fried in deep fat.
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
A. friend is easier lost than found.
A friend to everybody is a. friend to nobody.
A man's best friend is his dog.
to go to see a sick friend
To make an excuse for not keeping an appointment. "I'm sorry I couldn't
be there to meet with you folks, but I had to go and see a sick friend."
as friendly as a puppy
as friendly as pickpockets at a fair
Old friends and old wine are best.
A broken friendship may be sortered (soldered) but it will never be sound.
a frigate in full sail
A woman all panoplied out in fine clothes.
frillies
Women's underclothes.
frills and furbelows
Excessive airs, ornaments, flashy attire.
frilly
Fancily dressed in lace and ribbons.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
435
fringe tree
The flowering ash, known also as old-man's-beard, a sweet-scented shrub
common to North Carolina woods. Tea made from the bark was good for
the yawns and gapes. Also it was used as a wound cleanser.
as frisky as a colt
friz
Past tense of freeze.' 'The ground friz hard as arn, and I was up at daybreak
ready to kill my hogs."
frizzle
To curl or crisp as in cooking or singeing. Also to make a thing draggletailed or frizzly.
Two little Negro boys in Cumberland County had an old curly-headed
wayward dog that took up at their cabin, and they named the old creature
Frizzle. Their father was a big-bellied loud preacher, and the story went that
he was given a pounding by his congregation — a pounding being the custom
where the members of the congregation or neighbors would bring at least
a pound of supplies — coffee, sugar, flour, potatoes, or something at least
a pound in weight to present to the pastor. One good-hearted member of
the church gave the preacher a sheep, and the preacher told his little wife
and mother of the two boys, Paul and Silas, to fatten this sheep up good
while he was traveling around doing the Lord's work and laboring hard in
the vineyard — praise be! — because when Association time came — the
time when there was a big gathering of church delegates from other
congregations meeting at his church — he wanted to have this sheep fattened
up and be able to feed his visiting consecrated brethren with good mutton.
See "pounding."
frog
The bicep muscle, used to swell out in boys' competition. "I can make a
bigger frog than you can.'' Sometimes one would say mouse instead of frog.
To stick or poke, especially with the fingers, much the same as goose.
There is one common superstition about frogs and that is that if they make
water on you, you are sure to have warts. And, of course, there are all sorts
of cures for warts.
A tiny little boy was asking his Valley mother one day where babies came
from, and she told him that they sprouted like seeds in the garden and they
came up — which to me was a better account than the old Valley common
folk answer, "The doctor finds them in old hollow stumps." Nothing would
do but the little boy had to plant himself some seeds to see if he could get
some babies of his own. So she, indulging him, let him plant some beans,
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Paul Green's Wordbook
and he packed the dirt on them and put a board over the ground to keep
it damp. And during the night he dreamed about his babies that might come.
The next morning early he was up to see what had happened. He pulled the
plank off, and there sat a little toad frog. He ran yelling into the house to
his mother in tears and frantic, "Mama, mama, I've already got a baby,
and he's so ugly!"
That part of a middle-busting plough to which the steel sweeps are fastened.
Kill a frog, and your cow will go dry.
A bullfrog knows more about rain than the almanac.
frog-eater
A Frenchman.
Frog in the Middle
A game of hiding and hunting.
Children form a ring around a member chosen by agreement or a countingout rhyme and, with eyes closed, sing the following words, two, sometimes
three times:
"Frog in the middle
Can't get out.
Take a stick
And knock him out."
While they are singing, the frog hides. When they open their eyes, they call
out, "Froggy's hid, we must find him." When he is found, he chases his
pursuers. But he cannot catch them while they are squatting. Three squats
are allowed. The game continues until all are caught, and the last child caught
becomes Froggy for the next go-round.
When/rogS croak, winter's broke.
frog spit
White frothy exudation from plants, weeds, etc.
frog-sticker
A large pocketknife.
frogstool
Toadstool, mushroom.
frog-strangler
A heavy summer rain, a gulley-washer.
"Frog Went A-Courting"
A popular child's song. One of the most popular children's songs of all times,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
437
known in one form or another in most parts of the world. The version we
children sang went as follows:
"Frog went a-courting, he did ride,
Unh-hunh—
Frog went a-courting, he did ride,
Sword and pistol by his side—
Unh-hunh.
"Frog went down to Miss Mousie's hall,
Unh-hunh—
Frog went down to Miss Mousie's hall,
First he'd knock and then he'd call—
Unh-hunh.
"Took Miss Mousie on his knee,
Unh-hunh—
Took Miss Mousie on his knee,
Said 'Miss Mousie, will you marry me?'
'Uhn-hunh.
"Where will the wedding supper be?
Unh-hunh—
Where will the wedding supper be?
Way down yonder in a hollow tree—
Uhn-hunh.
"What will the wedding supper be?
Unh-hunh—
What will the wedding supper be?
A piece of bread and a cup of tea.
Unh-hunh."
front
A prideful pretense.
front name
The Christian or given name.
a front-porch farmer
An indolent person who likes to sit on his front porch, usually in a rocking
chair, and look out at the fields. "Yes, take it from me, Jesse's too much
of a front-porch farmer ever to prosper."
all front and no back
A show-off, a phony.
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frost
Paul Green's Wordbook
To sharpen the front and the hind parts (calks) of a horse or mule shoe.
frost smoke
A mist rising from the earth on a cold morning.
killing frost
A white heavy frost, usually followed by warming weather, then ending in
rain and then turning cold again, with another killing frost to follow.
frounce
Flounce.
The ripest fruit falls first.
The tree that brings forth corrupt fruit is cut down.
Fruit Basket
A play-party game. All the players but one who is "It" are seated — all
chairs being filled. "It" assigns each person a fruit for his or her name —
lemon, orange, grape, etc. — giving the same fruit name to more than one
player. When, for instance, he calls out "peaches!" the peach players
exchange seats. In the exchange "It" tries to secure one of the peach seats.
If he succeeds, then the losing peach player becomes "It" and the former
"It" becomes a peach. On the call "Fruit Basket" all exchange seats, and
the one who fails to secure a seat must become "It."
fruitful vine
A woman of rich procreative powers.
Stolen fruits are always sweetest.
Bring forth therefore.//"M/Ys meet for repentance.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
fruity
Very rich and strong smelling, bad body odor, said of one who is in need
of a bath.
frumpish
Disordered, disheveled, topsy-turvy.
frush
Fresh.
fry
To die in the electric chair or to burn in hell-fire as is foretold for unrepentant
sinners.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
439
fry in one's own grease
To be in a situation or condition due to one's own misbehavior or lack of
judgment.
fry me for a pan of eels!
An exclamation of reaction expressing exaggerated feelings.
small fry
Small children, the younger ones.
out of the frying pan into the fire
To exchange one tough situation for another equally tough, to give up what
one has in hopes of something better, but finding it the same or worse.
frying-sized biddy
A young girl.
fuck around
To waste time, to trifle about.
fucked, friendless and up shit creek
In a lonely and deserted condition, down with the mulligrubs.
daughter fuckers
Incesters.
mother fucking son of a bitch
An intense defamatory description.
Fuck you!
A term of rough derision.
fudge
In a marble game to fudge is to gain distance closer to the marble to be shot
at by sliding or pushing one's hand nearer the ring. An opposing player can
prevent this by crying out "venture fudging" or "venture fudge."
full
To come full. "The moon fulls on the 18th, and then I'll kill my hogs."
full as a tick
He that is full of himself is empty.
full-faced
With a round face. "He's a full-faced man, and old as he is he don't show
any wrinkles yet."
full of beans
A windy and garrulous person.
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full of crap
Of a like condition to being full of beans but worse.
full of guts
Brave, bold.
full of one's self
Egotistical, spoiled.
full of prunes
Much the same as full of beans, and suspiciously inaccurate.
full speed ahead
To go forward with all energy and purpose.
full swing (tilt)
In full force, with great energy, well under way. "The game was in full swing
when we got there."
full to the ears (gills)
Gorged, satiated with food or drink.
full up
Quite full.
fumadiddles
Foolish acts. Also loud or fancy clothes. "That washing machine drummer
was at church dressed out in his fumadiddles to a fare-you-well."
a barrel of fun
An extremely hilarious time, often said of an individual who is exceptionally
entertaining.
fundament
The anus.
funeral
One's duty, concern, responsibility. Also ill luck. "Well, don't come to me
crying, it's your funeral."
A burial sermon. "Mr. Johnson preached the funeral at Chalybeate last
Sunday."
funk
A strong smell or stench. "Open the windows and let all this funk out."
funky butt
A dirty and stinking posterior, so I was told by Jim Faulkner. We boys used
to sing a semi-lewd song that went well with the rhythm of the chopping hoe:
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
441
"When I make ten dollars a day.
Stinky butt, funky butt,
Take it away.
I don't want it no more."
funning
Pretending.
as funny as a barrel of monkeys
as funny as riding sidesaddle on a sow
funny business
Underhand dealings, suspicious transaction, tricky goings on.
funny face
False face (mask). Also a term of endearment. "Come here, funny face,
and kiss me."
funny house
Insane asylum.
feel funny
To feel strange, sick, nauseated.
too funny for words
Outlandish, silly, full of giggles and merriment.
fur
Pubic hair.
Far.
furce
Fuss. "You children quit making such a furce."
furder
Further, farther. "I can't go no furder."
furdest
Furthest, farthest.
make the fur fly
To engage in a fist fight, a clawing and scratching contest. Also excessively
active.
furmity
An old-time popular dish made of new wheat boiled in milk and flavored
with sugar, raisins, nutmeg, and liquor.
It was Sunday, and Malcolm Fowler, Phillips Russell and I were sitting
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with Uncle Waverly Lassiter on his front porch talking of the old times.
We "historians" had come over to visit him, hoping we could get a story
or two out of him. Malcolm had told us beforehand that he had "stacks
of stories in him." Uncle Waverly knew what we'd come for, and presently
he began obliging us — in a somewhat grudging way he did.
"Don't reckon any you men ever heard of a fellow named Harry
Sauls?" he said.
We shook our heads.
"Well, this Harry loved a dish we called furmity — a concoction made
of all sorts of ingredients and boiled together till it comes out into a sort
of creamy custard and mighty smooth and easy to slide down a man's gullet.
I used to like it some myself, but you never hear much about it in these days.
It's gone out of fashion.
"As I say, Harry Sauls really loved the stuff. Folks all called him Lord
Harry Sauls — why I don't know, but they did. I guess it was because he
was the lord of all the eating men, far and near, and from what I've heard
of him he was just that. I never knowed him. He died before my time. But
my daddy and other folks around here knowed him. The truth is he didn't
weigh but about a hundred pounds or less, so they said, but eat, good lord
amercy! I've heard my daddy say that he's seen him devour a dozen biscuits,
a dozen eggs, ten cups of coffee and finish off with half a small pork ham.
Yessir, he could out eat old Broadhuss hisself."
Uncle Waverly stopped, and we urged him to continue. Presently he did.
"Harry had a wife named Tom — Tom Sauls. She weighed about 220
pounds and was a big, fat, jolly woman and loved little old Lord Harry better
than life itself. She would set him on her lap and play with him and fondle
him and make love to him and kiss him like a baby doll. And she waited
on him hand and foot and would always give him anything he wanted.
"One winter," my daddy said, "when they killed hogs and Tom was
drying up the lard and had a whole pot of it boiling away, Lord Harry just
stood around there, his mouth watering. 'Tom,' he said, 'that's the purtiest
looking grease there in that there pot that I've ever seen, boiling away and
all bubbling and laughing-like at itself!'
" 'Behave yourself, Harry,' she said. But he kept insisting and finally
she said she would give him a little bit of the grease. She went in the house
and got a peck of sweet yam potatoes she'd cooked up and brought 'em
out in a sack and set it down, and she dipped him up a quart of that clear
lard grease. And there he set and he et every one of them potatoes, dipping
'em in that grease until he'd devoured the grease too. And then he was still
so hungry she give him another quart more of grease to sort of finish off
with. Or maybe it was a half-gallon for all I know. Ha, ha.
"Yes sir, he was an eating man, Harry Sauls was. Now, Mr. Green,
you're a-grinning, but that's the way my daddy told it.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
443
"I remember seeing all around in the country flowers and things Lord
Harry made, tulips and jonquils — made every single one of 'em out of iron.
He was a blacksmith, you know. You might not think such a little fellow
as that could be a blacksmith, but he was, and he was a good one. And could
make anything from a firestock to a log wagon. He was a real artist, that's
what he was, and he liked to do all kinds of things. I ain't seen any of his
handwork though, in a long time. I guess it's all been scattered and lost,
even the log wagon's rotted down. And he had him a nice house up the road
a ways, too, and one room he had all paneled in soft poplar boarding. You
might make note of that — but the house is rotted and gone long ago —
there where he lived.
"But the real story of Lord Harry's life I can't tell you. But I can tell
you a bit about him and the furmity. I can't tell it right, for it makes my
head ache so. I got to have about two fingers of Highland Scotch liquor,
or corn will do sometime, before I can really get into it. Yessir, telling stories
makes my head ache.
"Now, dang it, you just keep on insisting, but I can't tell it right, I tell
you. I can only give you the height of it and maybe you can sort of get an
idea of what happened. That's the best I can do for you.
' 'Well, this furmity stuff they say is about the best eating that ever was.
Lord Harry used to say it was food fit for a god. And every spring Tom
would make him up a bait of this furmity. You have to catch the wheat when
it's sort of at the milk stage and you boil the hulls off of it in milk and then
you put in your sugar and raisins and egg yolks and cinnamon and any kind
of custard stuff you want to, and you season it mighty strong with good
Highland Scotch liquor. And if you can't get the scotch, then get you some
benedictine, and if you can't get that, then I guess you'll have to wind up
with good corn liquor. And you put plenty of it in there.
"Well, Tom made him up a half-bushel or so of it, and Harry set down
and et every bit of it. You see I ain't going to tell you the real story because
it has to be done with all kinds of going back and forth of what Harry said
as he stood around waiting and what Tom said whilst she was a-cooking
of it. I can't tell you that 'cause it makes my head ache so bad. But I'm just
giving you sort of what happened since you keep on insisting so danged hard.
And Mr. Green there, he just won't quit. He's like one of them Cumberland
County boar chinches, he seizes on you and there he is. But I ain't going
to tell it to him — I just ain't. I'll tell Mr. Fowler sometime when he's up
this way and got plenty of time. Or Mr. Russell there.
"But, as I said, this is the height of it, this is sort of what happened.
After Lord Harry et up that whole half-bushel or bushel of furmity and
went to bed you might expect he'd have trouble. And he did. He begun to
swell. The next morning Tom went hotfooting it off for Dr. Wyche. Dr.
Wyche come and looked at him. Harry, they say, was stuck out worse than
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any big balloon, his tummy was bigger'n his whole hundred-pound body.
It stuck up so he couldn't see over it, even to see his feet or the door. And
there he lay.
"Dr. Wyche looked at him. And Harry looked up and whimpered,
'Well, doctor, this time it looks like I'm set to cross over the deep icy waters.
Pray for me!'
"Dr. Wyche said, 'Hell, Harry, you ought to a-crossed the deep icy
waters long ago if eating would kill a man. And it's too late to pray.' So
he examined him and he said he would do the best he could for him, but
he misdoubted anything would help.
' 'Now, sometime before this Harry had paneled the room in which he
lay with pretty yellow poplar planking, the way I said. He had shaved it
and planed it smooth, and rubbed it, and he had it looking awful nice. And
he was mighty proud of how his house looked. As I say, he was a kind of
an artist fellow, you know, doing all kinds of things and flowers in iron,
and he loved flowers about the house too, real flowers. And he liked a nice
house.
"Dr. Wyche after studying a while says, 'Tom, go out and get me the
washboard.'
" 'What for, doctor?' says Tom.
" 'You go get it,' said Dr. Wyche. Til do the best I can for him. May
kill him. But he's got to have relief, either in death or in life.'
"So Tom brought in the washboard.
" 'Pull up your nightshirt, Harry,' said Dr. Wyche, 'we don't want
to bust that.' So they got his nightshirt up and over that swole stomach —
I reckon they had to slit the shirt after all to get it over — and there he lay
with that stomach stuck up like a great balloon. 'Now, Tom,' he said, 'stand
over there next to the wall and take a good running start and I want you
to jump and land right on this washboard whilst I hold it level.' Well, Tom
was a mighty big woman, as I said, but she was soople-like on her feet. 'I'm
afraid to do it, Doc,' she said.
" 'I say it may kill him,' said the doc. 'but he's going to die anyhow
and we got to try to save him, damn his soul!'
"So Tom hauled off and took a running start, and here she come and
landed with her fat behind right smack on the washboard, squashing Harry
down same as a pile-driver had smashed him.
"Well, sir, they say it sounded like a cannon when Harry went off.
You've heard of these eighteen-pounders, them guns. Well, you might say
that that day Harry was a hundred-pounder going off. And, sir, he just ruined
the whole side of his paneled wall. The charge he shot made a circle, they
said about ten feet across. And I'm here to tell you that later as a boy I've
been up there and seen it, and once I remember picking some of them harddry wheat grains out of that nice paneling with the point of my knife blade.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
445
Yes, sir, it was just same's if a cannon had gone off and them grains of wheat
stuck in the paneling and specked it all up.
"Someday I'll tell you the story with all the trimmings. It's a long tale,
but it makes my head ache and I can't tell you now. But I might say Harry
got well after that and lived a long time, and you couldn't get him to touch
a bit of that furmity again, no sir. That's what my daddy said."
to furnish
To supply with food and clothing on a tenant farm basis. I can remember
how my father used to talk to prospective tenants — we had a couple of
little tenant houses on our small farm — and it always was the question of
furnishing the tenant, and then the sad business in the fall of settling up,
and the tenant farmer usually finding he had less than he thought he had.
My father was scrupulously honest and even went out of his way to favor
the tenant. "You'll have to furnish me, Mr. Green, if I live on your land.
I didn't make a thing last year at the Schofield place."
fur piece
A long distance.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,
makes morefllSS than an old hen with one biddy
fuss and feathers
An overactive, bustling, fussy person busy about trifling matters and acting
as if they were of prime importance.
fuss around
To make a stir, to bustle about.
fuss box (fuss-budget, fuss pot)
An irritable, quarrelsome person.
fussicate
To stir about, bustle about, also growl and grumble.
fussikin around
Fussing around.
as fussy as a wet (setting) hen
fust
fusty
First. "It's the one that gits there the fustest with the mostest."
Musty.
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future life
A folk belief held by millions and millions of people in this world and the
majority of people in the Valley — that when one dies, he will enter into
eternal bliss, if his life has been good, and into eternal woe if it has been
bad. This belief seems to be common at a certain level of culture to all races
and times of people — paradise or hell, the two extremes. Of all the visions
of paradise that I have ever read about, that of the Algonquin Indians on
the eastern coast of the United States is the most beautiful.
The Christian view of heaven to me seems strange and barbaric, an
unbelievable one. I have been taught, and my friends in the Valley have been
taught, that heaven is presided over by a God of justice, and on one side
of Him is the Holy Ghost and on the other his son Jesus Christ the Savior,
and the people after they die come up before the throne of God to be judged.
Those who have been evil are sent down to hell to burn there forevermore
in a fire seven times hotter than any fire on earth, and those who have been
good enter into the New Jerusalem and are given a harp to play and sing
and wings to fly around with, and they have nothing to do but to enjoy
themselves.
I heard about a man who died and went into the afterlife, and there
he was given a beautiful room with ladies waiting on him, beautiful girls
they were, and anything he wished for he had. Food, drink, wine, music,
girls — anything — and immediately there it was. Finally, after a few days
he began to get tired of this, because he could not wish for anything that
it didn't instantly come to him. So, finally, he asked a long-faced neighbor
of his, "Say, is this the way it's to be forevermore, to have everything you
want? I didn't know heaven was like this. I knew it was supposed to be
perfect, but this is too perfect. It's already beginning to get boring." Then
his neighbor looked at him and said, "Where do you think you are?"
fuzz
The beginning beard on an adolescent face. George Butts, a tenant on our
land for a while, used to cut hair early Sunday morning, or shave people.
I'll never forget how embarrassed I was when he cut my hair one morning
and then lathered my face suddenly and started to shave me. I was about
fifteen years old. "Let me shave you," he said, "get this fuzz off and the
first thing you know you'll start growing beards worse than a turkey
gobbler."
fuzzy
Tipsy.
When fuzzy worms (caterpillars, etc.) are plentiful, a bad winter will follow.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
447
G
gift of gab
Easy loquacity.
gabble
Silly talk and plenty of it.
gable-end
The head, the boss. "Yes sir, Glenn Hancock is the gable-end of the lumber
business in Chatham County."
Gabriel's hounds
The hellhounds that foretell disaster as they run across the sky.
on the gad
To be restless, also traveling about a great deal. "No wonder Miss Lucy
had a nervous breakdown — she's always on the gad."
gadder
Gather.
gad-hook
A long pole with an iron hook or gad at the end, used especially for moving
floating logs into place for fastening in a timber raft.
gadren
Gathering.
ga'dung
God dang.
Gaelic language
The native language spoken by the early Scots who came into the Valley
in the 18th century. They continued to speak Gaelic for a long while, and
in 1756 the Reverend Hugh McAden, who came as a wandering preacher
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among them, said they "scarcely knew one word of English." Gradually
English took over, but I remember, when I was a boy, an old farmer here
and there could still manage bits of Gaelic. A few years ago the Reverend
James MacKenzie, showing his devotion to the "auld tongue," became
proficient enough in it to deliver a Gaelic sermon now and then at old
Barbecue Church where he was pastor — this the church where the Scotch
heroine Flora MacDonald and her family worshipped in 1774-75.
gaggle
To cackle.
gagroot
Pukeweed, Indian tobacco.
What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
No gains
Without pains.
gall
A goiter. "She's got a bad gall on her neck."
A dead spot in a field where corn or any crop will not grow. "There's a great
big gall in my dunghill, and I can't even raise peas in it."
An internal organ in superstitious folk medicine.
Near our home in Harnett County lived an herb doctor by the name
of Cicero East. The first time I ever saw Cicero he came to a little country
store run by my brother and myself when we were boys. He showed up riding
a little runty mule, his long legs hanging barefooted almost down to the
ground and the top of his bushy louse-ridden hair set with a peaked, holey,
old felt hat. He had come for a plug of Apple tobacco.
I went away to school and later heard that Cicero had set himself up
as a doctor there below Angier on Black River. People, as time passed, began
to speak of him as Doctor East. You might not believe it, but it is the truth
that folks flocked to him by the dozens, even hundreds, seeking cures for
all sorts of aches and pains and sufferings, both internal and external.
My friend Edward Green, a man fifty years old and of reasonable
intelligence, went to Doctor East for treatment. He had been bothered by
stomach trouble. Dr. East gave him some medicine — a bottle of some sort
of yellow concoction — and Edward said it helped him. At that time I was
in the throes of collecting folklore material, as I still am, and I went to Edward
to find out just what the herb doctor had done for him. Edward was
enthusiastic. "Yes, sir, Paul," he said, "folks like you can laugh at old Cicero
but he's smart. He's a mighty hard man to find, I'll tell you that. He's got
a house way back in there close to the river and the crookedest road you
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
449
have ever travelled leading to his house. When I got there he had several
patients ahead of me — in fact there were two or three Fords and a horse
and buggy tied — I mean the horse was tied — out in front of his little house.
When my turn come, he give me a thorough examination. He had a long
trumpet-like hollow thing, same as a guano bugle, and he put it on my
stomach and listened to it with his ear at the small end of it and then he
got me to open my mouth wide. Then he put the big end of the bugle over
my mouth and looked down my gullet. All of a sudden he jumped back.
'Lord God, Mr. Green,' he said, 'you're in bad trouble!' It scared me but
then he made me feel better right off. 'But I can fix you up. No doubt of
that.' He looked down inside me again and said, 'Ah-ha I see it now. It's
your gall, Mr. Green, your gall. It's big as a goose egg, all swole up and
pressing against your innards and that's how come you've got all that pain.'
'Can you help me, doctor?' I said. 'Didn't I say I could help you.' Lord,
it was a comfort to hear him talk like that and he said,' I got the very medicine
to 'swage you down. Of course, sometime I have to purge the galls out of
people, but I don't think yours needs purging.' So it was I got me a bottle
of medicine and I've been taking it and my pain is purty nigh gone. It only
cost a dollar and a half and he told me to come back for a second bottle
if I needed it. And let me tell you, Paul, he showed me a whole shelf loaded
with half-gallon Mason jars with alcohol in them, and in them jars was all
kinds of galls and pieces of rotten flesh, cancers, big tumors, and things
like that he had purged out of people and never a knife he laid on them,
never a knife at all. Yes sir, folks like you can laugh at Doctor Cicero East,
but I don't laugh. No, sir."
gall and wormwood
Bitterness, shame.
gall apple
An oak apple.
gall-berries
A bitter berry that grows on bushes usually in bogs or swamps. Same as
inkberry.
Galled horses cannot endure the comb.
gallery
The public. "He plays to the gallery."
galley sleeve
A compositor in a printing shop.
galling (girling)
Courting.' 'Sion's been going galling every night this week, and he's hollow-
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eyed as a sick coon."
gallinipper
A huge mosquito, its size usually depending on the imagination of the person
describing it.
We boys used to hear many stories about these pests. I remember one
told about a couple of Irishmen — and in those days the Irish were usually
the butt of folk jokes. It seems that Pat and Mike — and the Irishmen were
always Pat and Mike, and if there was only one of them, it was Pat — had
joined a labor gang trying to help Col. A.S. MacNeill canalize the Cape
Fear River there a few miles below Lillington. Early in the first night they
were badly bothered by mosquitos and they moved several times, wrapping
themselves up in their blankets. Finally Pat looked out and saw the whole
swamp winking with little lights — lights of fireflies. "Faith me Christ,
Mike," said Pat, "let's leave out of here. Them dom gallinippers are
coming after us now with lanterns!" And so they fled the job.
galloping consumption
A quick-acting virulent form of the disease.
When I was a boy, a Negro settlement was formed on the east side of
the Cape Fear River opposite Lillington. Here farm workers, day laborers,
and hirelings for all work congregated. Galloping consumption broke out
in the settlement and in a year or two had carried off more than half of the
settlers. The rest scattered. Wesley Armstrong and his wife, Meta, who had
once lived on our land, perished there. Old Neill Monroe and his family
survived. He told me the reason was he had the right medicine for the disease
— hard corn liquor in which lightwood knot sawdust was stirred, in the
proportion of three spoonfuls of dust to a pint of liquor. "A good dram
of it every morning," he said, "done the work." When I asked him why
he didn't make known the cure to his suffering neighbors, he winked and
said, "Tell you true, Cap'n, liquor was a little sca'ce to be had."
galloping pneumonia
A virulent form of the disease that carries the sick one of fin a hurry. Young
Neill Arch MacNeill was supposed to have died of this, at least his old father,
the Colonel, said he did. People knew differently, but out of respect to the
Colonel and the family, they kept their counsel — most of them did.
On one of my youthful forays in search of Valley folklore and stories,
I called by to see my old friend, Mr. Mac, the miller. Several neighbors were
gathered around the big walnut tree that shaded the front of the mill, the
while they waited for their corn to be ground. They were talking of a sad
occurrence over in town the day before. As was my custom I made some
note of what they said.
Young Neill Arch MacNeill, one of the most popular young men in
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
451
the neighborhood, had died rather suddenly of pneumonia in his father's
house, they were saying. The funeral was to be held that afternoon in Old
Tirzah churchyard. They spoke of the pity of it all — this young man with
a university education and the promise of a bright future in the law practice
of his father, Colonel MacNeill, to be so suddenly cut off in the bloom of
his early days. The discussion not only showed sympathy for the family's
tragedy but a speculation also as to the exact nature of this cutting off.
"I misdoubt it were pneumonia at all," said Lammy O'Quinn from
where he leant against his wagon body, whetting his lean hungry knife on
the steel wagon-wheel rim.
"It might be and it might not be,'' old Daryl MacCormack commented
quietly from where he sat on a horse block turning a corncob quietly in his
hand as if it might give him some reassuring opinion upon the subject.
"Sudden? I'll say so," said Russ Jones from his squatting position at
the root of the tree. "Why only day before yestiddy I saw young Neill Arch
coming out of Mangum's drugstore over there in town as spry as a gander,
and he had a box of candy or something under his arm. A great big box."
Here Sassle Myers, the local cow doctor and pig trimmer, let out a
chuckle and gazed about him with a meaningful wink. He was standing on
the opposite side of Lammy O'Quinn and whetting a still larger knife on
the steel rim as if in preparation for a vast surgical onslaught upon all and
sundry. "I bet you if you go over to a certain house there in town you'll
find some of that candy right now if it's not done et up by a sweet pretty
mouth."
"They do say that woman loves candy," Lammy spoke up.
"An" that ain't all she loves," said Russ.
"Ain't it the truth!" declared Sassle. And putting away his knife he
pulled out a long flat adder-headed needle and began threading it with a
piece of twine.
"It's all-fired sad and shocking, it is," said Lammy.
"He's dead and that's the size of it," murmured old Daryl. "Talking
one way or another won't help it."
Here Mr. Mac came out of the mill and told them their meal was finished
and he was done with grinding for the day.
"What's your opinion about young Neill Arch, Mr. Mac?" Sassle
inquired, now looping the twine in an oval collar around the needle stuck
in his jacket, as if to be ready for any sewing emergency or need.
'' Well,'' Mr. Mac said gravely, "a long time ago my grandmammy used
to say there's only one way of coming into the world but a million ways
of going out. Neill Arch took his own way out."
"And what is to be will be," said old Daryl, as he rose creakily from
the horse block. "The Scriptures spoke it long before any of us made our
biddy peep into this world."
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"But it's mighty hard on the Colonel," said Lammy.
"Yes, and it would be harder if by people's talking a scandal was
started," said Mr. Mac pointedly.
"Right, right," said Sassle, "and we all agree with the report, don't
we, folkses, that pnuemonia was what carried him off, and galloping
pneumonia at that?"
One or two voices said they agreed and one or two heads nodded the
same.
When the neighbors had gone off in different directions home with their
meal, I helped Mr. Mac sack up his tellings and then we went out and sat
in the breeze under the walnut tree. He bit off a piece of his usual Sweet
Flag and settled himself in his old rocking chair, chewing away with little
goatlike workings of his chin.
"Looks like rain," he said, "them thunderheads there in the west."
"Yes, it does."
"Are you going to Neill Arch's funeral?"
"No, I'm not," I said. "There '11 be a big crowd standing and gaping
around, and crowds bother me. How about you?"
"No, I won't go either. We'll just sit here and talk."
For a good while he said nothing, sitting there chewing on his Sweet
Flag and gazing out across the heat-filled fields. I waited patiently, hoping
he would get back to the subject of young Neill Arch or maybe dig up from
his remembrance a story of old times. Presently he spoke out.
"Take this very walnut tree," he said. "Nothing better than walnut
juice for curing all sorts of skin diseases. That is, if you can stand the sting
of it. My mammy used to doctor me when I had ringworm or tetter, and
I'm here to tell you it would make me shout and call on the Lord. But it
cured me, every time it did. Now take that red oak tree right out there in
the edge of the woods. There's nothing better for man or beast at times than
the inner red oak bark boiled into a brew. It's good for chickens, too. I keep
strips of the bark in the watering trough for my chickens all the time. It makes
'em lay better, keeps 'em toned up. And black draught is good too. That's
a vegetable compound taken from mother earth's fields and hedges. I use
it every now and then when I get to feeling sluggish. Have you ever tried it? "
"No, I never have."
"Well, you ought to. You can get it in town at the drugstore. That's
one good thing they sell. My mother used to give it to us children. It's awful
stuff to the taste but it sure does the work. And another thing we children
used to take was sassafras tea. The Indians, they said, liked that too — and
pennyroyal tea. In one of my old account books I've got a whole list of herbs
and folk remedies set down. Maybe several hundred. Some of them I got
from an old herb woman down near Fayetteville who's been doing all kinds
of cures. They say she can cure cancers and tumors with a kind of plaster
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
453
made of the herbs she gets in the fields and woods."
"I'd like to go down and see her sometime," I said.
"You can do that. Her name's Zua Smith. I told you about her once.
You'll be able to get a mess of stuff for your plays and stories from her.
Well, yes, black draught is good. And yesterday morning I went over to
the drugstore in town to get me some, for I'd been feeling a little under the
weather. And now I'll tell you what was told me and, since you're all the
time studying human nature and writing about it, this maybe will come in
handy for your use someday. But if you do use it you ought to change the
names. Well, as I said, I went into the drugstore to get me some black draught.
And while Mr. Mangum, the druggist, was wrapping it up he asked me had
I heard the news in town that morning about young Neill Arch. I said I hadn't.
Then he leant over the counter and looked around him and spoke kind of
secretlike to me and said, 'Why, old Colonel MacNeill's boy, Neill Arch,
was cut to death last night. Come here, let me show you.' You know he's
a kind of frank-speaking man and he took me to the door and pointed out
some damp dark sawdust blobs here and there on the sidewalk and leading
around the corner. 'There's his very blood there in that sawdust,' he said.
'I sprinkled it to cover it. Uhm. I wouldn't tell everybody about it but I'll
tell you.' "
" 'Who in the world done it?' I asked."
" 'Ah, that's a mystery to some folks maybe but not to me,' he said.
'And I don't mind telling you who I think done it. You know Joe McFayden,
don't you?' I told him I did. 'He's a traveling salesman goes around a lot.
His wife lives here in town. You know her?' 'I've seen her,' I said. And I
remembered her and some of the stories I'd heard about her. 'Have you
ever seen her?"
"I don't think so, Mr. Mac," I said.
"If you had you'd remember her. A pretty thing and built the way men
like and knows it. So according to what I gathered from Mr. Mangum she
had been making up to young Neill Arch in her husband's absence. And
maybe that's where the box of candy come in. Young Neill Arch had bought
it for her as perhaps he had bought her many another trinket. You know
how women are about trinkets."
"I've not had much experience in that sort of thing," I said.
"You don't have to have experience," he retorted, "young or not
young. You kind of know that to start with. The Bible's full of it. Any book
is full of it. Any neighborhood you might live in shows it, shows how women
are seduced and carried away by little trinkets, gifts and doodads handed
out from the fingers of men. So it happened that Joe McFayden, according
to Mr. Mangum, came home two nights ago and found young Neill Arch
with his wife in what they call a compromising position in bed, and so he
out with his knife and slashed the young man to the quick. Neill Arch got
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away and staggered home to his father's house to die. The blood drops along
the sidewalk showed the path he traveled, forward but never to travel back.
He made it by the drugstore and tried to get help but couldn't for it was
deep in the night and my store was closed.
"Did you know Neill Arch?" Mr. Mac asked.
"I used to see him some," I replied. "A fine-looking young man."
"That's what Josie Belle McFayden thought all right," and he let out
one of his grim little chuckles.
"Now what will happen to her and her husband — if it was murder?''
"Nothing will happen to her," he replied. "It will all be hushed up
and things will go on as before. People know about it and they'll talk about
it among themselves. But it won't come out in the open and get into the
papers. And the main reason is maybe because of old Colonel Neill Arch
himself. He will keep it hushed up. Right after Mr. Mangum had talked
to me about it I left the drugstore and started over to buy me a strip of meat
at the market, and I met old Colonel Neill himself. You know what a grand
looking figure of a man he is."
"Yes, I do."
"Thick drooping mustache, flower in his buttonhole, vest and gold
chain and long-tailed coat. And the tobacco, yes, his tobacco. He was
chewing it just as usual and his mustache was all stained with it. For forty
years I've heard him make his roaring speeches there in the courthouse and
at picnics and rallies in the cause of navigation on the Cape Fear, North
Carolina's charge at Gettysburg, and how he himself fought the full three
hot July days there on nothing but a canteen of buttermilk. In fact his life
has mainly been one of talk and running for Congress, and he was too young
to fight in the Civil War. And he'll never be elected to Congress and he'll
die old and discouraged, no doubt. But people respect him, and he's got
influence. He always puts on a good front just as he did yesterday morning.
He stopped me on the sidewalk, held up his hand all breezy like. 'Morning,
Mac,' he said to me. 'Morning, Colonel,' I said. 'I'm coming over to get
some of that fine waterground meal,' he said. 'I'll bring you a peck next
time I come to town, Colonel.' I said. 'That's a man,' he said, 'and how's
politics with you?' 'About the same.' 'Guess you heard about the sorrow
that's come to me.' 'Yes, it's bad, Colonel.' 'Yes, too bad,' he said. 'My
boy Neill Arch died this morning, Mac. Died of galloping pneumonia. Yes,
galloping pneumonia carried him off.' And he looked me straight in the
face with his bright blue eyes with never a trace of a lie in 'em, all clear and
innocent as a girl's.
" 'I'm sorry,' I mumbled, 'real sorry, Colonel.'
" 'But as the Lord says in his blessed book,' he said, 'death took him
in the night like a thief that falls upon his victim unawares.' And his voice
took on a loud note just as if he were getting ready to make a speech. Then
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
455
he caught himself and said all quietlike, 'Poor little Neill Arch.' With that
he pulled out his big stained handkerchief, blew his nose, and wiped away
his tears. He smoothed back his mustache, fixed the flower in his buttonhole,
and tipped his hat. 'You are my friend,'he said. 'Come to the funeral, Mac,'
'Goodbye, Colonel,' I said, and he went on down the sidewalk, his heavy
stomach stuck out in front of him all proud and stifflike as if he had just
been nominated for Congress and not shaded and shamed down to death.
So there won't be anything said about the murder. They are burying young
Neill Arch there in Tirzah graveyard with his ancestors, the proud dead
Scotsmen of old. And all will be hushed up, and finally things will go on
just the same with the turning world, the rising and the setting sun and the
stars up high looking down on it all like they've looked for millions of years
and like they will look for millions more. And it's right that it is so. It's
right, Paul."
"Maybe so, Mr. Mac. Yes, maybe so," I said.
gallows
A large horizontal pole usually resting in the forks or crotches of leaning
young tree trunks on which the slaughtered hogs were hung for gutting and
cleaning. We usually used dogwood trees for these poles.
gallows walk
A slow unwilling walk. A walk much like a man moving to his own hanging.
one gallus man
A tenant farmer, a redneck, a peckerwood, an ignoramus, one of the rural
great unwashed.
He who gambles picks his own pockets.
gambrel
A stick usually pointed at each end which is inserted behind the heel sinews
of a slaughtered hog so that it can be hung up on the gallows with head down
for gutting and cleaning. We used to make the gambrels in Harnett County
out of tough hickory wood.
game
Bold, plucky. "I'm game to try anything once."
as game as a rooster
stung at his own game
The game is up.
game fish
A fish that fights gamely against its taking.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
gamey
Bold, sexy.
gander
A married man.
Gander Hall
A fine 19th century estate, now perished, which got its name from a wellknown joke on its owner, Captain James Mcllhenny of a highly respected
Valley family.
The unusually high prices being paid for goose feathers led Captain
Mcllhenny to buy a flock of geese which he intended to use for breeding.
In anticipation of large profits, he traveled to the up country for the purchase
and was careful in selecting the geese in person and accepted only the white
birds. Then he set to waiting for the laying season — and he waited. Finally
he consulted a' 'goose expert" and learned to his distress that his geese were
all ganders. From then on the estate was called Gander Hall.
gander hill
A term referring to a house in which a woman is pregnant and the husband
has to play the part of the waiting and expectant gander.
gander month
The month in which a man's wife is confined following the baby's delivery.
Also refers to the month of March.
gander party
A gathering of males, same as stag party, opposite of hen party.
ga'nt
Thin, gaunt.
ga'nt-gutted
Lean, thin.
A gap in the ax shows in the chips.
gapes or gaps
Yawnings.
To live out of the garden is to live at home.
garden greens
Collards, cabbage, lettuce, rape and other green vegetables.
garden house
A privy.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
457
garden peas
Early peas usually planted in the Valley in January.
garden sass (also garden truck)
Vegetables.
"The Murder of James A. Garfield"
Although the murder of President Garfield occurred in 1881, and this ballad
came out a few years after, it was still being sung round and about in Harnett
County when I was a boy. I learned a few verses of it from Mr. James
Faulkner, a man who helped on our farm and who entranced us Green
children many an hour with his tales and musings and piping-voiced songs.
"Come, all you Christian people,
Wherever you may be,
And likewise pay attention
To these few words from me.
For the murder of James A. Garfield
I am condemned to die.
It's on the thirtieth day of June
Upon the scaffold high.
"My name is Charles Guiteau,
That name I'll never deny,
And I leave my aged parents
In sorrow for to die.
How little did they think
While in my youthful bloom
I'd be taken to the scaffold
To meet my fatal doom."
garlic eater
An Italian.
Who putteth new cloth upon an old garment!
Cut your garment according to your cloth.
gas
Ineffectual talk, windy talk.
gas chamber
A room in the state prison in Raleigh where criminals are put to death —
a hangover from other barbarous days. It is an outmoded form of
punishment, but the politicians and the orthodox church members, especially
the Catholics, have not yet decided that this is so. It has been used over the
years in the South, like the electric chair, to put to death the poorer class
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of criminals, and especially for two crimes: murder and rape. And it has
been well proved to my mind that many an innocent and helpless Negro
man has died for the crime of rape which he didn't commit. See "Southern
womanhood."
Over the years I have visited many condemned men on Death Row in
Raleigh and have heard their pitiful and self-mutilating stories, and in each
case I have been more and more convinced of the terrible wrong the state
legally inflicts on such of its ruined citizens. One only has to read some of
the letters written by these condemned ones just before they died to have
the truth driven quakingly home as to the vengeful wrong. Here are a few
from my collection with the names changed, of course, because of living
relatives.
Dear Friends:
As you know I have been here a long time, and if I had not found God
I don't know how I could have stood it. But thanks and glory be to God
that I did find Him and axcepted his Son as my saviour about a year ago.
As I have served Him the best I could, when I come here I was burdened
with sin and saw that I was lost and that no one could help me but God.
I got down on my knees one night and asked him to forgive me of my sins.
I felt like I was not worthy to call on him for help but God herd my prayer
and saved me. And it sure is a wonderful feeling to know that you have
someone to give you the comfort and cheer that you need. So you see, friends,
you may be in prison and shut off from the world but God is always near
and want to help you. You all know that song, Who at my door is knocking.
And when he knocks let him in for he is the only real or true friend that
you have. So, friends, take him and never let him go. He never will let you
go. You have heard me testify many times for my Lord. So I will say So
long. I hope to meet all of you in better land someday where the circle will
not be broken if you will take Jesus as your Savior.
Your friend,
Carl Emmet
* **
Dear Rev. Johnson:
I appreciate so very much your kind letter of sympathy of March 19.
So many acts of kindness and sympathy have been extended me during this
sad hour, some of them old friends and some friends that I do not even know.
Sometimes we do not fully appreciate our friends until sorrow and trouble
overtake us.
I know that you meant much to Carl, taking such an interest in him
and as an inspiration to him to live the Christian way. Sometimes these things
happen to us and we are bewildered and wonder why our cross is so hard
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
459
to bear but trusting in Christ I know that someday I'll understand.
His funeral was one of the sweetest I ever attended. We used the songs
that he sang at the last and also the scriptures that he had written to me to
read. The church was filled to overflowing and it was a perfect sunny spring
day. The floral offerings were lovely.
Again I thank you for every kindness, every word of encouragement
and prayer offered in Carl's and my behalf.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ella Emmet
* **
My dear Mother:
Well, Mom, this is the last letter I am writting you. Keep it auntil you
die whitch I hope you will never die. But listen, I still love you wherever
you my be. I hope you are alive and my God bless you and my sweet wife.
I hope you will meat in heaven. May God be with you and Pauline. I know
I been unfaithful to my wife to and I disobade to my mother. But I ask God
to forgive me for sin. I no I did roung and had be roung but I know my
poor mother did the very best she could to rase me without a father but after
all every curnor there were trouble look me in my face but now I will give
the would up and my God be with me wherever I stop and I hope that God
will open the heart of my mother and take away all her sorrow and stand
within my wife's eyes and hope that she will give glory to God name and
she shall not perish but have eternal life. Just trust him, Pauline, and I no
he will stand by. Please don't wait until sick are trouble and darkness come
upon you. Meet him tonight at your bedside wherever you and Mother my
be. Please remember these words because God will answer it. He is the only
one. So this is all and the end. But Mary Pauline and Mary Manly we will
meet some sweet day in the sweet land of liberty. Close with tears.
Monroe Manly
* **
Dear children:
Your daddy died in the gas chamber.
I want to say that I love you all and hate to part from you but the life
I led sinning against Jesus he took me from you, your mother and
grandmother.
So, children, please remember this — be good and think about the way
your daddy died for being disobedient to God's laws. Please go to church
and take Jesus for your savior, read your Bible and Jesus will make you
happy and bless you the longer you live. Please mind your mother.
If you live for Jesus you will see your daddy again.
Daddy loves you but God loves him better.
Daddy won't say any more now only take Jesus for your friend.
Sid Gurney
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Dear Friend —
I am telling the world goodbye and this is just how I feel about leaving
this world behind.
I have good news to bring you, that is why I am writing. I am going
to take a trip in that old Gospel ship and go sailing through the air. Oh,
I can scarcely wait. I know I won't be late, for I'll spend my time in prayer.
And when my ship comes in I'll leave this world of sin and go sailing through
the air. I'm going far beyond the sky. I'm going to shout and sing until the
heavens ring when I bid this world goodbye. I'm going to take a ride right
by my Savior's side and I will not have to care, I'll leave my burden here,
with every sigh and tear and go sailing through the air far past the sun and
moon I shall be traveling soon.
Wasted days are now behind me. My evening sun is sinking fast. Every
moment brings me nearer to the end. I will hurry on home to my Jesus.
I do hope that everyone will feel as good as I do as his time grows close
to his grave.
May God bless every one and save his soul.
These are the last words of
Benny Thomas
* **
Dear Friends,
This letter is written just forty-five minutes before I go to execution.
Well, I want to tell everybody something. Yesterday I was not ready
to go but this morning about seven-fifteen o'clock Jesus saved my soul and
I am ready to go to be with Jesus. Friends, my advice to all is to get Jesus
in your heart. And I hope to meet you all in heven. Boys, I want you all
to write and tell my mother and wife that I was ready to go and I ask you
all to write and tell them for me and tell them all I said to meet me in heven.
So, boys, this is my last request on this earth but there is a home in
heven for me. It says so in St. John 14 chapter.
Cliff
* **
Dear Christian Friends:
I am on my way to meet my Lord. I really have enjoy all you have done
for me since my stay here. You have helped me to become a child of God.
Now my work on earth is done, my life crown has been won and I will
be at rest with him above. I am leaving you all praying that you who are
left will get a better break than those of us who left you.
But as you no we all have to die sometime. Man can take our life but
he can't do our soul any harm. Now my friends, stop worrying about your
life and get your soul ready to meet God.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
461
Always remember when heaven pull the curtain down and pin them
a star God will always be your friend no matter where you are. Please for
my sake take him now while you still have time.
I won't say good bye for whenever you (leave) this world I feel deep
down inside of me that we will meet again some day.
So, all my friends who don't no God, learn him now and he will give
you rest.
Well, it ain't mush to say but I am gone to rest with my Savior and
I won't say I will be glad I won't see you all up there. I have learnt a lot
about God since here and now I can tell you how I feel. I feel godd till I
couldn't wate till the time come for me to go. Now I am gone to join the
saints in glory where sory no more truble can (indecipherable). So, boys,
pray to make heven your home and less join the band together where we
can sing prases forevermore with God. Things here on earth ain't no good
if you want to be saved. Don't look at the world and be lost. Look at God
and be saved.
So long
Billy Jackson
Friends—
Well, fellows, the time grows near as you know. Everybody must die
sometime. I feel much better since Rev. Johnson baptized me yesterday.
Deep down in my hart I feel that I am saved and I want to thank you all
for all you all have done for me and Rev. J. Fellows, I did learn the twentythird Psalm. It means a lot to me. I know God is with me. I have called upon
him and he has heard my cry. I will go to him and rest in the kingdom of
God forever. In every way you all may go never forget God. To be with
God is to have eternal life. Without him you lose. God so loved the world
that whosoever believed in him shouldn't perish but have everlasting life.
From
Carson Black
P.S. You know they killed the Son of God and they will me also. I have
told the truth and believe if James C. Brook had told the truth they would
not kill me. But I have nothing in my hart agenst anyone and hope to rest
in heaven with God. Be of good cheer and let not your hart be troubled.
Hope to meet you all in heven.
Rev. Johnson, my dear friend in Christ:
Just a few lines this beautiful Friday morning to say how much comfort
you were to me. I thank you so much for the weekly magazines and the many
comforting conversations we had together. May God bless you in the years
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to come. Now a few words to my fellow prisoners of Christ. Boys, I want
to leave this word with you all to the white and colored or whatever race
you may be, that is, I pray you all may enjoy another chance in life, that
you can go back home to your wife and children or your dear old mother
or sweethearts or loved ones. Brothers my heart cries out for your precious
soles. I do hope in some way you may realize your mistakes and go straight.
I have many friends in the backyard and I pray you boys will take this letter
seriously because the writer only has at this time one hour to live in this old
world. Why? Because I must pay with my life for crimes committed in sin.
Yes, I am leaving a darling wife and five sweet little children... Boys, I really
enjoyed my stay on earth but I can say I was never happy because I didn't
know the pleasure of Christian ways. I have been more content since I came
to death row than I ever was before because I found God. And I am going
home this morning. Boys, when you face your loved ones for the last time
it is not very pleasant. Well, Rev. Johnson, I am a little tired now and I am
going to slip off in a little while to a good long rest in the arms of my Jesus.
So may God bless you and our fellow countrymen in the time to come.
Sincerely your friend in Jesus,
Danny Ross
* **
Dearest Mother:
I am writing this letter from the very depths of my heart. There have
been times I know dear Mother, when, because of my actions, you often
wondered did I really love you. But this night as I look forward to being
with my loving Savior, I want to say, like I never said before, I love you,
and my only regret is that I did not tell you long ago of my great devotion
for you.
I will be going to be with God, but I shall be waiting for you and our
other loved ones, to come up there to be together forever more. Our parting
will not be long, so don't cry or grieve for me. Just think we will be together
with our Lord for eternity.
I will never forget the day I got in trouble, because you told me that
if I didn't stop and listen to you I would get into trouble. But I didn't listen
to you, and I am very sorry for not heeding your sound words of advice.
And I remember very well how you, the good mother you are, stuck with
me through everything, even after some others turned their backs on me.
I forgive Father for what he said about me at the time I got into trouble.
And I have been praying that he may accept God and spend the rest of his
life serving the Lord.
I hope and pray that you will be able to make arrangements with Maggie
Lene to have Velma Ray, my darling daughter, to visit and stay occasionally
with you at your home. Because I know your love and good advice will be
a great help to her as she grows older.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
463
As to my trial I promised to tell you the truth. Of course the evidence
was against me, but I did not kill the man. I believe that my lawyer could
have done more if he had dug into the facts of the case, instead of talking
so much about my "so-called confession" and discrimination.
I forgive Annie Ruth for what she did to me. I believe no other mother
could not raise her child as good as you raised me. All my mistakes I made
myself. You always warned me about my bad ways. When I finally found
out the truth you always had told me, alas, it was too late.
When you get this letter, I'll be with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
And you can rest assured that I am SAVED from all my sins. The State of
North Carolina is taking the life of an innocent boy.
All my love,
Lloyd Ray
Last Statement of Lloyd Ray
February 11, 1953
This is the last statement made by a 19-year-old condemned negro boy. I
am sorry this is my last statement but there is nothing I can do about it now.
I want to plead with every man, woman, boy and girl not to get in trouble.
I am sorry, so sorry I got in trouble because I am just about to go to my
death. I have eleven sisters, no brothers and one daughter of my own. It
is a shame how I messed up my life. I have nothing against anyone. But
I have never felt good these three years on death row except Sunday and
every night from 6 to 7 o'clock; that is when five condemned colored boys
hold services. All five of us boys got the bad news about the same time.
I have not seen my father since I have been in trouble; all my sisters
turned me down, all except my mother. So I had a hard life all the way.
I have never been to school but had to work so my sisters could go to school.
But when I got in trouble they turned me down; I feel so badly about it.
I truly hope and pray everybody will stay out of trouble. I do not hate anyone
but I cannot say I love anyone but my mother and daughter.
Well, if nothing happens before February 27, my poor short life will
be all over in this world. But I am going to live by my Lord Jesus Christ
because I am saved from all my sins. I do not have any close friends in this
world; I am alone. On June 5,1949,1 gave myself to the good Lord Jesus
and in Him I found a friend who will be my friend until I die on February
27, if nothing happens.
I can say this much: my lawyer did what he could. Also Warden Roberts
did a lot for us condemned boys on death row. I want everybody to know
that my soul is saved. I love my sweet mother, I am her only son and she
certainly loves me. I wish I could say that about my father but I can't. In
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my closing statement I want to say,' 'God be with you all until we meet again.
I am saved but I do not want to die."
Lloyd Ray
step on the gas
To hurry, to drive fast.
turn on the gas
To get to the point, to start some important action.
gassing
Idle talk.
give one the gate
To fire, to dismiss.
gather
Know, comprehend, understand. "Here you are and I can't gather why
you've come."
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
He who would gather roses must not fear the thorns.
gathering
A swelling such as a boil.
gathering goats' feathers
To fool time away, to idle about, find excuses for not working.' 'The trouble
about writing is you have to gather so may goats' feathers before you get
started."
gay as a bird
gay as a lark
gay blade
A merry fellow
gaysome
Happy, frolicsome.
gearing
Gears.
gee
To agree, to get along well, to fit. "Their ideas just don't gee."
Let the geese beware when the fox preaches.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
465
If geese cackle a lot, it is a sign of rain.
geese are swans
An exaggerated value of a thing. "All his geese are swans in his thinking.''
the old woman's picking her geese
Snowing.
gee whillikins!
A mild expletive.
geezer
Face, nose. "Wham, and he hit him right in the geezer."
gem
A beloved one.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
Gemini!
An exclamation, from Castor and Pollux, the twin constellation in the sky.
General Green
Pestiferous grass, especially crabgrass.' 'From the looks of that field General
Green has won the victory."
generality
The majority. "The generality will never agree on religious matters."
generation
A multitude. "My goodness alive, there's a whole generation there at the
church meeting."
One generation goeth and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth
forever.
genny-wine
Genuine.
as gentle as a dove
as gentle as a kitten
as gentle as a lamb
gentlemen!
An interjection. "Gentlemen, did that dog evermore go away from there
when that turpentine was poured in his rear end!"
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Geordie
Diminutive of George.
By George!
Exclamation.
Let George do it.
An excuse for not acting, referring to a vague agency, a dodge from work.
Georgia buggy
A wheelbarrow, a chain gang term.
Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.
(A teasing rhyme.)
get
To move in a hurry.
Understand. "I don't get it."
get a move on
Hurry.
get away with
To embarrass, to hack, to discombobulate.' 'When I told him I knew about
his nigger baby, it really got away with him. Yea, man."
get a word in edgewise
To push forward in a conversation.
get down to brass tacks (cases)
To come to the point, to deal directly with the business at hand.
get going
Start up, to begin. "Let's get going with the prayer meeting, folks."
get gone
To vamoose, to disappear.
get hold of
Understand, get the attention of. "Try to get hold of the waiter and ask
about the dessert."
get in dutch with
To fall into disfavor.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
467
get in one's hair
To be in the way, to irritate, to bother.
get it in the neck
To be dealt roughly with, be hurt, be hard put to it.
Get lost!
A command to one to move off, leave, get out of one's sight.
Get me?
Do you understand?
get next to
Affect adversely, irritate. "That Nixon's lying gets next to me."
Also, to develop an advantageous acquaintance. "Joe Palmer's road got
paved after he got next to the governor."
get off to a bad start
To begin unluckily or badly.
get off to a fly ing start
To begin well, swiftly.
get on
To thrive, to prosper. "He knows that pennies make dollars — and so that's
how he gets on."
get on a high horse
Get upset, lose one's temper.
get one's back up
To be irritated, to be filled with resentment.
get one's bristles up
Same as above.
get one's goat
To become annoyed, embarrassed.
get one up on
To get the advantage over.
get on one's nerves
To irritate, to trouble.
get-out
A descriptive term for emphasis. "He drove that old chewy faster than all
get-out."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
One gets as good as one sends.
Tit for tat, a quality of treatment.
get set
To arrange to start, be ready to go.
get sore
Become angry, humiliated.
get straight
To become solvent, to be out of debt, solve a complication.
get the bacon
Succeed in one's efforts.
get the brush-off
To be ignored, dismissed, fired.
get the bugs out
Clear up weaknesses, correct an error.
get the bulge on
To gain the advantage of.
get the drop on
To have the advantage.
get the gate
To be fired, dismissed, a more vivid statement of "get the brush-off."
get the lowdown on
Find some facts, usually derogatory ones, about a person.
get the mitten
To be fired, dismissed, same as "brush-off" and "gate."
get the wind up
To be frightened, terrified.
get to first base
Succeed. "Charlie has asked that pretty new coed for a date several times
but he can't get to first base."
get under one's skin
Irritate, confuse.
get up and get
Energy, industry.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
469
get up on one's hind legs
React strongly, increase one's anger.
get up on the wrong side of the bed
To be in a surly mood, feel unlucky, to be down in the dumps, the dismals.
Get used to a thing when young, you'll stand it when you're old.
Get while the getting's good.
get wind of
To hear about, to have a rumor of.
ghost
A spirit of a dead person appearing on earth again, such as Hamlet's father's
ghost. Often referred to as ha'nt.
Ghost stories are universally popular and how often we children shivered
with delight as we listened to one. The more pitiful or scary, the better —
such as the following. I've heard several versions of this story, all differing
in particulars but agreeing on the fact of the ha'nt. This one I got from an old local historian, Jim Fallon. I allowed for his imagination.
"Well, a long time ago when the Yankees were fighting with the
Southern folk," said old Jim, as we sat by his fire one night, "General
Sherman and his soldiers ravaged through the country burning and
destroying things. They crossed the Cape Fear at Fayetteville which they
burnt and went all around seizing up provisions and victuals — what they
could find. They come on up the river into our neighborhood — some of
'em did. And a company of 'em put up in Squire Barclay's big grove. The
Squire had a great big house too, but they said they'd put up their tents
outdoors and sleep in them like always if he didn't mind. They seemed mighty
polite, and he said go right ahead. And I reckon they'd a-done it anyhow,
whether or why, for I've always heard them Yankee soldiers were mighty
rough, and certain they were, as I'll tell you.
"Now the Squire and his wife had a little boy, and he was much took
with the soldiers and the rifles and clamping swords and bayonets and he
kept brushing around and asking questions and telling 'em no doubt about
what old Sandy Claus had brung him for Christmas. The Squire done what
he could for the soldiers when suppertime come. He had his niggers bring
out what beef and sweet potatoes he could furnish and some cider and peach
brandy — not much but some. Them soldiers et and drunk and felt purty
good no doubt and thought the Southerners maybe were not so bad after
all. Later some of 'em poking about found a big cask of scuppernong wine
in the barn where the Squire had it hid away in the shucks. They went after
that hot and heavy, and soon they were feeling more than fine. They were
getting drunk.
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' 'Now the Squire and his wife had done gone to sleep in the big house,
and the little boy was supposed to be asleep too. The captain of the soldiers
had told the Squire that he would see that nothing was disturbed and he
and his men would take care of everything. I reckon after all the Yankees
were not so bad, though I heard old Miz Nancy Demming say once that
her daddy saw one of 'em squatted behind his barn, his britches down and
him doing his natural business and he had a long tail like the devil hisself.
And I've heard other old folks say that some of 'em had hoofs too.
' 'Well, that little boy couldn't sleep for thinking about the soldiers and
their blue coats and their swo'ds and everything, and so he laid in his little
bed listening to the happenings down in the grove, some talking and singing
maybe. And when everybody else in the house was quiet, he got up and croped
out and went down there. And there set the soldiers all full of liquor and
a-jawing with one another.
' 'And some of 'em was cussing now and about to fight. When the boy
come up to 'em they all stopped and looked at him, and one of them said,
'Sonny, you better be in bed.' Another'n said, 'Let him set up — 'twon't
hurt him.' Then they all got to asking questions and bragging on him and
said, 'Your father's a big rich man, he must have horses and plenty of silver
and things buried in the ground.'
" 'If Father did have horses and such hid away I wouldn't tell you,'
theboysaid. 'What'sthat?' said the big captain of a soldier who was drunk
with the rest of 'em by this time. 'I wouldn't tell you,' said the boy. 'Well,
maybe he has,' said the captain, 'and was lying when he told us everything's
been sent to the Confederate Army — horses, money, and everything.' 'I
ain't going to tell you,' said the boy, 'and you better quit calling my father
aliar.' And then they got to fooling with him, half joking and half serious.
'If you don't tell us, we might hang you up high as Haman.' Of course they
didn't mean it — they was just joking and picking at him. But he begun
to cry and you know how it is sometimes when anybody cries. It's liable
to make you meaner than you was, if you're set on pestering of 'em. And
that's the way it was with them. They didn't give way to feeling sorry for
him. 'Shut up,' they said, and then they begun to give him some minny balls
and one of 'em give him a piece of new money with a picture on it, and he
hushed his crying. They begun to pick at him again, asking him about all
them horses and where that silver and money was buried, 'cause they had
already got the idea from the way he acted that that little boy knowed
something. And he might for all I know.
"Of course, they didn't mean no harm maybe but they were getting
good drunk by this time. And you know how it is when folks get drunk and
a long ways from home — from their women-folks at home — they are just
like as not to get powerful mean. And then the big captain soldier said, 'By
God, we'll hang the little rascal on that limb if he don't tell.' And another
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
471
said, 'By God, we will.' But you know — that little fellow wouldn't tell a
word, nary'n. And one of the soldiers tied a handkerchief around his little
mouth so he couldn't squeal much. Lord, I wished I had been off in the
barn with a rifle or up on a rooftop some'r's.
' 'There was a big 'simmon tree there in the grove with the limbs spread
out and a little swing on it where the little boy used to swing. And one of
the soldiers took his sword and cut the rope in two. Then they tied it around
the little boy under the armpits and hung him up. 'Now,' they said, 'you
going to tell us about them horses and where that there money's hid,' and
the little boy kept shaking his head. 'You gonna tell,' they said. And he kept
shaking his head. Golly, that little young'un was a stout Trojas man all right.
Then they started swinging him back and forth, way here and way there
until his head would almost touch the limbs of the red oaks beyond. And
he couldn't make nary a sound 'cause they had his mouth covered up with
that handkerchief, and his hands tied. When he would swing by him, the
big soldier would say, 'You gonna tell?' And the little boy would shake his
head. Then the big soldier got bull mad, and he shouted out so loud that
he roused the Squire up in his bed where he slept. 'You gonna tell me? I
ask you for the last time!' And the little boy shook his head, and then as
he swung back towards him, that there soldier pulled out his sword and run
it through the little boy's stomach and killed him — unh!
' 'Well, the Squire and his wife had come out on the porch, 'cause they
had heard the loud shouting. They went rushing down towards the soldiers,
the two of 'em in their white nightgowns and throwing up their hands. And
when they seen the little boy hanging there by the firelight, his head bent
over like Jesus on the cross and blood drip-drapping from him to the ground,
they both went wild and run at the soldiers clawing and scratching like cats.
And the soldiers killed both of 'em, so 'twas said. And the big soldier stood
there drunk swinging the little boy, all the time swinging him back and forth,
and all of a sudden he gave the little body such a swing that it swung high
up and lodged in the fork of the 'simmon tree.
"Then when they'd done so much damage — killed the boy and Squire
and his wife, 'cause they was all so drunk, they set fire to the house. And
the niggers run all out of their cabins into the fields, hollering and screaming
while the house burned down. The soldiers shot some of the niggers just
to see them fall, so 'twas said. Then they packed up their stuff, saddled their
horses and got away from there as fast as they could, and they never more
did come back.
"Later the white folks cleaned up that grove and made a field of it, but
they didn't touch that 'simmon tree. You know how it is, they leave 'simmon
trees down in fields, the way it is in my field down there. And one night
when I was about yearling size, I went with my daddy coon-hunting over
on the hill there. We had four dogs named Rang, Gouge, Buster and Bo-
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Peep, and they were the best coon dogs that ever there was.
"Well, we hadn't been out hunting more'n a few minutes when we up
and struck a hot track, and they run up and down the swamps — 'Yowyow-yow,' as hard as life would let 'em. Then out on the hills and back again,
they'd come. There was something quare about it, 'cause a coon don't usually
run like that. He sticks straight in the swamp. Then the dogs struck a trail
out of the swamp again — 'Yow-yow-yow,' up the hill, across the field
toward where the old Barclay house had been, and all of a sudden the racket
stopped. 'What do you reckon's happened now?' I said, and my daddy said
they must have ketched him. Then he said they couldn't a-ketched him, and
if the coon had gone up the tree they couldn't have clambed the tree to get
at him there.
"Whilst we stood in the edge of the field a-talking it over, here come
the dogs back as hard as life would let 'em run. And they got quite clost
up to us and whined and whimpered. 'That ain't no coon,' said my daddy.
'What is it?' I said. And he didn't know he said, but it weren't no coon.
And we'd try him again, he said.
"Now them dogs was well trained, and when my daddy spoke, they
knowed what to do. Everybody did, when he spoke. 'Get on there, Rang,
get on, Gouge, you, Buster and you, Bo-Peep.' And he set 'em off again
— 'yow, yow, yow.' They run the trail on across the old field and towards
where the old house had been and where that 'simmon tree stood up plain
in the moonlight. Purty soon there they come back lickity-lick, lickity-lick.
And they croped up around and hugged up close to our legs, whimpering
and a-whining. 'It ain't no coon,' my daddy says. 'What is it?' I say. 'You
know what it is?' he says. And I say I don't. And he says, 'It's a ha'nt —
if what I heard as a boy is so, but I ain't never seen a ha'nt in my life, and
maybe tonight's a good time to see one.' Of course he was half joking-like,
for he really didn't believe all he'd heard about the old Barclay place, and
I didn't neither — little as I was.
"Now my daddy weren't a-scared of nothing dead or alive. So he says,
'We're going to see. Here, Rang, here Buster, and we started out acrost
the fields. But you know them dogs wouldn't run nary another step. They
come slipping behind, and every once in a while they'd let out a pitiful
wheeah-wheeah sound. Purty soon we come up to that old 'simmon tree
and there in the moonlight you could see something a-setting in it. Great
God, something bigger'n a 'possum was a-setting in it. There weren't no
bears in the country, not even no wolves, and I begun to feel funny. 'Come
on,' said my daddy, and he went on up with me behind — and Rang and
Gouge and Buster and Bo-Peep all in a row.
"Well, we come a little closer and there, bless God, up in the 'simmon
tree shining in the moonlight was that little boy or something that looked
like a boy.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
473
' 'I stood froze in my tracks. But my daddy sure had a craw full o'grit,
and he said he was going to climb that 'simmon tree and get that little boy
or whatever it was, and if it was flesh and blood he'd take him home and
raise him. I begged him not to try, but he did. And he climbed on up that
'simmon tree and got right close to where that critter was sitting. And then
it run out along the limb to the clean tip of it and hung there by one hand
like a 'possum, and my daddy shook the limb so hard that it fell off way
down to the ground and hit the ground running — and away it went as hard
as its little legs could carry it toward the graveyard back of where the old
house has been. But the dogs didn't go after him, no sir. They set right there
and whined and whined. And when my daddy come down, he was white
as a sheet. 'What's the matter?' I said. 'Come on,' he said, 'let's get away
from here." Both of us and the dogs left as hard as life would let us. And
my daddy said that little boy or whatever it was had breathed in his face.
' 'Other people seen him in that 'simmon tree too, and it got so nobody
would go nigh that place. The briar-bushes growed up about the tree, and
the field got full of sassafras scrubs, and the last time I was around there
it was full of pines and young sweetgums and new dogwoods. And there'll
never more be a plow stuck in it till the end of time. That's what I reckon.''
ghost of a chance
A very slim chance indeed. "Richard Nixon hasn't got a ghost of a chance
of being elected president."
Dibble-gabble
Senseless chatter.
Gibraltar
An image of strength and durability.
giddy-gabbing
Gossiping.
giddy-gadding about
A flitting around from place to place, without purpose, silly wandering.
Giddy giddy gout,
Your shirttail's out
Giddy giddy gin,
Your shirttail's in.
(A teasing rhyme.)
giddy head
A foolish, silly person.
The gift without the giver is bare.
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gift horse
A suspicious donation or gift.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
gift marks
The marks on the upper part of fingernails which are supposed to denote
special talents or gifts.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
gig
A spear for gigging fish. We boys used to make our gigs out of old umbrella
ribs, and we would sometimes make ourselves a wooden bow and use the
umbrella rib as an arrow, and so shoot fish in the water. Our takings were
always very small.
giggle soup (water)
Liquor.
gill o'er the ground (or creeping Charlie)
A species of pestiferous ground ivy.
gills
Jaws.
gimlet-eyed
Small-eyed, suspicious looking.
gi'n
Given.
best girl
A sweetheart.
git up and git
Get up and get.
give
To yield. "Push hard on that post and it'll give."
Give advice to all, but be security for none.
Give at first, asking what you safely can.
'Tis certain gain to help an honest man.
It's more blessed to give than to receive.
don't give a good goddamn
A braggadocio expletive phrase.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
475
give a hand
To aid, assist. "Come, give me a hand with these groceries."
give a little and take a little
To compromise, to solve difficulties by diplomacy.
dead giveaway
An obvious trick or dodge.
give down
To age, to grow old. "Mis' Alice has give down the most in the last year."
give down the country
Bawl out, scold. "I give her down the country for her scandalous behavior.''
Give him an inch and he'll take an ell.
Give him but rope enough and he'll hang himself.
give him out
Cease to expect him.
give in
To yield, to surrender.
give lip
Berate, speak especially disrespectfully.
give me five.
Shake hands.
Give me liberty or give me death.
To everyone that hath it shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken
even that which he hath.
To him that hath shall be given.
give out
To end. "The road gives out just over that hill there."
To announce.
Depleted supply. "My old Ford made a gulp, and there I was squat in the
middle of things with my gas give out."
To fail. "My eyes give out when I read a lot of fine print."
Give the devil his due.
give the glad hand
To welcome warmly.
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give the go-by
To ignore, snub.
Give thy thought no tongue.
Give the gun
To open the throttle, to start away at full speed.
Don't give up the ship.
Giving to the poor is lending to the Lord.
gizzard
Manhood, stamina, bravery. "That fellow's got a stout gizzard, I'll tell you
that."
stick in one's gizzard (craw)
Anything offensive, bad news, an insult.
glad eye
A come on look, especially from a woman to a man or vice versa.
glad-handing
Obnoxiously affectionate welcome. Officious and overdone greeting.
glass arm
Refers to a pitcher whose pitching arm has gone bad on him, especially as
to speed.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
gleason
A man who likes to see whores naked, especially see them walking around
in a room while he sits and takes his eyes full. This term was told to me by
a convict in the state penitentiary.
glim
Glimmer.' 'No, there's not a glim of hope for him, the cancer's too far gone.''
A faint bit of light. "As soon as we see the glim of dawn, we are ready to
start."
glim of light
Daybreak.
douse the glim
Put out the light.
glitters like stars
as gloomy as a haunted house
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
477
as gloomy as night
as gloomy as the grave
glory!
An exclamation.
The glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
glory hole
A woman's cunt.
glory to God!
An exclamation.
in one's glory
In pride or high hopes, extremely happy.
as glossy as silk
A clean glove can hide a dirty hand.
glut
go
The wooden wedge used to split logs after they have been cracked by a steel
wedge. We used dry dogwood.
An agreement. "Is it a go or not?"
To imitate. "He can go exactly like a wild turkey's call."
To intend. "I didn't go to hurt you."
Spirit, fire, energy. "That horse has got a lot of go in him."
The fashion, the popular thing. "Mini-skirts are all the go now."
from the word go
From the start, from the very beginning.
go-ahead
Energy, drive. "He's got plenty of go-ahead, believe you me."
to go all out
To try one's best.
a go and come girl
One proficient in sexual know-how.
go around
Serve everyone present. "I was mighty thankful there was enough vittles
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to go around."
go around your elbow to get to your thumb
goat
A barrel over which a chain gang prisoner would be held while he was beaten.
Patience. "She always could get my goat."
gob
A sailor.
go back home and come again
Try a different way, tell a different story.
gobble-de-gook (garble-de-gook)
Nonsense.
gobble gut
A glutton.
gobbler
A fizzle, a faux pas.
go-by
A snubbing.
God
The Supreme Being. The omnipotent infinite spirit. The creator of all that is.
All religions have their Supreme Being. The American Indians worshipped
the Great Spirit. The Greeks had their Zeus, however humanized he was.
The Persians have their Omnipotent One, their infinite creator, Ahura Mazda
(Ormazd), the god of light, with his opposite Ahriman, similar to our Lucifer
or Satan. The Hindus have Brahm or Brahma, the everlasting spirit, the
Essence of all that is. They believe in a trinity too, similar to our Father,
Son and Holy Ghost — Brahm, Vishnu, and Siva, except that Siva is both
the evil or destructive one and at the same time the reproductive and
restorative power.
God created man in his own image.
God can't cook breakfast with a snowball.
God helps those who help themselves.
God is love.
God is no respecter of persons.
God knows but he won't tell.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
479
God loveth a cheerful giver.
God made the country, man made the town.
God sees all.
God tempers the storm to the shorn lamb.
God will bring thee into judgment.
I am the Lord thy God and a jealous God.
All things are possible with God.
You cannot serve God and mammon.
The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his
handiwork.
What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
If God is for us, who can be against us.
The kingdom of God is within you.
God a-massy!
God have mercy, an expletive.
"GodBe With You"
This used to be a popular hymn in my Harnett County neighborhood,
especially at Buie's Creek Academy. Professor James Archibald Campbell,
the founder of the Academy, which later became Campbell College and still
later Campbell University, always used it at the ending of the school year.
He would lead in it and also in the shedding of parting tears. He was a warmhearted man and a fine teacher, and among his subjects was singing, which
he loved and which he taught to the whole school at Chapel Hour. "God
be with you till we meet again," we sang as the tears — with a sob here and
there — wet our cheeks.
"God bless the master of this house
The mistress bless also
And all the little children
That round the table go.
"And all your kin and kinsmen
That dwell both far and near.
I wish you a merry Christmas
And a happy new year!"
(A Christmas carol.)
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God bless you
Usually said for good luck when someone sneezes. It is a folk belief that
when one's mouth is open in sneezing, the devil can get in. But a quick' 'God
bless you" will keep him out.
goddammit
An expletive.
Thomas Godfrey (1736-1763)
A playwright who lived for awhile in Wilmington and while there wrote' 'The
Prince of Parthia," the first American play produced professionally in
America. It was staged in Philadelphia on April 24, 1767, four years after
Godfrey's death. He is buried somewhere in the St. James churchyard in
Wilmington.
In my youth I visited the churchyard and stood in a turmoil of boyish
thinking by a small tombstone which said, as I remember, that he was "buried
near this spot." Long after that I visited the churchyard again and could
find no marker. Maybe it was temporarily misplaced. I asked a man raking
leaves, and he said he didn't know anything about a Thomas Godfrey. The
church had been added to recently, and he said, "I reckon he's buried
somewhere under that new part."
Archibald Henderson, a professor at UNC and one of its most
outstanding ones — man of science and literature and international mind
— published an edition of the play in 1917, with a fine and thorough
biographical and critical introduction.
to go down hill
To weaken, to age, to become seriously ill or worse in health. "He got hit
by a streetcar and he's been going down hill ever since."
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.
He whom the gods love dies young.
God's plenty
Enough, often much more than enough.
God willing and if the creek don't rise
A respectful and meek-minded phrase often used in reference to some future
intent or appointment. "I'll see you on Monday, God willing and if the creek
don't rise." Same as "if nothing doesn't happen."
What goes up must come down.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
481
goes with
Is appropriate. "That blue plaid tie goes with that suit."
Happens or disappears.' 'I wonder what goes with all the bluebirds. I haven't
seen one all spring."
goggle
Gargle.
Go In and Out Your Windows
A youthful singing game.
The players form a circle holding hands. The one chosen as "It" stands
in the center. As the players sing, they lift their joined hands and "It" weaves
in and out under them, the "windows." At the second stanza "It" chooses
a partner, kneels before him or her and on the third stanza gives the chosen
loved one a kiss and then joins the singers. The loved one now becomes "It,"
and the game goes on. No one cares to notice the quickness with which one
love is exchanged for another.
Go in and out your windows (three times)
For you have gained the day.
Go forth and face your lover, (etc.)
I'll measure my love to show you, (etc.)
I kneel before my lover, (etc.)
It breaks my heart to leave you. (etc.)
going and coming
Both ways. "I had him going and coming and I couldn't lose."
going around in circles
To be getting nowhere.
going great guns
Succeeding in a big way.
going like hot cakes
To sell swiftly.' 'Them new seersucker suits down at Fleischman's are going
like hot cakes."
going man
A rising man, one winning success, an energetic hustler.
going on
Getting near to, approaching. "My boy's six, going on seven."
goings on
Deeds, usually in a derogatory sense.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
going to pot
Wasting, decaying.
going to the dogs
Failing, falling on evil ways.
go in the hole
Lose money, have a deficit.
All that glitters is not gold.
gold digger
A female sponger, a sly sycophant.
goldenrod
There are numerous species and all beautiful. When late summer comes,
their golden glory adorns the landscape — the roadsides, meadows,
pasturelands, and fallow fields.
I remember how my English teacher at Buie's Creek Academy loved
it, call it flower or call it weed. He wrote a poem about it, and I thought
it was wonderful with its rhyming line saying, "It lifts its pale fingers up
to God." Later when I grew more critical, I realized that "fingers" was
not quite appropriate.
golly Moses!
An interjection.
golly wampus
An amphibious monster supposed to haunt the deep swamps of the Cape
Fear. Also called wampus.
golly whopper
A wonder, an outlandish thing or creature.
gone baby (gone coon, goose or gosling)
In a lost condition, a person completely out of luck.
gone-minded
Crazy.
gone-sucker
A poor fellow caught in unhappy circumstances, an unlucky man.' 'Let that
woman get her hooks on him and he's a gone-sucker."
good
Physically powerful, strong, full of stamina. "I'm as good a man as he is
any day on earth."
Hold fast that which is good.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
483
good and all
Completely, entirely.' 'And then he fetched him a blow behind the ear and
knocked him out for good and all."
good as
As much as, completely, in fact. "Joe Buck is as good as dead and you know
it."
as good as a dollar
as good as dead
Helpless.
as good as ever the sun shone on
as good as gold
as good as pie
A good beginning makes a good ending.
A good book is the best companion.
Goodbye is not gone.
give the goodbye to
To break an engagement, to jilt.
"Goodbye, My Lady Love"
A familiar song.
A good conscience is a soft pillow.
A good dog deserves a bone.
good egg
A sincere fellow, a hail-fellow-well-met, a sociable person.
/ gooder mind
To have a mind to, to intend, to plan.
A good example is the best example.
Good grief!
An exclamation.
A good head will get itself hats.
A good horse never lacks a saddle.
good hunting
May success be yours.
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A good husband makes a good wife.
goodies
The meat of nuts.
A good Jack makes a good Jill.
Good Lord alive!
An expletive.
goodly works
Pious purposes and actions that advance the cause of virtue in general and
the Kingdom of God on earth in particular.
These goodly works can take on all kinds of shapes, forms, and fashions
in their fulfillment as some of the doings of two Cape Fear Valley characters,
Archie and Angus McLean, twin brothers, illustrate. These two were well
known personages in our neighborhood, and as a boy I knew them and heard
from more than one tongue stories of their exploits in their younger days.
In old age they fell upon hard times and used to visit a great deal around
among their relatives to save living expenses, and they always took along
a little Negro boy to fan them in the hot weather and keep the flies away
and wait on them. Sometimes they would come to our house and stay as
much as a couple of weeks, and then, with their welcome finally worn to
a frazzle, move on to the next relative, for we were busy farming people
and had little time to sit on the front porch taking it easy and discussing
by the hour the Biblical origin of the Negro race and the wickedness of the
world.
They were identical twins and as alike as two persimmon seeds in the
same persimmon or two peas in a pod. And they stayed that way from birth
to old age. For the life of me I never could tell them apart. Not only did
they look exactly alike and dress alike, but they behaved alike. They had
the same motions and gestures and talked alike, voice for voice, and often
used the same expressions. You want to remember that about the voice and
expressions.
They were little men and supple and quick, and in their young days
had the reputation for being fierce as bantam roosters and cocks of the walk
in their manhood among the shady women along the Cape Fear River. And
it was with this same manhood, so the story went, that on a certain occasion
they won local fame for themselves — a fame which endures to this day
and keeps their memory green — even beyond all their other churchly good
works.
One summer Reverend Sandy King held a three-week revival in the Little
Bethel church, and under the power of his preaching Archie and Angus both
got converted good and hard from their sins. This Reverend King was the
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
485
same man who helped little Welkin Massengill convert old Bull Broadhuss,
except that Bull didn't stay converted, they said. But Archie and Angus stayed
converted. It seems that when a Scotsman really gets religion in my section
of the world he usually swallows a full dose of it and has his money's worth.
So the twins took the right hand of fellowship, were baptized good and deep
in MacDonald's millpond, and so set their faces clear and shining to serve
their Lord.
For a long time the people had been wanting and needing an organ there
in Little Bethel Church. And Reverend McGregor, the regular pastor, felt
that now since the congregation had been so much increased by Brother
King's conversions, the time had come to get a good one and some songbooks
too. For a generation or longer old man Syracuse Lang had stood up with
his white beard before the mercy seat and beat the time and lined out the
hymns for the congregation, and folks were tired of him and his ways.
So the good members were called upon and exhorted to make pledges
for the amount needed to buy the organ and the books. Under the spell of
their new-found grace, and maybe because they had been such notorious
sinners and wanted people to know they were a hundred percent on the Lord's
side now, Archie and Angus stuck up their hands and promised the final
fifty dollars toward the purchase of the organ and the books. It was a rather
rash promise considering how hard money was to come by in those days,
as time well proved. But the Lord willing, they said to themselves, they would
make the pledge good in the fall when the crops were housed.
The fall came along and the crops everywhere in the neighborhood that
year were picayunish and small. First there had been too much wet weather
and then too much dry. And that was a queer thing too — to think that the
one year Archie and Angus had tried to serve their Lord, He, or whatever
stood for Him, had sent them the worst crop they'd ever had. They took
notice of that fact betwixt themselves but tried to make the best of the
situation instead of complaining against this Higher Authority. At the first
frost they hauled their little bitty mess of peas, potatoes, and pork down
to Fayetteville and sold them. But by the time they had paid the market and
inspection charges and had their mule shod, they had only a dozen or so
shillings left, as they called dimes in those days.
While they were sitting around in a cafe glum as sick herons and hungry
enough in their bereft condition to eat the Lamb of God, as Bull Broadhuss
used to put it, they heard a couple of half-drunk fellows laughing and talking
a scandalous thing over in a corner. They were telling about a fast woman
by the name of Mrs. Markham who ran a sort of fast house there in
Fayetteville and had a standing bet that no man could outdo her in the bouts
of love. Yes, she had a standing bet of fifty dollars for any man who would
make her call for the calf rope from the Mount of Venus. The twins sat there
taking it all in, and they heard the fellows say that no man had ever been
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able to collect that bet and no man ever would.
' 'You hear that, Archie?'' said Angus, or maybe Archie said it to Angus.
It didn't make any difference which, being as they were so identical in their
feelings and thinking.
"Ah, the wickedness of creation!" said Archie.
"Worse'n Sodom and Gomorrah!" said Angus.
"And the woman of Babylon throwed in!" said Archie.
And then they looked at each other. The same idea was coming to them
both.
"Like there's a sign in it," said Archie after a while.
"The Lord works in mysterious ways," said Angus.
"His wonders to perform," breathed Archie.
So of the same mind now, they wandered on up the street toward Mrs.
Markham's place. It was night by this time and they finally stopped in front
of the house, and there in the dark by the sidewalk hedges caucused a while,
the way the folks were wont to do at the Democratic Convention in Lillington
each campaign year. And so they made their plans.
"Certain to my soul, 'twould be no sin!" said Archie.
"Seeing it's all for the cause anyhow," said Angus.
"And a service to righteousness," said Archie.
"And the wind and the weather bloweth where it listeth, as the Good
Book says."
"And the Lord's rain falls on the just and unjust. And sometimes it
don't fall at all!"
"Bless His name anyhow," said Angus humbly. "And the Scriptures
declare — be ye zealous in goodly works. Amen."
"Aye, lad, true, true — it do say in Hebrews, provoke unto love and
do goodly works," said Archie.
"Verse 24, chapter 10," said Angus.
So Angus took his courage in his hand, as you might say, and went
into the house. Or it might have been Archie, for all I know. It didn't make
any difference which. And sure enough he found the lady all plump and
plush and waiting in her parlor. Angus said he was in bad need of a bed
and comfort. And so, projicking and hinting around with the widow and
saying he had money coming in in the morning to match hers, the agreement
was at last made and they started upstairs. She said she was willing to trust
him but if his money wasn't there when she called for it she would have him
where the hair was short and she meant short. Angus laughed and said wait
till ever the play was played — having reference thereby to the old ballad
of Sir Patrick Spence which as a sinner he had loved so long. But her
determined and certain manner kind of shook him in his shoes and set back
his confidence. So he put up a little silent prayer for help and guidance as
she led him along the hall and into her room.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
487
Well, some time later he told the lady to please excuse him a minute,
he had to get up and go out to the garden house to — er — answer the call
of nature. Outside Archie was waiting.
"Well?" asked Archie.
"It's an undertaking, and we're up against it," answered Angus
solemnly. "It's do or die for us. It's your time now."
"Aye," said Archie, forlornlike. And he suddenly shook hands with
Angus as if he were departing for foreign parts, which he was.
' 'And ye'd better keep a kind of a little prayer going the while, Archie,''
said Angus. "I did — for a while."
"No, no, do pray tell!" said Archie, hurriedly and alarmed.
"We've tackled several in our time, lad, but she's the wheel hoss!"
"I will then if I can, but I misdoubt I'll be able to keep my mind on
religious matters," said Archie.
"This is a religious matter!" said Angus sternly. "And while ye're in
there I think I'll eat me a snack of barbecue and oysters, short of money
though we be."
"Aye, you do that, lad," said Archie kindly, "it might help." So he
went in.
"You go and come mighty quick," said Mrs. Markham.
"Yea, I'mabrief man, and I move quick," said Archie. "And be not
weary in well-doing, as the Scriptures put it."
"Lord have mercy, you ain't a preacher, are you?" asked the lady all
shocked and aghast.
"No, ma'am, no," said Archie. "But someday I hope to be a deacon
in Little Bethel Church."
So he put in his licks and some extra for the cause, and then he said
excuse him, he had to answer the call of nature and he would be right back.
He met Angus along the hedge coming from his meal at the cafe.
"Well?" Angus said, giving him a good look.
' 'Oom,'' said Archie,' 'make no mistake about it, we've got our hands
full."
"Our calling and election's got to come from above," said Angus,
' 'though we do all we can below! And you go down there and eat ye a quick
snack too."
So Angus went in again.
It kept up like that pretty much till daybreak, this visiting the widow
and going out to answer the call of nature and eating in between. And finally
the woman, stout as she was, hollered "Calf rope! — enough!"
And hiding in her shift, she got up all cramped and winded and produced
some money from her bureau drawer. When she paid over the fifty dollars,
she turned up the lamp good and strong, saying, "I want to see what manner
of man you be — that's played such havoc here tonight and no doubt ruined
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my garden house."
"I'm little but loud," said Angus — or Archie, whichever one it was
— as he stowed the money in his pocket.
"Loud!" moaned the woman, "you're the loudest thing that's ever
put head in this place. And if you was full grown you'd be a plumb bucket
of adders. Get gone from my house and stay gone!"
' 'Why, bless my soul, you ain't on the puny list, are ye, Miz Markham?''
said Angus — or Archie, all gleeful-like. He felt like bragging a bit now
that he had the money all safe and won.
' 'And close the door soft when you leave,'' she whimpered as she turned
out the light, "for I want to sleep a week."
The next Sunday the Reverend McGregor stood up in Little Bethel
Church and called for the pledges to be paid. And down the aisle marched
Archie and Angus, proud as the two bantam roosters they were, their hair
all slicked back and their faces and their collars shining with godliness. They
laid the promised fifty dollars on the plate, and Reverend McGregor broke
into jubilation. He called on the congregation to witness the deed of Brother
Archie and Brother Angus.
"My friends," he said, "behold the goodly works of the Lord's true
servants!"
''Amen,'' said Archie and Angus as they stood before the mercy seat,
their heads bowed and their eyes cast humbly down.
"Heavenly grace has blessed them mightily," said the preacher, "and
their religion is where their pocketbook is."
Which is to say, the Reverend McGregor might be a good preacher,
but as a carpenter with a measuring rule he would have been a failure. He
was off several inches.
You might wonder too what the church did when the story got out —
as all stories finally do somehow, bless God! Well, it didn't do anything.
For by that time Archie and Angus had been made deacons, and the organ
was sounding mighty sweet when beautiful Belle Bethune played it Sundays,
and the young and the old sang happily from their fine songbooks. So the
people didn't make much of a to-do about it, except to tell the story on the
sly — the way I'm telling it here — but with more of the details of goodly
works in it no doubt.
And I hope it will keep on being told long after I am dead and gone,
for it certainly was a thing.
Good management is better than good income.
A good name is better than a girdle of gold.
A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
489
Goodness gracious!
An exclamation.
Goodness knows!
A mild exclamation.
good night!
An exclamation. "But good night, when he kissed me, what could I do?"
Good night, sleep tight.
Don't let the bedbugs bite.
(A smarty rhyme.)
"Good Night, Ladies"
A favorite male quartet selection.
Good Place
Heaven, the New Jerusalem. "Live right, son, and when you die, you'll go
to the Good Place."
good price
A high price. "I paid a good price for that tractor, Raymond, and I think
you ought to throw in a new battery."
to have the goods on
To have proof of one's guilt.
good provider
One who provides well for the needs of his family.
The good that men do lives after them.
Good things come in small packages.
good ways
A long distance. "Mr. John Riardin lives a good ways up the road."
good word
A recommendation, a favorable reply.
A good word maketh the heart glad.
Good words and deeds are rushes and reeds.
goody woman
A midwife.
gooey
Sentimental, sticky, sweet.
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a goof
A crackpot, a fool, also a faux pas.
goof off
To crack up mentally, also to loaf during working hours.
go on
A statement of disbelief, you don't say so, don't say that, stop talking. "You
mean Frank Graham was a goody-goody? Go on, I don't believe it."
go on a tirade
To have a hysterical and angry outburst.
go one better
Outwit, outsmart.
go on the warpath
To prosecute or go after a matter with might and main.
goose
To dig one in the side or back with extended thumb, to spur, to tickle.
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
A setting goose never gets fat.
A wild goose never laid a tame egg.
Don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
gooseberries
A large kind of green huckleberry that grows in the thick woods.
goose grease
Grease made from the fat of a goose and used for many folk cures, good
for rubbing sore joints or spreading on flannel to put on a croupy chest, etc.
The goose hangs high.
Everything's fine.
His goose is cooked.
Having irretrievable bad luck, ultimate undone condition.
goose pimples
Small temporary eruptions on the skin resulting from cold, fear or
excitement.' 'The good close harmony by that barbershop quartet gives me
goose pimples."
like a goose's ass in mulberry time
Purple from eating mulberries. "His face turned as purple as a goose's ass
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
491
in mulberry time."
goose skin
Skin of one's hands marked from long staying in the water.
wild goose chase
An effort or trip that amounts to nothing.
Goosie, goosie, gander,
Whither do you wander?
Upstairs and downstairs,
And in my lady's chamber.
There I met an old man
Who would not say his prayers.
I took him by the left leg
And threw him down the stairs.
(A nursery rhyme.)
go out
Die, fade away. "That fire is going to go out if you don't watch it."
To be excused from a classroom. We boys used to snap our fingers and raise
a hand signifying our need to "go out," to attend to nature's business, to
go to the bushes. The teacher's permission was always granted.
goozle
The throat or the esophagus.
go poke
A traveling bag.
gorge
Temper, anger, spleen.' 'When that man cussed him, his gorge riz and there
was a fight to a fare-you-well."
gorm (gaum)
A mess, mixture, like a gorm of dirt.
gorm up
To choke up.
gormy
Dirty, all in a mess.
go 'round in circles
To waste time, be confused.
Gosh!
An exclamation.
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Gosh a-mighty!
An exclamation.
gosling
A young adolescent boy.
gosling voice
A hoarse voice, the changing voice of a young boy entering puberty.
gospel truth
The absolute truth.
"Go Tell Aunt Patsy"
A lullaby song.
"Go tell Aunt Patsy (three times)
The old gray goose is dead.
"One she's been saving (three times)
To make a feather bed.
"The old gander's mourning (three times)
Because his wife is dead.
"The goslings are crying (three times)
Because their Mama's dead.
"The whole family's weeping (three times)
Because the goose is dead."
go the whole hog
To make an all-out exertion, to shoot the works.
go through the motion
To pretend, a seem-so.
go through the roof
To blow one's top, to explode in a violent reaction.' 'When he started abusing
my mother, I went through the roof."
go to grass
A dismissal command. An order to get rid of a silly or troublesome person.
Same as "go to hell," "go to the devil," "go to Jericho," "go to Guinea,"
' 'go to Halifax,'' and so on. The last may refer to the fact that North Carolina
Tory prisoners were sent to be confined in the Halifax, North Carolina, jail,
as for instance, Flora MacDonald's husband and son, who later were sent
to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Also a friendly imprecation.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
493
go to hell in a handbag (basket)
Make a mess of things for no reason at all.
go to Jericho!
A mild expletive, usually of dismissal or condemnation, much like "go to
hell!" "When I saw he was lying, I said, 'You go to Jericho!' "
go-to-meeting manner
Proper, pious, discreet.
to go to oneself
To attend to nature's wants.
go to see Mrs. Jones
To go to the bathroom, a girl's phrase.
go to the bushes (woods)
To defecate.
go to the dogs
To fall into debauchery, to fail.
go to the mat with
To meet head on, to wrestle with, to attempt a serious effort at a solution.
got to
Must.
go underground
To refuse to talk.
gourd fiddle
A fiddle made from a gourd. Mr. John Reardon, unable to buy a real fiddle,
made himself one from a gourd and, with a homemade horsehair bow, was
able to play at dances. When his bow gave out, he sawed on it with a
lightwood splinter and did fairly well.
gourd-guard
Helmet, a head protection, especially for motorcycle riders.
gourd head
A foolish person.
gourd house
A bird house. In Eastern North Carolina it used to be the custom to put
up a tall pole with several cross arms and hang from these cross arms empty
gourds with openings cut for the martins to build in. The martins were
wonderful birds for keeping hawks and crows driven away.
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to saw gourds
To snore raucously.
gourdy
Green, unsophisticated, hayseedy.
go 'way from heah
A joshing exclamation somewhat like, "Do tell!"
grab-all
A greedy person
Grab all,
Lose all.
grabble potatoes
To dig potatoes with one's hands.
grab-gutted
Greedy.
by grabs!
A mild expletive.
well-grabs
Small bent-pointed grabs for retrieving buckets lost in wells. "Go over to
Lum Butts' and get his well-grabs. The rope busted and I've lost my bucket.''
as graceful as an elephant
as graceful as a swan
say grace over
Manage, look after. "I've got more land now than I can say grace over."
gracious!
An exclamation. Also gracious alive, gracious goodness, gracious me, good
gracious.
gracious plenty
A good supply, a superfluity.
make the grade
To measure up to, to succeed.
with a grain of salt
Doubtingly, questioningly.
grain cradle
A long wooden fingered utensil for cutting oats, wheat, barley, etc. The
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
495
extended sickle blade was fitted into the grain of the cradle, and the laborer
holding to its long handle and handpiece could swing it horizontally to the
ground, cutting the grain and allowing it to fall back on the fingers. And
then as the cradle was lifted to rest on the right thigh, the left hand of the
cutter would sweep down, gather up the long stems of the cut grain and lay
them aside, these small handfuls to be gathered up and tied in larger bundles
after they had cured out in the sun. The several motions in cutting became
one and set in a rhythm, swoop after swoop, dip after dip, and ever and
ever a half step forward at the same time.
How I used to love to get up early, sharpen the cradle blade with my
whetrock and step into the dewy fields in the glad morning sunlight. I
remember trying to show off one day with my cradling prowess. Mr. Joe
Johnson, a near neighbor, had five acres of wheat he wanted cut. I was up
early and went to it — hour after hour under the burning sun. After a few
mouthfuls of lunch I was back at it. I finished cutting the last of the five
acres before dark came down. He paid me in a stubby-pencilled check —
$1.50. It was big money to me. But the real bigness I was so proud of were
the youthful muscles swelling under my shirt sleeves.
small grain
Rye, wheat, oats as contrasted to corn.
gramper
Grandpa.
granddaddy
A kind of spraddle-legged insect.' 'Come here, child, let me comb out your
hair. It's all tangled up like a nest of granddaddies."
"Grandfather's Clock"
A favorite song.
grandmother
Menstrual period. "Grandmother has come visiting and I can't be with you.''
grand-rascal
A cheat, a con man, a crooked politician.
grand right and left
A command or call in a square dance in which the hands are right and left
around the set until partners meet, ladies to the left and gents to the right.
granny's alive!, 'y grannys!, granny's sakes!
Mild expletives.
granny woman
A midwife.
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Grape seeds will cause appendicitis.
I'll eat the goose that eats the grass that grows on your grave.
Grass never grows
When the wind blows.
to let grass grow under one's feet
To delay unduly, to vacillate.
put out to grass
To be left to one's own responsibility.
grasshopper
A spindly-legged fellow.
Oh, grave, where is thy sting!
It is irreverent and bad luck to step over a grave.
If you walk on a grave, a ghost will haunt you.
grave decorations
Trinkets. My own little sister Lura used to have a glass slipper trinket on
her grave. It has long ago disappeared.
gravel
To annoy, worry.
gravel in his gizzard
Stout-hearted, courageous.
graveyard
Secret. "This is graveyard talk."
A diseased prostitute. "That woman was a walking graveyard — I found
that out in ten or fifteen days."
graveyard cough
Tuberculosis, a cigarette cough.
graveyard grass
Periwinkle.
graveyard song
"Did you ever think as the hearse rolls by
That some of these days both you and I
Will be carried off in the self same hack
And we won't be thinking of coming back.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
497
"In the lonesome grave they'll lower us down
And the men with shovels will be waiting round.
They'll shovel in dirt and shovel in rocks
And won't give a hoot (damn) if they break your box.
"And the worms crawl in and the worms crawl out
All over your chin and over your snout.
They invite their friends and their friends' friends, too,
You're a looking sight when they get through."
redeye gravy
Gravy from country ham, made by pouring a little water in the pan after
cooking the slice of ham.
gray as a 'possum
gray backs
Body lice.
Gray beard and red lips make poor lovers.
gray mare
A horsey wife, a quarrelsome married woman.
"Old Gray Mare"
A popular picnic and moonlight hayriding song.
"The old gray mare
Ain't what she used to be" (3 times)
"The old gray mare ain't what she used to be
Many long years ago." And so on.
send to graze
To turn out of office, to fire from a job.
grease
To soft soap, to lather up, flatter, bribe. "I greased his palm with a thousand
dollars and our bill went through the legislature as slick as a whistle."
fried in his own grease
greased lightning
Fierce and instant action. "He turned quick as greased lightning and
walloped him in the face."
greasy
Mess call, a prison camp cook.
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greasy skillet
Good provisions, good eating.
greasy spoon
A cheap, usually unsanitary restaurant.
great balls of fire!
An expletive.
great-big
For emphasis. "He's a great-big boy and he ought to know better."
great day in the morning!
A mild expletive.
Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
The greatest oaks have been little acorns.
great God Almighty (great godfrey, great guns)
Mild expletives.
by the great horn spoon
A mild swearing phrase.
great Joseph
A voluminous sort of overcoat.
a great life if you don't weaken
A good situation if one behaves himself and keeps working.
great scott!
A mild expletive.
great shakes
Great stuff, usually "no great shakes."
Great Spirit
The Indians' God. According to the Indian folklore the Great Spirit was
more mild and merciful than fierce and categorically just. In fact he was
a notch above the Mosaic God generated from the thinking of the Jewish
people. Since man makes his god rather than the other way around, the Great
Spirit perished as the Indian perished.
A great tree hath a great fall.
great unwashed
The common people, the hoi polloi, the proletariat.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
499
Great White Father
The Indian designation for the President of the United States. A proper
designation no doubt for such presidents as George Washington and Thomas
Jefferson but a grievous mistake when applied to Andy Jackson, who really
ruined the Indians.
Grecian bend
An exaggerated bustle or way of walking affected by many large-bustled
women back in the 1890's.
Greediness bursts the bag.
greedy as a hog (pig)
greedy-gut
Glutton.
Greek
Mysterious, baffling, unintelligible. "That puzzle is all Greek to me."
as green as a gourd
as green as grass
as green as poison
The moon is made of green cheese.
To wear green on St. Patrick's Day brings good luck.
green end
Sawmill work. The roller-bench end of a sawmill where the green outsides
are taken and laid aside as a log is being sawed. I used to love working there
in the summer as a youth.
green goose
A young inexperienced person.
green gown
Seduction, to tumble a woman in the grass. "He gave her the green gown,
that's what he did."
Green Gravel
A children's singing game. A ring is formed around one person chosen to
be "It." The children march or dance around singing—
"Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green.
It's pretty, it's pretty as ever I've seen."
One of the marchers now turns in and goes to the one in the center and
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Paul Green's Wordbook
"grieves" with him or her as the marchers sing—
"Poor Mary, poor Mary, your true love is dead,
He sent you a letter so turn back your head."
[or "Bow down your head."]
The game continues with the same verses until all are in the ring grieving
together.
"Green Grow the Lilacs"
One of our many lyrical love laments and among the best.
Lynn Riggs, the playwright, used to visit us from time to time, and we
always had pleasure from his singing and guitar playing. Of his many folk
songs, we perhaps liked "Green Grow the Lilacs" best. He used it as the
title for one of his plays and was with us the night it opened on Broadway.
About midnight he called up the Theatre Guild to find out what sort of
reception it had got. A success! Later Richard Rodgers and Oscar
Hammerstein made a fine musical drama from it, a sort of folk opera —
"Oklahoma."
"Green grow the lilacs all sparkling with dew,
I'm lonely, my darling, since parting from you,
And by the next meeting I hope to prove true,
To change the green lilacs to the red, white and blue."
"I passed my love's window, both early and late.
The look that she gave me, it made my heart ache.
The look that she gave me was harmful to see,
For she loves another one better than me."
green hand
An experienced person, also a good hand to make crops grow, often "green
thumb."
pulled too green
Immature, acting grownup too early.
greens
Collards, lettuce, rape, kale.
"Greensleeves"
The beautiful old Elizabethan song. I first used it in "The Lost Colony"
in 1937, hoping to hear it whistled along the streets of Manteo. It was. Falstaff
first mentions it in "The Merry Wives of Windsor."
A green winter makes a fat churchyard.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
501
Greeny
A tag game. When one child, pursued by another, can show a piece of green,
a leaf or twig or bit of green grass, then he can't be tagged.
Rose Grenow
A Confederate secret agent in the Civil War and famous for her exploits.
She was well-born, cultured and wealthy. Jefferson Davis said to her, so
it was reported, "But for you there would have been no Battle of Bull Run.''
She had warned the Southern leader of the approach of the Federal forces.
A white marble monument "to her memory" is in Wilmington's beautiful
Oakdale Cemetery where she is buried. Its inscription reads, "This
monument commemorates the deeds of Mrs. Rose Grenow, a bearer of
dispatches to the Confederate government. She was drowned off Fort Fisher
from the blockade runner 'Condor' while attempting to run the blockade
Sept. 30,1864. The body was washed ashore on Fort Fisher beach and was
brought to Wilmington, N.C. This monument erected by the Ladies'
Memorial Association."
Grey eye greedy gut,
Eat the whole world up.
(A teasing rhyme.)
Grey mules don't die — they turn into Baptist preachers.
on the griddle
In a hot place, a tight situation.
grim as death
grin
A spree, a big time. "Man, did we have a grin last Sad'dy!"
grins like a 'possum
grist
Important material, something to one's advantage. "All is grist that comes
to my mill."
grit one's teeth
Make the best of a bad job, summon extra willpower to meet a situation,
usually "grit one's teeth and bear it."
grits
A popular Southern dish made of boiled coarse cornmeal.
grits and gravy
A popular Southern dish, boiled coarse cornmeal served with country ham
gravy.
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groaning time
Lying in time for a woman.
grog blossom
A pimple on the nose or face caused by overuse of strong drink.
groovy
In the groove, just right.
a gross voice
A bass voice.
down to the ground
Completely, entirely, absolutely.
groundhog
A common woodchuck.
One of the most popular folk beliefs in the Valley is that connected with
the groundhog. This animal which few of us have ever seen is supposed to
come out of its hiding place exactly at noon on the second day of February.
If it is cloudy, he will stay out and fair spring weather will soon come. If
the sun is shining and he sees his shadow, he will bolt back into his hole,
and winter will continue for six more weeks. Groundhog day is still important
to a lot of people and the newspapers usually come out with dull comments
and even editorials related to it on February 2.
ground itch (eetch)
A fungus curse to all us barefoot children in the summer. Also called dewpoisoning or dew sores. As a ringworm or fetter it was a torment between
our toes especially, and with worse itching than poison ivy. We put tallow,
kerosene oil, fatback, and all sorts of medicaments on it. The best cure was
to wear our shoes again for awhile, or so we found out. The family doctor
says it is caused by the invasion of hookworm larvae. And yet with all our
ground itching, we Green children never had hookworm, so far as we knew.
ground pea
Peanut, goober.
ground puppy
Salamander. When I was a boy, the Negro hired man on our land, Wesley
Armstrong, used to tell us that if a ground puppy barked at us, we would
have fits.
grounds
Lees, sediment.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
503
grouny
Full of grounds. "This coffee is groun'y."
growing hand
A good hand to make crops grow, same as green thumb and green hand.
growing weather
Moist warm weather good for crops.
grubbing hoes
The front teeth, usually buck teeth. "He's digging his grave with them
grubbing hoes."
Gnarled and powerful workmen's hands.
grub hoe
A mattock, a grubbing hoe.
grub hooks
Hands.
grubs
Roots, small stumps. "Man, I sweated a peck down in them low grounds
digging and prizing up them grubs."
grub time
Mealtime.
grudgings
Coarse flour, the bran from flour grinding.
grum
Surly, glum.
grumble-guts
A confirmed complainer.
grumbles
Complainings.
grunt
Complain. "She jist sets and grunts there in her rocking chair."
A complainer, a bellyacher.
To defecate.
grunts like a pig
gruz
Past tense of grease. " I gruz that baby good with tallow and the cramp went
away."
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Also past tense of graze. "He shot at me and the bullet just gruz my skull
right here."
guano bugle
A tapering cylindrical bugle made of tin which was strapped over a person's
shoulder. With a bucket in one hand, he would dip up a handful of guano
and "sow it" down through the bugle, walking along the while. Then the
plough would ridge the dirt over the guano, and the crop would be planted
behind that. We'd often use guano bugles in serenading at Christmas. Some
of the young boys would get proficient at blowing these things, putting the
small end to their lips and turning loose and laying out a bellow that could
be heard a mile or more.
guardeen
Guardian.
guardian angel
There was a common folk belief that a human being is accompanied through
life by a protecting and good angel — an angel who warns him of evil and
bad luck and strives with him to let his better nature obtain. By constantly
committing evil a person can finally so discourage his guardian angel that
the angel deserts him. And lo and behold, he's in a mess of trouble from
then on, so says Aunt Candace, the Negro washerwoman.
by guess and by god
Steering or acting by haphazard.
by guess and by golly
Same as above.
guggle
Gargle, gurgle.
guiding light
Somewhat the same as guardian angel, a person's conscience.
Guilt may have legs but scandal has wings.
A guilty conscience needs no accuser,
as guilty as sin
guinea eggs
Freckles.
a Guinea nigger
An especially black Negro and one who, if his gums were blue, had a "fatal
bite,'' poisonous as a rattlesnake. Or so it was believed in the Valley. When
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
505
I was a little boy and a Guinea nigger with blue gums showed up, I was
especially frightened of him.
gulley dirt
Worthless things or people.
gulleywasher
A flood, heavy rain.
gum
A container for corn, oats, etc., made from a length of hollow tree, usually
a black gum.
Toothless chewing." Since I lost my teeth Ijusthavetogumit when it comes
to eating."
by gum!
A mild oath.
gum crib
A cradle made from a halved section of a hollow log with rockers added.
gummed up
Tangled up, in a bind, etc.
gum up
Make a mess of.
gump
A fool, a silly person.
gun
To search with intent to shoot, to cripple or kill.
gunboats
Excessively large shoes or feet.
gunk
Sticky or greasy substance. "When the motor jammed, we had to clean
out a lot of gunk."
gunnysack
Hard-woven burlap fabric bag.
gunpowder
Given to animals to make them spirited, fiery.
Feed a dog gunpowder to make him mean.
gurglin' on a rope
Said of one hanged.
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the gut question
The basic question, the heart of the matter.
guts
Physical stamina, resoluteness of spirit, moral courage.
"I have known a lot of men with plenty of guts in my time.'' said Dr.
Nathan Brown to me one day as we were riding out in the country to see
a patient, "including a doctor who got a strange compulsion to murder his
wife and three children and, not being able to beat it off, he went into the
woodshed and shot himself for fear of the terrible crime he might commit.
It took guts to do that and I honor him for it. He and I grew up together
as boys and were mighty close in college, and he told me about this strange
feeling that had got hold of him and hinted to me that if the feeling got too
powerful he hoped he'd destroy himself before he did the bloody deed. Yes,
he tried psychiatric help but it didn't work. After he was dead and buried
I tried to comfort his widow, but she wouldn't be comforted. Then thinking
it was all right, I told her of his secret, expecting her to honor him for his
sacrifice of his own life. Rather than relieving her, it redoubled her trouble.
She was horrified, and I cursed myself out for being a fool. She had ordered
a fine tombstone for the doctor, but after she heard my story and my praise
she turned on me with blazing eyes. And she cancelled the tombstone order
and the doctor lies in an unmarked grave to this day.
"But the fellow I had in mind to tell you about was David Vance, a
man of great guts, also. When he got down on his deathbed from pneumonia,
the preachers persuaded him that he must confess his sins, clean out his heart
and get ready to meet his God or else burn forever in hell. Dave had been
something of a rounder in his day, and had gone fast and furious along the
path of love and ladies in the neighborhood. Nor had he gone his way alone,
but many a crony had shared in his sly wanderings and his delight, including
a few of the more orthodox church ones.
"So when the news got out that Dave was in a mortal condition and
was going to make a clean breast of everything and be ready when the white
horse of death came neighing in front of his house to carry him away, many
of the brethren and sisters of his comradeship waited on him in a body.
" 'Look here, Dave,' said Green Mumford, one of the ringleaders in
all the former doings as he stood by the bed of the repentant sinner, 'we
know how you feel. We know the time ain't long with you. But after all,
Dave, you're going out of this world, but we've got to live in it. And if you
tell everything you know and it gets around, it's going to be hard on us.
Not only will our reputations — such as we have — be pretty much ruined,
but I fear the law will get some of us. So we beseech and beg you, Dave,
to have a thought on the living. We know you've got guts, Dave, you've
proved it many a time, and we believe you will stay quiet.'
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
507
"So it was that Dave finally gave in to his friends and kept his mouth
shut right up till the time death hit and enfolded him. So he passed on over
the river, with his secrets locked in his breast. The preachers said he kept
his mouth shut. And in later days his cronies, thinking on the great sacrifice
he had made, decided to mend their ways, and most of them joined the
church, saying it was the least they could do after what he had done for them.
"But Fanny Davis, his truest love, refused to change. She said she
wanted to go where Dave might be."
gut scraper
A fiddler.
gutty
Impudent, also brave, tough.
gut warmer
Whiskey.
guv
Past tense of give.
to guy
To tease, derogate, mock, much the same as blackguard.
gwine
Going.
gypsies
Dark-skinned itinerant people who used to appear from time to time in the
Valley in small bands. When I first saw them as a boy, they traveled by horse
and wagon conveyances, later by automobiles and usually worn-out ones
at that. They told fortunes and were supposed to be unconscionable thieves,
especially devastating as to chickens and sometimes even stealing babies.
Just below Buie's Creek once stood a great pine tree. Professor H.F. Page
first pointed it out to me. It was called the gypsy pine, and he wrote a poem
about it. It had a great hollow cut out of it where the gypsies chipped out
lightwood for their campfires nearby. It finally collapsed under the chipping
and lay rotting away. Both it and the gypsies are gone now.
gypsy
A high-spirited woman.
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H
hab
Have.
Habit is second nature.
hack
A prison guard.
An instrument for scarifying trees, especially longleaf pine, to secure oozings
and drippings of the turpentine into the "box" below.
To embarrass.
To pile up. "I've got to hack my lumber so it'll dry."
hackle
A steel- or iron-toothed comb or utensil for dressing flax.
hackles
Ill-tempered feelings, an irritable or angry reaction. "Every time I see that
fellow he raises my hackles."
had
Possessed sexually.
Had a little dog,
His name was Rough.
I think my speech
Is long enough.
Had a little dog,
His name was Rover.
When he died,
He died all over.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
509
Had a little mule,
His name was Dandy.
Fed him cake
And sugar candy.
Had a little mule,
His name was Jack.
I rode his tail
To save his back.
His backbone broke
The marrow flew.
Get up, Jack,
And go on through.
Had a little pig
And fed him clover
And when he died,
He died all over.
I had a little pony,
His name was Jack.
I rode his tail
To save his back.
His tail was black
His belly was blue
And when he ran
He fairly flew.
/ had five cents
And put it on the fence.
They come a flood of rain
And I ain't seen it since.
(Recitation rhymes.)
I've had it
Been seduced, or "put through the mill." Also to be worn out, tired.
had rather
Showing a preference, much rather.
had up
To be brought before a judge or the police.
hafter
Have to.
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haggle
To argue.
hag-ridden
Pursued by bad luck, afflicted by nightmares. To be ridden by hags or witches
as a horse sometimes is in the night, a proof of which is its tangled mane
in the morning.
hail Columbia
Rough treatment. "Behave yourself, boy, or I'll give you hail Columbia."
Hail Over
See "Heigh Over."
hail shot
Grape-shot.
hair
Fine measurement, "to a hair," "within a hair of."
Hair by hair makes a head bare.
A person who never stole anything has a lock of hair growing in the palm of his
hand.
Get him where the hair is short.
hair-grower
A patent medicine.
hair in the butter
Complication in a delicate or ticklish situation.
hair of the dog
Some additional drams the morning after, help for a hangover. "The hair
of the dog is good for the bite."
make one's hair curl
Reaction to dreadful news or apprehension.
make one's hair stand on end
An extreme reaction to a dreadful happening or bad news.
Finding a hairpin predicts finding a friend.
hair-receiver
Small covered china dish with a hole in the cover to receive combings in
the days of long tresses.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
511
hairside
The outside. "Hit him on the hairside."
turn a hair
To show a reaction, respond.' 'The preacher watched that electrocution and
didn't turn a hair."
hairy
Dangerous, risky, frightening, difficult, hazardous.
Haifa loaf is better than none.
half-assed
A sorry thing, a poor effort, disreputable.
half-baked
Inexperienced, raw, over-hasty action.
better half
Wife or husband, usually wife.
half-cracked
Somewhat mad, loony.
Half-doing is many a man's undoing.
half-gone
Half-drunk, half-asleep.
half-in-two
To divide an object, as a piece of timber, into two equal parts.
haven't heard the half of it
Only partially understood or disclosed.
half-screwed
Half-drunk.
half seas over
Same as half-screwed.
half-slewed
Half-drunk.
Halifax
An indefinite, far-off place. "Go to Halifax!" which may refer to the fact
that North Carolina Tory prisoners were sent for confinement in the Halifax,
North Carolina, jail.
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hallelujah gal
Member of the Salvation Army, a female preacher.
halo round the sun
Indicates falling weather, rain or snow.
Don't speak of a halter in a house where a man has been hanged.
Pray devoutly and hammer stoutly.
hammer and tongs
With full force, with all one's might. "Ifyou'regoingtowinthegame, you've
got to go at it hammer and tongs."
hammerhead
A stubborn horse or person.
a hammering
Heavy punishment.
hamstrung
Severely hindered, handicapped.
hancher
Handkerchief.
hand
Handwriting. "She writes a beautiful hand."
The hand is no good without the arm.
hand and foot
A term related to attentiveness. "Bernie loved that woman and waited on
her hand and foot."
good hand
An adept person, a fine worker. "I'm a good hand at washing dishes."
get the upper hand
To get an advantage.
handcuff
To shut out, to stop, to beat. "Virginia really handcuffed Carolina in that
game."
A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning.
handful of days
A short time left in one's life span.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
513
get a hand in
To learn the ropes, become adept at.
hand in glove with
To be on very close and intimate terms.
to fly off the handle
Lose one's temper.
handled with kid gloves
Treated carefully, politely, delicately.
the hand of prophecy
A figure of speech denoting a force that foreshadows what is to be, a
prophecy as to a coming event or happening.
One day Malcolm Fowler, a Valley f olklorist and historian, and I were
poking along the banks of the Cape Fear River near the place where efforts
to canalize it took place long ago. He said there was an old rock chimney
standing in the woods he wanted to show me. We went to see it and as we
stood there he told me the story of one Joe Ed Baucom who built it.
' 'This Joe Ed," he said,' 'was something of a rounder from way back,
and he built a cabin retreat with this chimney to it, here above the river.
He used to come down here every weekend and have big parties with a lot
of hard drinking liquor. You can see out there the little stone bridge he built
across that ravine. And right over there is a spring he walled up. Joe Ed,
as I say, was a godless character all right. When he was fixing up his place
here he decided he needed more rock and flat ones at that. Down the river
there a piece was an old Scotch cemetery. So what did Joe Ed do but bring
a lot of the tombstones up here and put "em down in his walkway for paving
stones. And his and his cronies' godless feet would walk right over the
inscriptions put there by loving friends and relatives. Well, one of the relatives
— no need to say his name — decided at first to go to the law but then he
decided on something more vengeful. He knew that Joe Ed had a
superstitious streak in him for all his worldly wickedness — as most of us
have — and so he made his plans.
"Lo and behold, one evening when Joe Ed arrived to get ready for his
weekend party, there at his doorstep was a tombstone standing up with the
inscription on it, 'Joe Ed Baucom, Born January 3,1881, Died April 4,1929.'
"Well, it kinda shook Joe Ed, but in his godlessness he tried to laugh
it off. Anyway April was nearly a year away. And his party that weekend
was more riotous and whole-hog than ever before. But try as he might, he
continued thinking about the prophecy as time passed. He kept seeing that
inscription, even though he had toted the tombstone down to the river and
flung it into a deep water hole. Finally the prophecy thing ha'nted him so
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Paul Green's Wordbook
much that he took refuge in liquor and stayed drunk most of the time. Then
you know what? On the very day of April 4 he got into his flivver and started
to town to buy more liquor. He ran off the road into a gully. His flivver
overturned and killed him. That's what it did. The hand of prophecy fulfilled
itself but in a way no doubt different from anything Joe Ed expected."
handout
A charity gift.
hand over fist
Fast, very quickly. "The Sprunt brothers are making money hand over fist
in the cotton business."
hand-raised dick
Hand-trained penis.
hand-running
In succession, without a break.
The hands are Esau's but the voice is Jacob's.
A deceptive action having reference to Jacob's deceiving his father Isaac.
hands are tied
Unable to act.
If a girl, in folding her hands together, instinctively puts her right thumb on top,
she will rule her husband. If not, he will rule her.
Handsome is as handsome does.
hand spike
A length of wooden sapling, usually oak or hickory, tapered at each end,
to be placed under logs for lifting toward the log-heap to be burned in clearing
land.
hand's-turn
A bit of work. "She's so lazy she won't do a hand's-turn about the house."
cold hands, warm heart
handy
Convenient.
handy as a button on a backhouse door
to get the hang of
To learn how, to master a problem, to catch on to the working of a machine.
hanged if I do!
A mild expletive.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
hanging and wiving go by destiny
515
An old 16th century saying and repeated many times by different English
writers and folklorists.
The first two went together all right so far as old Aunt Jenny McLean
was concerned, but as for "this heah destiny you talk about, Mr. Green,"
she said to me, "I misdoubts it anyhow — and pray do tell me what it means.
Well, I know this — it was a hanging that brung me my true love and husband.
You kin forget the other."
Sitting in her little house one night there in Chapel Hill, I listened to
her tell about it, the while she ironed away on some delicate dresses for the
University professors' wives.
"Yeh, lak a whisper, lak a breath, as suddent as death, love kin come
to you. Somep'n knocks mebbe on the do' of yo' heart and say, Lemme
in, and you never know when it's gwine knock and when it's not gwine knock.
So 'twas the fust time I ever slapped these two eyes on the man was meant
to be my husband.
"I'll never forgit the day it happened nuther. What a day! August time
it was, and a Friday. A big hanging was being held over there in Hillsborough,
and I mean big. Everybody for miles around was up long 'fore the crack
of daybreak gitting primped and dollied and fixed to go to that there
spectacle. And people, people, white and colored, everywhere! That was
the biggest crowd of human beings gathered together I'd ever seen in all
my born days. From every direction they come. From the north and the
east and the south and the west — in steer cyarts, in road cyarts, in wagons
and in carriages.
"And the University itself give out of schooling that day, 'cazen all
the students and' fessors mostly had made off over there to see the hanging.
And this weren't jes one hanging. It was three hangings. Three po' sinful
men was to be hung by the neck till dead — 'and the Lord have mercy on
yo' po' souls,' the jedge had said.
"I knowed all three of 'em. Leastwise I had recognizance of 'em. Two
of 'em was white folks and one of 'em was a po' colored man. There was
Mr. Harris and Mr. Johnson. They was the white men, and as full of sin
and weekedness as a copperhead snake is full of green pizen. And then there
was Louis Colton. He was the colored one. Po' Louis. Sorrow and woeful
was the day he mixed hisself up with them 'ere white folks. They was gamblers
and drunkards and pistol-toters — robbers and thieves, they was. And when
Louis j'ined up with 'em he putt hisself in their power, everybody said so.
And he allus done whatever they told him to do. Sam Ragland was in it
lakwise. He was a nigger but they let him loose 'cazen he turnt what they
called state's evidence.
"Yeh, turble, turble it was. But the Good Book do say, verily, verily
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a man shall reap what he sows. And all them men sowed trouble and death
and they reaped the same in the vineyard of Almighty God. That old saying
is right that says if you run with the dogs you'll lakly scratch fleas. And
another one that says when yo' house is afire it's too late to dig a well to
get water to putt it out.
"Our whole family was all set to go and see the dreadful happening.
Up early and breakfast cooked, we soon was dressed out in our best bib
and tucker, Ma and Pa and the two little boys and us girls. They was a whole
carpetful of chillun in our house. I was the oldest girl in the family and had
to keep a lookout foh the little uns. But I'm here to tell you as soon as ever
us got in the grip of that occasion they was scattered and gone and I fo'got
all 'bout them too. But later on in the day us all got 'sembled back to the
wagon and no damage done to any of 'em. And in the meanwhile time, love
done blossomed in my heart.
"The roads was mighty miry and awful then, not lak they is now, all
hard-suffaced up and smooth as a otter's slide. And 'fore we come to Eno
River near the edge of the town the sun was a big blazing bird in the sky
and it was 'way on in the morning. Pa whupped up the mule 'caze he felt
us was already late. We crossed over the bridge and bruised on in a jiffy
to'ads the jailhouse on the right hand there.
"And what was the very first sight I did see? Well, it was a big-eyed
face looking out the jail window, and it weren't nobody's face but po' Louis
Colton's. And it was all flaring and ill-sick looking, it was. He seen us and
hollered out in a loud voice, 'Hey there, you all. This here's Louis.' And
not knowing what I done I raised up my hand in a kind of greeting to the
po' lost man. But my tongue wouldn't say nary a word. And he then hollered
out mo' louder still and I kin hear the words he said even to this day — 'This
here's the day I'm to be hung, folkses. And I'm jest as clear of what they's
hangin' me fo' as ever was Jesus Christ the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sins of the world.'
"My mammy grunted and spet a dip of snuff over the wagon into the
road. She allus done that-a-way suddent and quick when she was riled.
" 'That's a awful thing — fo' him to be telling lies lak that and he so
clost to meeting his Maker,' she said.
" 'I reckon lak as not Louis musta been reading the Good Book a lot
— whilst he's shet up in there,' said my father, 'jedging from his words.'
" 'Well,' my mammy said, as she looked round and about at us chillun
— 'mark my word that a gap in the axe allus shows in the chips. And, chillun,
listen to what I say — a minute may break what a 'ternity of time kin never
mend.'
" 'That's raight,' said my father, 'and that's how come us brung you
over here — so ever' one of you kin learn a lesson — a lesson to go with
you thoo life. And you needn't to worry 'bout Louis, you needn't cry no
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
517
lost tears down fo' him. He was guilty. He's gotta suffer fo' it. He split that
good white woman's haid open with a' axe.'
'' 'Amen,' said my mammy, 'and it was proved on him. And another
thing he done done. Don't fo'git that,' said my mammy.
" 'I don't,' said my daddy. 'Louis putt strychinine and arsenic in his
wife's coffee, chillun, and he killed her too. But they never did convict him
of that, though in certain ever'body knowed he done it.'
'' 'Sho' they did,' said my mammy. 'But when he come to killing that
white woman — that 'fessor's wife and her finding him robbing her house
— well, that's where he spill't the milk all over hisself.'
" 'Didn't he though,' said my daddy.
"And now the people was swarming all up around the jailhouse lak
a gorm of bees. And my daddy drawed up clost by and let us git out, and
he went off and hitched the mule to a tree in the jailhouse yard. And there
us chillun all stood around in the push of people looking on with great big
sorrowful eyes and waiting to see the prisoners brung out.
' 'And soon here come the high shurff and his deppities in their big boots
— clonk-clonk, and they carried their pistols in their hands. They went in
the jail and brung out the prisoners handcuffed. And the scattering dogs
around 'gun to bark. The people stretched and craned and gaped to see it
all. They walked the three of 'em around in the yard, the three that was to
die, and let 'em partake and taste of sunshine and the sweet air fo' their
last day on earth.
' 'And any time now I close my eyes I kin see their po' faces. And death
was in 'em and their eyes was wide-rimmed and red. The white men had
beards on their faces but behind it all you could see their skin was white
as a Sunday sheet. And po' Louis' eyes was smoky and hollow and turning
in their sockets lak he couldn't help hisself. His mouth stayed open all the
time, same lak a man feeling vomit 'bout to come on. And he kept dripping
and drooling, and ever' onct in a while he'd rise up his sleeve and wipe it
away from his chin.
"And oh, how my heart ached to see it all! I squeezed little Eulalie's
hand so hard she cried. And Ma pulled her away from me. 'Quit hurting
that chile,' she said.
' 'Then Mr. Harris stopped walking around and held up his two cuffed
hands, and ever'body got silent the way you do in the churchyard when the
preacher holds up his hand ready to start saying, 'Ashes to ashes and dust
to dust.' And then that 'ere murder man he begun to preach loud and strong
to all the people. He told 'em about his evil and weeked ways and how he'd
repented of all his sins and how ever'body ort to take warning from what
his life had turnt out to be — so that they might 'scape the wroth of God
the Saviour and sech woe and turble damnation in the end of their days.
' 'Whilst he went on a-talking a lot of people 'gun to cry lak at a revival
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Paul Green's Wordbook
meeting. And I cried myself. I couldn't he'p it. And later it was told that
a number of folkses got religion that day and led better lives hencefo'th.
One of 'em was old Hezekiah Faulkner. He was a low-down liquor-seller
and sinful critter. It was said 'twas him that sold Louis the liquor reg'lar
and he furnished the other white men with it. And no doubt the liquor had
somep'n to do with their evil doings. Anyhow my daddy said old Hezekiah
mought just as well git his hanging along with Louis and t'other. 'Caze Louis
fo' a matter of fact was drunk on his liquor the ve'y night he kilt the good
white woman.'
"But Hezekiah didn't git his grace there in front of the jailhouse. He
was too tough fo' that. It was only when he saw later what happened up
on the hill — when he saw the bodies hanging there — that the lesson writ
in their death come home to him. Fo'ty years the preachers had been atter
old Hezekiah and his moss-backed soul and couldn't fetch him. But that
hanging reached him all right, and it reached into the soul of plenty t'others.
Say so.
"It was gitting mighty nigh on to'ads eating time now, and the middle
of the day. Most ever'body had brung their midday snack but nobody weren't
eating yit. The folkses was waiting fo' the hanging. And besides they all
felt mighty sick and didn't have much appetite. Purty soon there come a
wagon rattling up pulled along by a big stout fat mule and drove by a mopheaded white boy. And in that wagon was three coffins. The people drawed
back from in front of it lak it had been a hearse or the horse of death itself
come from Satan and the black beyond. The shurff and the deppities they
tuk hold of the prisoners and holp 'em up into the wagon. And with the
gyards walking along, the wagon started on up thoo the town to'ads Gallows
Hill.
"And whilst the wagon rolled along and all of us kep' following atter
it, and the dogs too, there Mr. Harris stood up in it with one knee leaning
on his own coffin to balance hisself, and he kep' on preaching. And po'
Louis he broke into a song, singing it all by hisself. Then the people 'gun
to pick it up and they sung with him. I knowed that song the way a lot of
other people done, and I've never fo'got it from that day to this un. And
ever'time they sings it in the church I thinks 'bout that hanging. And when
you hear it, you think 'bout it too. Yeh, you better—
'The lightning flares, the thunders roll,
The earthquake shakes from pole to pole—
Oh, Jesus Christ, my living God,
Make up my dying bed.'
"Soon 'most all the folkses had j 'ined in with the singing. But my daddy
and my mammy they didn't sing. They was strong hard-shell folks. And
up thoo the town we all marched.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
519
'The rocks and hills melt with the sun
And man and all his works is done.'
' 'And the wheels kep' knocking under the weight of the men and coffins
loaded in that wagon, knocking lak in time to that song. And, rocking in
my chair many a time since, I've beared it knock, knock in my 'membrance
still. Finally us mounted up to Gallows Hill on the north edge of the town.
And there the scaffold was already built with new boa'ds and scantling and
three new looped ropes hanging down, waiting all in a row. The boy stopped
the wagon by the scaffold, and the shurff and the gyards holp the prisoners
out and led 'em up the little steps. The three of 'em stood there and the shurf f
tuk the handcuffs off'n 'em whilst the gyards helt their arms, and then he
tied their hands behind 'em. And all the while each one was looking thoo
the noose that was right in front of his face. And they was all as meek as
little chillun.
' 'Then the big white preacher, Reverend A. C. Dixon he was, mounted
up the steps to preach. You've beared people tell 'bout him. He later went
'way crost the ocean water to preach befo' the king. Well, Reverend Dixon
mounted up on the scaffold, and he putt his hand gentle on each of the men.
He kep' his hand longest on Louis' shoulder, lak maybe he felt more sorry
for him. Then he turnt 'round, opened up his Bible and tuk his text — 'When
I would do good, evil is present with me.'
"Mo'n a' hour he preached to the multitude and he carried two rows
at a time on how pride goeth befo' destruction and a haughty sperit befo'
a fall, and in such an hour as ye know not the Son of Man cometh. Yeh,
he said, be sho' a man's sins will find you out and there ain't no hiding
place from the wide watching eye of God.
"And ever'body in that vast throng of people hung on his words,
drinking of 'em in. But the po' prisoner criminals kep' standing there,
twisting 'bout ever' now and then on their ta'hed feets same lak they wished
he'd hesh and git it over and done with.
"When finally the sermont was finished, the preacher led in a long
prayer. And all over the hillsides and up in the trees people set and stood.
Their heads was bowed lak weeping willow trees. Then at the end of the
prayer, Reverend Dixon said, 'Our Father who art in heaven.' and the
hundreds and thousands of people, white and black, j 'ined in jest lak chillun
in the church on Sunday. And the po' fellows on the scaffold standing there
with their heads bowed, they done so too and so done the shurff and the
gyards. Clean 'crost the town and out into the country rolled the great voices
of sound, saying, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,
fo' ever and ever, Amen.'
"Ever'body in that vast mighty multitude was feeling sorrowful and
fo'giving now. My own heart ached lak it couldn't stand but a little bit mo',
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and I could jest feel that ever'body else's heart was aching and filled with
sorrow too. And so much sorrow was ever'where that forgiveness was in
all our hearts. Kindness was in people's souls, one to another and 'specially
so to'ads the po' condemnded ones about to die. And here and there and
ever'where bawlings and sobbings 'gun breaking out 'mongst the people.
Nobody felt lak hanging nobody now. Ever'body was sorry sich a' awful
thing was to be. But still ever' last one of us knowed that the hanging must
be. For the law said hang and the law, take it from me, is a' all powerful
and fearsome thing. 'Member that.
"The tears were pyore blinding my eyes and I turnt away from the sad
sight on the scaffold. Then raight 'crost from me was a young colored man
looking off, and there were some water drops on his cheeks also. I looked
at him, and he looked around at me — in the dimness of our tears we seen
one another, and my heart was aching so with grief I felt nigh to him a
stranger, and I fujly believed he felt clost to me likewise. I put my hankcher
to my eyes to keep from boo-hooing.
"So now I beared the great preacher saying a few low kind words to
each of the prisoners. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but I knowed
he was comforting of 'em. And in the midmost of it all Louis quick hollered
out in a loud voice could be beared clean 'crost Eno River. 'This day, certain
to my soul, I'm gwine be with Jesus in Paradise. Yea, in the arms of my
loving Saviour — that's where I'm gwine be this day!'
' 'And from off'n the hillsides and from off'n the little slopes and gullies
where the people was crowded, you could hear scattered amens and bless
you, brother. And the dogs started barking again.
' 'Next the shurff and the gyards stepped up and putt black caps on all
three of 'em, and there they stood with them black things on 'em looking
lak three booger bears or something to scare daylights out'n you on
Christmas night.
' 'Whilst they was doing of this Reverend Dixon reached up his hands
high and started a song, leading the people in a great hymn anthem. We
sing it in our church still to this day.
'Who is this that comes from far
With his garments dipped in blood,
Stray triumphant traveler
Is he man or is he God?'
' 'Then all of a suddent lak as if God the Saviour had made answer back,
there come from deep underneath the earth to the west a shaking growl and
rumble of bad thunder. People looked all about 'em, one at t'other. Seemed
lak they was a sign in it or somep'n. Fo' we'd jest been singing when we'd
come marching up the hill 'bout the thunder rolling from pole to pole.
"The thunder putt a stop to the singing in the crowd. The preacher
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
521
went on a few lines furder and then only him and Louis was singing. And
then the preacher stopped, and only Louis was singing. The song coming
out from under that black cap give ever'body the shivers, I tell you. The
ropes was now putt 'round the necks of the three lost souls. The shurff put
up his hand in a sign, and raight spang at the moment the thunder crashed
deep and scary once mo'. A trembling run all through the people and I could
feel it. Ever'body could feel it, feel that there was something wrong with
the happenings of this day. It was lak the great voice of the Almighty from
fur down under the earth speaking out against it.
' 'All the while ever'body was looking at the men on the scaffold. I can
still see 'em standing a little knee-bent there. And I was thinking when the
thunder sounded 'bout that other old song we used to sing there in Mount
Gilead Church.
'Day of wrath, oh day of mourning
See fulfilled the prophet's warning.'
' 'And I looked beyont the young colored stranger clost by to the trees
'way to the west and beyont the sycamores along Eno River and the chestnut
oaks on top of Occoneechee Mountain. I could see a great roll of thundering
clouds coming on up over the world there lak the Jedgment Day itself.
"A lump was in my throat and a kind of sick feeling in my stomach.
My mouth kept filling with spettle and I wanted to dump it out. But a young
girl wasn't supposed to spet. So I wiped my mouth with my sleeve just the
way po' Louis had been doing.
"I looked back at the scaffold and I knowed pd' Louis couldn't wipe
his mouth now because his hands was tied behind him. And it didn't make
no difference nohow fo' the black cap was over his face now and mebbe
that would soak it up like bread does gravy.
"The shurff drapped his hand, and the gyard standing below on the
ground and behint a plank handle reached out and pulled the handle easy
with his hand. And the props flew out lak somep'n had hit 'em. Down fell
the trap doors and the men shot thoo 'em same lak rocks you mought drap
into the creek. And the preacher jumped back as if he was af eared he mought
fall thoo too. I turnt my head away quick to keep from losing my breakfas'.
' 'At that very pime blank secont, the very secont the handle was pulled
and the prisoners fell there come one of the awfulest ripping and tearing
crashings of lightning down out'n the sky I'd ever experienced. People
screamed and shouted and jumped and turnt around. And a great moaning
mumble went out over the multitude. And the dogs just about went wild
— gwine away from there. That lightning had struck a big oak tree jest over
the brow of the hill, and smoke and bramstone could be seen gwine up the
sky where it had struck.
"Yeh, it was jest lak mebbe old Moster that makes the heavens and
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the earth and holds 'em in the hollow of his hand—jest lak he'd done spoke
with the thunderbolt of his own voice, saying, oh human race, oh human
race, the shame and pity of what you's doing!
"And the wiggling of the three men on the ropes 'gun to stop. I couldn't
look at 'em but I knowed they was wiggling and I could hear the creakling
of the scaffold, the creakling coming stiller and stiller. I looked at people
whilst they gazed at the scaffold and I could read in the countenance of their
face what was happening, 'specially the young stranger where he kept
swallowing by his Adam's apple to keep from crying.
"Then ever'thing got still as death. There was no movement, no noise
from all the people, no sound in the air. There was no more lightning nor
thunder now. After a minute or two a' easy little wind 'gun blowing lak
a sort of blessing over the scene. A light easy wind 'twas. Then with a rush
the rain come on — coming 'crost the land lak the trampling of a flock of
goats. It struck the crowd in a great gust. I could hear the drops plop-plopping
on the scaffold planking and on the shirts of the three bodies hanging from
their ropes. And all of a suddent I was hit by a worry 'bout 'em hanging
there helpless and gitting wet, lak mebbe they'd ketch their death of cold.
Jest for a second so I was.
"Then the people seemed to wake up, the douse of cold rain falling
on 'em woke 'em up and brung 'em back out'n the spell of all the turble
happenings. They started scattering in all directions lak biddies befo' a hawk,
'fessors, students, ever'body.
"I took a last eye-blink back to'ads the scaffold. There was the three
pitiful men hanging all wet and bedraggled and their necks stretched out
most half as long as your arm, lak a chicken's neck when you pull it to break
it.
' 'Then it was I turnt r'ally sick. I whirlt 'round looking fo' my mammy,
and I sprung quick to run away from there and spang I banged raight into
the young colored man. And he put out his arm good and strong and he
helt me up and I was shaking and quivering and fit to squall. I looked up
at him and he didn't drap his arm but he kep' looking at me and me at him.
And I was boo-hooing good and solid now. He smilt at me. All of a suddent
I didn't want to run away no mo.' All of a suddent I was fo'getting about
the hanging. I wanted him to keep his arm 'round me and hold me up. He
kep' looking in my eyes and I looked in hisn, and his arm was strong about
me.
' 'Then I turnt away and he walked 'long with me, helping me thoo the
crowd. And my heart was beginning to sing. And it all was so sudden but
just natural lak as life. Grief and woe in our two hearts had made it so.
"And that's how I met my husband. Yeh — and all on account o' the
hanging."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
523
hangman's choice
The choice between two evils, often no choice at all.
hangman's day
Friday, an unlucky day for festivities. "Paul and Elizabeth Green didn't
get married on Friday, their preferred and most convenient date, because
the bride's family declared it too unlucky to be married on Friday, hangman's
day."
the hang of
The know-how. "As soon as I get the hang of this thing, I can do it."
hang on by one's eyelashes
To persist obstinately, to be near to ruin, or death or defeat.
hang one's head
Drop the head, to be embarrassed or ashamed.
hang up one's hat
To make oneself very much at home.
hang up one's hide
To make a spectacle of, to shame or disgrace.
hanksher (hanketcher)
Handkerchief.
if nothing don't happen
A common phrase in the Valley in reference to some future action or
occasion. "If nothing don't happen, I'll be with you Monday morning."
"If nothing don't happen, we'll have a big get-together."
happen-so
Coincidence.
happy as a Junebug
happy as a lark
happy as a pig in a puddle
happy as doves
happy as ducks in a puddle
We'll be happy as we can be
And never mind the weather
When your little shoes and my big boots
Sit under the bed together.
(A courting rhyme.)
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Happy is the bride the sun shines on.
Tis better to be happy than wise.
happy hollers
Religious frenzy of shouts and yells.
happy hunting ground
The Indians' hereafter.
happy weepings
Weeping in religious joy.
harch!
March! A military command.
hard
An erection of the penis. "He's got a hard on."
Quickly, fast. "Go up to Uncle Tom's to borrow some meal and come back
hard as you can."
hard as a brick
hard as a bullet
hard as a bull's horns
hard as a lightwood knot
hard as a rock
hard as climbing a greased pole with an armful of eels
hard as flint
hard as iron
hard as nails
hard as rowing upstream
hard as steel
It's hard to pay for bread that's been eaten.
It is hard to tie a full sack.
hard-down
Fierce. "It was a hard-down fight."
hard-favored
Ugly, plain.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
525
as hardheaded as a ram
hard nut to crack
A difficult job or proposition.
hard-pushed (hard-run)
In difficulty, financially embarrassed. "I hear that the Ogburn boys are hardpushed these days."
hard row of stumps
A great difficulty.
hard row to hoe
A difficult job.
Hard Shell Baptists
This sect believed like the Presbyterians in predestination and election. In
the early days they supported neither Sunday schools nor missionaries, and
denied musical instruments a part in the church service. To them the fiddle
and banjo were devil's instruments and should be abolished. They believed
in free-will offerings so far as a minister's salary was concerned. The minister
then had to farm or make a living at some trade, never by preaching alone.
He took what folks gave him and sent his thanks to God.
hard to come by
Obtained with great difficulty. "Don't waste that flour, it's hard to come
by."
A large crop of acorns and berries and persimmons is a sign of a hard winter.
to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds
To be two-faced, to straddle both sides of a question, be hypocritical.
hare-lip
A pregnant woman who looks at a rabbit may have a hare-lip baby.
harking
Loud, phlegmy coughing.
Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,
The beggars are coming to town.
Some in rags, and some in jags
And some in velvet gown.
Some gave them white bread
And some gave them brown,
Some gave them a good horse whip
And run 'em out of town.
(A nursery rhyme.)
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"Hark, the Herald Angels Sing"
Perhaps the most popular of all Christmas hymns. The music is by Felix
Mendelssohn and the words by Charles Wesley. It used to be our favorite
one on Christmas serenades and often the inmates of the house we were
serenading in the deep dead of night would raise their windows, or even
come out on the porches shivering in their nightdress and join in the singing.
Charles Wesley, the author, was perhaps the most prolific and maybe the
best hymn writer that ever lived. Born in England, he came to Georgia with
his brother John Wesley, founder of Methodism, as a member of General
Oglethorpe's Colony in the 18th century, but soon returned to England.
It is said he always carried a notebook with him for there was no telling when
a fine line or even a full verse would pop into his mind, and he had to be
ready to put it down before it escaped.
Among the more than four thousand hymns Charles Wesley wrote, there
are, in addition to "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," the fine "Rejoice, the
Lord Is King" and "Jesus, Lover of my Soul."
"Hark, the herald angels sing,
'Glory to the new born King—
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled.'
"Joyful all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies.
With angelic hosts proclaim
'Christ is born in Bethlehem.' "
harmless as doves
harm word
Backbiting, evil gossip. "I've never said a harm word about him in all my
life."
to harp
To scold, to repeat to wearisomeness.
to harp on one string
To have only one cause, one subject of talk or interest, be boring.
Old Harry
The devil.
hash
Existence, willpower, personality. "If that fellow fools with me, I'll go up
there and settle his hash."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
527
haslet
The liver, heart, and lights of slaughtered animals — hogs, sheep, beeves.
"I give that man a haslet and he didn't even thank me."
hassel
The panting of a dog.' That dog was hasseling like he couldn't get his wind.''
Haste makes waste, and waste makes want, and want makes strife between a
good man and his wife.
Give me time to get my hat.
Don't hurry me.
My hat!
A strong assertion.
talk through one's hat
To talk foolishness, nonsense.
bad hat
A misfit, an unreliable person.
hat burning
A custom in certain parts of North Carolina, of a father's burning his hat
at the birth of a first son to insure good luck for the child as he grows up.
An acquaintance of mine, that ardent and gifted folklorist, Mrs. Maud
Minish Sutton, told of her experience once in connection with this belief.
She and a companion stopped at a little farmhouse for a drink of water and
to rest a bit from their labors.
"I didn't notice anything very unusual around the place," she said,
"but we entered at a most inopportune time. A new baby had just arrived,
and there were some six or eight old women in the one room — a lovely
shy-eyed mother, not one day over sixteen — and several men out at the
woodpile. I went into the room, exclaimed over the big fine baby, and learned
a custom that must be perfectly local. The father, a big awkward boy around
eighteen, came in with three old hats in his hand. He addressed me thus —
'Woman, is they any use o' burnin' up all my hats jes' 'cause this here is
a boy?'
' 'An old woman who appeared to be the head of things spoke up sternly.
'Course they's use o' burnin' yore hats! If the first boy has any bit o' luck
his pap's hats has to burn in the fire. My mammy before me followed the
babyfetching and she said their daddies burnt hats for all their first boys.
Nobody ever acted stingy with their hats before around here, Jim, except
Rial Edwards for his boy and Rial kept back a big hat he'd jest bought, and
of all the trifling, no 'count, dirt-eating young'uns ever I seen his'n is the
worst. Don't act the fool, Jim. Throw them hats in.'
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"Jim still hesitated. 'Hit looks right plumb foolish,' he said. I stole
a glance toward the bed, two big tears were stealing furtively down the cheeks
of the pretty girl mother. 'Honey,' said the new father very tenderly, 'do
you want my hats burnt?' 'I want my baby to have some chance,' she said.
" 'Seeing her suffer like you see her, Jim, shore looks to me like you'd
give up them ole hats,' said the old lady contemptuously.
"The boy pitched his hats into the blazing log fire. 'You know it twan't
stinginess, honey,' he said to his wife, 'hit jest looks foolish.' "
down the hatch
Down the throat, gullet. Often said preparatory to swallowing a shot of
liquor.
hate
To be unwilling, deplore, dislike doing. "I hate to do it, son, but I've got
to whip you for stealing my liquor."
Regret. "I hated to hear that your house had been robbed, Mr. Paul."
hateful
An irritating person. "She's a little old hateful."
hat-holding
Obsequious, subservient.' 'He's a hat-holding guy hoping for a government
job."
hat in hand
Humble, submissive.
ha'th
Hearth.
hat trick
A ruse, a deceit, cheating.
hats off
Respect, honor.
haul freight
Leave, run away, go fast, vamoose.
haul in one's horns
Quit bragging, lower one's sights, eat crow.
haul off
To act quickly. "He hauled off and hit me."
haul over the coals
To berate, to scold. Also "haul onto the carpet."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
529
haunted house (place)
A house or place where a ghostly apparition may be seen, usually at the same
hour and most often at night.
have a bear by the tail
To be in a most difficult position, to have a job bigger than one can handle.
have all one's buttons
To be in good form, clever, quick-witted.
have a place for everything and have everything in its place
have a (great) mind to
To feel inclined to some action.
have by the balls
To have complete control of. "L. B. J. had this country by the balls."
have on
To wear, to be dressed in. "That's a purty dress you have on."
have other fish to fry
To have other concerns, business, than the present one.
have the goods on
To have clear evidence or proof of one's actions, usually of guilt.
'havior
Behavior.
haw
To go left.
hawk
A fierce person, a war-minded one, an ultra-conservative.
An outlook or watch set by thieves or gangsters to warn of the police coming.
Hawk and Chickens
A children's chase game.
The "mother hen" has her brood of "chickens" lined up behind her. The
"hawk" is intent on catching the "chickens" one by one and adding them
to its side. So the contest begins, the "hawk" trying to elude the "mother
hen'' to grab one of the chickens. Each one that is caught joins the "hawk''
group.
hawk caller
A folk toy. A wildwood little flute-like caller, often spoken of as a blate,
made by splitting the end of a green twig, inserting a cut slip of a leaf, usually
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Paul Green's Wordbook
a red oak leaf, and laid against the lips and blown with a shrill little crying
sound, much like a hawk's call.
Make hay while the sun shines.
haymaking
Loose love-making, frolicking in the hay.
Hay Over
A chasing ball game. See "Heigh Over."
hayrides
Rides that young people used to take on a wagon loaded with hay. What
fun we had on these rides, singing and joking away. Perfect for courting
and snuggling in the dark.
He hits the nail on the head.
soft in the head
Easily taken in, deceived, sentimentally kind, silly.
A cool head and warm feet live long.
Little head, big wit;
Big head, not a bit.
have a head for
To be talented in one direction.
head full of sense
An especially sharp, discerning, practical person.
head-hunter
A fiercely matrimonially inclined female.
heading
A bolster, a pillow. "I didn't have enough heading last night and couldn't
sleep."
head in the sand
To be dull, stupid, uncaring.
eat one's head off
To be gluttonous.
head of the heap
The leader.
head of the house (table)
The head man, the boss, the one who leads. There's an old Scotch saying
in the Valley that "Where McGregor sits is the head of the table." Neck
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
531
McGregor used to boastfully say this of himself, but he later changed his tune.
I knew Neck a little while before he died. He got his nickname from
Civil War times. One day in 1865 Sherman's Yankee bummers rushed up
to his farm down there on Lower Little River and captured him. He wouldn't
tell where his horses and silverware were hid so they hung him up by the
neck the way they later did the Harnett County poet George W. Miller. Then
they cut him down alive and still he wouldn't tell. Later on some more of
Sherman's bummers came by and hanged him again but he wouldn't tell.
Maybe he couldn't tell. Maybe he didn't have any silverware. The truth is
I guess he didn't have any horses or silverware by this time, for it all had
gone into the Southern cause, he being a mighty patriotic fellow and looking
up to General Lee as next to God. Finally a third gang of Yankee guerrillas
came by and hanged him a third time and that nearly ended him. They left
him for dead but some of the neighbors arrived in time to cut him down
and revive him. From that day on, though, he walked with a crooked neck
and with his head turned slanchindicular. So about all he got out of working
for the Confederate cause was a maiming for life and the nickname "Neck.''
That name fitted him right on up to the end, and he quit using the boastful
old saying. One day on his way to MacDonald's Mill with a bag of corn
he met a few old Confederate soldiers coming around the bend on horses.
They were on their way to Fayetteville for a reunion and were carrying a
Confederate flag held high and proud before them. The flag flapping in
the wind and the troops coming around the curve so suddenlike scared Neck's
mule and he ran away with him, throwing him out of the wagon and on
his head and killing him. This time his neck was really broken.
head of water
A supply of water sufficient for water-mill grinding.
Heads I win, tails you lose.
A catch, a mock wager.
heads or tails
A tossed coin is used to decide first go, for instance. One leader calls' 'heads,''
another "tails,'' and the one who is matched by the top surface of the falling
coin is the winner.
can't make heads or tails out of it
Completely puzzled.
Two heads are better than one.
Two heads are better than one, even if one is a cabbage head.
Two heads are better than one, or why do folks marry?
It's hard to put old heads on young shoulders.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
head the yearling
To end, win over, to defeat, overleap or surpass. "Well, suh, all I can say
is that really heads my yearling."
headwork before handiwork
heal all
An aromatic plant common to fields, woods and waste places especially,
in almost all of North America. It is also known as blue curls. A decoction
from it was supposed to be good for anything, hence its name.
health springs
Before and especially after the Civil War the custom of going to the springs
for one's health was widespread. For some days, a week or two maybe, the
people would drink plentifully of the water and go back home refreshed
and "cleaned out." The being cleaned out had more meanings than one,
for a lot of secret card playing and gambling went on. Some of the springs
had commodious hotels, equipped with every sort of guest comfort including
brass bands.
The springs nearest my home were Chalybeate, Holly, and Fuquay —
all of small vintage if that's the word. The most popular was Fuquay Springs,
and huge crowds gathered there at Easter and the Fourth of July.
The springs are all pretty much forgot now, and the hotels and race
tracks have long ago disappeared. What hastened the early abandonment
of Fuquay Springs in particular was that some years ago the word got out
that General Sherman's forces had buried a lot of old wornout mules and
horses above the spring, and surely the water was contaminated thereby.
Too late to vomit. But quit, everyone did.
he-animal
Bull. Many persons in the Valley, especially women, are so prudish or timid
that they won't use the word "bull." They will say "animal" instead. The
same applies to "boar" or "stud." "Mr. Harmon's got a new he-animal
in his pasture, and he sure looks dangerous."
heaping full
More than level, overflowing.
hear
For emphasis. "Come see us, hear."
hearn
Heard.
heart
Kindness. "He's got no heart in him."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
533
The solid, unsappy center of a tree.
by heart
Memorized. "I knowed it by heart once, but now I've forgot it."
Have a heart.
To have kind feelings, to be merciful.
hear tell
Rumored. "I hear tell John Edwards is gonna get married."
hear the birds sing
To be looney, cuckoo.
heart in one's mouth
Afraid, intense suspense.' 'On that third strike my heart was in my mouth.''
heartleaf
An aromatic Valley plant, wild ginger. Poultices from the leaves are used
to heal cuts.
hear to it
To agree, acquiesce in, heed.
Hearts like doors open with ease
To very, very little keys.
And don't forget that two of these
Are "Thank you, sir," and "If you please."
(A proverb rhyme.)
heathen
Any people on earth who are not Christians; usually the Valley people had
in mind the folks in Asia.
heave-ho
To be thrown out, unceremoniously dismissed. "I got the old heave-ho and
now I'm looking for a job."
Heaven
Opposite of hell. The place of supernal delight, usually supposed to be
somewhere up in the sky, as hell is supposed to be below the earth somewhere.
Heaven helps those who help themselves.
Heavenly days!
Heavens!
Good Heavens!
Merciful Heavens!
Heavens above!
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Heavens to Betsy!
Interjections.
heavies
Winter underwear.
The heaviest ear of corn hangs its head the lowest.
heavy
Wet, sticky, moisture laden. "I ploughed my corn when the ground was
too heavy, and now look at it, it's turned yellow as gold."
heavy as a ton of bricks
heavy as lead
heavy-assed
Slow, lazy, lethargic.
Heavy dew means fair weather to come.
heavysome
Dull, sad, despondent.
Hebrew
Mysterious, indecipherable, not understood. "He explained, but it was all
Hebrew to me."
heck
A mild expletive, same as what the heck, aw heck, etc.
to heck and gone
A long distance, out of sight and mind, or completely obliterated.
for the heck of it
For the dare of it, just to be doing it.
since Heck was a pup
A long time, much the same as coon's age or blue moon.
he-cow
A prudish assertion for a bull.
hedge preacher
An illiterate, loud-mouthed evangelist, a great pest, not only to the Valley,
but to the world at large.
Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
heel it
To run, same as hoof it.
�An A Iphabet of Reminiscence
535
turn heel
To turn and leave, to betray, to change one's direction suddenly, much the
same as "turn tail."
cool one's heels
To wait apprehensively for some decision, to be forced to waste time waiting.
to hang by one's heels
To be completely ruined, to be made helpless. "When the stock market blew
up, it left him hanging by his heels."
heel-string
Leg tendon. "Mr. Pendergraff was sawing wood last Monday when that
chain saw grabbed his leg and cut his heel-string in two."
heerd
Past tense of hear.
heft
The might, the strength. "The heft of him was scareful."
The handle. "Take that shovel by the heft."
He (it, she) has had it.
Worn out, incapacitated, done for.
He has need of a long spoon that sups with the devil.
He hath liv'd ill that knows not how to die well.
heifer
A young girl.
open heifer
A prostitute or sexually loose woman.
heifer den
A brothel.
heifer dust
A common, low woman. We used to call our boarding housekeeper at Chapel
Hill heifer dust. Why I don't know, for she was a kind, nice person, as far
as I knew.
heigh
A form of address.
Heigh Over!
A ball game, same as Hail Over.
The players are divided as equally as possible. They take positions on
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opposite sides of a building. A player on the side with the ball calls out "Heigh
over!" and the ball is thrown over the house as far as possible. When it is
caught on the fly or on first bounce, the side now with the ball comes tearing
around the house and the one with the ball tries to hit one of the opposing
players, even chasing him down before he can escape around the house. If
he hits an opponent, that one now joins his side. The game continues till
all the players have been brought over to one side or till the weaker side gives
in and calls it quits or in our old parlance calls out "Calf-rope!"
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not obtained by sudden flight
But they while their companions slept
Were toiling upward in the night.
heir
Inherit a share or part of an inheritance. "Since Dode heired that money
from his uncle, he ain't worth a continental."
held up
Delayed, hindered, stopped. "I would-a been here sooner but some company
came in and I was held up."
hell
A mild swear word.
Torment, Hades, the bad place, the fiery lake, the everlasting fire, a place
believed in by most fundamentally religious people where those who die in
sin and unknowing of Jesus and his salvation must suffer forever, burning
in flames seven times hotter than ordinary fire on earth. Even the innocent
children of the Orient who never had any chance to hear of Jesus — according
to orthodox Christian faith — these poor innocent ones must burn forever
in the flames because they were not saved by believing in Jesus Christ.
This cruel nonsense reminds me of a dialogue I recently had with a
deacon in one of the Valley churches.
"You mean, John, that you believe those millions and millions,
hundreds of millions of little children of other nations far away who have
not known of Jesus, could not know of Jesus because millions of them lived
before he even was born, you mean to say that they are lost forever and
must suffer the torments of hell."
' 'Well, it's just too bad, but that's the way the Bible has it, and I believe
the Bible. And it says 'Woe unto those that don't believe.' "
' 'Yes, I know, I know, but don't you think this is a terrible bloodthirsty
thing to believe in? You can't imagine any god could be so cruel, can you?''
"I believe in God and I believe in Jesus Christ and him crucified, and
I believe in the Bible which says 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and him
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
537
crucified and ye shall be saved' and woe unto those who do not believe."
"Yes, yes, I see, I see. Well, I guess there's no use arguing, because
I could never believe in such a doctrine, and I couldn't believe in such a
bloodthirsty god."
"Yes, and it's too bad for you, just as it's too bad for them little children,
and I know when you die where you are going."
"Yes, I know, John, the chances are we won't go to the same place,
will we?"
"No, we won't. Iknowwherel'mgoing.becauselbelieveintheFather
and his Son and I believe in the Holy Ghost, and I try to live right, try to
live by my faith."
"I try to live right, too, John."
"But you can't live right if you don't believe in the Lord. No, you can't,
and I want you to know that I've prayed for you night after night, many
a year I've prayed for you. It don't look like, though, it's doing any good
a-tall."
"No, it doesn't, John, it doesn't look as if the great Master in the sky
is hearing you."
"He hears me, all right, the thing is you don't hear Him. Well, you've
had your chance and you're still here looking hale and hearty. And you've
still got a chance, but in such an hour as you know not, then he'll call for
you, and, oh Lord, it breaks my heart to think that you won't be ready."
"I'm sorry to cause you trouble, John, very sorry. Don't let your heart
ache over me. I don't reckon I'm worth it according to your view."
"Yes, you're worth it, because the Bible does say that all are precious
in the sight of God, and you're precious in my sight, too, and I do wish you
could see the true faith and believe in it."
"I don't guess there's much chance, John, not much chance of my
believing in the kind of god that we've been talking about."
And again the stern comment, "That's just too bad for you. I'll pray
for you, yes, I will, but I misdoubt it will do any good. Repent now before
it's too late."
And to keep the deacon from kneeling and beginning his prayer for
me right there, I changed the subject to the pennant race between the Orioles
and the Dodgers baseball clubs. Like me, the lost one, the deacon loves
baseball, and so we had a good and cheerful talk after all and shook hands
friendly-wise when we parted.
Hell is paved with good intentions.
gone to hell
Shot to hell, all to pieces, undone, made a mess of, broken up.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
like hell
An expression of intensity in comparison.
go to hell in a basket
To go recklessly to hell.
hellaceous
Hellish.
to hell and gone
Wild behavior, a wasteful result.
hell-bent for election
Moving fast, at great speed.
hell-bent for leather
Wildly intended, pushing on with all one's might.
hell driver
An auto racer.
hell-fired
Extremely hellish, a phrase for emphasis.
till hell freezes over
A long time, much longer than a coon's age. "I'll hold to my views till hell
freezes over."
hellhounds (Gabriel's hounds)
There is a superstition in the Valley that hellhounds can be heard crossing
the sky and barking fiercely as an omen of death. "Yes, sir," said Aunt
Etta, "I was out there in the pink of the morning, hoeing in my cabbage,
when I heard them hellhounds coming way off, and they come nigher and
nigher and crossed the sky right overhead, and they went right in the direction
of Uncle Jim's house and they faded out when they seemed to get to his
house. I told my man, Sandy, at breakfast, 'Sandy,' I said, 'Uncle Jim is
dead, I done heerd the hellhounds barking in the sky and barking all around
above his house, and he's dead.' And so he was."
helling
Creating a disturbance, speeding recklessly.
hell of a note
An intensive description, something extraordinary.
hello girl
A telephone operator.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
539
hell on wheels
A reckless, wild, uncontrollable person.
come hell or high water
No matter what difficulty, in spite of everything, extreme hardships, etc.
hell's bells!
An interjection.
hell's gate
A woman's cunt.
helm
Helve.
If you can't help, don't hinder,
as helpless as a baby
help my life!
An exclamation.
"Every little bit helps," said the old woman as she pissed in the sea.
"Every little bit helps," said the old woman as she farted in the whirlwind.
he-man stuff
Rough male treatment, cave man methods.
hemispheres
A woman's breasts.
to stretch hemp
To be hanged on the gallows.
hemp widow
A woman widowed by her husband's being hanged.
A black hen lays white eggs.
A setting hen is never fat.
It is a sorry house in which the cock is silent and the hen crows.
henbit
A nettle, also known as bee nettle, found in rich wastelands from late
February to October. Used as a laxative.
hen fruit
Eggs.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Mr. Henry
A derisive rhyme. We used to substitute any teacher we wanted when we
recited this rhyme.
"Mr. Henry, he's a good teacher,
Teaches scholars now and then.
When he whips them, makes them dance
Out of England into France."
Setting hens don't want fresh eggs.
hen-scratches (tracks)
Crude, almost indecipherable handwriting. "I can't make heads or tails of
all them hen-scratches."
hepatica
An early flowering woodland plant, abundant in the Valley, as in most of
America. South Dakota has chosen it as its state flower. Also known as
liverwort. Its lobed leaves are livershaped, and "hepatica'' means liver. Used
for liver complaints and also for fevers and coughs.
hep to
To be privy to, to have knowledge of, suited to, in the know.
herb doctor
Much the same as conjure doctor or root doctor. A folk practitioner of hocus
pocus, cures and spells, still widely believed in by most people. Innumerable
stories are current about them. For instance, not long ago Zonie, the young
Negro man who works with me, was telling me of some herb or root doctor
cures he knew about.
Two of them were especially striking. We were cleaning up our yard
and had to go out to Sam Lloyd's in the country to get a little mowing
machine. As we drove along we passed a run-down filling station kept by
a Negro man. The Negro man was sitting on a bench leaning against the wall.
' 'Look-a there at him,'' said Zonie. "His name is Jackson Long. Stingy
— oh, my Lord! I owed him one cent once and 'cause I didn't get back on
Monday morning to pay him, he told all around in the neighborhood that
Zonie Lippert couldn't nohow be trusted."
"You mean one cent, Zonie?"
"Mean one cent. But that's the way it is," he went on, as we drove
up the road.' 'A man can save and scrimp and scrounge like that, and then
bad luck comes and gits him. Last week he had twenty-five hundred dollars
in his pocket and he went down to the 'Sociation meeting. Twenty-five
hundred dollars!"
"Gracious," Isaid, "why would he go around with that much money
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
541
in his pocket?"
"He sold off a piece of land to Mr. Dode Jones, and it being Saturday
night he couldn't go to the bank in Carrboro 'til Monday morning. And
he didn't want to go to the' Sociation and leave it in his ramshackly old filling
station for fear somebody would take it. So he had it on him in his pocket.
And what you reckon happened to him? Why, somebody spelled him while
he was there and just got that money right away from him. Yessuh,
hypnotized him, got him in a daze with his devil's eye, and he ain't never
going to see nary a brownie of it any more."
"What do you mean, hypnotized him?" I queried.
"Just that, Mr. Green — spelled him. Aw, the people works spells on
you through this country here round and about."
"Zonie, you don't believe that."
"Shore, I believe it. Take that house right over there we're passing.
There was a fellow in there — lived there once but moved up North now.
He had the worst spell a-tall. His name was Hub. I used to play with him.
Him and me was about the same age. Well, sir, somebody had it in for him.
Might have been a girl, for all I know. Anyhow they fed him some juice
or something out of a Co'-cola bottle, and it had a spell in it. And you know
what? That boy had snakes all under his skin. You could see the pattern
of 'em. I've looked at his arm many a time and there you could see the shape
of the snakes in his skin."
"You mean you really saw the snakes?"
' 'Yessuh, I've seen 'em. And he got worse and worse. And his mammy
and daddy and the neighbors met together and said there weren't no doubt
about it at all — they had to take him to that herb doctor up there beyond.
Maybe you've heard of him."
"No. What is an herb doctor, Zonie?"
' 'With all your knowledge and you don't know that! Lord, Mr. Green.
Well, some people calls 'em root doctors, dust-doctors. Sometimes they have
a herb root with a spell on it they can work strange things with. Then again
some of 'em has dust out of the graveyard, from the grave of a man that's
been hanged or burnt in the electric chair. Well, that's what they are — call
'em root doctors or dust doctors."
"How do they get their power, Zonie?"
"Well, sir, the best way to get it is out'n a black cat, one in which they
ain't nary a speck of white. Take you a iron pot of hot scalding water and
put that cat in there alive and jam a led on it. And then you hop up and
stand on that led. And you stand there all the whilst the flesh is b'iling away
from that cat's bones. It may jounce and jimmy under your feet, but you
just keep standing on the pot. Then when the bones is all fleshened away,
you take 'em out and put 'em in a basket. And you go to the creek where
there's plenty of swift-running water. You dash all them bones right spang
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Paul Green's Wordbook
into that swift-running water. And the bone that swims up the creek, that's
your man. You grab it, and you keep the bone. From then on you got the
power."
"I reckon so, if you think of a bone swimming up stream,'' I laughed.
"Yes sir, that's what I'm thinking of, 'cause some of 'em do. And that
Mayben root doctor he had one of them bones. With that bone he would
go out in the woods. And any place he come nigh where there was a good
root, that bone would move in his pocket and cut up terrible. All he had
to do was dig down there and get that root. Then he could cut a piece of
it and put it in a handkerchief and sell it to you for two dollars and a half.
And if you wanted a girl to come to you—with that root in your handkerchief
she'd come. Or if a girl wanted a boy to come to her, she could just touch
the root she had and make her wish, and he'd have to come, too.
"It was a girl lived back down there got one them things. Ugly she was
and spraddle-teefied. And bless your soul, where she hadn't had a fellow
looking at her before, now they just stood lined up in front of her house
waiting to git in, after she got that piece of root.
"As I was going to say — this Hub fellow, he got these snake spells
on him. And the mother and the father and the neighbors said we got to
take him to that herb doctor at Mayben. Well, they went up there to see
the herb doctor, and he said it'll cost you a hundred and eighty-seven dollars.
' 'That rally shocked 'em. They didn't have no hundred and eighty-seven
dollars. They pled and they begged him to do something for their poor Hub
anyhow, but the herb doctor said — no pay, no taking the spell off, and
it's cheap at that. So they come away with Hub back home. And Hub got
worse and worse.
"One day there was a big heavy rain and Hub went out of the house
into the gyarden with a couple of tow sacks. He loaded them tow sacks with
wet gyarden dirt and tuk one sack under one arm and one under the other
and come into the house. And he emptied the dirt out on the kitchen floor.
'Look here, Mama,' he said, 'at the money we got. We got plenty of money,
Mama. You take half and Papa take half and I take half.' And he mixed
his hands all down in that dirt, his face shining like he was handling gold.
" 'Shut yo' mouth, boy,' his muh yelled out. 'You're plumb crazy
as a bed bug. That ain't no money. That's plain old gyarden dirt.'
" 'It ain't gyarden dirt, it ain't,' he said. 'It's money, Mama, money
— and you can pay the herb doctor at Mayben. And he'll get me well —
get them snakes off'n me.' And with that word 'snakes' he begun to squeal
and shout and hop up and down.
"His mammy was so outdone with him she tuk a handful of that dirt
and swabbed it smack into his mouth. 'That's money for you!' she said.
Well, that seemed to raily upset Hub, for he tore out of the room and run
upstairs, yelling as loud as he could. And there the snakes went to work
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
543
on him to a fare-you-well — so hard that he jumped spang out of the window
into the hard yard ground, and when he hit the ground, he hit it running.
There was an old bicycle he used to ride laying up against the house had
two flat tires. He jumped straddle of that bicycle and tore off down the road
trying to outrun them snakes. His mammy yelled for his pappy, and he come
in from the field. He got his little old pickup Ford, and him and the mammy
hopped in and started after Hub. Well, sir they got that Ford pickup where
it was popping off, but that boy clean went away from there and left 'em
behind — yessir, on that old bicycle with them two flat tires. And when he
rounded the curve down there coming into Carrboro he was making such
speed that bicycle thro wed him for a loop. End over end he went through
the air and landed in the middle of a big grape vine out in somebody's field.
And he got tangled up in the vine, and so his mammy and daddy ketched him.
"Then they sont him off to Goldsboro to that 'sylum place, him
whimpering and a-crying not to go. People felt sorry for him, the mammy
and the neighbors did, and they all got together and raised a hundred and
eighty-seven dollars. And they tuk it up to that herb doctor at Mayben and
says — 'Here, Mr. Doctor-man, is a hundred and eighty-seven dollars —
get poor Hub back home again.' And the doctor tuk the hundred and eightyseven dollars and said — 'Your boy is well!'
"And shore enough, he was. Down in Goldsboro they checked, and
at the same minute that the doctor said them words, Hub come to hisself
in his natcheral mind.
"They went and got him and brung him home, and he had plenty of
good sense from that day on. He weren't never bothered by snakes no more.
Later on he moved up North. They say he's doing well up there — married
and got a family. Yes sir, just the way the herb doctor said, a hundred and
eighty-seven dollars, and cheap at that."
On another day when we were driving back to town after a visit to my
farm out in Chatham County, we passed a little house set off in a field. Zonie
pointed to it.
"You see that house, Mr. Green? There was a girl lived in that had
a bad spell on her. I knowed her. Yes sir, she begun to waste away, and there
was nothing they could do for her. Somebody, they couldn't tell who it was,
had a spell on her, wasting her away. She'd sit around the house and mope
and say nothing, all drooped up like a sick pullet. And her mammy went
off to see that herb doctor at Mayben. He looked at her and said, 'It'll cost
you a hundred and eighty-seven dollars for me to cyore your daughter, and
cheap at that.' The poor woman didn't have no hundred and eighty-seven
dollars, and she come back home all discouraged like. And the girl kept
wasting away. Just like in the case of Hub I told you about, people got
together and took pity on her and at the church they took up a collection
several Sundays, and the mammy washed and hoed and made a few dollars
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Paul Green's Wordbook
here and there. Finally they got it all together and went to see the doctor
at Mayben.
" Til have to come down and see what I can do,'he says. 'This here's
a special case. How old is she?'
"And so he did, riding up in a Buick car with a fat yellow boy driving
him. And he looked the premises over. Then he looked at the girl and had
her to open her mouth, and he looked in the pa'm of her hands and felt
her good. He shook his head mighty mournful-like. 'There ain't no doubt
about it,' he said. 'She's got a bad spell on her.' Well sir, that doctor had
a little thing in his hand, a kind of wooden thing about the size of a yo-yo
with a long needle sticking out of it. And he went round the house with his
head bent over holding that thing out in front of him. And, all of a sudden,
that needle says 'py-an-ng!' and it shot right out from that piece of wood
and out of sight into the ground.
" 'Bring a shovel,' the doctor hollered. 'Here's where you dig.' And
they dug, and down about two feet they found a little bottle lying on its
side there with a cork loose in it. The doctor took that bottle out and held
it up in the light. It had just a little bit of juice in it.
" 'That's what was killing of her,' he said. 'Whilst this juice leaked
out her life was oozing away. We got here just in time, for there's just about
enough to last another day. Then she'd a-been gone from here to come no
more.' So he remmed the stopper in tight and put the bottle back in the hole
right end up — 'to rest there,' he said, 'till the judgment day.' And they
filled the dirt back in. And when they'd done that, the girl shook herself,
broke out all of a sudden in a happy smile and laughed.
" 'I feel better right now,' she said. And so she got well and mended
fast. Yes sir, say what you please, them herb doctors got power, and if I
ever get a spell on me, I'm sure going to raise me up a hundred and eightyseven dollars and pay one of 'em — and cheap at that."
herbs
Money.
hereafter
The other world after death. This other world, according to the orthodox
Christian belief, is one of felicity or one of suffering. A man may be morally
upright and one without any ethical wrong-doing and still be lost in the
hereafter unless he has accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior and has
been forgiven of his sins and, somehow in a mysterious way, has received
the grace that St. Paul talks so volubly about.
Here, a little child, I stand,
Heaving up my either hand.
Cold as paddocks though they be,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
545
Lord, I lift them up to thee
For a benison to fall
On our food and on us all.
(Child's prayer,
Robert Herrick 1591-1674)
here's hoping
Here's looking at you, here's how, a toast preparatory to taking a drink.
Here I Stand both fresh and fair,
Dark brown eyes and curly hair,
Rosy cheeks and dimpled chin,
A warm little heart that beats within.
Here I stand upon a stump
Come and kiss me 'fore I jump.
Here I stand on two dry chips.
Come and kiss me on the lips.
Here I stand all fat and chunky,
Ate a duck and swallowed a monkey.
(Recitation rhymes.)
Here's mud in your eye.
A jocular toast.
here today and gone tomorrow
An irresponsible person, also said of some possession or cherished thing.
hern
Hers.
her'n
Heron.
a dead herring
A perished cause or purpose, something that's outmoded.
drag a herring over (usually a red herring)
To confuse, to keep secret, to hide away.
hesh
Hush.
He skipped the lean and ate the fat
And that soon put him where he's at.
(A proverb.)
�546
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Past tense of heat.
He that blows dust fills his own eyes.
He that dies pays all debts.
He that fights and runs away may live to fight another day.
He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.
He that is down need fear no fall.
He that pays the piper calls the tune.
He that will not when he could, cannot when he would.
He that will not when he may, when he would will find it nay.
het up
Angry, all fired up.
Hew to the line and let the chips fall where they may.
hewers of wood and drawers of water
The common people, the lowest sort, working class.
He who blows his own horn hurts other people's ears.
He who does what he should not, in time will suffer what he would not.
Hey,
diddle-diddle
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
(Nursery rhyme.)
hiccups
There are many folk cures given for hiccups. One cure is to put a cold knife
on the back of the hiccupper or have him stoop over, pick up a rock, spit
under the rock and then stand up straight, or hold his breath and count to
ten, or have some surprising, frightful news told him, even as a joke. Any
sudden surprise or fright is supposed to stop the hiccups. Still another cure
is to be able to say the following rhyme thus—
"Hiccup, hiccup,
Rise up, rise up,
Three sucks in the teacup
Is good for the hiccups."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
547
To repeat this three times in rapid succession without a single hiccup will
give a certain cure. Also, if one takes nine swallows of water, saying between
each swallow, "hiccup, hiccup," this will help to cure the hiccups. A
teaspoon of sugar held in the mouth until it dissolves cures the hiccups. An
old woman told me once to hold my hands above my head and that would
cure the hiccups. I don't remember now whether it did or not.
Hickory, dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one.
The mouse ran down,
Hickory, dickory dock.
(A recitation rhyme, also used
sometimes as a counting-out rhyme.)
Burn a hickory log and make a poultice of the ashes for shingles.
hickory nuts
The fruit of the hickory tree. In late fall we children used to have great fun
going into the woods with buckets or tow sacks and gathering the nuts that
had fallen to the ground, most of them already hulled or partly hulled from
striking the earth. And then came the cracking by the fireside and digging
the goodies out.
hickory shirt
A tough working shirt most often made of blue denim cloth.
hickory whetrock
The best of all possible whetstones, according to a Valley legend, but
legendary only. There is no such thing. But when I was a little boy, I was
told by an old colored man, Uncle Reuben (See "Ku Klux Klan"), that if
I put a piece of hickory wood in a creek where the water ran swiftly and
let it stay there a week or so it would turn into a whetrock. I tried it, and
for a week beat a path to the creek. No whetrock. Finally I got disgusted
and quit.
Hickory wood makes the best fire for curing barbecue, smoking meat and also
for courting.
Hide and Seek
One of the most popular of all children's hiding and running games, much
the same as "I Spy." "It" is agreed on or chosen by a counting-out rhyme.
A home base is selected, usually a tree. "It" counts, say, up to a hundred,
and the other players hide the while. At the end of the counting "It" usually
calls out — we did when we played it — ' 'Bushel of wheat, bushel of clover,
all ain't hid can't hide over! Coming, ready or not."
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And then the search for the hidden players would begin. If a player succeeded
in reaching home base before "It" could touch him, he was "home free"
and usually called out the fact when he made it. The last one found was
usually "It" for the next hiding, though sometimes we chose to let the one
who got home free first have that honor.
play hide and seek
To tease, lead one on.
hidebound
Narrow-minded, provincial person.
Hide the Thimble (Button)
A popular children's game. All the players except the one who is to be "It"
leave the room. The thimble, or some other small object like a button or
a coin, is hid then in some out of the way place, but not under or behind
anything. It must always be in plain view, much like Edgar Allan Poe's
purloined letter. Then "It" calls the other players in, and they begin to hunt
for the thimble. When one of the players is very close to the object, he can
call out "Am I hot?", and if not, "It" can say, "You're cold," etc. And
sometimes "It" can encourage a player by saying, "You're getting warm."
And when one finally finds the thimble, he usually calls out, "Here it is"
or "I found it." Then he becomes the "It" for the next game.
high as a Georgia pine
high as a kite
Hilariously drunk.
high as the sky
No limit.
highball
A sign of goodbye. "He gimme the highball and left."
high blood
High blood pressure.' 'My sister's got the high blood and can't work a lick.''
high cotton
In good shape, financial security. "I'm living in high cotton now — I'm
on Uncle Sam's payroll," said civil servant Jones.
The higher one climbs the more of his behind he shows. (I have heard that this
was one of Woodrow Wilson's favorite old proverbs.)
The higher they climb the farther they fall.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
549
high feather
Gleeful feelings.
high jinks
Pretentious doings, show-off proceedings.
highly height
Over-proud, superior. "Give my dogs cornbread and, man, they're highly
height.'' Mrs. Atlee Neville, who has been with us for forty years, says this
was a common saying as long as she can remember.
high on the hog
Rich living. "He eats high on the hog."
high pocket
An old worn-out prostitute.
high stepper
A proud acting, pretentious person, a show-off, a bold, fancy-dressed
woman.
highsterics
Hysterics.
hightantrabogus
Noisy times, loud doings.
high temper
Excessive feelings, especially of anger.
There is an old saying that a Scotsman's high temper is the worst of
all, for it is mixed in with stubbornness of will. This was well proved, at
least for once, in the case of Julgar McWhorter and his wife Coziah McQueen
McWhorter. Soon after they were married they got into a violent quarrel,
and in the height of their Scotch tempers, they swore never to speak to each
other again. And as far as anyone knows, they didn't. There they lived in
their little house, each in a separate room. But there was certainly some
visiting back and forth for they raised a family of six children. The oldest
son Darrach once told me that his pa and ma used to communicate with
each other through the children.' 'Tell your ma I see the chickens are eating
up her collards out there in the garden," Julgar might say. And she would
say, "Tell your pa I'll fix the other shirt tomorrow." At the same time she
might be handing Julgar the one she'd just finished.
high time
Due, past time. "It's high time you was here."
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highty-tighty
Proud, disdainful, uppish.
high water mark
A record performance or attainment, a high point of excellence.
high, wide and handsome
Prideful, braggish, and bold. "He cut a streak with the ladies high, wide
and handsome, and that was his downfall."
hikum-strikes
Hysterics, a wild outburst of temper.
hill
One single yielding planted source. "Yessir, I got a peck of potatoes on the
average from a single hill."
hill (hill-up)
To plough a crop such as cotton or tobacco for the last time, same as to lay by.
hill of beans
A term of comparison. "With his mammy spoiling him to death he won't
amount to a hill of beans."
hill potatoes
To store potatoes.
We used to put down a good bedding of pine straw, then carefully pile
the potatoes on the straw in a tapering heap. More straw was then put over
these potatoes and covered with dirt, with an airhole at the top, much like
an Indian's tepee. Then we would get busy and put a shelter over the hill.
Usually we would have hard luck. Too often they would go through a sweat
and would rot badly. In these later times, the farmers have learned how to
cure their potatoes indoors, give them air, and so protect them from rotting.
hills
hilt
A woman's breasts. It is magically put in Shakespeare's song — "Hide, oh
hide, those hills of snow."
Held. "The cold weather's hilt the cabbage plants back, and we ain't got
none yet."
hindforemost
The hind part before.
suck the hind tit
To get the worst of a matter or to have the leavings, to be mistreated.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
551
hind wheels of nowhere
Outlandish, crazy looking.
to have on the hip
To have the advantage of, to be in the driver's seat over another.
hippen
A baby's diaper.
hippity hop
Hopping along like a toad or rabbit.
to walk with one's hips
Said of a woman who moves her hips and buttocks sexily as she walks.
hip-shotten
Crippled, awkward.
hisn
His.
his nibs
A term of high praise, though sometimes satirical, a big shot, a proud boss.
"There sat his nibs all swelled out in his white shirt front and that hussy
threw a big glass of red wine all over him. Uhm, what a come-down."
his tail draggin'
Said of a coward, also of one discouraged.
h'isted
Hoisted.
h 'ist one
To take a dram.
History repeats itself.
He who knows no history is doomed to repeat it.
hit
To succeed, to mature. "If my cotton hits this year, I'll make a bale to the
acre."
hit-and-run marriage
A very brief marriage.
hitch
To tangle as in a fight.
To get married.
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An unexpected difficulty, a confounding turn of events.
hitch your wagon to a star
Have high ambition, high ideals.
hit if off
To agree easily, work well together, to suit one another.
hit it up
To speed up.
hit-off
To imitate, to impersonate. "That fat baldheaded fellow could hit-off
William Jennings Bryan to a tee."
hits where you hold it
Said of strong liquor.
hit the deck
To sleep, to fling oneself prone under an air attack.
hit the grit
To go, to move, to hurry. "Looks like a cloud coming up, we'd better hit
the grit."
hit the sawdust trail
Process of repentance and confession of sins.
hit where it hurts
To touch on a sensitive subject.
hit where one lives
Has to do with one's main interest.
play hob
To mess things up, to hurt badly. "Liquor has just played hob with poor
Rassie Taylor."
hobbledehoy
A stripling youth, an awkward fellow.
hobby horse
A chosen practice or favorite thing, a hug-to-the-bosom idea, thing or
person. "Perpetual motion is his hobby horse, and he'll ride it till he goes
crazy or something."
hobnob
To associate closely with, to be pals.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
553
hock
The leg end of a ham, including the bones and the joint, often referred to
as ham-hock.
in hock
On pawn, mortgaged, in debt.
hockey
Dung, human excrement, ordure, feces. "Take that boy out'n here — he's
got hockey all over his foot."
"You wanter go hockey, son?"
"Yes, Pa."
"Come on then."
hockset
Hogshead.
hocus-pocus
Tricky dealings, witchery.
Hoe your own row.
hoecake
Bread made of cornmeal mixed with water and seasoned with salt and baked
on a blade of an old-timey hoe.
hoe hands
Laborers hired to hoe and thin young cotton and chop grass from crops.
hog
A carpenter's or mason's term, meaning a hump or bulgy excrescence out
of a straight line. "That wall's got a hog in it."
A hog runs for his life, a dog for his character.
If a hog carries a stick in its mouth, it is a sign of bad weather.
The greediest hog is the poorest.
Root hog or die.
It's whole hog or none.
hog bladders
'Way back it wasn't easy to get fircrackers to make bedlam noise at
Christmas. We often saved up dried hog bladders if hog-killing had come
on before Christmas. We would blow these up and then burst them with
a great pounce. The trouble was there weren't enough bladders to go around.
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hog killing
That exciting time in winter — the cold weather being right — when the
"fattening hogs," which have been penned up and gorged with corn and
kitchen slops for weeks, are killed for the year's meat. My father, a typical
Valley farmer, would be up in the freezing weather before daybreak and
get a roaring fire going around the two big iron pots in the backyard to heat
water for scalding the hogs and getting the hair off. A few neighbors would
come in to help us as we helped them—something of a community enterprise,
though of course much smaller than a cornshucking.
A large hole was dug in the ground to hold a sloping barrel with the
open end up and the lip leaning out. When the water in the pots was near
the boiling point ready for scalding the hogs (now that day had "done
broke"), we would move to the pigpen. The fat waddling pigs would push
their eager snouts between the rails of the fence grunting for their accustomed
gift of food. But death as the final gift awaited them in the shape of the
lifted axe whose butt would come down in a mighty thudding smack in their
foreheads. And they died one by one with a protesting and supplicating
squeal that perished gurgling in their mouths.
Quick as thinking almost, each one's throat was cut by a sharp butcher
knife to let the spoiling blood out. Then the bodies were hauled or dragged
to the waiting barrel which had been filled with the boiling water. The bodies
were lowered head first into the barrel and sloshed and turned about for
a good scalding and then jerked out onto some spread-out planks or
'' outsides," these latter being the sawed barked strippings from lumber logs.
Flashing butcher knives, sharpened to razor-edge keenness, went swiftly
to work scraping off the scalded and loosened hair — rumps, sides, legs,
necks, heads, ears, noses — all.
Next, the now naked and white gleaming bodies were hung up along
a stout scaffolding pole, with a gambrel stick inserted in their now bared
heelstrings (tendons) to hold them up. Then came the gutting and pulling
out the pile of entrails or guts as we always called them, followed by the
haslet (liver, heart, lights), and the milt (spleen, pronounced' 'melt" by us).
The empty belly caverns of the hogs were next washed out by deluges of
cold water which passed bloodily and freely down and out through the slitted
throats.
The guts were piled on a big outdoor table and the helping women (my
mother was busy in the kitchen cooking the midday meal — always called
' 'dinner'' and never' 'lunch'') would get to work trimming the fat away from
the guts and ridding them. This ridding was done by taking sections of the
guts, washing them and inserting a long smooth withe or stick in them and
packing them each on the stick in wrinkled layers. Then the sections would
be pulled off in reverse, thus turning the guts inside out. These were
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
555
thoroughly washed and then some of them cut up in fine pieces which were
later to be cooked as chitlins. These were supposed to be a real delicacy.
Other guts were set aside to be stuffed later for sausage.
The bodies of the hogs were left hanging with the sides of their bellies
propped open by gambrels so that they could cool faster. Later in the
afternoon when death and the freezing weather had stiffened them
sufficiently, they were laid on the big table and cut up, the heads cut off
first, then the backbones taken out, and next the hams, shoulders and
middlings separated. The hams were of first importance, then the shoulders
and last the middlings — each as to the amount of lean meat in it.
It was the custom of courtesy to offer the neighbor helpers a haslet,
or a backbone, or a head — each stating his own choosing. As I remember,
our Negro helpers usually chose a backbone or a haslet and the white
neighbors more often than not took nothing, saying they were "mighty glad
to help you, Billy, just the way you help me."
After supper my father with Roy McNeill, our one tenant — and
sometimes my mother and some of us children too, if allowed from getting
up our school lessons — would go out to the smokehouse — as we called
the little one-room house across from the kitchen — and there trim the meat
and salt it away. I can still see my father's big toil-hardened hand almost
lovingly rubbing the salt hard against a ham to make it sink in better.
Later on, the leaner pieces of trimmed-of f meat were ground up in our
little hand-turned sausage grinder and stuffed in guts chosen for that purpose.
The stomach sacs when filled with ground sausage meat were called Tom
Thumbs, why, I've never been able to find out.
The next day, with some of the women helpers back, the trimmed-off
pieces of fat were boiled in the iron pot and turned (rendered) into lard.
Next the tails, ears, noses, and feet of the pigs were cooked and souse meat
made from them. The heads were hatchet-opened and the brains removed
for cooking, usually with scrambled eggs — choice eating. The dried residue
pieces remaining from the lard-rendering were ground up, seasoned with
pepper, garden sage and salt and patted into large rounded balls of
"cracklings."
Now and then our hog-killing would be large enough for us to have
some extra porkers for sale at the market in Raleigh, thirty miles away. This
was a full day's trip each way. One doleful time I'll never forget. I was a
little boy and at last had the happy privilege of going with my father. The
almanac had prophesied cold weather, and it was cold the morning we "killed
hogs." Then it turned to summer's heat as it often does in the South. We
were delayed in getting off and, hurry the two mules as we could, we arrived
at the old Raleigh Market House just as it was closing.
Too late!
During the night my father tried in vain to find some ice to put on the
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five porkers in the wagon. The next day the inspector sniffed our pigs, shook
his head and said they were beginning to spoil and he couldn't pass them.
I can still see his swift energetic and somewhat hairy hand as it slapped the
rubber stamp on a pig with the big screaming word "Condemned." And
I can still see too the stricken look on my father's face, his begging mouth
saying "no, no!"
Now the long desolate all-day road back home again. It was dark when
we got there, but the children — Mary, Hugh, little arm-baby Gladys (Caro
Mae and Erma hadn't been born) — were waiting by the road at the old
branch a few hundred yards from the house with a lantern. They had been
long waiting to welcome us home and to get at the precious gifts we had
promised to bring them. Grief and weepings at the dreadful news! Mary
put her hand on one of the pigs and said, "Poorpig, I'msorry." But it was
poor mother when we got to the house.
"Go get Rory," my father said to me and Hugh. We went across the
field and got him. Out in the field we dug a big hole. I still remember how
bright the moon shone. Our lantern light was hardly needed. The wagon
was backed up to the hole, the pigs dragged out and dumped in and covered.
Later I put down on paper in a little short story the account of this
occasion entitled "Burial by Moonlight." But there was no way I could tell
in words the full grief we all felt nor make anyone hear the stifled sobbing
of my mother.
Also refers to a hilarious party.
hog pen
A messy room or place. "You ought to a-seen his house after they took his
body out — a plumb hog pen it was."
hog's heaven
A muck and a mire, any harum-scarum dishevelment, as a topsy-turvy
bedroom.
hog wallow
A mudhole in which hogs like to lie. Also a messy house.
hogwash
Bad liquor, also worthless journalism and political barnstorming.
go the whole hog
Complete a job, finish a promise, go all out for.
the old ho-hum
A dull happening, the usual foretold result, especially used in regard to
professional wrestling matches.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
557
hoigh
High. A pronunciation now pretty much gone from the Valley.
holdback straps
Straps fastened to the shafts of a buggy and then snapped into the breeching
of a harness which the horse or mule can press against to hold the buggy
or carriage back in going down a hill.
holding the bag
Usually as "left holding the bag." To be bamboozled, fooled, made a
scapegoat.
holding up
Same as holding on or holding his own.
hold it
Stop, wait.
hold on
To wait. "Hold on a minute before you go off half-cocked."
hold one's own
To stay about the same, in sickness making a good fight.' 'The way Lamar
Lunsford holds his own is something to behold, him 80 years old."
hold out
To refuse to yield, also to continue to live when critically ill. "Poor Mis'
Minty, she's still holding out."
hold the fort (phone)
Be patient, wait, take one's time before acting.
hold tight
Be careful, wary, wait.
hold up
To stop, to halt. Also to withstand age well. "I saw Frank Graham yesterday
and in spite of his years, he's holding up well."
hold water
To stand up in a test, to be the truth.' 'That fellow's story won't hold water.''
hold with
To approve, to agree. "Brother Green doesn't hold with that racial
business."
hold your horses
Wait a bit, be patient, take it easy, much the same as hold the fort.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
hold your jaw
Stop your comment, quit criticizing.
hold your water
Stay calm, don't get upset.
burn a hole in one's pocket
Said of money in possession of a spendthrift.
hole in the head
Foolish judgment, silly-headed.
holier than thou
A pious, hypocritical person.
holler Lord and follow devil
To preach one thing and do the opposite, hypocrisy.
hollow
The stomach, also a little valley between two hills.
When I was a little boy I heard the term used for the stomach in a way
I've never forgot. It was court Monday in Lillington, our county seat, and
I was there with my father. On our way to our buggy to return home we
passed the courthouse. A crowd was gathered in front, ringing around the
two white men. We stopped and I, being small, pushed through where I
could see better. These men, one big and pot-bellied, the other lean and wiry,
were facing each other with long-bladed pocket knives. The people, believe
it or not, were egging them on with derisive and challenging calls. "Why
don't you fellows fight?" "Who's scared of who?" "Aw, they're both
scared, that's what," and so on.
I noted that the big man's face was almost cotton pale and the little
fellow's a fiery red. Suddenly the little man flew at the big one, quick as
a flash his knife going in swift slashings against the big man's belly. The
big man threw up his hands with a moan, the knife dropped from his hands,
and holding his arms across his belly he sank to the ground, the pouring
blood beginning to stain his hands. "Lord God," hescreamed, "he'skilled
me — he's done cut me to the hollow!"
My father grabbed me by the hand. "Come on, he said, "This ain't
no place for us."
Later my father said Dr. Joe McKay told him the man died where he
lay before he could get there to help him — "which I couldn't a-done
anyhow," he said. As for the little man we heard he was put under a peace
bond for a while, but never was tried — his act, the grand jury said, being
in self-defense.
hollow as a drum
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
559
hollow as a gourd
hollow as a horn
all hollow
Thoroughly, completely. "In the election he got beat all hollow."
hollow between the eyes
Empty-headed, lacking in brains.
hollow-hearted
Insincere, deceitful.
hollow horn
A disease of cattle. In the Valley I've known sick cows to have the horn sawed
off, the folk diagnosis of the cow doctor demanding it. Sometimes the horn
stubs got infected and the poor animal died in great suffering.
holly
A popular evergreen tree. It never grows as large or tall as the big oaks and
pines, but I have seen a few with bodies eighteen inches in diameter near
the ground.
In winter when the holly berries are red it is much used for Christmas
decoration. The leaves have little spiny points, and we young folks used to
tell fortunes by these spines, especially as to sweethearts. We would start
with spine one as A and go on down the alphabet to the end. The catch for
me at first was that my girl's name was so far down the alphabet that the
spines too often gave out before I got to the letter beginning either her given
(Christian) or surname. But since from my earliest day I have had a devious
nature, I got around it by choosing the letter from her name I wanted and
so was comforted and with no conscience pang at all.
A decoction made from the berries was for a long, long time used in
the Valley and elsewhere as a good medicine for coughs and colds. Also,
the bark of this tree, when chewed, was good for the teeth.
One of the most beautiful of all nativity songs to me is " The Holly and
the Ivy."
"The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood
The holly bears the crown."
"The rising of the sun
And the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir."
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Some scholars say that the subject matter of this carol is perhaps pagan
and symbolizes the masculine (the holly) and the feminine (ivy) principle
and perhaps was sung as a dance between "lads and maids." "The merry
organ" occurs in Chaucer's "Nonnes Preestes Tale."
The holly bark was much used long ago as a source of bird lime, which
was spread on limbs of trees to catch small birds in its viscous, sticky
substance.
holp
holt
Help. "Yesterday in Belk's store the Negro clerk said, 'Kin I holp you.' "
Grip.
holts
Time at bat in a country ball game. "It's our holts now, and you fellows
get out on the field."
as holy as God
Remember the sabbath to keep it holy.
holy cats!
An interjection.
Holy Communion
A religious sacrament in which the bread and wine used actually become,
for the fundamentalist believers, the body and blood of Jesus Christ himself.
Thus in eating the bread and drinking the wine they are partaking of Christ's
body and drinking his blood. All reason repudiates this, but then only in
the repudiation can this sort of religion be most strongly affirmed, so it seems.
holy cow!
An interjection.
holy dance
Spasmodic jerks and jumps indulged in by religious fanatics when caught
in the fervor of their religion, especially indulged in by the Pentecostal sects
or Holy Rollers.
Holy Ghost
The third Person of the Trinity, the others being God the Father and God
the Son. The three are described in sacred writings as sitting in Heaven with
the Son on the right hand of God and the Holy Ghost on the left, the right
being a place of higher honor than the left.
The story of Jesus is like the story of all the founders of the world's
different religions — miraculous. Belief in miracles is a part of religions
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
561
and has to be. Luke in 1:30-32 says that the angel said to the virgin, "Fear
not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt
conceive in thy womb (en gastri) and bring forth a son and shall call his name
Jesus (Salvation). He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest,
and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David."
And Matthew adds his testimony saying,' 'Now the birth of Jesus was
in this wise: When his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they
came together, she was found of child of the Holy Ghost."
In Mark, John the Baptist says that after him came one (Jesus) mightier
than he "the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and
unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water but he shall baptize you with
the Holy Ghost." And in John, Jesus in his own words says of the Holy
Ghost, "But the Comforter (Parakletos) which is the Holy Ghost, whom
the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring
all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."
It is interesting that John uses the personal pronoun "he" (ekeinos,
that one, that person) rather than an indefinite "it."
But of course it is the nature of the miraculous to be too much for full
statement in anything, language, signs, symbols or whatnot other than itself.
It is interesting, too, to note that in Buddhism the scriptures of that
religion tell how the spirit (the ghost) that was to become the Buddha, the
enlightened one, was at first a free spirit in heaven (small h here) and of
his (its) own free will entered the womb of the beautiful Maya to be born
into the world as the Way of Salvation for struggling man, he (it) the savior
of the world.
And this Buddha, six hundred years before Christ, taught that man
should live for his belief, not die — the opposite of what Jesus later taught.
When I consider the thousands and thousands of people who have died and
caused others to die for the Christian faith, the more I am inclined to favor
Buddha.
holy jerks
Same as the holy jumps and the holy dance.
holy mackerel!
An interjection.
holy Moses!
An interjection.
Holy Rollers
A fervent religious sect, given to outlandish jerks, jumps, and foamy
gibberish tongues when filled with the "spirit."
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holy smoke!
A mild expletive.
holy terror
A renegade, a rambunctious person.
Holy Yowlers
Shouting religionists, usually Holy Rollers.
East or west,
Home is best.
Home is where the heart is.
Home is where you hang your hat.
Four walls do not make a Home.
There's no place like Home.
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
He lives at home and boards at the same place.
nothing to write home about
Of poor quality, nothing exceptional.
home base
One's domicile, also the goal.
home free
Reaching a goal without cost or penalty.
Home-keeping hearts are happiest.
homeplace
One's birthplace or where one grew up.
homespun
Plain, honest, sincere. "Abraham Lincoln was a homespun man, and one
look at him and you could trust him."
"Home, Sweet Home"
The famous old-time song that everyone knows about but no one sings
anymore. Lyrics by John Howard Payne and music by Henry R. Bishop.
Its line, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home," has become
a folk proverb.
hone
To hunger for, yearn for, to love. "He kept honing after that girl till they
had to shut him up in Dix Hill."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
563
honest as the day is long
honest injun!
A mild oath, like "cross my heart and hope to die." Usually a forefinger
or several fingers are held up as "injun" sign.
honest John
Any honest person.
An honest man is the noblest work of God.
An honest man's word is as good as his bond.
honest to God!
An expletive.
honest to goodness
Beyond doubt, absolutely trustworthy, also used as an asseveration.' 'Honest
to goodness, I didn't mean to hurt you.'' "He's an honest to goodness man.''
the honest truth
An intensive expression. "To tell the honest truth, I don't know what to
do about the war in Vietnam."
Honesty is the best policy.
a honey
A fine thing, a good job, first rate.
Make yourself all honey and the flies will devour you.
You may be honey but the bees don't know it.
Give doses of honey mixed with ashes of burnt holly leaves for bad colds.
honey bunch
A term of endearment.
honey dew
An exudation often seen on bushes in May or June, especially in dry hot
weather. It is a sticky sweet substance and shines in the light like a silvery
glistening oil. It was supposed to be especially good when licked or eaten
for girls' health and beauty.
honey-fuggle
To cajole, to wheedle, to play with sexually.
honey mouth
Sweet talking, insincere flattery.
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honey pot
A sexually sweet woman.
honeysuckle
A pestiferous vine with small white or yellow tubular-shaped blossoms. Their
heavenly smell even surpasses that of the magnolia — to me it does. It seems
to thrive under any and all conditions, and nothing it loves better than to
wrap its twisting self around newly-planted loblolly pines. Its fruit is a little
black berry about the size of a pea and in old days was supposed to be a
good emetic as well as cathartic. Very clever of it to have it both ways —
or ends.
hongries (hungries)
"Yessuh, Mr. Green," said Purefoy as we were chopping in the garden
one day, "they's all kinds of hongries, like my pappy said, and some of
'em causes sin and some of 'em don't."
"I guess you're right about that, Purefoy," I said promptingly.
"Well, suh, first comes the little hongry. Then after about two days
the middle-sized hongry shows up, and you're thinking 'bout stealing, but
you ain't done it yit. Yessuh, yo' haid is busting slam fit to kill and they's
a right brief growling going on under yo' bellyband."
"You've never been that hungry, Purefoy."
"Oh, yessuh, I been 'bout that hongry 'fore I come to work for you.
And my pappy 'fore he died said he'd been hongrier than that. Yessuh, on
the third or fo'th day, when you ain't had nothing but branch water and
some hickory buds you chewed on, that old big hongry has got you. Then
what you reckon happens? Why, you go clipping round the white man's
kitchen with yo' tongue hanging out. And too bad if they ain't nobody home,
for the next thing you knows yo' hand done gone sliding under somebody's
window. And if the reach is too long, then you'll be grabbling in the slop
bucket. Yessuh, my daddy said they ain't no man safe against sin long as
them hongries is running loose in the world."
"I believe he was right about that, Purefoy."
"Yessuh, he was right. And he knowed a lot of things 'fore they put
him in that 'lectric chair."
honk around
To drive around on a lark.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
hoodoo (voodoo)
Any person or thing which can bring bad luck, an evil charm.
Going into the colored section of Chapel Hill one day to get our cook,
I saw in the sandy path leading to the house some strange marks and crisscross
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
565
finger-draggings, as it were. I looked at them and when Mary came out on
the porch, I pointed them out. She let out a little scream, and started to run
back into the house and then stopped and held on to the door lintel.
"What in the world is the matter, Mary?" I asked.
"Lord, Mr. Green, somebody's been here in the night and tried to
hoodoo me. Them marks is a hoodoo." And she shook with fright.
"Behave yourself, Mary, there's nothing to it. See, I'm going to wipe
'em out." So I squatted down on the ground and smoothed out the marks
and stamped on them. "Now, all their power's gone," I said.
"Are you sure of that, Mr. Green?"
"Absolutely, Mary." And somewhat mollified she came down the
porch to go get into the car, but I noticed that she stepped around the
voodooed spot in the path.
hooey
Hot air, foolishness, political promises.
hooey!
A command or shout at a hog to leave, same as sooey.
on the hoof
Alive, unslaughtered. " I'll pay 10 cents a pound for them hogs on the hoof.''
hoof and mouth disease
A phrase applicable to a boasting, loud-talking person.
The hook is hidden by the bait.
one's own hook
Accountability, responsibility. "He acted on his own hook."
on the hook
In a tough situation.
hook or crook
Devious means, in spite of difficulties. "By hook or crook he got there."
hookers
The horns of cattle.
hookworm
Any of certain parasitic nematode worms. See "ground itch." Pellagra and
hookworm diseases years ago were for a long while Yankee-given attributes
to the Old South, and then came Franklin D. Roosevelt's description,
"economic problem number one." But that is all changed. The South is
now perhaps the healthiest place in the country, and since the "sun belt"
craze has struck, it is the fastest growing. But all has come a little late for,
say, Melinda Chapin and her five illegitimate children.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
This family lived in our neighborhood, and in addition to having the
shame of bastardy on them, they were afflicted with hookworm. And they
were filthy and stank more than a hot compost heap. You could smell them
almost before you could see them. The welfare lady kept sending them to
the hospital in Fayetteville where they'd be treated for a while, and then
they'd come home no better than when they left. Finally "Doctor" Cicero
East made up a tea from the wild ginger and wintergreen plants and fed
it to them by the quart. They recovered from their hookworm, but he never
did get them so they didn't stink.
hootchy-kootchy
Sexy. "At the fair in Raleigh I seen them hootchy-kootchy girls in a sideshow
— and uhm — uhm, their body works and dancing set me a-far, hear me,
set me a-far."
Hoover cart
A makeshift conveyance.
During the deep recession of the 1930's, many people, especially
farmers, unable to pay for gas or the upkeep of their automobiles, took
wheels from them and fitted them on carts or wagon axles, and pulled them
by a horse or mule. Hence, the term and one of no honor to an honest and
innocently involved president.
hop a ride
To get a free ride, especially from a motorist. "Can I hop a ride with you
up the road, mister?" "Sure, hop in."
Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
Hope for the best, but get ready for the worst.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
While there's life there's hope.
Live in hope if you die in despair.
hop over the broomstick
To get married.
hoppergrass
A grasshopper.
hopping-John
A dish of black-eyed peas cooked with hog jowl for New Year's dinner.
hopple
Hobble.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
567
Hopscotch
Perhaps the most popular of all children's games especially with young girls.
It needs no equipment other than a puck, or very small block or chip of
wood and not much space, just five by some fifteen feet of level surface
— ground or sidewalk. It is therefore suitable for both city and country life.
As for players — any number can play, from one challenging himself to
ten competing with one another. The playing area is marked off in squares,
rectangles and triangles, numbered from one to ten. The puck is dropped
in number one, and the player on one foot hops along and hop-punches
the puck from successive place to place. If he hops into a line or the puck
stops on a line or in the wrong space, the player is out or has to start over.
The above describes the way we children played it, but there are numerous
variations.
Hop, Skip and Jump
An athletic game. Usually a base is marked and those in the contest will
take a running start and spring with one foot on this base, land on the other
foot, and then take a wide skip and final jump.
Also reference to a short distance. "It's only a hop, skip and a jump from
Chapel Hill to Durham."
hop to it
A command to start working, to get a move on.
horn
The nose. "You ought to hear Ty Guthrie blow his horn."
The penis.
horn book
A school book protected by a horn covering especially for children in the
early stages of learning; popular in colonial days when many children had
to use the same primer.
horn colic
Sexual hunger on the part of a male.
He toots his own horn.
Self-praising.
have the horn sawed off
Tamed down, to be taken down a peg or two, discomfited.
hornin' in
Meddling, intruding.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
hornpipe
A type of fiddling music.
Take the bull by the horns.
Let the horns go with the hide.
horn snake
A fabulous snake supposed to haunt the woods of the Valley. This snake
has a horn in the end of its tail shaped like the end of a spear or like an
arrowhead, and when he jabs this horn into a tree, the tree will die.
hornswoggle
To hoax.
horny
Sensual male.
horny-handed
Rough-handed, brutal.
horny head
A small chub-like fish.
horoscope
A modern popular folk superstition. The reading of one's fortune and
foretelling the future by the relation of the planets and the signs of the zodiac.
Many newspapers and all almanacs still carry these horoscopes. The News
and Observer has a daily rendering.
horrors!
Exclamation.
horrors
Delirium tremens.
horse
To frolic about, to act loosely with the opposite sex, usually "horse around.''
A cross-legged frame on which wood or timber is placed for cutting, same
as the sawhorse. I remember reading a long time ago about how Abraham
Lincoln and a neighbor tried to outdo each other in swapping horses. The
neighbor had a sorry horse and, meeting Lincoln, said he would trade his
horse sight unseen to any one that he had. Lincoln said, "You mean any
kind of a horse? "The man said, "Sure." Lincolnsaid, "The trade is made."
Then he took the neighbor around and handed him his sawhorse.
One white foot, buy him.
Two white feet, try him.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
569
Three white feet, look well about him.
Four white feet, do without him.
(Wisdom rhyme.)
Don't beat a dead horse.
Don't spur a willing horse.
eats like a horse
A free horse rides easy.
A good horse never lacks a saddle.
Tis a good horse that never stumbles.
A lean horse for a long race.
A short horse is soon curried.
He looks for the horse he rides on.
You can take (lead) a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
horse and buggy days
Before the time of the automobile.
horse apples
A big, luscious apple, especially preferred in the making of cider.
horse around
To fool about among the women, to fly around.
horseback opinion
A hurried judgment or opinion, guesswork.
horse block
A block usually with a step cut in its side for mounting horses. You can still
see these old horse blocks here and there in front of old-timey houses.
horse colic
Can be cured by burning some turpentine in the hollow of its hoof.
horse collar
The female pudenda.
To silence, to shame, to expose. "When he said that, I stood up and told
him the truth and put the horse collar on him."
horsefly weed
The farmers used to fasten this weed in their horses' bridles to keep flies
away. It was also a good medicinal plant. One ounce of boiled root to one
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pint of hot water made a good tonic.
gift horse
A gift that is suspect, as in the old saying about "Never look a gift horse
in the mouth."
horse-guard
A flying, beetle-like insect about the size of a horsefly that attacks flies and
other animal-pestering insects.
horse hair
There's a superstition that if a horse hair is put in running water it will turn
to a snake.
horse nettle
See "apple of Sodom."
horse of another color
A different matter, a contrary fact or proposition.
Don't swap (change) horses in the middle of the stream.
hold your horses
Be patient, wait a bit. Same as hold the phone.
play horses and mares
Sexual copulation.
horse's ass
A term of mild contempt.
horseshoe
The horseshoe is a well-known object in folklore. When I built my cabin
down below my house years ago, I found a horseshoe and, of course, put
it up in front of the door with the prongs up so that the good luck wouldn't
leak out.
The female pudenda, same as horse collar.
Horseshoes
A game of skill. Two pegs are driven into the ground a chosen distance apart,
say some twenty or twenty-five feet. The players usually are allowed two
horseshoes each. They stand at one peg and cast the shoes singly at the other.
The main purpose is to ring the horseshoe around the peg. If one player
does that and a following player rings on top of him, the first player's ring
is canceled. If the player's second cast rings on top of the two he gets a score
— in our counting — of five. A leaner counts three and the shoe nearest
the peg when there is neither a ringer nor a leaner counts for one and the
right to shoot first, now back at the other peg.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
571
the horse's mouth
Authority. "I got it straight from the horse's mouth."
ride two horses at the same time
A divided effort, a bad effort doomed to failure.' 'He tried to ride two horses
at the same time, and no wonder he fell off both," that is, went bankrupt.
horse-swapping
A custom of long standing in the Valley. In nearly every county seat during
court week the swappers would be busy. They usually showed up in town
at that time with a dozen or so horses in tow and set up business in a back
lot. And in the swapping it was understood by the buyer that he took all
the risk. More often than not he regretted he did. The coming of the
automobile ended this folk custom.
horsey
Sexually frolicsome, smart-alecky.
horsing
A mare in heat.
George Moses Norton
A Negro slave poet, one of the most remarkable men ever associated with
the University of North Carolina. Dr. Kemp P. Battle in his "History of
the University" gives this brief biography of Horton.
' 'He was a good servant, generally working on the farm of his master,
James Horton, but, whenever he wished, allowed to hire his time at fifty
cents a day. On such occasions he would visit Chapel Hill and write for the
students acrostics on the names of their sweethearts. When his employer
was willing to pay fifty cents, the poem was generously gushing. Twentyfive cents procured one more lukewarm in passion. He flourished from 1840
to 1860. About 1850 he published a book of poems in paper. After the Civil
War he published another edition bound in boards. The book is rare. There
is a copy in the Boston Public Library.
"Horton was of medium height, dark, but not black. His manner was
courteous, his moral character good. Like Byron, Burns, and Poe he often
quenched the divine spark with unpoetic whisky. He lived near Chapel Hill
until the advent of the Federal Cavalry in 1865. He accompanied a Union
General to Philadelphia after the Civil War. He left a son and a daughter,
who no longer reside in this neighborhood. I give extracts from poems, one
of nine verses on the Pleasures of a Bachelor's Life, and the other of six
verses on the Pains of a Bachelor's Life.
O tell me not of Wedlock's charms,
Nor busy Hymen's galling chain,
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But rather let me fold my arms
From pleasures which will end in pain.
Tis true the primogenial flower
Arose to pleasure in Eden's grove,
But did she not as soon devour
The silly bee that sought her love?
Then with content remain alone,
But still on wings of pleasure soar,
The storms of life will soon be gone,
Perhaps, and to return no more.
Without a surly wife to scold,
Or children to disturb your mind,
To pillage o'er your chest for gold,
And spend for trifles what they find.
Pains of a Bachelor's Life
When Adam dwelt in Eden's shade,
His state was joyless there;
He then the general scene surveyed,
No true delight the world displayed
To him without the fair.
His mind was like the ocean's wave
When rolling to and fro;
He seemed a creature doomed to crave,
Too melancholy to be brave,
When no true pleasures flow.
At length a smiling woman rose,
A bone from his own side,
The scene of pleasure to disclose
And lull him into soft repose,
The raptures of a bride.
Young bachelor who'er thou art,
Thy pleasures are but rare;
A thorn will never pierce thy heart
Until fond nature takes its part
Of comfort with the fair.
"Horton was entirely self-taught, picking up his A B C's from scraps
of papers which accidentally came into his way. Then he gained possession
of a spelling book. He conned over such of Wesley's Hymns as he had learned
by heart, while listening to the singers. And so, entirely unaided by
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
573
instruction, he made the acquaintance of Grammar and Prosody and read
many books, given or loaned to him by the students. One of his earliest poems
began thus,
At length the silver queen begins to rise
And spread her glowing mantle in the skies,
And from the smiling chambers of the east,
Invites the eye to her resplendent feast."
Encouraged by some Northern friends, Horton moved to Philadelphia
in 1866. At that time it was a city of some half a million people with a colony
of twenty thousand Negroes. Segregation was in force there, even as in the
South. However, Horton was much praised and somewhat petted by the
Northerners for awhile. Professor Collier Cobb, a professor at the University
of North Carolina, says Richard Walser, visited Horton in 1883 and found
him in good health and apparently satisfied with the honoring he was
receiving. When Professor Cobb addressed him as "poet," he replied, "You
are using the proper title." The date of his death is not known, nor where
he is buried.
His poetry now is received as undistinguished verse, pretty much mere
rhyming. But what an inspiring life!
hoss
Horse. To tease, to blackguard, to annoy. "Don't hoss me, big boy!"
Hoss and a flea and a couple-a mice
Settin' in a corner shooting dice.
Hoss crope up and fell on the flea.
Flea cried out, "That's a hoss on me."
hoss-cake
A half affectionate, half derogatory form of address. "Lookout, hoss-cake,
you'll rupture yourself straining at that handspike."
hossing 'round
Same as to horse around, chasing loose women.
hostess heat
Housekeeping fervor and frenzy in preparation for the coming of company.
hot
Illegal, stolen. "That bicycle's hot — better leave it alone."
Sexually excited.
In good shape, first-rate condition. "That pitcher was hot and I struck out
three times."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
not so hot
Unacceptable, of poor workmanship. "His plans for that outdoor theatre
are not so hot, if you ask me."
hot as a fire coal
hot as a hen in a wool blanket
hot as a mink
Sexually potent, usually with reference to a sexually excited female.
hot as an oven
hot as a pistol
hot as blue blazes
hot as fire
hot as fleury (fury)
hot as ginger (pepper)
hot as hell
hot as pepper
hot as red pepper
hot as the devil
hot as the hinges of hell
both hot and cold
Two-faced, unreliable.
hot and heavy
Energetically, excessively, with much force. "She went to scrubbing the
floors hot and heavy."
hot box
High temper. "That Mamie'll get a hot box in a minute if you cross her."
A tight situation. Also an erotic woman.
hot chair (seat)
The electric chair.
hot damn! hot dog! etc.
Mild expletives.
hot day in January
An indefinite time, that is, never. "It'll be a hot day in January before I
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
575
kowtow to him."
hotfoot
Restless. Also, the sadistic game of striking a match and attaching it to the
foot of a person who is unaware of the act until his flesh begins to burn.
hot line
A voluble and persuasive line of talk, convincing salesmanship.
Hot love is soon cold.
hot off the fire (the griddle)
New, brand-spanking new.
to have a hot on
To be sexually excited.
hot pepper
Speeded up rope jumping.
the hot place
Hell.
hot spot
A tough situation.
hot stuff
First rate, high class.
hotter than a two-dollar pistol
A measure of anger, also of dexterity. "That pool-player was hotter than
a two-dollar pistol — nothing could stop him."
"A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight"
A popular Tin-Pan Alley tune. This was another song we sang in the fields,
usually the chorus only, this being the only part we knew by heart. Its fourfour time went well with the rhythm of our chopping hoes. The lyric was
written by Joe Hayden and music by Theo Metz and became a popular
soldiers' marching song in the Spanish-American War. It is — in what in
old parlance was called — "a coon song."
"When you hear dem bells
go ding, ling, ling,
All join round and sweetly you must sing.
And when the verse am through,
In the chorus all join in,
There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight."
A man who mistreats his hound will beat his wife.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
hounds
The diagonal bases in a wagon which are used to come together and brace
the coupling pole.
He runs with the hounds and holds with the hares.
A deceiving opportunist.
hour by the sun
An hour after sunrise. "Me out here picking cotton since daybreak, and
here you show up an hour by the sun."
An hour can destroy what an age has built.
house
To harvest. "By the middle of October he had housed all his crops."
like a house a-fire
In a hurry, tempestuous.
out of house and home
Financial failure, poverty.' 'The way things are going we'll be et out of house
and home."
In my Father's house are many mansions.
It's a sorry house in which the woman wears the britches.
A man's house is his castle.
Do your housekeeping in the mouth of the bag, not at the bottom.
house not made with hands
A dream house, an imagined home.
There is scriptural reference to such a house in II Corinthians 5:1 which
assures us that' 'we have a building of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens."
I had a friend, once, a wonderful woman who always hoped and planned
to have a house of her own. She clerked in a dry goods store for many years,
and all the while she collected house magazines and drawings of the home
to be. Unfortunately in her young years she fell in love with a pretty worthless
fellow and married him. He loved drink better than he loved her and for
all her hard work — cooking and scrubbing and saving — she could never
get enough ahead to put her dream into reality. But she loyally stuck by him.
Youth passed into middle age and still she held onto her dream. In the
flu epidemic of 1918 she fell sick, and the doctor gave us no hope. Just as
she was dying she called to us to let her have her house. There was one
particular picture she had cherished — a little house with a pretty flowered
walk leading up to it and windows, a chimney top and all. We put this in
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
577
her hand and she clutched it to her. She died with it there. And her sorry
husband on his knees by the bed bellowed and bellowed and cried out, "She
done left me all by myself — all by myself! What will I do? What? Help
me, Lord! Help me, friends," and so on.
Later at the funeral service more than one of us wiped tears away and
thought of her buried with the house picture held in her little, hard, toilworn
hand, and we found the minister's words unfitting enough in their bitter
irony — "In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so I would
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."
Do not entirely finish a new house or bad luck will happen.
The Haywood house in Raleigh was a huge affair, and I was told that the
reason it was so large was that the builder kept working at it as long as he
lived, believing that it was never safe to finish it.
house plunder
Furniture.
how about that!
An exclamation of surprise mixed with a question.
how come
Why. "Ed had drunk so much rot-gut liquor his brains was addled; that's
how come he shot hisself."
Howdy
A greeting, an abbreviation of how do you do.
a howdy-do
A sorry kettle of fish, a mixed up, topsy-turvy situation. "Now you've got
yourself into a howdy-do—proposing to two girls and both of them accepting
you."
"How Firm a Foundation"
This, another fine hymn of "blessed assurance" as to the way for man's
salvation, has been a standby in Valley religious services for generations.
The original words go back to the latter part of the 18th century and the
melody is an old American folk hymn.
"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus hath fled?"
How goes it?
A form of greeting.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
howler
A glaring blunder or faux pas.
How Many Miles to Marley Bright (Molly Bright, Babylon)
A chase game.
Two groups of children stand at their two separate bases. The witch "It"
stands between. The leader of one group calls out to the other, "How far
is it to Marley Bright?'' The leader of that group answers' 'Three score miles
and ten."
"Can I get there by candlelight?"
"Yes, if your legs are long and light
And the old witch don't catch you."
Then the players who are going to Marley Bright make a dash toward the
base of the first group. Those whom the witch touches have to join her.
And the game goes on with the second group leader now asking the question,
and trying to reach "Marley Bright" accordingly.
How old are you?
As old as my tongue,
And a little older than my teeth.
(A smarty phrase.)
How're you doing?
A colloquial greeting phrase meaning "how are you, how's your health," etc.
howsomever
Howsoever, in what manner, however it may be.
hucker-mucker
Hugger-mugger, secret, clandestine.
huckleberry over my 'simmon
An advantage over, one thing that tops another.
huffish
Petulant, easily irritated.
huh!
A response to a call, a disdainful comment.
hulky
Bulky, heavy.
hullabaloo
A loud racket, a ruckus.
�An A Iphabet of Reminiscence
579
hullings
Hulls.
humble as a dog
He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
humorsome
Petulant, capricious, full of humors.
hump
To grow fast. "My tobacco's really humping after that good rain."
Humpty Dumpty
A proverb, also a riddle.
"Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,
Humpty Dumpty took a great fall,
All the king's horses, all the king's men
Can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again." (An egg.)
This is also a girls' game. The way it used to be played the girls would all
sit in a circle, and each girl would gather her skirt tightly so as to enclose
her feet — a feat no longer possible with the present mini-skirt. The leader
then would begin the rhyme, and all would join in. At a word previously
agreed on, keeping the skirts tightly grasped, they would throw themselves
over backward. The object was to recover the former position without letting
go of the skirt. I haven't heard of this game being played in many years.
hunchback
A giver of good luck as per an old custom.
Ed Kirkpatrick, the little hunchback, used to make a bit of money on
Saturday afternoons in Dunn. He would stand in the back lot behind Hood
and Grantham's drugstore and let the poor whites, Negroes and Croatan
Indians rub his hump to bring them good luck. He charged a penny a rubbing.
I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat.
hungry enough to eat the lamb of God
as hungry as a bear (as hungry as a dog, as hungry as a hound, as hungry
as a wolf, etc.)
Better to go hungry than be without reputation.
hunky-dory
Safe, snug, happy. "He and his little wife live in that house all hunky-dory.''
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Hunky dory bound to be
And never mind the weather
When your little shoes and my big boots
Sit under the bed together.
(A courting rhyme.)
You can't hunt two hares with one dog.
hunter's moon
The October moon.
hurrah's nest
A mess, a disordered topsy-turvy room.
hurry-worry
A bothersome doing, troubled hurrying.
They hurt themselves who hurt others.
hurled
Wounded, hurt, a child's pronunciation.
hurting
A pain. "He's got a hurting in his side, and it won't ease up."
He who hurts his own body works for the worms.
hush-a-bye
A divination rhyme.
Hush-a-bye, baby,
Daddy is near,
Mama is a lady,
And that's very clear.
Hush-a-bye, and don't you cry.
Go to sleep, little baby,
When you wake you'll have some cake
And all the pretty little horses.
(A nursery rhyme.)
hushed as death
A solemn stillness.' 'Everything was hushed as death in the house, and people
talked in whispers."
Hush little baby, haven't you heard
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.
If that mockingbird won't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
581
If that diamond ring turns brass,
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass.
If that looking glass gets broke,
Mama's gonna buy you a billy goat.
If that billy goat runs away,
Mama's gonna spank you every day.
(A nursery rhyme.)
hush puppy
A small piece or dab of cornmeal batter fried in grease, especially a
concomitant of Southern barbecue.
hust
Husk.
hyena
An obstreperous child. "That little fellow is a regular hyena."
hyy'all
A shortened greeting for "how are you all?"
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I
/ am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
/ am the great / am.
/ am the master of my fate,
/am the captain of my soul.
/ am the vine, ye are the branches.
Lo, /am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
/ and the father are one.
Men may come, and men may go, but / go on forever.
/ asked my mother for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence.
He jumped so high he touched the sky,
And he never come back till the Fourth of July.
(A rope skipping rhyme.)
/ be dog!
An exclamation.
/ be John Brown!
An exclamation.
Don't skate on thin ice.
ice
A diamond or diamonds. "He had his moll with him, and she had ice all
over her hands and around her neck."
cuts no ice with me
Makes no difference with me, doesn't impress.
�An A Iphabet of Reminiscence
iced
583
Safely won. "After that touchdown the Lions had the game iced."
the idea!
A mild expletive. Sometimes "the very idea!"
What's the big idea?
What foolishness is planned, with whose permission.
/ declare!
An exclamation of surprise or amusement. Also "I declare to goodness!''
idiot box
Television set.
An idle brain is the devil's workshop.
A young man idle is an old man needy.
Idleness wears away the frog's ass.
idlesome
Idle.
/ don't mind if I do.
An agreement, yes, an O.K. "Have some more ham, Mr. Wicker?"—
"I don't mind if I do."
If it's (the weather's) hot enough to set your neighbor's beard afire, you'd
better get water and wet yours.
If the sky falls, we shall all catch larks.
If today will not, tomorrow may.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If you love me like I love you,
No knife can cut our love in two.
(A friendship rhyme.)
If you swear while fishing, you'll catch none.
If you would have a hen lay, you must bear with cackling.
If you would know the value of a dollar, try to borrow one.
ifs and ands
Questions, conditions, alternatives, details, arguments. "There's no ifs and
ands about the Negro people — they ought to have their rights as human
beings, and they will if this nation is to stand."
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No ifs and ands,
No pots and pans.
Ignorance of the law excuses no one.
When ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise.
/ had a little dog, his name was Rover.
When he died, he died all over.
/ had a little dog, his name was Tough.
I think my speech is long enough.
Ikey
ikky
A Jew. Much the same colloquialism as Abie.
Messy, distasteful, sticky.
/ know something I won't tell,
Three little niggers in a peanut shell,
One was black, and one was blacker,
One was the color of a chaw of tobaccer.
(A recitation rhyme.)
///
Bad-tempered, contrary, easy to anger. "He's one of the illest men I've ever
met."
/// as a hornet
Ill-tempered.
ill-convenient
Awkward, not convenient.
ill-got, ill-spent
I'll say!
An assertion of agreement.
ill-sick
Sick.
/'// tell the world!
A firm pronouncement. "I'll tell the world — yeh, I'm mad."
/// time
An inconvenient time.
illy-formed
Deformed or crippled from birth.' 'Dr. Monroe's got that illy-formed boy
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
585
to provide for."
immaculate conception
The scientists say that the embryo beginning of all animal and human life
is through a natural and sexual process of impregnation. Almost all religions
support a different dogma as to the beginning of their saviors or divine
leaders, especially, such as Buddha and Christ.
There was a time when a few people in the Valley believed for a while
that they had an example of the immaculate conception among them. My
good friend, Dr. John A. McKay—son of Dr. Joe McKay who delivered
all of us Green babies — first gave me an account of this wonder and later
we talked about it.
"It seems that about two o'clock p.m.," he said, "a Confederate soldier
in the battle of Averasboro was struck by a musket ball which carried away
the lower half of one testicle. He lay around in the vicinity for a while for
his wound to heal. When it was healed, the war was over and both he and
Johnston had surrendered. He rather liked the community and decided to
settle down there on a little farm.
"At exactly two p.m. or a couple of seconds or so after on that day
of battle a young woman was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of her
father's farmhouse a few hundred yards from the battle line. Her legs were
spraddled out. A spent musket ball hit the floor of the porch and bounced
up into her vagina. She screamed and jumped up and ran back into the house.
The chunk of lead fell out of her onto the floor, and she picked it up and
kept it.
"Nine months later she had a baby. She swore she had never had
anything to do with a man, and because of her hitherto spotless character
and reputation, it was agreed by a few of the more religious and believing
ones that she had been touched by God or the Holy Ghost. The baby was
a beautiful boy.
'' Some years later she and the soldier met at a candy-pulling. They fell
in love and he asked her to marry him. She was honest and mentioned that
she had this bastard child, but he loved her so much he said to hell with that
and married her.
"Sometime later after they had become 'intimate,' the soldier told her
about his being wounded and the time it happened, and she told him what
had happened to her almost at the same time as his wounding. They began
studying the matter. She went and got the musket ball, and he recognized
it as one of his own moulding. "Not only that," according to Dr. McKay,
but "they found a bit of skin and two or three hairs still sticking to it. A
great light broke upon them. It was obvious that a piece of testicle with live
sperm cells had ridden that warm ball for several hundred yards, landed
in her vagina, lodged against the cervix (entrance to the uterus) and had
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impregnated her. They embraced each other with great passion and with
gales of laughter. They scrutinized the face of the little three-year-old boy.
He was the 'spittin'-image' of his father."
In discussing this story with Dr. John, I said, "Such a thing couldn't
have happened, could it, John?"
He smiled as he lighted another cigarette. "Some mighty queer things
happen in the world, Paul," he said, "yes, they do."
immersion
Baptism by dipping the candidate under the water until he is entirely covered.
This is a symbolization that one's sins have been washed away and he is
now ready to enter into the brotherhood of the church. Not all religious
sects baptize by immersion. The Methodists, for instance, think that the
sins can be washed away by a little bit of sprinkling. And so it goes with
our beliefs and our contrary views.
immortality
Survival after death, widely believed in throughout the world, especially
in the so-called Christian world. I will never forget reading the dedication
by Sean O'Casey in his play, "The Plough and the Stars."
"To the gay laugh of my mother at the
gate of the grave."
impure blood
Infection with syphilis usually. There have been many folk cures for impure
blood, and the drugstores throughout the land are crowded with all sorts
of fake remedies for this, ranging from sarsaparilla to Geritol.
in a hard row of stumps
In a tough situation, in harsh difficulties.
in a hole
In a tough situation.
in and out
Unreliable, irresponsible, unsteady. "He's an in and outer, and I wouldn't
hire him for such an important job."
in an interesting condition
Pregnant. "I hear that Ted Evans' wife is in an interesting condition, and
I'm glad, for they've been wanting a baby a long time."
in bad
In a bad relationship with another. Also to be in bad as to a situation or
reputation.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
587
in between
Indecisive.
Can't see an inch before his nose.
He's every inch a man.
Give him an inch and he'll take an ell (mile).
inch in
To encroach gradually.
in an inch of one's life
A narrow escape or chance. I've heard many a mother and father say to
a misbehaving child, "Shet up or I'll frale (sic) you in an inch of your life.''
inch worm
A measuring worm. If an inch worm is found on a person's clothing, that
means the worm is measuring the person either for his coffin or his shroud.
Incline thine ear unto wisdom.
independent as a hog on ice
Free-wheeling.
Indian fields
In the old days these were cleared corn fields which had been deserted by
the Indians and allowed to grow up in briars and bushes. Much the same
as old fields.
Indian hen
Pileated woodpecker, the good-god.
Indian ladder
A ladder made from the long body of a straight young tree by cutting notches
in it for a foothold.
Indian plantain
Wild collards.
Indian thistle
The wild teasel. In the old days a tea made from it was a good diuretic.
Indian turnip
Jack-in-the-pulpit.
indulge
To drink strong liquor. "My father doesn't indulge."
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"I Need Thee Every Hour"
An ever-consoling hymn to the Valley faithful.
"I need thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord,
No tender voice like thine
Can peace afford.
I need thee, O, I need thee,
Every hour I need thee!
O bless me now, my Saviour,
I come to thee."
inevitable as death
in for a penny, in for a pound
A partial involvement that means a total commitment.
ingern
Onion.
in hock
In pawn or mortgaged.
Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.
talking in the ink bottle
The plans are still unformulated, still to be drawn up.
ink slinger
A writer.
innocent as a child
innocent as a lamb
in one's hair
Bothering, annoying.
in order
In the right condition. "His land's in order now and he can start planting.''
ins and outs
Various ways and means, the details. "Give me the ins and outs of the matter,
and I'll tell you what I'll do."
inside
Within, soon. "He'll be here inside an hour, you watch."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
589
inside track
To have the advantage of, to know ahead of time what is to happen, to have
the underhold.
in the altogether
Naked, nude.
in the bag
Safe, completed, victorious. Same as sewed up. "By the beginning of the
third quarter Carolina had it in the bag — yessir!"
"In the Baggage Coach Ahead"
A mournful and tear-jerking song, written by a talented Negro, one Gussie
Davis, a former Pullman car porter. It was composed in 1896 and swept
the country like another of his earlier throat-tighteners, "The Fatal
Wedding" (q.v.). The "Baggage Coach" ballad tells the story of a young
husband whose baby in his lap continues to cry and disturb the train
passengers until some of them angrily tell him to take the baby to its mother.
He mournfully tells them he wished he could but "she's dead in the baggage
coach ahead.'' Then, of course, regrets and tearful sympathizing. The words
were originally by one Frank Bracken of Hector, N.Y., and entitled
"Mother." Davis saw possibilities in the poem and rewrote it. He then set
the words to music, and it became the hit of the year.
Mother used to sing it to us children and we too shed tears as we joined
in the chorus.
"While the train rolled onward,
A husband sat in tears
Thinking of the happiness
Of just a few short years.
For baby's face brings pictures of
A cherished shape that's dead.
But baby's cries can't waken her
In the baggage coach ahead."
in the black
Financially stable.
in the boat
Flourishing, in fine condition.
in the clear
Innocent, with a sound alibi.
In the deepest water is the best fishing.
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"In the Evening by the Moonlight"
Another favorite with our male quartet. How we loved it! It was perfect
for close, swelling in-and-out barbershop harmony. James A. Bland, the
Negro who wrote it (1854-1911),was one of the most gifted songwriters this
country has produced. I rank him and Gussie Davis, another Negro genius,
together.
Bland was hailed across the Atlantic as "the promise of Negro
songwriters." He gave command performances for Queen Victoria and
Edward, Prince of Wales. For twenty years or more he was the toast of the
English music halls. Here in the United States he was long unknown even
though his songs (among them also "Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny,"
"Golden Slippers,'' and "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane'') were widely
sung. American publishers, as in the case of Stephen Foster, bought them
for a pittance and, like Foster, Bland died destitute and penniless. He passed
away in Philadelphia on May 5,1911, and not a single newspaper mentioned
his death. He was buried in an unmarked grave.
He wrote the words and music of some seven hundred songs. In 1939,
through the efforts of ASCAP, his forgotten grave was located, the
brambles, weeds and poison ivy cut away and a headstone erected. In 1940
the Virginia legislature made his "Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny" the
official state song.
"In the evening by the moonlight
You could hear the young folks singing.
In the evening by the moonlight
You could hear the banjos ringing.
How the old folks would enjoy it.
They would sit all night and listen
As we sang in the evening by the moonlight."
in the fold
Safely converted religiously, saved from nature to grace.
in the know
To have inside and confidential knowledge.
in the morning
«
Tomorrow morning. "I'll see you in the morning bright and early."
in the red
To show a financial loss.
in the soup
In a dilemma, in a difficult situation.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
591
In time of prosperity, friends will be plenty;
In time of adversity, not one amongst twenty.
intment
Ointment.
in two
Broken, separated. "The electric line under the ground come in two, and
we had a hard time finding it."
Ipecac
Powerful emetic.
Irish
High spirits, high temper. "That gal's got a lot of Irish in her."
as Irish as Paddy's pig
Irish potato
The common potato as contrasted with the sweet potato. It is often called
spud. The Irish potato grows throughout the United States and the juice
of its leaves is reported to be an excellent diuretic. A slice of an Irish potato
carried in the pocket is supposed to be good protection against arthritis.
to get one's Irish up
To rouse one's temper or high spirits.
iron
Grit, courage, stamina.
Iron sharpeneth iron.
He's got a lot of iron in his character.
Strike while the iron is hot.
the iron-faced man
A Valley ha'nt.
too many irons in the fire
Too much work on hand, too many things for concentration.
"I Saw Esau"
" 'Twas just about a year ago
When I was down to Glo'ster
I found a lass, but now, alas
I find that I have lost her.
I'm sure I never can forget
The happy days that we saw
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Before the day on which we met
Her Country Cousin Esau.
I saw Esau kissing Kate
and the fact is we all three saw
For I saw Esau, he saw me
and she saw I saw Esau."
(A tongue twister.)
We young folks used to have a lot of fun singing the syllables of this comic
song against one another.
/ Spy with My Little Eye
A children's game. Usually one in the lead, "It,"—and we used to play it
and still do with the children around the table — will say "I spy with my
little eye something beginning with the letter A," etc. Sometimes the area
of spying is limited to the table itself. It is surprising how many objects on
the table one can find to begin with the letter of his choice. The one who
guesses correctly becomes "It" and has the next challenging statement.
isshy
Sticky, messy, much the same as ikky.
isshy (issue)
A child of a white mother and a Negro father. "You know—that poor
woman give birth to one of these isshy babies."
it
Sex appeal. "Yessir, that gal's got it."
It ain't gonna rain no more, no more.
It ain't gonna rain no more.
How in the hell can old folks tell
When it ain't gonna rain no more?
(Weather jingle.)
It all comes out in the wash.
It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf his confessor.
It is a long lane that has no turning.
It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
It is a sad house where the hen crows louder than the cock.
It is a silly goose that comes to a fox's sermon.
It is a wise child that knows its own father.
It is better to be beloved than honoured.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
593
It is better to do well than to say well.
It is easier to descend than to ascend.
It is easier to pull down than to build up.
It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
It never rains but it pours.
It's no use crying over spilt milk.
It takes two to make a quarrel.
It will be all the same a hundred years hence.
itch
There are all sorts of folk cures for the itch. Now I remember we boys used
to have a vulgar rhyme which we would recite with great glee—
Old John Jones is a son of a bitch,
His cod rotted out with the seven-year itch.
And most often, of course, we would use the name of some neighbor and,
behind his back and with him never knowing it, have great gales of laughter
at his expense, as we imagined in our minds his terrible condition. One of
the best Valley cures was the use of sulphur—burn it in one's room, and
also rub it on your body. My brother John and I once caught the itch, and
so we used the sulphur cure, and we nearly stifled ourselves in our little shed
room and created a stink all over the place. We got well, of course. Whether
the sulphur helped cure us, I don't know. Another cure was poke root, and
I well remember a neighbor who tried it. It was such a funny happening
that I put it down as a sort of story. See "pokeberry weed."
My nose itches (eetches)
Cream and peaches
Someone is coming
With a hole in his breeches.
(A fortune telling rhyme.)
itching foot
This means that one is anxious to travel and will travel into strange lands.
itching palm
Greed for money.
itchy nose
This means that someone is talking about you.
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by itself (all by itself)
Alone, singly, in its own strength. "There that little thing stood in the cold night
all by itself."
ivories
Chips in a poker game. Also the piano keys, or the teeth.
tickle the ivories
To play the piano adeptly.
"I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago"
"I was born about ten thousand years ago,
And there's nothing in the world that I don't know.
I was round the corner peeping at the apple Eve was eating,
And I was the man that et the core.
I was there when old Noey built his ark,
And I got on board it after dark,
I twisted the lion's tail and made Jonah swallow the whale,
And I swum across the Atlantic on a log."
(A braggart song.)
At Buie's Creek Academy, when I was a student, we added several local
verses to this. One I remember had to do with Professor James A. Campbell,
the head of the school, and teacher John R. Baggett, who had recovered
from a bad illness. It is interesting to note that Mr. Campbell, one of the
best teachers I ever had, graduated from Wake Forest College at the same
time his two sons Leslie and Carlyle did. As for Mr. Baggett, I always
understood that he, like Andrew Johnson, couldn't read or write till he was
a grown man. But he learned and later went to the university, washed dishes
and did odd jobs for his keep, studied law and became a successful attorney
in my old hometown of Lillington. He sent his two sons to the same
university. They were provided with a new Buick roadster for their
convenience as fraternity men. Neither finished school.
Our song went on verse after verse—
"I was the man that painted Campbell's head so red,
And I raised Professor Baggett from the dead,"—
The rest I have long forgot.
/ went to the river and couldn't get across,
Jumped on a nigger and thought he was a hoss,
The nigger bucked and throwed me inSaid to myself, "It's sink or swim."
(Recitation rhyme.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
595
/ Went to Visit a Friend
A children's (girls') singing and imitative game.
I went to visit a friend one day.
She only lived across the way,
She said she couldn't go out to play,
For Monday was her washing day.
(Pantomiming)
This is the way she washed away (three times)
For Monday was her washing day.
And next comes Tuesday which was her ironing day and so on with
Wednesday as mending day, Thursday, sewing day, Friday, baking day,
and Saturday, sweeping day. Sunday was always left out, but it could have
been worship or church day, with the children kneeling, their eyes closed,
and their hands piously crossed. But that would have been thought a mocking
of sacred matters by the elders.
izzard
The last bit, the end, the letter Z. The old expression "from A to izzard,"
of course, meant from first to last.
Izzy Izzard
See "crows."
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J
jabbo
A word for the weakening of a person at work, often referred to as "the
monkey." In the old days when we were cutting timber in the swamps or
woods, or pulling fodder, and the weather was hot, sometimes a worker
would call out "Old jabbo's walking around!"—which meant that some
of the workers were beginning to feel fatigue and were about to' 'give out.''
One of the proudest boasts a woodsman, or fodder puller, or plowman could
declare was that old jabbo could never get him down.
jabboh
A creeper, a cuckolder, someone who steals one's wife or girlfriend. A
prisoner in the Raleigh penitentiary told me once that jabbohs really go to
work when a husband or sweetheart is in prison. "The unlucky fellows come
out most often to find that some jabboh has got his girl or wife. And then
out with the gun, a killing maybe, and back in the pen again or the chair."
jabboh papers
Papers received by a husband or a wife serving notice for a divorce.
jack
The male of certain animals, as jackass.
Money.
For every Jack
There is a Jill
That does with Jack
Whate'er she will.
(A proverb.)
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
597
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
(A recitation rhyme.)
Jack and Jim
A sleight of hand game or trick.
I remember how astounded we children were the first time our mother
worked this on us. Of course there is no second time with those who have
seen how it is done. The fun then is to work it on newcomers.
You take a bit of paper, wet one side with your tongue and stick it on
the nail, say, of each forefinger. Place these fingers on the table, the other
fingers curled back in the palms of the hand. Then recite the following:
"Two blackbirds sat on a limb,
The one named Jack, the other named Jim.
Fly away, Jack, fly away, Jim."
At the command "Fly away, Jack," my mother's hand would go up in the
air behind her and come down on the table with the fingernail bare. A
different finger, the second one, say, came back, but we children wouldn't
notice the difference. The same command and action followed with "Jim.''
Then she would call, "Come back, Jack," and her hand would go up and
back, and come down on the table with the right finger and bit of paper
still on it. The same followed with "Jim."
Gasps of wonder followed. Then when we saw how it worked, we'd
be busy for the next hour trying out our performance till finally in loving
exasperation she would have to run us off to bed.
Jack, be nimble,
Jack, be quick,
Jack, jump over the candlestick.
(A nursery rhyme.)
jacket
A vest.
Jack in the Bush
A guessing game for two players. The first will extend his closed hand,
holding tiny objects. (My brother Hugh and I used grains of corn; some
of our neighbors used chinquapins.) The second player is to guess at the
number as per the following dialogue:
"Jack in the bush."
"Cut him down."
"How many licks?"
The second player then guesses at the number. The hand is opened revealing
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the objects—sometimes none at all. If he guesses correctly, he wins all that
the hand holds. If he misses, he must pay the first player from his holdings
the difference between his guess and the actual number.
The game continues till one has cleaned the other out. Of course the supply
of grains of corn or chinquapins or whatever is not inexhaustible. At the
start, the players agree on the number they have to play with, say twentyfive or fifty.
Jack, Jack, where's my_
A divination rhyme to find a lost object. Spit in your hand, hit the hand
with your fore and second fingers, and whichever way the biggest glob of
spittle goes will lead to the lost object.
jack-knifing
Horse-bucking.
Jack-muh-lantern
A strange and eerie creature same as Jack-o-lantern. It is said he lives in
the swamps of North Carolina. Sometimes he is referred to as a light, and
then as an actual being, and seen most often rising from a grave or near
a grave.
jack-of-all-trades and master of none
A ne'er-do-well, a fellow who has a knack for 'most anything and will stick
to nothing.
jack off
A male sexual orgasm.
jack plane
A large plane for coarse carpenter work.
before one can say Jack Robinson
Quickly, almost instantly.
Jack Rocks
A game of manual skill.
Take five small pebbles, or small iron jacks in the form of double tripods
(which can be purchased at any ten-cent store). The player throws them all
up at once and catches them on the back of his hand. If he fails to catch
them all, then he hands the jacks over to the next player. But if he catches
them all, he then attempts a series of intricate figures. In these figures the
jacks are rolled out on the floor. Then one of the jacks is chosen and thrown
up, and while it is in the air, the player picks up the others one at a time.
As long as he is successful, he continues to pick them up two at a time, three,
four, etc. Should he fail in any of these movements, another player takes
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
599
his place and begins again. There are numerous other figures, more or less
intricate, that belong to this game, like: "feeding the chickens," "riding
the elephants," "putting the bull in the pen," etc. And each of these is
performed while one jack is in the air or resting on the back of the hand.
This game used to be most popular in the Valley. My brother Hugh was
very good at it and so were all my sisters with their nimble fingers. I was
a poor player and usually watched others play.
Jack Spratt could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean,
So you see between them both
They kept the platter clean.
(A folk rhyme.)
jack up
To reprimand, to scold, to encourage. Also to put a jack under an axle and
lever a wheel up for taking a tire off or mending it.
A good Jack will make a good Jill.
Jacob's ladder
A constellation in the sky, also a configuration game played with string.
Also, of course, the vision Jacob saw in his dream (Gen. 28:12).
Jacob's oil
A patent medicine, once a very popular "cure" for rheumatism, swellings
or any kind of pains.
jady
jag
Jaded, tired.'' Atlee said that after she served the wedding reception Saturday
evening she felt so jady."
A piece, a corner, a triangle."Up here on the map is a jag of land that I
would like to buy."
A spree, a wild party, a drunken debauch, also a crying jag.
jaggy
Jagged.
jags
Tatters, rags.
jail fever
A melancholia, a depression that prison inmates often suffer.
Jake
Satisfactory, safe, all o.k.'' Yessir, you come along, everything's jake down
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there at that gal's house."
jakes
The privy, or commode in a bathroom.
jam
A crowd, a conclave. "There was a jam of people at Marian Graham's
funeral."
Close to, adjoin. "He was jam on me before I saw him."
jam up
Crowded, standing room only.
First rate, above reproach.' 'The Maurice girls were jam up young ladies.''
janders
Jaundice. "Uncle Pete is mighty poor with the yellow janders."
Jane
A girl.
jangly
Jangling.
jarhead
A stubborn mule or horse.
To the jaundiced all things seem yellow.
jaw
Sassy speech.
To argue, to talk excessively.
jawbone
Credible talk, persuasive argument. "That fellow lived on his jawbone."
jawbreaker (jaw cracker)
Words difficult to pronounce, big phrases, outlandish concourse of wordage.
jay
A gay foppish fellow.
jaybird
The blue jay. There is an almost universal superstition that the jaybird goes
to hell every Friday to carry the devil some straw for his fire or a grain of
corn for food. When the jay gets back, he is usually noisy and quarrelsome,
and his eyes, if you look at him closely, will show they are red, very red,
from the heat of hell.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
601
Jaybird sittin' on a hickory limb
Winked at me and I winked at him.
Took my bow and split his shin,
Left the arrow stickin' in.
(A jingle.)
jazz
Nonsense, idle chatter. "Oh, they gave me a lot of praise and promise and
all that jazz."
jazz up
To enliven.
jealous as a hen with one chicken
"Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair"
Stephen Foster's immortal love song created for and about his sweetheart
Jane McDowell who later became his wife.
jeans
Trousers. In one of the Eastern Carolina courts one day the judge fined
a Negro $10 for some misdemeanor. The Negro defendant spoke up quite
pertly and said, "Yessir, your honor, I got it right here in my jeans." This
outspokenness irritated the judge, and he came quickly back, saying,' 'And
six months on the road. Have you got that in your jeans?"
jedge
Judge.
Jeems
James.
Jehovah
The Hebrew Yahweh and often called upon as is the Christian God. Much
the same as Zeus or any religious ruler of the universe. As I have mentioned
before, the Jehovah of the Old Testament seems to be pretty much a
thundering and bloodthirsty character. And, certainly, the God of the New
Testament represents an ameliorative development in the folklore of man's
religious urgings.
jell
To fit, come to fruition, move in harmony. "Our trade finally jelled, and
I'm buying his horse."
jellybag
The scrotum.
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jellyroll
A bankroll, money. Also a woman's seductive stomach dance.
Jemima
An elderly housekeeper.
Jenny Jones
A dramatic game. A group of children form into a line, holding hands, and
two of them act the parts of Miss Jenny Jones and her mother. The mother
usually stands or sits on the ground, and Miss Jenny Ann Jones hides behind
her. Then the line of children advances, singing:
"I'm going to see Miss Jenny Ann Jones (three times)
And how is she today?"
The mother replies:
"She's upstairs washing, washing, washing.
She's upstairs washing.
You can't see her today."
Then the children sing back that they're very glad to hear it, and how is she
today, etc. Then they go through all sorts of imitative actions about ironing,
cooking, scrubbing, etc. When the mother answers that she is sick, better,
or worse, or dead, then the dancers go back to their starting place and come
again toward her, singing, "What color is she to be buried in," etc. And
they say that blue is for sailors, and red is for the army, and green is for
the jealous, and black is for the mourner, and white is for the angels. Then
they go on to ask, "Where shall we bury her?" and they bury her under
an apple tree. Then they say, they think they saw a ghost last night, etc.
And at that, when they talk about ghosts, the mother rises up and tears after
them. The one who is caught is the Miss Jenny Ann Jones for the next game,
and the next one caught after her becomes the mother.
jenny wren
The common Carolina wren. Also a demure housewife.
Go to Jericho!
A mild expletive command.
Jeremiah
A sermon, a scolding, a pious berating.
jerk
A very short time, almost instantly. "In two jerks of a sheep's tail I'll be
gone."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
603
jerk a knot
To cut off, to make one behave correctly.
jerk off
To execute a thing quickly, to have a sexual orgasm from masturbation.
Jerry Hall he was so small,
A rat could eat him, hat and all.
(A teasing rhyme.)
Jerusalem!
An interjection, usually drawled out — Jee-ru-sa-lem!
Jerusalem oak (worm weed)
Sometimes called Mexican tea, wormseed or worm weed, also stinking weed.
It is common throughout the South, July to October, and grows prolifically
in waste places and along roadsides, sometimes reaching a height of six feet
or more. It is aromatic, and the crushed stem gives forth a sticky substance.
I don't like this plant, for as a boy I had to grub up too much of it as
it tried to spread into the fields. In the old days women used tea from its
seeds to help in menstruation too. Some of the old folklorists warned against
it because, as they said, it had a "bad poison effect on the brain." The tea
was also used to clean out the children's bowels. In the Valley we used to
burn the plant for potash to rub on our fresh hog meat.
give one Jesse
To give one a bawling out, a scolding.
Jesus
In the Christian faith, he is the son of God and the savior of the world. The
name is not quite so holy as "Christ,'' but it is a sin to take it in vain. There
used to be a Negro in Chapel Hill who would never step on a piece of paper.
If he saw a bit lying on the street, he would always stoop and pick it up.
When he was asked why he behaved like this, with his hat in his hand he
said, "I dassent step on it 'caze it might have the name of Jesus on it."
"Jesus, Lover of My Soul"
A soft-assertion hymn and of lasting comfort to many a Valley soul as
elsewhere in the world. The words are by Charles Wesley, 1740, and the
music by Simeon Marsh, 1834.
"Hide me, O my Saviour, hide
Till the storm of life be past,
Safe into thy haven guide—
O receive my soul at last!"
And so on in abiding reassurance.
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jest
jet
Paul Green's Wordbook
Just.
To blow snot from one's nose by putting a finger against a nostril and giving
a blast with the other.
jew or jew down
To cheat, to persuade a lowering of prices. "I kept jewing him down until
I got the dog for two dollars."
Dew.
jewberry
Dewberry.
A jewel of a woman is better than a woman of jewels.
Jewish disease
Over-sensibility, especially to adverse criticism, over-indulgence in selfbrooding, self-pity. I knew a fine Jewish girl who often told me she had
that disease.
jew price
A reduced price from a usually over-high price to start with and never on
the even dollar, most often like $4.99 or $4.98.
Jew's harp
A little instrument with a vibrating tongue in it which is played by placing
it against the lips and vibrating with one's own tongue. It makes a low
drumming sound and is about as boring as a dulcimer.
wandering Jew (dew)
A well-known Valley plant, common elsewhere also.
jibber-jabber
Foolish talk, word spouting.
jibe
jiffy
Fit. "This window don't jibe."
Soon, quick. "I'll be there in a jiffy."
jigger
An insect, same as chigger.
/ be jiggered!
An exclamation.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
605
Jiggety bum, cider come,
Massah, give poor nigger some.
Two potatoes and a dram
Make a nigger a gentleman.
(A recitation rhyme.)
Jiggety bum, jiggety bum.
Come butter, come,
For I want some.
(A divination rhyme.)
jiggle-jaggle
Topsy-turvy.
the jig is up
The guilt is found out, one is discovered in his wrong-doing.
Jill
An easy, loose-going girl.
jimber-jawed (jimmy-jawed)
Same as wamper-jawed, jaws slightly unmatched. Also hard-jawed.
Jim Crow
An old Negro dance, a minstrel dance act.
jim dandy
First rate, fine.
jiminy cricket!
A mild exclamation!
jimjams
The delirium tremens.
jimmy John
A demijohn.
Jimson weed
A heavy-leaved erect poisonous weed with pale-violet trumpet-shaped
flowers sometimes referred to as "Angel's Trumpet.'' It has spiny seed pods,
and these seeds when eaten can cause death, it is said. It springs up quickly
in neglected vegetable gardens and in waste places.
We children used to have great fun in the dusk of warm summer evenings
chasing after the great tobacco moths that haunted the strong-scented
blooms. A tea made from its leaves was supposed to be good to help a mother
to a quick recovery from the pains of childbirth. Also it was recommended
in the treatment of syphilis. Sometimes the warmed leaves bound against
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the head were good for headache. A pound of beaten fresh green leaves mixed
with three pounds of lard also made good grease-rubbing for women's
inflamed breasts. I read in an old book once where it said that harem wives
in Turkey were wont to chew this weed and swallow the juice to strengthen
their powers of love. I wonder what the head of the harem, the old Turk
himself, chewed.
Dr. Leonard Fields, our family physician for forty years or more, told
me of its powers in the treatment of asthma. He had a Negro boy for a patient
and was treating him regularly with atropine. Days passed and his patient
didn't show up for his regular dose. One day Dr. Fields met him on the street
in Chapel Hill and asked him how he was getting along. "Sho* fine," said
the boy. Then he pulled out a large half-smoked cigarette. He told the doctor
that his grandmother had put him to smoking dried Jimson weed leaves and
she was curing him up. The old woman was right in her treatment, said the
doctor. "The weed has the same drug in it with which I had been treating
this patient."
jimswinger
The penis.
The long-tailed coat that politicians used to wear to impress others.
I be jimswingled!
An interjection.
jine
Join.
"Jingle Bells"
The ever-popular, high-spirited and carefree winter song.
"Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way.
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh!"
by jingo!
A mild interjection.
byjings!
A mild expletive.
Jiniwary
January.
j'int
Joint.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
607
j'int snake
A fabled Valley snake which when chopped in two can immediately join
(jine) together again.
jip-jawed
Same as wamper-jawed.
jit
A nickel.
jitterbug juice
Liquor.
Jo
job
A sweetheart.
Jab.
do a job
To defecate.
Job's coffin
A constellation in the sky, the Dolphin, the four stars east of the seven stars.
Job's comforter
A boil. Also a doleful adviser, a phony comforter, one who adds to distress
while pretending to ease it.
Job's tears
The false gromwell of the forget-me-not family. It grows to a height of three
or four feet and is common in the seaboard states from New England to
Florida. Its pearly-white capsule-like seeds hanging down suggest tears
maybe. But how Job got connected with it I don't know. The seeds and the
root were used as a diuretic in the old days. The best thing about it for me
is its poetic name.
poor as Job's turkey
Job's wife
A shrewish woman.
Joe
A conjure ball used by males to win women's affections.
Coffee. "Bring me a cup of hot Joe, will you?"
Joe Monroe, cut off his toe
And hung it up to dry.
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All the girls began to laugh
And Joe began to cry.
(A recitation rhyme.)
joe-trots
Diarrhea.
joggly
Unsteady, shaky.
jog-still
Very still.
John
Privy, a commode, a toilet. "I opened the door and there she was sitting
on the John."
John Hancock
One's signature, handwriting. Also the penis.
John Henry
One's signature, same as John Hancock. "Just put your John Henry here."
A legendary Negro strong man, comparable to the mighty Paul Bunyan
of the northwestern woods, who matched his hammer against a steel drill
in driving railroad spikes into cross-ties to hold the steel rails in place. He
won over the machine but died from his exertion "with his hammer in his
hand." Dr. Guy Johnson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill has a full and fine book on the legend and the music that goes with it.
Carl Sandburg also makes quite a bit of the John Henry song in "The
American Songbag."
Many a Negro strong man has in braggadocio taken over the name of
the folk hero. I used one of these in a Negro drama entitled "Roll Sweet
Chariot."
"John Henry was a little boy,
Sitting on his father's knee.
He gave one long and lonesome cry,
Said 'The hammer'll be the death of me,
Hammer be the death of me.'
"John Henry said to the captain,
'I'm nothing but a natural man,
But before I let that steel drill beat me down
I'll die with my hammer in my hand,
Die with my hammer in my hand.'
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
609
"John Henry hammered in the mountain,
Hammered till his hammer caught on fire,
John Henry said to the captain,
'Cool drink of water 'fore I die,
Cool drink of water, please, 'fore I die.'
"John Henry had a little woman,
The dress she wore was red,
The very last words I heard her say
Was 'I'm going where my man fell dead,
Going where my man fell dead.' "
honest John
An honest, upright person, a term sometimes used in derogation. "Did you
see old honest John playing croquet Sunday, how, every once in a while
when nobody was looking he would move the ball a bit toward the wicket?''
johnny cake
A cake made with cornmeal mixed with water or milk, seasoned with salt
and, in the old days, baked on a board set close before the fire.
Johnny-come-lately
A late arrival, one who barges in and tries to participate in the doings when
he has no right to.
Johnny's mad, and I am glad
And I know what'll please him,
A bottle of wine to treat him fine
And a pretty little girl to squeeze him.
(A teasing rhyme.)
Most often when we recited this, we would put the name of some girl in
the last line and therefore add to either Johnny's embarrassment or pleasure.
Johnny-on-the-job (spot)
A reliable and energetic person.
Johnson grass
A deep-rooted pest, as hard to get rid of as nut grass.
join
Adjoin. "His and my land join."
joint
A low-life dive, a gathering place for characters of bad reputation.
join the birdgang
To flee suddenly. "When that' splosion went of f, I j oined the birdgang going
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away from there."
joint snake
See "j'int snake."
joker
An obnoxious person or busybody. "How did that joker get in here?"
jollify
To make merry.
jolly dog
A merry, good-hearted fellow.
Jonah
One believed to bring bad luck.
A layout of scenes and characters for the doubling of parts in a play.
go to see Miss Jones
To go to the privy or bathroom.
jook (juke)
Jerk, duck or dodge.' 'He'd jook his head every time you tried to hit him.''
joree bird
The ground robin, the cheewink towhee.
Joseph's coat
The famous coat the Biblical Joseph wore, and sometimes used in reference
to an over-dressed or dudish person.
josh
To joke at, to poke fun at, to tease. "If you don't quit joshing that old
preacher, someday he's going to get mad."
jot and tittle
Every least bit, every detail.
jounce
To dandle, to bounce up and down.
journey's end
The grave.
Journeys end in lovers' meeting.
by Jove!
A mild expletive.
�An A Iphabet of Reminiscence
611
jower
To argue loudly, quarrel or wrangle, same as jow.
joy ride
To take a fling, to have a big time, not caring what happens.
"Joy to the World"
A bright and sparkling carol. It was always one of our favorite Christmas
serenading pieces. The words are by the venerable Isaac Watts, 1719, and
the music by that great major-key composer G.F. Handel, 1744.
"Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her king.
Let ev'ry heart prepare him room
And heav'n and nature sing!"
jubilee
A big time, a good get-together, not quite as intensive as joy ride.
jubous
Dubious, doubtful.
by juckies
An exclamation.
Judas tree
See "redbud tree."
Judge not lest ye be judged.
Never judge from appearances.
jug
Prison.
not by a jugful
Certainly not, by no means. "You needn't count on a cabbage leaf curing
that sore place, not by a jugful."
juggle
Jostle, joggle.
jughead
A mule, a sorry horse, same as jarhead or pestle-tail.
go for the jugular
To aim a finishing stroke, to put forth a final and crushing bit of logical
argument, to shoot for the prize. "Did you see George Randall's argument
in today's News and Observer against capital punishment?—He went for
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the jugular in it."
juice
Electricity. "Lord, that man's chest hair caught fire when they shot that
juice in him in the 'lectric chair."
juke joint
A cheap restaurant or low gathering place.
jularker
Boyfriend.
jularky
A wild party, also a cheap boyfriend.
julep
An old Southern drink, made by liquor poured on ice to which green mint
is added, and usually left to frost over in the refrigerator or to cool down
in the old spring house.
jump
To scare up, to flush out. "He jumped a rabbit and away it went."
To grow fast, luxuriantly. "Two weeks ago I put nitrate of soda to my cotton
and it's just jumping."
jump bail
To run away and flee one's bail.
jump down one's throat
To shout at, to bawl out, scold loudly.
great jumping beans!
An exclamation.
Jumping Jesus!
An expletive.
jumping off place
The end of the world, a weird ungodly place.
Jumping the Rope
A children's game. See "Skipping the Rope."
go jump in the river
A derogatory statement or dismissal command, an expression of disbelief.
jump jail
To escape.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
613
jump on
To attack, to whip, to spank. "If you don't quit mommicking with that
frog, I'm going to jump on you."
get the jump on
Get the advantage of, to get into the lead right off. "No. 6 got the jump
on all the other horses from the start, and there was no catching him."
jump on (in) with both feet
To berate a person or go after something with all vim and vigor.
jump out of one's skin
Condition of extreme fright. "I was about to jump out of my skin, he scared
me so."
jumps
Fidgets, nervous starts.
holy jumps
Same as holy jerks.
jump the broom
To get married. "Well, Will Green and Rachel Smith have finally jumped
the broom."
jumpy
Nervous.
June is the best month to get married in.
June bug has a golden wing.
Lightning bug a plain.
The bedbug has no wing at all
But he gets there just the same.
(A folk rhyme.)
June bugs (July bugs)
The cicadas.
June Sweet'nings
A pulpy sweetly-flavored early red apple, popular in the Valley in the old
days, but rare at the present time and why rare I don't know, for it was a
wonder!
"Speaking of June Sweet'nings," Uncle Waverly Lassiter said to me
one day, "reminds me of old Guy Fitchett and his wife Bessie. They lived
down the road apiece from us, there where the highway turns from Fort
Bragg toward Manchester. The house has been torn down long ago and the
apple orchard with it to make room for progress on the highway. I believe
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there's still one scraggly old tree, though, sort of a stump near the road that
sprouts out now and then. The Fitchetts were mighty proud of that apple
orchard. And me and my sister Josie loved to eat them apples, them June
Sweet'nings, better'n anything in the world. My sister was older'n me and
she was quick-legged. One day old Guy found us up in one of his apple trees
there gathering and guzzling some, and he switched us out of there and told
us to behave ourselves and never bother his apples again—or else. Well,
my sister Josie was a quick-tempered little old thing and she didn't forget
the switching. No sir, nor the threat.
"Well, I told you a while ago about the steamboat, 'The Haughton,'
that old man Brady run up the Cape Fear River. He quit running it after
the railroads come in. And after some of the locks were washed out in the
big freshet, he anchored it in the Cape Fear not far from our house. It stayed
there year after year, rotting away.
"One day I was down there, a little barefooted boy proguing around,
when I found something lying across the deck about eight feet long, looked
like a long black snake. I'd never seen one of those hose pieces before. So
I got it loose from its fastening and broke it off, with a little sharp piece
of iron at the end of it, and I drug it up the hill to take it home. I met my
sister Josie. 'What is that?' she said.
" ' I dunno,' I said.' I found it down there on the old steamboat rotting
away.'
"She looked at it for a while and then she said, 'I got a use for that.'
" 'What use you got?' I said.
" 'I got a use,' she said. 'Will you give it to me?'
"So I let her have it. I didn't have any use for it. Didn't know what
it was anyhow. That young'un, that sister of mine, she really had a mind.
She'd already seen some possibilities in that thing that looked like a snake.
No wonder she later married a man who is a professor up there at Chapel
Hill and has raised a lot of educated boys and girls of her own.
"Finally she told me what she was planning. She was determined to
scare old man Fitchett out of his wits. So we cooked up a thing, she done
the cooking, of course, since I was a little shaver two years younger. She
was about twelve years old or thirteen and I was about nine or ten, and I
looked up to her in her smartness and wisdom.
"So we went toward the Fitchett house and lay around out in the edge
of the woods there till we saw old man Fitchett and his wife go down to the
barn to milk the cow and tend to things. So we crope into the house there
the back way and found their bed. We pulled the cover down and put that
thing down at the foot of the bed, quiled it around and stuck its head up,
and then put the sheet back and the quilt across it so nobody could tell what
was what.
"Well that night after we'd gone home and got our supper Josie said
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
615
we'd go back and call on the Fitchetts. So we did, and we sat around and
we talked and we kept 'em up quite a while. And Josie got to asking about
stories, about snake stories and ghost stories. And old Guy, he was a skeery
fellow anyhow and his wife, Mis' Bessie, weren't much better. So long about
midnight he up and said, 'Why don't you children go on home and quit
talking these wild stories?"
"And so we said we were just about to go. We told 'em goodnight.
'And don't you let the boogers get you,' Mis' Bessie said, all sharp-like,
'going home.'
" 'Oh, we won't,' said Josie, 'We won't. We ain't scared of anything
except snakes. And you and Mr. Guy watch out for snakes, too!'
" 'Go on,' said old man Fitchett.
'' 'They do tell some of 'em are fearful things,' said Josie. 'My grandpa
Avery down at White Oaks got followed by a coachwhup snake once. It
rolled down a hill right after him and he nearly run hisself to death. I just
remember the story now. He dodged behind a tree and that hoopsnake made
for him and soused the p'int of its tail up in the tree behind which Grandpa
had dodged!'
"I had a hard time to keep from laughing, for she was telling a story
we'd both heard happened to a man way off in Georgy or somewhere.
" 'And you know,' she went on, "The next day that tree had all its
leaves quiled up and it died plumb dead.'
" 'We ain't scared of snakes,' said Mis' Bessie. But she was — yessir,
scared to death of 'em. And so we went off. We watched them turn back
in the house and shut the door, and then we crope back and stood behind
a spirea bush outside the window where there were big window panes that
we could see through. So we stayed outside and watched 'em.
"Purty soon old man Guy took off his clothes and stood naked as a
jaybird and my sister of course had to turn away her head at that. Then
he put on his long red nightshirt and knitted toque, and I pinched Josie and
told her she could look now. And then we watched him go down on his knees
and say his prayers. He was a mighty religious old fellow and was
superstitious too. While he was a-prayin' Mis' Bessie put on her night gown
and undressed herself under it, and I was glad she did, for I didn't want
to see her naked, skinny and old as she was. Well, old man Guy he got up
and pulled back the cover a little and got in the bed and slid down in it. Then
we saw him all of a sudden freeze up, his hands lifting like calling for help
and his feet and knees all drawed up. And he lay there shivering and shaking,
not saying a word. Truth is he was scared speechless and couldn't speak,
I reckon. Mis' Bessie finished saying her prayers and started to get in the
bed. She saw him lying there, his face blue as a huckleberry and choking
like a man strangling to death.
'' 'What is it, what is it, Precious?' she said. She loved him so she always
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called him 'Precious.'
"Finally the breath blew from him in a great gust and he got some words.
'Snakes!' he yelled, 'snakes, I fully believe!' And with that he sailed out
of that bed, jerking the cover off. And there lay that black thing all quiled
up in the dim lamplight, looking like a snake sure enough with its head stuck
up. Well sir, old man Fitchett had a heavy walking stick with a piece of iron
on it. He used it when he walked about to be sure to keep any bothersome
dogs off of him. He was always scared of mad dogs. So he had fixed up
this walking stick special heavylike. Mis' Bessie grabbed that walking stick
out of his hand, and while Josie and me stood outside just popping with
laughing, she sailed onto the snake with that stick. She beat and tore into
the feather bed to a fare-you-well. They had two ticks together, all stuffed
with feathers. But she busted 'em both. She busted the pillows, too, and
in no time the room was so full of feathers you couldn't see a thing. What
happened in the turmoil and turning was that not being able to see a thing,
in one of her heavy strokes at the snake she laid old man Guy Fitchett right
across the side of the head with that thing and plumb addled him. Yes sir,
later the doctor had to come and sew up his skelp with fourteen stitches,
so he did.
' 'Well, as you might 'spect, somehow the Fitchetts got on to who done
that tricking. They found out that Josie was to blame, and they come down
to my house and told my daddy, and he said, 'All right, Josie!' Then he
reached for the razor strop.
"So they marched us both up there. Old Mis' Fitchett she give us them
cards — you know them things with the fine teeth which you card cotton
wool with or used to. Well she give Josie one of 'em and give me the other
and put us to cleaning that room. Them feathers had stuck to the rafters
and weatherboard in a thick coating of white — it was rough
weatherboarding — and it took us three solid days to get that stuff off of
there. Mis' Fitchett stood around with that iron-headed stick guarding things
and seeing that we cleaned everything well. Old Guy's skelp was slow in
healing up, and he was lying in another room with a hot bag of salt to his
temple, and so was unable to take part in the proceedings.
"Poor old fellow — he wore a scar long as he lived. Josie and me cried
a lot about his scar, but it done no good, none, of course."
June weddings are lucky.
juniper
A swamp in which juniper trees grow. We would always refer to it as "the
juniper." "No, Mr. Billy's not here, he's down in the juniper getting out
telephone poles."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
617
'Just As I Am"
One of the Valley's most popular revival hymns. The words are by Charlotte
Elliot, 1836, and the tune by William Bradstreet, 1849. The refrain with
its "O lamb of God, I come" is powerful in its call to sinners as the exhorting
preacher and congregation pour it out in pulsing fervor. "If this song won't
bring the lost and sinners to the mourners' bench," said Reverend Johnson,
"I ask you what will."
'Just Because She Made Dem Goo-Goo Eyes"
Another Tin Pan Alley minstrel-like song by John Queen and Hughie
Cannon. The chorus made good field-work singing for us children. And
at times as we sang we laid aside our hoes and made what we imagined googoo eyes to be — often using our fingers to push our eyelids far back and
to glare at the world with red, watery eyeballs.
"Just because she made dem goo-goo eyes
I thought I'd won a home and copped de prize
She is de best what is
And I need her in my biz
Just because she made dem goo-goo eyes."
'Just Before the Battle, Mother"
One of the many fine tragic songs that fittingly came out of the senseless
Civil War, a war that for lack of sound and sensible national leadership
tore this country apart, filled a common people with unnatural hatred and
hundreds of thousands of piteous tight-lipped graves, and for which both
Robert E. Lee and the semi-deified Abraham Lincoln are guilty before any
justly imagined court of truth. I could continue with a flood of words, but
let the song cry its cry — heard and repeated by both Yankee and Rebel
many a night on their campgrounds as they waited for the coming of daylight
when they would renew the authority-driven struggle to kill each other.
It was written in 1863 by the talented George F. Root who also wrote many
other favorite songs including "The Vacant Chair." He was a native of
Sheffield, Massachusetts. Like "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" by
another talented New Englander, Henry C. Work, it was a favorite with
our male quartet.
"Just before the battle, Mother,
I was thinking most of you,
While upon the field we're watching,
With the enemy in view.
Comrades brave are round me lying,
Filled with thoughts of home and God.
For well they know that on the morrow
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Some will sleep beneath the sod.
Farewell, Mother, you may never..."
(And here Ernest Spence would repeat with his bass
"you may never.")
"Press me to your heart again
But you'll not forget me, Mother,
If I'm numbered with the slain."
Just Like Me
A popular children's game. One of the players starts off with a statement,
and the other ones in sequence reply to each statement he makes, "Just like
me."
I went upstairs.
Just like me.
I looked in the mirror.
Just like me.
I saw a little monkey.
Just like me.
Etc.
And sometimes the players would drag it out, using their own imaginations as to the places they had visited and the things they had seen.
justle
Jostle.
just one of those things
An unfortunate happening that couldn't be helped.
just so
Finicky, exactly right, picayunish. "He wants everything about the house
just so."
just what the doctor ordered
The proper thing, what one was expecting or hoping for.
juty
Duty.
juvember
Some etymologists say this is an Algonquin word for a slingshot. For us
boys it meant a beanshooter. And what fun we used to have with our
shooters! We could buy our rubber bands from most any store. Then we'd
cut a forked dogwood sprout and trim this the proper length. Next we'd
fit a strip of the band to each of the little forks with strings and a small
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
619
slingshot holder where we'd fit a pebble or a single buckshot, and then aim
and pull away. All around now we'd go after the birds and often in our games
of war go after one another.
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K
kag
Keg.
kale
A garden vegetable, money.
kamerad!
A call to stop or an acknowledgment of yielding. Same as calf rope.
kearb
Curb.
keen on
To be attracted by or in love with. "He's keen on that Bunn Level girl, no
doubt of that."
keep
To remain safe, unspoiled, in good condition. "It's turned cold now and
my meat will keep." See "hog killing."
To continue. "It keeps on raining." "Somebody keeps going off with my
pencils."
Keep a stiff upper lip.
Keep a thing seven years and you'll find a use for it.
keep a thing under one's hat
To keep one's counsel, to be secretive, to say nothing about a matter of
information.
keep away
To stay away. "Keep away from that dog or he'll bite you."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
621
Keep A way
A ball game. Two captains are chosen, then they choose their teams. The
right of first choice may be decided by flipping a coin or by spitting on one
side of a short piece of board and one captain choosing' 'wet'' and the other
" dry." The board is then thrown up in the air and when it falls to the ground,
the matter is decided. The same method may be used to decide which side
has the ball first. The players in possession of the ball throw it back and
forth to one another and the members of the opposing team try to intercept
it or grab it if it happens to be dropped. When time is up — the ringing of
the school bell ending recess or however — the side possessing the ball wins.
Or the side that drops the ball the fewest times may be declared winner if
that is decided on ahead of time.
keep care of
To have the care of, take charge of.
keep company
To be sweethearts or to be interested in each other. "They're keeping
company now, and the first thing you know you'll hear of an engagement."
Am I my brother's keeper?
keep going
To be able to be up and about, to be convalescent. "Claude Jones looks
like the shadow of death, but somehow he manages to keep going."
keep house in the mouth of the bag and not in the bottom
Keep one's feet on the ground. To use good judgment, not get rattled.
keep in with
To maintain friendly relations with, continue on the good side of.
keep kicking till the butter comes
Never give in, never say die, never stop trying.
When I was a boy I heard about two frogs who fell into an open churn
of milk. They struggled and struggled but couldn't get out. Frog one said,
"This is hopeless, we'll never make it." Frog number two said, "We must
keep kicking." Finally frog one quit and gave up the ghost, but number
two kicked and kept on kicking. Pretty soon he felt butter coming in the
milk. He pulled enough of it together to make a pat, crawled up on it and
hopped out.
keep one's feet on the ground
To use good judgment, not get rattled.
keep one's lips buttoned up
To refrain from talking.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
keep one's nose clean
Keep aboveboard, stay honest and untarnished.
keep quiet
Be silent.
keep tab (on)
To keep score, check on.
keep the kettle boiling
Don't let activity diminish.
Often superficial activity, such as political campaigning.
keep track of
To keep score or account of.
Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee.
keep up
To equal. "You go so fast that I can't keep up."
keep well
To stay in good health.
Keep your head up.
Keep your own counsel.
Keep your pecker up.
To be strong-minded, courageous.
Keep your shirt on!
Don't get angry, impatient, excited.
keerful
Careful.
"Kentucky Babe"
Another favorite of barbershop quartets. It was written in 1896 and was
immediately popular and has remained so. The words are by Richard Buck
who in 1903 wrote the lyric for "Dear Old Girl,'' and the music is by Adam
Geibel who never came near creating another song comparable to this classic
little gem.
"Skeeters am a-humming in de honeysuckle vine.
Sleep, Kentucky Babe!
Sandman am a-coming to dis little babe of mine,
Sleep, Kentucky Babe!"
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
623
And so on to the chorus with its doubly rich harmony—
"Fly away, fly away, Kentucky Babe,
Fly away and rest.
Fly away. Lay yo' sleepy little head
On yo' mammy's breast.
"Um — um, close yo' eyes in sleep."
kep
Kept.
kept being
Continued.' 'Year after year William Jennings Bryan kept being defeated.''
See "Phil McNeill."
kerbang
An imitative sound of a sudden explosion.
kernels
Enlarged lymph glands due to some sort of infection.
kersplosh (kersplash)
A word imitative of the sound of breaking the surface of water, or splashing.
ketch
Catch.
kettle offish
A bad business, a messy entanglement.
put the kibosh on
To ruin, to make a mess of.
kick
To jilt.
A thrill, pleasure. "I get a kick out of hearing the Ku Klux is in trouble,
wherever it is."
A complaint. "He's got no kick coming."
Don't kick a dead dog.
It is hard to kick against the pricks.
Don't kick a man when he's down.
kicking about
Lying around in a mess, in disarray. "He leaves his things all the time kicking
about."
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kick in the pants
A rebuff, a reprimand.
kick in the slats
A rebuff.
kick the bucket
To die.
kick the habit
Stop the habit.
kick the lid off
To start any violent action.
kick the stuffing out of
To beat, to thrash, to whip unmercifully.
kick the wind
To be hanged.
kick up one's heels
To have a hilarious time, to go on a spree, to break over the traces.
kiddo
A familiar form of address.
kiddie
The diminutive of kid.
kidney-buster
A hard-riding horse, truck or car.
kid oneself
To deceive oneself.
to kill
In excess, exaggeratedly. "He laughed to kill at me."
kill
Kiln.
Kill a snake and hang it in a tree to bring rain.
Kill two birds with one stone.
Thou shalt not kill.
killing time
The cold winter time for killing hogs.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
625
He who kills his own body works for the worms.
Kill your own snakes.
Mind your own business.
kilter
A condition, a regular order. "Don't get things out of kilter."
kinder (kinda, kind of)
Somewhat. "He's kinder afraid of his daddy."
kindling
Splinters for starting a fire. Usually fat pine splinters with their rich resin
can be lighted easily and, when placed under green oak logs, help to start
a good hot fire.
kindly
Kind of. "When I heard the news, it kindly made me sick."
Kindness cannot be bought.
Kindness never dies.
A king can do no wrong.
The king is dead, long live the king.
kingdom
A large number, a wide expanse, a multitude. "He's got a whole kingdom
of children."
kingdom come!
The hereafter. Often an exclamation. Also a long while, limitless, some
eventuality. "I'll fight you to kingdom come, that's what I'll do."
king snake
A common variety of harmless snake good for catching rodents and keeping
poisonous snakes away.
king's saddle
Two boys clasp crossed hands to make a saddle and persuade another to
take a "ride on the king's saddle." (When girls play the game it is queen's
saddle.) They walk along carrying the rider, then fling him forward or drop
him by unclasping their hands.
"King William"
A children's singing game. The players form a ring with one child in the
center. The others march around, usually holding hands, and sing the
following song while the one in the center acts out the narrative. For instance,
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a boy chooses a girl from the ring, and then goes on through the other business
as described below. We used to sing this version at old Pleasant Union School
in Harnett County.
"King William was King George's son,
Round the royal race he run.
He wore a star upon his breast,
Points to the east and points to the west.
"Go choose your east, go choose your west,
Choose the one that you love best.
If he's (she's) not here to take your part,
Choose another with all your heart.
"Down on this carpet you must kneel,
Sure as the grass grows in the field,
And when you rise up on your feet,
Salute your bride and kiss her sweet."
Usually this last command occasioned great gales of laughter. Then the girl
who had been chosen became "It" and the game proceeded as before.
kinks
Quirks, rheumatic pains, bothersome conditions, whether physical or
mental. "That fellow's full of all kinds of kinks and is hard to deal with."
kisses
Small pieces of taffy-like candy.
Kissing goes by favor.
kissing the bride
This is permitted of the preacher for good luck.
Kiss my ass (my foot).
A term of derision.
kiss of death
Praise preceding a dismissal.
kiss off
To charge off, to dismiss, cancel. "He wouldn't pay me and I finally kissed
off the whole debt rather than sue."
kit and b 'Hing
The whole crowd.
A fat kitchen makes a lean will.
everything including the kitchen sink (stove)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
kite
627
To gad about. "She goes kiting here and yonder all the time and no wonder
her children are growing up so mean, poor things."
kitten
A jocular affectionate term for a woman.
feel like a kitten in a cat's mouth
Helpless, dependent.
stick to one like a sick kitten to a hot brick
Over-affectionate, over-devoted.
to have kittens
The menses.
To be frightened into hysterics, to cut up in a wild manner. "When that
herb doctor sprinkled me with graveyard dust, I thought I'd have kittens
all over the floor."
kittle
Kettle.
kitty
A pot, or money saved up. In poker the amount of bets on the table. "Put
something in the kitty, Big Mac, if you're going to play."
kiver
Cover.
klep
A thief.
knee baby
A small child, beginning to walk, usually, who has taken second place to
the arm baby.
knee-high to a duck
Small, short, a midget.
knee-high to a grasshopper
The same.
knet
The past tense of knit. "She knet me a pair of socks that lasted the whole
winter."
A man without a knife
Is not worth a wife.
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If a knife falls, it means a man is coming; if a fork falls, a woman is coming;
if a spoon falls, a child is coming.
Unlucky to give a knife to a friend, for knives cut friendship in two.
He who lives by the knife will die by the knife.
knife in the back
To betray, to turn traitor to.
knight of the green cloth
A gambling hall proprietor.
Knives and Forks
A finger rhyme, usually amusing to a little child.
Here's the mother's knives and forks,
(The fingers are interlaced, with the backs together.)
Here's the mother's table
(The fingers are turned down now, showing the smooth
level joints on top.)
Here's my sister's looking glass,
(Now the little fingers are brought up and they make a
point by joining the tips.)
And here's the baby's cradle.
(The index fingers are brought to a point and the hands
are rocked from side to side.)
knobhead
A mule, a dull, stupid person.
knock
To low rate, to deprecate. "I wouldn't want to say anything to knock
a fellow Mason."
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
knock about
To poke about, waste time, move around aimlessly.
knock along
To get along so-so, to fare only middling well.
Knock at the door, (Tap on the forehead.)
Peek in, (Look into the eyes.)
Lift up the latch, (Push the nose up.)
Walk in, (Touch the mouth.)
Take a chair. (Tickle under the chin.)
(A tickling rhyme.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
629
knock down
To be sold or auctioned off to the highest bidder.
To cheat.
knocked into a cocked hat
Badly damaged, confused, flummoxed.
knock for a loop
To hit a stunning blow, give a shocking surprise, or deflate a windbag.
knock galley west
Same as knock for a loop.
knock off
To stop work.
knock on wood
A superstitious custom. When one makes a braggadocio statement or a
particular wish, he knocks on wood to help the statement from failing.
knockout
A first-rate person, a nonpareil, a thing of beauty.
Little knocks split great blocks.
knock up
To make pregnant, to big.
knock your eye out
To shock, surprise, impress strongly.
knothead
A mule, a surly, stupid person, much the same as knobhead.
knot on a log
A good for nothing.
Know that God will bring every act into judgment.
Know thyself.
don't know B from bull's foot
For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything.
We know what we are, but not what we may be.
knowed
Knew.
Knowledge is power.
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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Much knowledge is a weariness to the flesh.
He knO\VS his stuff.
He that knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool — avoid him.
He who knows nothing is an authority in all things.
not that I know of
So far as I know.
knuckle down
To set to work in real earnest.
knucklehead
A stupid person.
knucks
Knuckles.
knucks on
In the game of marbles, one of the players who is shooting can call out ahead
of anybody else, "Knucks on the line" or "ring," and then he has the
privilege of putting his knuckles over the edge of the ring, which would give
him a little nearer shot at the dinahs within the ring. If someone shouts out
"Venture knucks!" then the player is denied that privilege.
kook
A nut, a lunatic. "Yeh, most of them psychiatrists up there are kooks."
kowtow
Bow down to, make obeisance, to act the sycophant to.
Ku Klux
To give the Ku Klux treatment to a person is to intimidate him, beat him up.
Ku Klux Klan
A secret and, until recently, a masked organization, mainly in the Southern
part of the United States. (The law now prohibits masks.) This terrible order
was created after the Civil War to assure white supremacy. In my section
of the country, down in Harnett County, my Uncle Heck was supposed to
be one of the organizers there. And the reason I heard him give for its
creation, when I was a boy, seemed right enough — the restoration of law
and order there. Maybe there could have been some sort of excuse for this
order a hundred years ago, but there is no need for its resurgence in these
late years — a happening due to ignorance and to plain hard prejudice.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
631
The officers of the organization have outlandish and laughable titles. (They
would be laughable if so many innocent people had not suffered cruelty and
persecution.) They are:
The Imperial Wizard (Supreme Chief Executive)
Imperial Klaiff (Supreme First Vice-President)
Imperial Klazik (Supreme Second Vice-President)
Imperial Klokard (Supreme Lecturer)
Imperial Kludd (Supreme Chaplain)
Imperial Kligrapp (Supreme Secretary)
Imperial Klabee (Supreme Treasurer)
Imperial Kladd (Supreme Conductor)
Imperial Klarogo (Supreme Inner-Guard)
Imperial Klexter (Supreme Outer-Guard)
Imperial Klonsel (Supreme Attorney)
Imperial Night-Hawk (Supreme Courier)
And four Imperial Klokann, constituting a Board of Auditors and Supreme
Advisors. These shall be known as the Imperial Wizard and his Genii.
When I was about twelve years old I got a firsthand account as to some
of the Ku Klux activities in Harnett County. Old Reuben Matthews, a Negro
farm worker, after much pleading on my part, told me what had happened
to him one dark summer night. I remember his account as vividly today
as if I had just heard it yesterday. (We children called him Uncle Reuben,
a title of respect given to older Negroes, just as we referred to old Negro
women as Aunt so and so.)
It was a clear dry morning in May. He and I were out in the field
harvesting my father's oats. He was seventy and I was twelve. Round and
round we went, his cradle dipping with a whup-swish, whup-swish, and he
laying the handfuls of cut oats behind him, and me following with all my
manful might tying these handfuls into larger bundles later to be hauled
to the barn there across the sun-drenched fields.
I was feeling good that morning and Uncle Reuben felt extra spry. I
could tell from the way he swung his cradle. And the reason we both felt
good was that my Uncle Heck was coming up from Wilmington, where he
was the postmaster, to pay us one of his rare visits. I had waked at the roostercrow that morning, and a little sweet feeling had come quick inside my breast
remembering the letter we'd received from him the day before saying that
he would be up to visit us. And when I told Uncle Reuben that Uncle Heck
was coming, he beat his old hat twice against his leg and said, "Hot dog,
I'd rather slap these two eyes on that man than anybody that walks this wide
green earth!"
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Paul Green's Wordbook
"And he'll bring you a plug of that good Apple tobacco, won't he?"
I said.
"That he will, bless his sweet heart," said Uncle Reuben. "He allus
does."
Uncle Heck was a wonder to me—my hero.
As a young man he was in the great Civil War. He actually fought at
Gettysburg and lived to tell the tale — except that it was very hard to get
him to tell it. Once, though, he had unloosed and talked with me about it.
We were sitting by the fire one winter night and I had worn him down, I
guess, with my pleading, for he had relented enough to get started by saying
there was a lot of killing that went on those three days at Gettysburg. I already
knew this from my little Confederate history. And the worst thing about
it for him, he continued slowly, even worse than the wounded men lying
out in the hot sun and calling for their mothers while they died—worse than
that, he said, was the whickering and the wild neighing of the horses that
were jerking and lunging about with broken legs and their stomachs all tore
to pieces and their insides dragging on the ground.
Uncle Heck loved horses and he always kept a nice limber-legged one
for his buggy.
' 'And you were lying out there wounded too, wasn't you, Uncle Heck?
Yes sir," I declared.
"Yes, I was lying out there," he said.
"You were tough, though," I prompted jubilantly. "They couldn't
kill you."
"Yeh, tough is the word, and I got over it somehow. I was brought
home in a wagon on a bed of wheat straw. And I stunk so bad from my
wounds that your grandmammy wouldn't let 'em bring me in the house.
Dr. McNeill had to work on me in the barn till the rotted parts of my flesh
got cleaned up and healed some." He stopped and looked up at the clock
on the mantelpiece. "Time for you to go to bed, boy."
"And you got wounded in six places, didn't you, Uncle Heck, in that
charge across the wide field? Six bullets hit you, didn't they? Papa said they
did."
He chuckled. "I got peppered all right with them minny balls. But I
lived. Don't you reckon I lived? Yes sir, tough, you said." And he laughed
and smoothed back his handsome clean-cut gray moustache.
Uncle Heck always wore nice clothes, kept himself trim and neat, carried
a cane, and in the summertime he always had a flower in his buttonhole,
a cape jessamine bloom if he could get one. My hero!
I laughed a bit too and hurried on. "Did you ever see General Lee, Uncle
Heck, did you?"
"Many a time, boy, many a time. And a sorrowful, bothered man he
was too."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
633
"What was he bothered about, Uncle Heck? Oh, I know — losing all
so many of his boys in gray, that's what."
' 'Maybe that too. But I reckon what bothered him most was trying to
make heads or tails of the whole thing he was tangled up in. Oh yes, that
bothered him considerable. It bothered a lot of us."
He looked up at the clock again. "I've told you it's bedtime. Go on,
boy."
But I was quick with my big question. "How many Yankees did you
kill, Uncle Heck? I bet a lot. How many?"
"Maybe I killed some, maybe I didn't. Ididalotof shooting. I've prayed
on my knees, though, many times that I didn't kill a single solitary man.
And if I had, I begged God to forgive me for it." Then he called toward
the kitchen to my mother, "Betty, come get this young'un and put him to
bed. He's pestering me to death about that old Civil War and I don't allow
that."
And pulling a cheroot from his vest pocket, he bit off the end with his
fine gold-filled front teeth, bent over, stuck a lightwood splinter into the
fireplace of coals and leaning back brought its frying flame up and lighted
his cheroot with great manly puffings. I watched him with the saliva working
in my mouth. The rattling of the dishes in the kitchen where my mother
was washing them after supper suddenly stopped, and she came in and in
spite of my pleadings sent me sternly off to bed.
Someofthese things out of past days flitted through my mind that fair
May morning as I followed Uncle Reuben in the oat field. Whup-swish went
the blade. The sun climbed up the sky and the sweat poured down. After
a while he slung the cradle over his shoulder and said it was time to get some
water to drink. We went to the apple tree at the edge of the field where our
water jug was shaded in a bunch of pawpaw bushes. We sat down and fanned
ourselves, and I took a long drink from the jug first because I was white
and Uncle Reuben drank second because he was black, and that was the
way of things with no questions asked. As he tilted the jug back I watched
the water go gluk-gluk in wads down his stringy, wrinkled old throat — a
throat as black and scaly as the hide of that alligator I had seen in the circus
at Dunn. Then I noticed another thing. The sleeve of his ragged homemade
shirt slipped back and there were two round scar spots showing on his
forearm.
He set the jug down, reached back in the shade, fanned himself a bit
more and pulled out a piece of his petrified rock and began sharpening the
cradle blade. Once more his old sleeve slipped back up his forearm from
his lifted hand and there were those spots again. I happened to notice them,
idly at first. And then I stared at them. He saw I was looking at his arm.
He pushed the cradle from him and slid the whetstone back into his pocket.
He pulled his sleeve down and sat scrubbing his grizzled chin with the hard
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Paul Green's Wordbook
palm of his hand the yellow color of a mulberry root. Then he pulled out
a piece of homemade tobacco twist and pinched off a piece and stuck the
twist out to me. I shook my head though I was dying to try it, and my greedy
saliva was working as always. He sat there munching the tobacco contentedly
for a moment with his hard gums, then squirted a bit of slightly stained yellow
juice out to one side. He began chuckling.
"You notice things, don't you?" he said.
"I dunno, Uncle Reuben," I answered uncertainly.
"Yeh, you do. You got sharp eyes. I notice that 'bout a lot of things.
And now you done crossed the line of 'countability, ain't you?"
" 'Countability?"
' That's the time when a young'un gets up where he can think for hisself,
like grown folks, gets responsible for his actions. The preachers and teachers
tell about it."
"Yes," I said, "I already know about that."
"So I reckon I mought as well tell you about them spots you been
looking at, now that you got up so far in the world. I see you keep looking
at 'em."
"Yeh, I bet you've had bad carbuncles like my brother had."
He chuckled once more. "No, not carbuncles," he said.
"I had a bad carbuncle on my thigh," I said, "and it left a round scar
much the same."
"Carbuncles don't make marks like that," he said. "I know."
"What was it, Uncle Reuben? What caused it?"
"Sump'n a lot worse'n carbuncles."
"What? What was that?"
"Hot lead, boy," he answered abruptly, "bullet lead."
"Bullets?"
"That's what I say. That's where I was shot 'way back in them days."
"You shot? Good gracious. When?"
"Back in the Ku Klux times."
I knew about the Ku Klux of course. And now I remembered I had heard
in past times that Uncle Reuben as a young man had been mixed up in some
kind of trouble, some kind of killing. But I had never heard the story. Nobody
would talk about it. My father wouldn't. And now at last maybe I was going
to hear all about it. I squirmed up a bit closer.
"Did the Ku Klux shoot you?" I asked eagerly.
"Yeah, one of them Ku Klux did."
"Who was it, Uncle Reuben?"
"Now ain't that a come-off! You know good and well I ain't going
to tell you 'bout no 'ticular person. It was just the Ku Klux shot me. I'll
show you sump'n else." Creaking to his feet he undid his homemade britches,
pulled up his shirt and showed me another spot on his side. Then he turned
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
635
around and shamelessly dropped his trousers farther down disclosing another
mark low on his stringy, seamed stern. "Yes suh, son," he went on,' 'that's
where them bullets hit me." He stuck his shirt in and buttoned his britches
again. "They sho' poured the lead into me that time."
I sat there staring at him horrified—yet thrilled too. I was all in a
shivering tumult to hear more.
"How did it happen? How did it, Uncle Reuben?" I said. "Theydidn't
have any right to treat you like that. Lord a'mercy, you oughta got a gun
and killed somebody!"
He stared at me. "I did kill somebody, son," he said. I blinked at him.
He went on. "When I heard them Ku Kluxers outside my door I told 'em
not to come in 'cause I was right inside there and I had my axe handy. 'Don't
come in here,' I said, Til kill the first man breaks in my door!' But that
didn't stop 'em. They whoomed and lunged against the door and they finally
broke it down. And the first man that tumbled in was Mr. Ed Gaskins, and
what did I do with my axe? I split him clean down to the belly-button. Lord,
Lord, I split him on down."
And then I remembered too that I had heard something about a Mr.
Gaskins that got killed long, long ago in the Ku Klux trouble. Speechless,
I gazed at Uncle Reuben. He was no longer just Uncle Reuben but a man
with something suddenly mysterious and strange about him. He had killed
somebody. He seemed farther away than before—bigger, stronger, more
lonely.
He chuckled again and dug into the ground with one of his long-nailed
bony fingers. "Course I been sorry for that a long, long time. I been sorry.
But I been done forgive for it by de old Master up there," and he gestured
toward the sky. Then a medley of little whickering chuckles broke from him
and he spat a spurt of brown juice now off to one side. "But tough, I was
tough! They couldn't kill this nigger, no sir! There I was lying on that floor
that night and that Ku Klux man standing over me with the smoking pistol
in his hand and the other dead body lying there all split open, bleeding on
the floor. Well, I could see that man against the door light and I could smell
the powder in the room too, even smell the fresh blood. I still had my good
senses about me. And you know what that Ku Klux with the pistol said while
he was standing over me?"
"No, I don't," I spoke up breathlessly.
"I heard him say. 'I reckon that's done for you, you damn black
scoundrel. But I'll make sho' of it.' And he bent over in the dark and he
fired that last bullet smack at me. He'd already shot me five times. And
that made six. But maybe in the dark his hand was too trembly, so he just
grazed the side of my skelp here.'' And Uncle Reuben lifted his old hat back,
pushed up a bit of his kinky gray hair and there, sure enough, along the
side above his ear was a slick hairless mark.
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"Lord," I breathed, "Lord!"
'' Yeh, they shot me down like a dog,'' he went on easily, even pridefully.
' 'Maybe I was deserving of it some. I was a young buck then and I had just
got my freedom. Maybe I was shooting off my mouth round and about a
little too much. And that's how come they come waiting on me in the deep
dead of night, them Ku Kluxers."
"It must have scared you 'bout to death. How did they look, Uncle
Reuben, how?"
"Lord, boy, they had bedsheets over their heads and horns sticking
up through that headgear and they had great booger goggle-eyes. Oh, my
goodness! Makes me shiver thinking of it now. Long time it was since it
happened, but still makes me shiver. I tell you one thing, though, them Ku
Kluxers made the niggers, the sassy niggers, keep in their place."
"Did you know who it was shot you, Uncle Reuben? Who?"
"Sure I knowed him. He pulled off his sheet headgear and he looked
down at me lying on the floor that night. I seen him clear. I would've knowed
his voice anyhow, 'cause him and me had worked in the fields together many
a time, in fact—ah—yea, many a time."
"Who was it?"
"Now behave yourself. You know I ain't gonna tell you that."
"Please. Do I know him?"
"Hush, boy."
"After that what happened? What happened?"
' 'Well, they carried the dead man off from there, away from my house,
and later I crawled out through the door and across the fields and got into
a ditch. I lay in that ditch all that night and the next day, and that's where
Nedgelena, the gal I later married, found me. And she and her mammy hid
me in the smokehouse and treated me with poultices and with tallow and
turpentine salve till I got well."
"And then what, Uncle Reuben?"
"Well, I laid mighty low, hid out, as I say, and am here to tell you.
And by the time I got well the high feelings had sort of ca'med over. People
had learnt better. But I moved off to Sampson County anyhow and farmed
there for a few years, then come back here on your daddy's land, and I been
here ever since. Yes, sir, people were riled up back in them days and all on
account of us niggers."
"No, no, it was more mixed up, was deeper than that, Uncle Reuben,''
I said, remembering my reading. "The two parts of the country had just
grown apart, different sorts of civilization. They thought differently about
things. And the North kept imposing on the South, taking her trade away
from her, passing laws in Congress against her."
"Maybe so, son — Lord help my life, what do I see yonder!" And he
sprang to his feet quick as a young man. I turned my head and then I jumped
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
637
up too, for there coming across the field all dressed out in his white linen
suit and Panama hat and swinging his gold-headed cane in the summer sun
was Uncle Heck. Both Uncle Reuben and I had been so intent on the Ku
Klux story that we hadn't heard the sound of the buggy or the trotting horse
coming up the lane at all. Uncle Reuben now quickly spat out his tobacco
juice, cleared his throat, spat again, wiped his face, pushed his kinky hair
up and finished buttoning his trousers — primping himself.
"Howyou there, Reuben?" Uncle Heck called, stepping along toward
us. Already Uncle Reuben was grinning and bowing up and down, his hat
in his hand while he answered back.
"Bless the Lord, there you is, Mr. Heck — a sight for sore eyes. Yes
sir, glory be to the Lord on high!" And he scrambled out to meet Uncle
Heck. I stood there, a little twelve-year-old sweat-sodden fool, watching
those two older fools. For as they met there in the middle of the lone oat
field — Uncle Heck with his fine summer clothes and his gray clean-cut
military moustache and gold-rimmed eyeglasses and Panama hat and cane,
a gentleman great and airy, and Uncle Reuben, smelly and dust begrimed
and a Negro at that — Uncle Heck threw his arms around him and hugged
him and Uncle Reuben hugged him back. Without hardly knowing what
I did I picked up the water jug and went nearer to them.
"Well, you old black scoundrel, you ain't aged a day since last year,"
said Uncle Heck.
"And you, Mr. Heck, you looks lak sump'n stepped out of the bandbox
of heaven, always a spick and span gentleman.'' And Uncle Reuben peered
at him. "One thing I miss though," he said, "that purty flower you allus
wears in your buttonhole."
"Well, I've stopped that, Reuben, stopped it," Uncle Heck laughed.
"The gay girls have quit smiling at me since I'm so old, so I said to myself,
'What use is there in buying a flower any more?' You keeping well, Reuben?''
"Yes suh, yes suh, tip top."
And then Uncle Heck looked out at me and gestured with his fabulous
cane. "Which one is that?"
"That's the one named Paul, suh."
"Hi, Paul son, how you doing, boy? My goodness, you've grown!"
"All right, Uncle Heck," I stammered, my head swimming with joy.
Lord, I loved that man!
"It's hard to keep up with 'em all," he said to Uncle Reuben. "Brother
Bill has so many. How many has he got now?"
"Mercy me, I don't know, Mr. Heck, a whole passel."
"How many are you now, son?" Uncle Heck called.
"There are — six of us now, Uncle Heck," I stuttered.
"Well, well. And here I have got only one and she married and off at
that. Is he smart, Reuben?"
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"Yes, he do the best he kin," Uncle Reuben chuckled. "But stories
— that's what he likes best — stories. He's all the time after me about things
— about darky songs, whether I done seen a ha' nt or not, old foiks' tales.''
"Uhm, Paul, you say. Yes, I remember him well enough. Always
pestering me to tell him about the war."
"Yessuh, that's him," said Uncle Reuben.
"Well, if he wants to hear a real tale, you ought to tell him about the
Ku Klux times, Reuben."
' 'Yes sir, I told him something about that, seeing how manhood is about
to come on him and he done crossed the line of 'countability."
Uncle Heck turned to me. "So Reuben told you about the Ku Klux?"
"Yes sir," I answered.
"Did he tell you about poor Ed Gaskins?"
"Yes sir," I gulped, "the one that got killed with the axe."
"And what else?" And Uncle Heck was staring sharply yet smilingly
at me now.
"That's all, Mr. Heck," said Uncle Reuben quickly. "That's all."
"And a Ku Kluxer shot Uncle Reuben down in the floor," I added.
"That's right, that's right," said Uncle Heck. "And did Reuben tell
you who the Ku Kluxer was?"
"Now, Mr. Heck, you know I know better'n that."
"No sir, he didn't."
"Tell him, Reuben," and he laughed. "He and his line of
accountability. That would be a story to last him for a while."
But Reuben shook his head. "Lord, no, sir," he said.
And then Uncle Heck pushed the end of his cane at Reuben and laughed
again. "You know what today is, Reuben?" he said.
"No sir."
"It's an anniversary. It's the sixth of May." Then he looked over at
me. "Thirty-eight years ago it was, son, when he was shot. Walking along
downtown yesterday I thought of it. And in honor of that occasion, Reuben,
I brought you a whole box full of Apple tobacco, there in the buggy.'' And
he gestured off toward the house.
"The Lord bless you, the Lord bless you from his heavenly bosom!"
said Uncle Reuben. And he grabbed Uncle Heck's hand and held it and kissed
it. Uncle Heck laughed again and called out to me, as he winked his eye
all merry like.
"Look here, son," he said. "Look! You see Reuben kissing my hand.
Well, this is the very hand that shot him down one night thirty-eight years
ago."
I dropped the water jug with a bump.
Now the bell in the yard of our little house across the field began to
ring for dinner, and Uncle Reuben and Uncle Heck turned and moved on
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
639
across the field. Forgetting the water jug, I followed after. And as I went,
the word "six" came foolishly in my mind — "six." Uncle Heck had been
shot with six bullets on the field of Gettysburg, and six times he had shot
Uncle Reuben. And they both lived. Six for six. Tough, yes, both of them
tough.
And there they were walking in the summer weather ahead of me. Uncle
Heck's arm was around Uncle Reuben's shoulders, and they both were
laughing and talking over the old days — cronies, bosom buddies. Eh, Lord!
John Kuners
Negro mummers. There used to be a lot of Christmas mumming and
serenading in the old days. One of the most impressive Valley customs of
all was the visit of the John Kuners. These were young Negro boys and men
who went around with tatters and strips of gay colors sewn to their clothes.
Some of them wore women's garb. They were disguised in all sorts of
homemade masks, some representing fox faces, 'possums, hogs, Rawheadand-bloody-bones, Plat-eye and the Headless Girl, which they called Kuner
faces. They would rattle cow bones and dried-out horse ribs, blow rams'
horns, blow harmonicas, toot on guano bugles, and collect pennies and food
from door to door. The leader often carried a long blacksnake whip which
he whizzed through the air like an exploding firecracker. It used to be hard
to get the children to go to bed so old Santa Claus could look after their
stockings until the John Kuners had gone by singing their song about—
"They's misery in the mountains,
They's smoke upon the hill,
And they ain't no coming shuteye
Till the Kuners had their fill.
Hah — low,
Here we go!
Hah —low!"
The custom has long ago died out, and it's a pity. For it was a fearsome
and thrilling sight to see them coming up the lane in the darkness with their
pine-splinter torches waving above their wild costumes and making their
terrible and outlandish noises. Old men have told me they heard this custom
was brought over from Africa or the West Indies with the first slaves.
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�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
641
L
You can't tell what's in a bottle by the label.
Labor overcometh all things.
The laborer is worthy of his hire.
It is bad luck to walk under a ladder.
like holding a ladder for a thief
ladies
Gambling cards. "All right, fellows, bring out the ladies and let's get
started."
lady boarders
Prostitutes.
ladybug (ladybird)
A small insect that eats other insects. There was an old belief that it
represented the Virgin Mary in disguise.
Ladybug, ladybug,
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire.
Your children will burn.
(Children's rhyme.)
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.
Bring me good weather whenever you come.
(A divination rhyme.)
lady killer
A fop, a dandy.
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lady slipper or lady's slipper
Known also as moccasin flower, perhaps because of its one flat-headed
blossom. It grows from Manitoba to Georgia in swamplands and dampish
woods. Its greatest value to me is its poetic name. A tincture from its root
was once supposed to be good for nervous diseases.
laid by
To be hilled up, or to have received the last plowing for the summer. See
"layby."
/ laid off to do.
I planned to do, intended to do.
laid on the shelf
Retired, out of circulation, passe.
who laid the rail
An old saying of comparison. "I've knowed that boy ever since who laid
the rail."
laid up
Something waiting, something to be done later. "I've got a talking-to laid
up for you."
Sick, bedridden.
laig
Leg.
lally-gagging
Idle talk.
Flirtatious lovemaking.
lambang
To beat, to strike strongly. "Quit lambanging that bell, will you."
lame duck
A politician who has been defeated in reelection or has completed the
allowable term and still has some time to serve.
lamentate
Complain, lament.
lamp
To look or to gaze at.
A lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
643
lampas
Excessive swelling of a horse's or mule's gums.
lamp chimney salesman
A front man or a con man.
between me and you and the lamppost
In confidence, secretive.
lamps
The eyes.
lanch
Lance. "Let the doctor lanch that boil and you'll get better."
Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
Lives there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land.
a land
A strip of land the width of a plow's cutting in the breaking of the soil.
my land!
A mild exclamation.
see how the land lies
To find out the situation, also to find out how much one owes, as at a store.
land office business
Huge trading activity, large profits. "Since liquor can be served, the
restaurants have been doing a land office business."
land of Nod
Sleepy-time land. Also a place in the Asiatic world where Cain fled after
murdering his brother Abel and where, according to many of the
fundamentalists in the Valley, the Negro race had its beginning.
One day when I was teenage boy I was helping Cousin Arthur Searcey
chop out his spring cotton. He was a deacon in Little Bethel Church, also
a justice of the peace. Whish, whish, went our hoes in the soft loamy earth
— at least mine went that way — as we thinned the long spraddle-legged
young cotton stalks and edged out the crab grass. I was in the lead of him
naturally, me being me and always in "such a swivet," as he put it, and
he always "taking it easy," as I put it, and looking after his weak back.
I was helping him with his cotton because of sympathy for my Cousin Lillian.
She had in her late thirties married Arthur Searcey in his bachelor middle
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age some few years before to reform him and as everybody knew was having
a poverty-stricken time of her life.
That morning too my father had said, "Go down there and help your
Cousin Arth with his cotton. The grass is about to get it. No, go help your
Cousin Lillian, I mean."
Yes, Cousin Arth was a poor provider, in fact hardly any provider at
all. He instinctively shied away from anything that meant sweat and hard
work.
Cousin Lillian had reformed him all right. Since the day of their
marriage three years before he had not touched a drop of liquor. A wonderful
moral reform it was. But he who had had at least a little bit of get-up-andget in his drinking days now had lost even that when he quit liquor. It was
as if he felt so proud of his moral reform that his self-esteem and selfsatisfaction were sufficient to sustain his inner man in his laziness. He felt
no prickings of conscience as his wife ironed and washed and milked the
scrawny ticky cow and did what she could in selling a bit of butter and a
few eggs now and then to make ends meet and to tithe something for foreign
missionary work, which subject of the heathen lay heavy in her tender heart.
Hadn't he quit drinking and carousing around, and what more could you
ask?
Maybe in his slubbery way Cousin Arth loved Cousin Lillian. Maybe
he didn't. I don't know. But I know he loved the courthouse in the county
seat, all right. Nothing suited him better than to hang around the crowd
there and mix among the political deadbeats and perennial candidates for
office every chance he got.
Finally somehow he got up brass and energy enough to meet with the
right precinct boss and so got himself appointed a rural j ustice of the peace.
And sweet it was to his ears when the first defendant addressed him as
"jedge" — a feeble-witted Negro boy named Jay Gould who had robbed
one of Cousin Lillian's hen's nests and whom Cousin Arth, much to my
disgust — for I was there at the time — and Cousin Lillian's patient
protestation, declared must be tried.
And spitting a stream of tobacco juice and eyeing a pocket of space
in the northeast part of the horizon where perhaps he saw some image of
majesty that resided there as he deliberated, he pronounced a fine of fifty
cents on Jay Gould and ordered him to work it out then and there picking
cotton for him, the said judge. "The power and dignity of the law must
be upheld," he said.
And all day Cousin Arth had sat about overseeing Jay Gould as he
worked out his fine, a full day's work.
Since early morning now we had been at the chopping, and it was getting
on toward ten o'clock and the air was becoming a little steamy. Every now
and then Cousin Arth would stop, look biliously around the world, cock
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
645
his eye toward the northeast — a funny habit he had — wipe his forehead
with his sleeve and, with his middle finger, carefully push back the looping
strands of his tobacco-drenched moustache. Then he would listlessly resume
his chopping, making one laggard stroke while I made two or three. I heard
him muttering to himself there behind me.
"What say?" I said.
"I say you're allus working like your britches were full of red ants,"
he growled.
Without looking around I spoke right back — "I reckon it's better'n
having the dead lice dropping off you."
Oh, yes, I was brash and spoke right out at him because I had so little
respect for him and because too, as my folks said, I had such a high temper.
"Uhm, uhm, listen at him," he mumbled. He stood a moment, leaning
his chin on the knob of his hoe handle and staring down toward the creek.
"Whew, it's gonna be a scorcher," he called.
' 'Come on, Cousin Arth, you've not even started sweating yet," I called
back. "Cool, man, it's cool compared to what it's gonna be about two
o'clock. Remember, when the fall comes, you want a bale or two of cotton
to sell, want to feel that good old money jingling in your pockets."
"You and your money!" he cackled.
"Cousin Lillian's money then,'' I answered angrily.' 'And besides the
almanac says it's likely to be wet weather later this month and we want to
get this cotton cleaned up and plowed and ready for it."
Cousin Arth swore by the almanac, but I didn't.
"You and your prophecy," he said.
"I know this is sorry work for his honor the judge," I jeered. "But
the Bible do say a man's got to live by the sweat of his brow."
"You and your—" Then he stopped, for like all the Valley people he
had his religious streak and didn't dare speak disrespectfully of the holy
book.
He resumed his pecking, sickly strokes, and soon I was out to the end
of my row and coming back on another toward him.
Later a mule and buggy came along the lane beyond the rail fence
nearby, driven by a Negro youth all dressed out in a blue suit and derby
hat and high stiff collar with a red tie, and with a white rose stuck in the
lapel of his coat. By his side sat a teenage Negro girl in a white muslin frock
and blue scarf and with a great droopy yellow beribboned hat fitted
somewhat sideways on her head. Cousin Arth heard the buggy wheels and
looked off as the vehicle stopped beyond the fence and the boy pulled off
his derby hat and held it extended in front of him.
Finally the boy spoke over the fence toward us, bowing his body
respectfully forward. "Mawning, suh," he said.
"Yeah," Cousin Arth grunted, eyeing him.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
"Is you the jedge, suh?" the boy inquired.
I snorted as I saw the judicial feeling take sudden hold of Cousin Arth.
"I am that," he said loftily and sternly. And he stamped his hoe against
the ground and stood with it straight beside him like a Roman soldier with
a spear. "And I reckon I can guess what you want."
The girl slapped her hands together, leaned over sideways and burst
into a cascade of high giggles, then as if abashed, bowed her droopy hat
over and sat silent. But I could see her round shoulders shaking with stuffedin merriment.
"Well, yes suh, us wants to git j'ined—merried, suh."
"You do, eh?" said Cousin Arth, still standing straight and stern and
not moving.
"Yes suh," said the boy.
"And what does the girl say?"
The girl threw up her hands again and let out a little shrill hilarious
scream and rocked from side to side.
"Well, I can see she's as big a fool as you are," Cousin Arth called
out. "How old are you?"
" 'Bout eighteen, suh," said the boy.
"And the yaller gal — how old is she?"
"How old's you?" I heard the boy murmur to her.
"I's 'bout sixteen," said the girl in a small but remarkably clear childish
voice.
' 'All right then,'' Cousin Arth called in his stern commanding manner.
"Take hands."
The boy put his derby hat back on his head, took one of the girl's hands
in his and held it up before him. And Cousin Arth intoned loudly through
the gentle spring air—
"Nought's a nought,
Figger's a figger,
Kiss your bride,
You dirty nigger."
The boy and girl sat still. The fields were still too, and Cousin Arth
and I were motionless in them. Only the creaking of the harness hames was
heard and the motion of the mule's great gullet head seen as it dropped down
and the huge whiskered lips began gnawing hungrily at the sparse grass in
the fence jamb. The boy looked out sideways and finally said, "Is they any
more, Jedge?"
"Ain't no more," Cousin Arth said.
"You mean that's all, Jedge?"
" All,'' said Cousin Arth loudly, "and it'll hold you till the cows come
home."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
647
"Then we's merried, Jedge?" the boy timidly called.
"Yes, you're married," said Cousin Arth roughly. "I pronounce you
man and wife. And it'll cost you a dollar." He held out his hand before
him and then shouted, "Do as I say—kiss your bride!"
The bridegroom gave the girl a tiny bump with his mouth against her
cheek, at which her body swayed and undulated like a flower in the wind.
But there was no giggle from her now.
The boy got out of the buggy, climbed over the fence and came up to
Cousin Arth, bareheaded and with vast respect. He put a dollar in the
"jedge's" still outstretched hand and the "jedge" dropped it carelessly into
his shirt pocket as if it were of no importance to him at all now. The
bridegroom began bowing and backing away.
"Thankee, suh, thankee, suh."
"You're mashing down my young cotton," Cousin Arth suddenly
yelled, and he lifted his hoe threateningly. The boy slammed his derby on,
turned and vaulted over the fence light as a deer. He sprang into the buggy,
and he and his bride drove on down the road, sitting straight and stiff side
by side. Only once did he look back — a quick little snatched glance. Cousin
Arth rested on his upright hoe handle again and gazed after them, his
moustache wiggling in a sardonic smile. I looked at him in a sort of sullen
stupefaction.
"Seems like you might have asked them their names," I finally said
with all the sarcasm I could command.
"It don't make no difference," said Cousin Arth. "And look," he
continued, gesturing off, "she's got her head laying over on his shoulder
now. First huckleberry thicket they find they'll stop and go to it."
"That was a lowdown thing to do!" I said fiercely.
"Do how?" he queried with a chuckle, as he swiftly took the dollar
from his shirt pocket, smoothed it in his hand and stowed it deep inside his
old trousers.
"To pretend to marry them like that. To say that mean piece of sorry
poetry over them like that—to—to—." I was stuttering with rage.
"It don't make no difference," he repeated. "I learned that when I
was a boy.''
"Learned what?" I snapped.
"Learned it don't make no difference — not with niggers."
"They're not even married," I said. "And their children will—"
"Of course they're married," hesaid. "You heard me pronounce them
man and wife."
"Ah, Lord!" I exploded. "What a way to treat a human being!"
He turned and stared at me. "A nigger ain't a human being," he said.
I stared at him in turn.
' 'And where do you get that crazy idea?'' I snorted. And I began hoeing
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Paul Green's Wordbook
furiously again.
He smiled at me and walked along with me, his hoe in his hand. I could
feel his poor-white supercilious smile.
"From the best place in the world to get ideas," he said. "You ought
to know — being as you are so smart in Scripture and got the Bible medal
at Buie's Creek Academy and teach the Bible class in Little Bethel Church.''
"Well, the Bible don't say a Negro's not a human being, it never says
that!" I half-shouted.
"Oh, yes it does," he chortled. "Says so when you put two and two
together. Long ago my daddy pointed it all out to me and his daddy before
him. And I've hearn Preacher Wicker say the same.'' And now cocking his
head to one side he put on his legal manner again, interrogating me as if
I were a defendant hauled before him. "How many children did Adam and
Eve have?"
I humored him. "Well, they had Cain and Abel and—"
"Stop right there. Cain and Abel's enough. Now Cain and Abel got
into a fight, didn't they?"
"It was Cain's fight. He picked up a rock and slew his brother." And
I chopped faster. He followed.
"So he did, and I believe it. Then what happened to Cain?"
"God put a curse on him, a mark on him and he fled."
"And where did he go?"
"The Bible says he went up into the land of Nod."
"Ah-hah, that's just what he did. Then what happened?"
"So you're corning to that crazy business of his finding his wife up there.
Yes, I see what you're after!"
' 'That's just what I am,'' he spoke up triumphantly. And then his face
deepened with the pious look I knew so well from the communion Sundays
in Little Bethel Church when he officiated around the white tablecloth with
the wine cups and the bits of damp clammy bread. Now he went on
sanctimoniously, "Listen, fellow, you'd better be careful how you speak
light about the Holy Scriptures. Crazy business? Well, I believe the Bible
from led to led."
"Oh, yes, you say you do," I fumed. I was boiling.
"And I do. And the Bible do say in Genesis 4, verses 15, 16 and 17,
that God set a mark on Cain, and Cain went up into the land of Nod—"
" 'And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the
land of Nod on the east of Eden,' " I corrected sharply.
"Ahm, yes, that's right. And then what do it say?"
" 'And Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bare Enoch and he
builded a city—' "
"Whoa. That's enough. Now who was his wife? They wasn't but one
woman on earth at that time, was they — Eve, his own mother? No sir, no
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
649
other woman. Well, I'll tell you what's the truth — Cain cohabited up with
one of these here female gorillas — you've seen 'em in the circus at Raleigh,
seen what flat noses and big lips they got just like a nigger."
"Aw, go to the devil!" I yelled. And I hoed even more furiously. He
still walked along by me.
"And that's the pime blank truth. Cain's children were animals. And
they were niggers. And niggers are animals and they ain't got no souls. They
were born of an animal, a gorilla. That's how the nigger race got started.
And being the children of a gorilla, as I say, they ain't got no soul. You
may not believe it, but most of the folks in this neighborhood believe it."
"Yes, they sure do," I sneered. "They use it for an excuse to oppress
and keep the Negro people down. And the big politicians in Raleigh believe
it and use it for the same reason. And let me tell you something, you folks
that are always talking and mouthing about Jesus and the heavenly paradise
hereafter where you're going to live in ease, play harps and hear the angels
sing — well, let me tell you something, Arthur Searcy—you won't get within
sight of heaven. You'll sure be caught short." And I let a neighing laugh
break across the fields. "And Jesus has never heard of you and never will.
You are all bedfellows and cronies of the Devil himself. When you die you'll
hit hell-bottom like a shot — if there is a hell — and there ought to be for
such folks as you." O, Lord, I was mad.
"Ho, ho," he jeered, "I hearn tell you're 'bout a plumb infidel behind
all your Bible readings. You don't railly believe in the hereafter a-tall," he
cackled sardonically.
"Well, maybe I do or I don't," I said. "Anyhow — this world is enough
for me — for the present it is. But if there is a hereafter it is made for just
such folks as you and it will be hell all right — hell to punish you." Here
I angrily flung down my hoe. "And as for you and your lousy cotton, I'd
never hoe another lick if it wasn't for my poor Cousin Lillian that you
browbeat and use like a doormat to wipe your feet on."
And turning I went ragingly down across the little field to the spring
branch to get me some water.
"Lordy mercy, he's madder'n a wet hen,'' he shrilled after me. I made
no answer. And sitting by the spring I fashioned a little cup of some green
oak leaves and drank my belly full of the sweet clear water.
Presently looking across the fields I saw Cousin Arth on his way to
his little shack of a house there. I knew where he was headed now — over
to town to visit the courthouse gang and spend his dollar. Sure enough, in
a few minutes I saw him drive his little horse hitched to a roadcart from
around behind the shack. Cousin Lillian came out on the corner-sagging
decrepit porch and called to him. "Will you be back for supper, Arthur?"
I heard her say in her meek way. And I also heard his gruff reply that he
had legal business in town that might keep him late and for her to go ahead
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and eat by herself.
And so he drove happily away. I knew what legal business it was —
he sitting around the courthouse and chewing the rag and eating peanuts
and bananas and coconut candy till his dollar was all gone, and listening
too to the deadbeats talk and argue about the corruption of the Republican
party. And then after that like as not they'd talk about the heathen practices
of the lost souls in India and China who have never heard of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified and so are doomed to eternal punishment — babies, young
people, and old people. And all such stuff as that!
I got up stiffly and went on back to my work. And there coming across
the rows, with her house duties done now, was Cousin Lillian to take her
beloved husband's hoe and labor in his stead. I smothered the oath that
rose to my lips.
And whish — whish — whish went our hoes again in the soft loamy
earth as the day wore on. And the moist feel of the month of May was in
the air around us.
"It'samightypurtyday, ain'tit?" Cousin Lillian said. "You can smell
the sweet bay blooms down in the swamp."
I was so swelled up with bitterness that I made no answer. And we
chopped on.
Soon Cousin Lillian's clear voice rose in one of her beloved hymns,
and soon too her strong chopping strokes fell into the rhythm of the piece.
Now I am a sucker for music. That's about the only reason I went to church
— to hear the music, well, yes, to teach the Bible class, too. So I joined in
with her, and out across the burning fields our singing spread.
"Can we whose souls are lighted
By wisdom from on high,
Can we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny."
And I made my tenor harmonize with her clear soprano, and satirically
so — amen — though kind heart that she was she never noticed it.
"Salvation! O Salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till earth's remotest nation
Has learned Messiah's name!"
And now I called out loudly, "Next verse! Let's make it ring, Cousin
Lillian. Make it ring!"
She gave me a grateful happy smile — and we did, all about the heathen
ones lost in darkness far away.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
651
"In vain with lavish kindness
The gifts of God are strown,
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone—
Bows down to wood and stone."
land o' goshen!
An exclamation.
land poor
Having little money but much land.
land's sake!
A colloquial exclamation.
It's a long lane that has no turning.
A lantern is no use to a mole.
lantern-jawed
One with a long thin face and prominent jaw.
lap
The top of a tree left on the ground after the log is removed.
lap cloth
Apron.
lap link
The flat open link of a chain which is used to join other links.
lap of the gods
Let fate or chance decide, take the responsibility. " It's in the lap of the gods.''
lard stand
A large tin can in which melted lard is poured. Then when it cools, it remains
white as snow, much like uncolored oleomargarine.
lareoversfor meddlers
A phrase of rebuking. There used to be an old saying that would come back
at a person when he asked some meddlesome question — "Lareovers for
meddlers and crutches for lame ducks."
as large as life and twice as natural
as large as life and twice as sassy
Rambunctious, buoyant, bold.
lark
A spree, a good time, a gay adventure.
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When the sky falls, we shall all catch larks.
lashings
A great quantity, oodles. "He has lashings of money."
The last shall be first.
Many that are first shall be last.
The world will not last forever.
last button on Gabe's coat
The very last bit of anything.
play one's last card
To make a final try.
the last day
The day of judgment when, according to orthodox Christian belief, the end
of the world will come to pass and the story of man will be completed. The
dead will rise from the grave and be judged, and the evil ones will be separated
from the good ones, the good ones to go to Heaven and rest in everlasting
joy, and the bad ones to sink below somewhere in a burning Hell
forevermore. The Muslims have the same.
last go trade
A compliment.
lasting
Elastic.
lasting water
Water that can stand without becoming stagnant.
last legs
Near the end, to be dying. "Old man Ben Gaskin, I hear, is on his last legs.''
on his last
Same as last legs.
the last of pea time and the first of squash
An ill-luck time. "You look like you've been caught in the last of pea time
and the first of squash."
last roundup
Judgment day.
last straw
The limit.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
653
latch onto
To seize, to grab hold of. "He latched onto that nickel like a vice."
latch string
A string or cord hanging outside of a hole in a door and fastened to a latch
on the inside for raising this latch to enter. Sometime at night the cord was
drawn inside for safety's sake.
latch string is out
Hospitality, a warm welcome.
Big possums walk late at night.
He that riseth late must run all day.
better late than never
lather
To flatter, to praise unduly, to soft soap.
lather her belly
Sexual wallowing.
latrine news
Rumor in general, unreliable news, wild rumors.
latter
Litter. "That hen has laid her latter out."
laudanum
An opium-based home remedy for aches, especially toothaches.
Laugh and grow fat.
Laugh and the world laughs with you,
Weep and you weep alone.
(Proverb.)
Don't make me laugh.
Denial of belief.
Laughing is catching.
He who laughs last laughs best.
He laughs on the wrong side of his face.
The laurels all are cut.
Look to your laurels.
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lavender
A special flower-bed plant, aromatic and supposed to have, like most plants,
trees and flowers in the Valley, medicinal value. Oil or tea made from it
was supposed to be a stimulant or tonic. Also it was good for headache and
toothache.
Where law ends tyranny begins.
the law
A cop.
to law
To sue in the courts, to have a lawsuit. "He'll law you if you get him mad.''
John Lawson
The earliest historian of North Carolina and the Valley country. The
Encyclopedia Americana says of him: "He made his first voyage to the
Carolinas in 1700 and stayed for several years, proving himself to be an
intelligent and enterprising observer. He wrote one of the most valuable,
candid, and readable of the early descriptions of the Carolinas and Indian
life there. An expansion of his travel journal, it was first published in London
in 1709 as A New Voyage to Carolina but became better known as The
History of Carolina, its title in the second edition (1714). It was presumably
while Lawson was in England in 1708 that he was appointed surveyor-general
of North Carolina. He also met the Swiss promoter of colonization, Baron
Christopher de Graffenried, with whom he supervised the immigration of
some 600 Germans to the site later known as New Bern, N.C.
"In September 1711, not far from this settlement, both Lawson and
Graffenried were seized by Tuscarora Indians, who had become increasingly
hostile toward encroachment by the immigrants. Graffenried escaped or
was released, but Lawson was put to death, probably by the methods of
fire torture he had described in his book."
One's imagination doesn't dare dwell too closely and long on this daring
man's final sufferings. He is firmly now a part of our nation's heritage and
hope.
lawsy me!
A mild interjection.
Lawyers and woodpeckers have long bills.
lay
To have sexual intercourse, to sleep with. "He laid that girl the very first
time he met her."
To bet, to wager. "I lay he won't be here at all."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
655
lay an egg
To fail, to flunk out, to make a bad mistake.
lay back
To wait, to defer, to delay. "If the frost had laid back a while, you'd a-had
a fine chance of beans."
lay by
To give crops a final plowing, to finish cultivating. "I'll lay by my crops
when the rain stops."
lay for
To lie in wait, to ambuscade.
laying on of hands
Method of faith healing. Usually the act is accompanied by vociferous and
fervent prayings or shoutings but now, with television coming on, healing
can take place over television three thousand miles away from the source
of the healing hands and voice.
to lay in the shade
To get the best of, to outdo.
lay into
To fight, to thrash, to attack.
lay it on thick
To exaggerate.
layoff
To plan, to intend. "I lay off to fix them steps someday."
To stay away from, to shun. "Lay off that woman, fellow, she'll burn you.''
lay off rows
To set up stakes across a flat plowed field and to plow straight furrows for
rows.
lay one's cards on the table
To state the facts, to confess to the facts, tell the truth.
lay out
Intend, plan to. "I lay out to do that come a-Monday."
Also to scold, berate. "She really laid him out for his whore-hopping."
lay out the corpse
To prepare a dead person for the grave. More than once as a boy I heard
my father say he had to "help lay out" a neighbor.
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lay up
Plan to, intend. "I've laid up to do that many a time."
lay way
To waylay.
the laziest man
In every neighborhood there is found a lazy man or one lazier than his fellows.
as lazy as a hog
as lazy as a hound
A lazy boy makes a smart man.
Lazy Lawrence
A personification of shimmering summer heat in the woods and fields.
"Better watch out in that fodder field or old Lazy Lawrence will get you."
See also "monkey riding."
There's more hope for a drinking man than a lazy man.
a lazy man's load
A trifling burden.
Lazy Mary
A dramatic game. Two young people get into the center of a ring, one
representing the mother and the other the daughter Mary. The daughter
Mary sits down on the ground or in a chair, or even lies down with her eyes
closed. The mother comes up to her and, as the mother and the encircling
ring sing, the little drama is acted out.
"Lazy Mary, will you get up?
Will you get up, will you get up?
Lazy Mary, will you get up?
Will you get up today?"
Then the lazy daughter Mary sings back at her, asking, "What will you give
me for my breakfast, if I get up today?'' The mother answers,' 'Butter and
bread." And Mary says she won't get up. And then she asks what she will
have for dinner. And the mother says, "Peas and cornbread, and collards,''
or anything that she wishes to say, and Mary still says that she won't get
up. Then she asks, "What will you give me for my supper?" And then the
mother says she will give her a nice young man with rosy red cheeks, etc.
Then Mary rises, singing gaily, "Yes, mother, I will get up."
lazy Susan
A round serving platter, usually of wood, and often attached on a pivot
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
657
to an informal dining table. The food is placed on it, and anyone who wishes
to help himself simply turns the lazy Susan.
Lead us not into temptation.
A piece of lead worn on a string around the neck helps prevent toothache. Also
effective in preventing nosebleed.
lead by the nose
Dominate, same as "henpeck."
leader
A sinew, a tendon.' 'Yes, he got hung in the barb wire and cut a leader that
made him limp, but it don't hurt him as a plough mule a bit."
lead home
To lead a partner to the starting place in a folk dance.
leading question
An unfair question, a question meant to trap the one who answers.
leading strings
Control.
lead in one's britches
To be lazy, to move slowly.
lead me to it
Anticipated pleasure.
to die of lead poisoning
To be fatally shot.
lead with your chin
To push innocently into a harmful situation, to ignorantly invite one's own
hurt.
We all fade as the leaf.
turn over a new leaf
Make a new resolve, a new beginning.
take a leaf out of one's book
To learn a lesson from, take a hint from.
leak
Take a leak, to urinate.
A little leak will sink a great ship.
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spring a leak
To urinate.
leaks like a sieve
He ate the lean and left the fat
And that has put him where he's at.
lean as a rake
a lean horse for a long race
You must take the fat with the lean.
"Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"
A popular evangelical hymn in every Valley church, excepting the Catholic
and Episcopalian. It brought comfort to many a heart aching for a perished
loved one. It was a good parlor-courting song, too. The quiet substitution
of "your ever-loving" for "the everlasting" was easy to do.
"What a fellowship, what a joy divine—
Leaning on the everlasting arms!
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
"Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms,
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms."
a leap
The copulation by a male animal. In the early Valley newspapers there are
many advertisements about a stallion which would service at, say, "$5.00
a leap."
It is a leap in the dark.
Better to leap before you look than always to look and never leap.
Leapfrog
An ancient and still popular boys' athletic game. It was known in England
as early as 1300, and some authorities say it was popular in the Middle Ages.
One boy bends far over, his head hung down. A second runs forward, puts
his hands on the first boy's back and propels himself over him as far as he
can. He marks the place on the ground where his heels strike, plants himself
there bent over, then the first bent one straightens up and makes his leap,
and so on. The winning player is one who sets his heel mark at such a distance
that the others when they leap cannot equal it.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
659
Leap Year
A year which comes around every fourth year with one extra day added,
making 366. The significance in folklore of this year is that during it girls
are supposed to be able to propose marriage to any of their recalcitrant loves
without embarrassment.
learn
To teach. "Mr. Parham learnt me a lot."
Learn to crawl before you walk.
Learn to creep before you run.
Learn to labor and to live.
Learn to walk before you run.
One is never too old to learn.
learn the ropes
To get acquainted with a situation or a job.
least (leastest)
The youngest. "John there is the least one."
Least said is soonest mended.
The least said the better.
From the least to the greatest.
leather
To thrash, to whip.
whit leather
A tough gristle of an ox's neck where the yoke has worn a roll of almost
calloused leather. An old comparison often used,' 'as tough as whit leather.''
to leave cold
Not to affect one, to make no impression.
leave in the lurch
To desert one, to leave someone caught in an unhappy situation.
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lot.
leave out in the cold
To count out, to ignore, to disregard.
leavings
The trash, the scraps.
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lebben
Eleven.
led
Lid.
led to led
Cover to cover, completely. "He knows the Bible from led to led."
leetle
Little.
left field
In an ignorant or awkward situation.
Don't let your left hand know what your right does.
left-handed
Awkward, hypocritical, careless. "In passing he paid him a left-handed
compliment."
left-handed monkey wrench
See "April fool."
A left-handed person owes the devil a day's work.
left hanging on the vine
Unmarried, old maid.
left high and dry
Left behind, deserted, tricked.
left holding the bag
To be made a fool of, to be tricked, gulled.
There used to be a practice in the Valley — maybe elsewhere — of getting
a newcomer or one not in the know to go on what we called a snipe hunt.
The one to be tricked was given a tow sack and told to "stand here in this
ditch and keep your sack mouth lowered and opened and we will drive some
snipes along the ditch, and you can catch plenty of them — and take it from
me, snipe eating is the best there is — partridges ain't in it."
So we would get our innocent one stationed in the dark ditch, then steal
away with our lighted torch and go home. Our friend would wait and wait,
and ultimately it would dawn on him that he had been left holding the bag.
It was up to him to find his way home in the dark night, feeling his
way through brambles and briars no doubt. From then on he usually was
keen as could be in getting others to be left holding the bag.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
661
left on the shelf
Ignored, passed over, discarded.
left sucking the hind tit
Given the worst of the deal.
like cutting from the leg to add to the arm
legal protection for men
In 1770 the English Parliament passed the following law:' 'That all women
of whatever age, rank, profession or degree, who shall, after this act, impose
upon, or seduce and betray into matrimony any of His Majesty's male
subjects, by virtue of scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false
hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, bolstered hips or high-heeled shoes, shall
incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchcraft and like
misdemeanors; and the marriage under such circumstances shall be null and
void."
This law, of course, was promulgated through all the colonies. If it had
any effect in the Valley as to women's coquetry (all to man's delight), I
haven't heard of it. There was not and never has been a like law to protect
women from men. Maybe, with ERA coming on, in time there will be.
to leg for
To pull for, advocate, to promote.
leg it
To walk.
break a leg
To get seduced, to become pregnant.
In theatrical terms, a wish for success on stage.
pull one's leg
To fool, to tease.
shake a leg
To hurry, to move fast.
not a leg to stand on
Without any support or logical reason for one's action.
leg up
To help one mount a horse.
An advantage.
lemme
Let me.
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lemon
A sourpuss, a failure, a flop, a distasteful person.
Gnawing a lemon is good for a cold.
lemon balm
A favorite aromatic plant, also known as bee balm, sweet balm and sweet
Mary. It grows from Maine to Florida. A tea from it was supposed to be
good for fevers, also as an aid in women's menstruation.
lend a hand
Help.
Lend me your ears.
Neither lender nor borrower be.
You never know the length of a snake until he's dead.
A leopard cannot change his spots.
le's
Let us.
lessen
Unless.' 'That fellow never will get well of that cough lessen he quits smoking
so many cigarettes."
Let bygones be bygones.
Let me put a bug in your ear.
Let the cobbler stick to his last.
Let the geese beware when the fox preaches.
Let the horns go with the hide.
Let us have peace.
Let us pray.
let alone
Much less. "I haven't even had expense money, let alone a fee."
let daylight into
To make a hole through, to shoot, to kill.
let down
To fail. "He let me down in the trade we made."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
663
let down the bars
To forego the rules, to take off restraints. "The University at Chapel Hill
has let down the bars all right. You just oughta see what happens at one
of these spring dances."
let George do it
To pass the buck, have someone else take the responsibility, evade one's duty.
let go
To fire a gun. "When that mad dog got within twenty feet of me, I let go
with both barrels at him and I reckon that stopped him."
let it slide
Take no notice, let it pass.
let off steam
To blow one's top, give expression to one's emotion, to tear loose.
let on
To pretend. "I let on I didn't know a thing about who stole Mr. Hugh's
soybeans."
let out
To dismiss, recess. "School lets out at four o'clock every day."
the letters "O" and "X"
"O" below a stamp on a letter means a hug, "X" means a kiss.
let the cat out of the bag
Disclose a secret, spill confidential news.
let the old cat die
To let a swing gradually grow still.
let up
To cease, to stop. "The rain is letting up now and we can all get back to
plowing again."
Let us then be up and doing
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
lettuce
Money. Same as kale or long green.
level
An area of concern or activity. "I don't know what's happening on your
local level here, but as for the national level things are in a bad way."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
To be honest, straightforward, to act honestly.' 'He leveled with me on the
matter and so we got it cleared up."
level best
The best of one's ability.
'leven
Eleven.
liable to
Likely to, prone to. "I'm liable to haul off and knock you winding if you
don't shut your big mouth."
A liar is not to be believed even when he speaks the truth.
liars' contest
See "school-breaking."
Give me liberty or give me death.
A dry crust with liberty is better than a king's luxury with chains.
Liberty Boys
A group of young Cumberland County men who in an Association signed
on June 20, 1775, more than a year ahead of Jefferson's declaration, their
own declaration of independence from Great Britain, swearing that "we
will go forth and be ready to sacrifice our lives and fortune" for freedom
and safety. There is a heavy stone monument at what is now known as
"Liberty Point" in Fayetteville, commemorating their action. Of the thirtynine names on the monument not a Mac is among them. The older Scots
around what was then known as Cross Creek had taken the blood oath for
the king and felt bound by it. See "blood oath."
liberty hall
A free and easy home.
libido
The instinctive sexual energy or desire which attaches itself to the ego or
to external objects or persons, this according to the Freudian mythology.
lick
A blow. "It takes a lot of licks to drive a nail in the dark."
To whip, to outdo. "Old Zack Broadhuss could lick any man in the county.''
Any, a bit. "He didn't do a lick of work the whole morning."
lick and a promise
A hasty action, as a hurried bathing, a slubberly or slovenly act. "He just
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
665
gives his bed a lick and a promise."
lick log
A log with hollows cut in it in which salt was put for cows to lick.
lick one's chops
To be smugly happy, to feel superior.
flip one's lid
To go nuts, to become hysterical.
blow the lid off
To give vent to one's emotions and high feelings. Same as kick the lid off.
keep the lid on
To keep in control of things, to be self-restrained.
lids
Book covers or binding. "If it ain't between the lids of the Bible, then it
ain't nowhere."
lie down
To give in, to take a beating without resistance.
a lie laid on with a trowel
A thick and egregious lie.
a lie made of whole cloth
A statement that sounds exactly like the truth.
lie out
To let land lie fallow. "I'm letting that piece lie out for tobacco next year.''
Life is ever lord of death and love can never lose its own.
Life is short and time is fleeting
And the grave is not the goal.
Life is short, yet sweet.
All that a man hath will he give for his life.
He that loses his life for my sake shall find it.
It's a great life if you don't weaken.
The biggest thing in life is a funeral at the end of it.
Man's life is like a tale that is soon told, full of sound and fury and signifying
nothing.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
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The greatest business in life is to prepare for death.
He that findeth his life shall lose it.
If you love life, then don't squander time, for time is what life is made of.
While there's life there's hope.
If life were only a dream, it would still be worth dreaming.
Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink.
life everlasting (feather weed, fussy gussy)
Rabbit tobacco, cudweed. A native annual that grows from one to three
feet tall. It has numerous white flowers and is slightly aromatic. It flourishes
along roadsides, hedges and in deserted fields. We boys used to get the dried
little autumn leaves and roll them into ' 'cigarettes.'' We would puff away,
feeling grown-up and important. And now and then we'd flick away an
invisible ash with a delicate and dandyish finger. The dried leaves made good
chewing tobacco, too, and often we'd get a cheek full, roll it about with
our tongue, simulating one of our favorite big league baseball pitchers and
spit profusely and joyously about us.
life insurance agent
One of the tribe of predators who used to roam the Valley seeking unwary
victims. Of late years they work more from their desks in their offices in
the villages or from larger offices in the cities, say, as in Greensboro where
one of the most powerful of these klaverns is located, but their methods
remain the same. I still sweat when I think of the unlucky time I first got
into the clutches of one of these pirates.
for the life of me (him)
A phrase for emphasis.
life ofReilly
An easy life, to be living in ease, no more to do.
not on your life
Absolutely not.
This is the life.
A happy situation, things all hunky-dory.
you bet your life
A phrase of emphasis.
lift
To exhilarate.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
667
lift one's leg
To piss.
light
A window pane. "That nasty, stinking Matthews boy knocked four lights
out of my window with his beanshooter."
The dawn. "I get up before light every morning, summer or winter."
Daybreak.
Disrespectful. "It won't do to speak light of the Holy Scriptures."
light as a feather
light as air
light as chaff
light as cork
light as day
light as snow
The light of the body is the eye.
The light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not.
The man with time to burn never gave the world any light.
Walk while ye have light lest the darkness come upon you.
Ye are the light of the world.
Show thy servant the light of thy countenance.
Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father which is in heaven.
the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world
light a shuck (a rag)
To go fast, to run, to flee. "When that cannon went off, he lit a shuck going
away from there."
lighted match
Hold a lighted match vertical until it burns itself out. The charred remainder
will fall in the direction of the one you love. The same is true of an expiring
candlewick.
light-heeled
Said of a girl who is especially frolicsome and a bit amorous, too.
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light in
To begin, to start. "You fellows light in and eat."
Lightning is caused by God winking his eye.
Lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
lightning in the North
A sign of rain on its way.
During a drought time in summer my father would most often sit on
our back porch and watch anxiously for any sign of lightning. And most
often too some of us children who shared his worry about the rain-starving
crops would be there with him watching. When no wink of lightning appeared
anywhere till bedtime, he and we would give up for that night. But when
we did see a wink of lightning in the North, he would speak up and always
say with some jubilancy, "That means rain in forty-eight hours."
lightning tree
A tree that is struck by lightning has a special kind of luck or ill luck attached
to it. It is bad luck to cut firewood from such a tree. Toothpicks made from
its splinters are good for toothache.
white lightning
Fresh-run corn liquor.
light out
To run off suddenly, to take off in a hurry.' 'One more word from you and
I'll light out for the sheriff."
A light purse makes a heavy heart.
put out one's light
To kill.
lights
The lungs, usually has reference to hogs or cattle.
knock your lights out
To kill.
lightwood knots
The knots from the dead limbs of the longleaf pine tops were especially full
of rosin and, when chopped into bits and pieces, made wonderful material
for starting fires and keeping them going under green oak wood in the
fireplace.
lightwood splinters
These fat splinters from the longleaf pine, full of rosin (or turpentine), were
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
669
good for starting fires under green oak wood and for traveling the dark roads
in the black night. We used them often in place of lanterns in serenading,
bird-blindings, and 'possum and coon hunts.
like a cat on a hot griddle
like a fly in hot manure
like a house afire
Furiously, with intense effort. "He pulls fodder like a house afire."
like a man's titties and the Pope's balls
Useless.
like as not
Likely, perhaps.
like as two peas in a pod
like as two pins
like a ton of bricks
like carpenter, like chips
like crazy
Furiously. "The Russians were trying like crazy to capture the market in
transport jets."
like falling off a log
Easy, with no effort.
like father, like son
like fun
Doubtful.
like hotcakes
Quickly. "Dr. Nanzetti's salve for the itch sold like hot cakes."
like it but it doesn 't like me
Said of a food that upsets one or something that doesn't agree with one.
Like it or lump it.
like knows like
like master, like man
like mother, like daughter
like nothing on earth
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like the very devil
liked to run himself to death
In reference to someone who was exceedingly busy.
likely
Handsome. Also apt to.
like pulling eyeteeth
A difficult task, a hard job. "Getting money out of old John Allen is like
pulling eyeteeth."
Then there was the business of Roger Bethune and Corliss Neal. They
got into a fight one day in Fayetteville and Corliss broke out one of Roger's
eyeteeth, root and all. Being a blacksmith and a toothpuller too, Corliss
made Roger a new tooth out of a piece of hickory wood, then drove it in
and said, "Now, Roger, you're fixed good as new." They both were drunk
at the time, and of course Corliss was as addled as Roger was.
Next day when Roger sobered up, his new eyetooth gave him a fit. The
dampness in his mouth had caused it to swell, and soon the side of his face
was puffed out as if he'd been stung by a swarm of hornets. He was a looking
sight, as they say in the Valley. His wife hurried him fast to town and Doctor
Bain, the dentist, nearly tore off his jaw getting that new eyetooth separated
from him. Corliss had certainly done a good job.
When the doctor let Roger loose he went straight to the hardware store,
bought himself a pistol and went looking for Corliss. But some of their
friends stopped him and persuaded him to give up the gun. From that day
till he died he and Corliss had no dealings with each other, though before
that they had been buddies and loved to get drunk together.
the likes of
A comparison, also for emphasis. "He don't care for the likes of me."
like something the cat brought in
A person of no worth, a bedraggled person or thing.
like to
Almost. "When Len Bradley jumped on me with both fists, he like to kill
me."
Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin.
Alexander Lillington
A Revolutionary War leader in the Valley. He was prominent in the Battle
of Moore's Creek and, though Richard Caswell was in charge of the Whig
troops, the Champions of Lillington recited their well-known couplet,
saying—
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
671
"Moore's Creek field, the bloody story,
Where Lillington fought for Caswell's glory."
His home, Lillington Hall, which was near Wilmington, like nearly all
of the old Valley homes, has long ago disappeared. There still stands in what
was once his front yard the largest magnolia tree I ever saw, a living witness
to his perished hand.
My hometown Lillington was named for him.
Lilliput
The home of the Allen family and one of the finest of all the old houses
in the Valley. It stood near Orton, another and still extant mansion of preRevolutionary times. Only a few broken dishes and bits of brick here and
there on the overgrown site remain from Lilliput's glory.
lily-livered
Cowardly, weak.
limb
To trim. "He limbed the tree with his power saw."
In the old days it used to designate a woman's leg, because it was bad taste
to call it by its real name.
limber as a dishrag
limber as a rag
limber as the Pope's dick
limber-dick
A will-less, no-good person, a weak member, a sexually weak man.
limberjack
A toy, usually homemade in the old days, the arms and legs made to bob
by pulling an attached string.
limber-jawed
Same as wamper-jawed, a sort of crank-sided jaw.
limb of Satan
A cantankerous child.
lime
A disinfectant, spread around privies.
that's the limit
The last straw, the final outdoing.
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sky is the limit
Without limit, no restraint, no holds barred.
limp as a rag
linchpin
A pin used to put through the end of an axle to keep the wheel on. Also
the main pin, the key man or action.
Colin Lindsay
An early pastor at old Barbecue Church and, according to tradition, a good
one. People were attracted to him not only because of his preaching but
because of the almost miraculous return of his mother from the grave to
give birth to him. According to the Valley historian, Malcolm Fowler, Mrs.
Lindsay, Colin's mother, was stricken with a mysterious illness and died.
She was certified as dead, the wake was held, and her body was buried in
the family cemetery. That night after the burial some ghoulish grave robbers
dug her up and opened the coffin to get a valuable ring they knew she was
buried with. They couldn't remove the ring and so decided to cut her finger
off. At the first whack of the knife, Mrs. Lindsay's body gave a jerk and
she screamed. According to Fowler, the robbers "created another road
through the undergrowth" going away from there.
Sometime after this Colin was born and, in praise and thankfulness,
was dedicated to God.
line
Stock of merchandise. "The Adkins boys have got a good line of men's
shirts on sale."
draw the line
To set up a limit.
in line
Conformity, do as others do.
linen rain
Lonnie Cofield says he calls a certain kind of windy rain by this name because
it comes down in sheets.
get a line on
To get the facts or information about a person or subject.
line out
The reading out of verses of the hymn by the pastor or song leader which
are to be sung then by all the congregation. In Pleasant Union Church as
a little boy I used to sit in wonderful amazement watching Mr. Tom Long
lining out the hymn, "On Jordan's stormy banks I stand and cast a wishful
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
673
eye," and then the sonorous response in the old cold church.
I'ines
Loins. "My prize hog is so fat she's down in her I'ines."
hard lines
Hard ways, hard things to do.
line tree
A tree growing on the boundaries of land, and marked by the surveyors.
It's illegal for either party to cut it without the permission of the other.
line your insides
To eat heartily.
link sausage
The old timey method of stuffing hog chitterlings and then linking them
together and hanging them up to dry. Link sausage and sweet potatoes used
to be the best eating a Valley boy ever had. And how eagerly I'd open my
tin bucket at school and get out a piece of cold link sausage and a well-cooked
potato and go to it. I still love link sausage and sweet potatoes better than
most any food ever created.
Linkumsloos
A fabulous creature that is supposed to live in the deep swamps of the Valley.
lint dodger
A cotton mill worker.
linthead
A cotton mill worker. I can remember as a boy going with my father to Dunn
and passing the little town of Duke, and if it happened to be the noon hour
and the little boys were outside, I always thought of them as lintheads. The
farm people looked down on the cotton mill workers. Even the tenant farmers
felt superior to them.
Beard the lion in his den.
lion
A popular and much admired person, a hero.
I am reminded here of one of the many Hollywood lions, Clark Gable.
He was a lion if there ever was one. How he kept his common sense under
so much adulation, I don't know. I once worked with him and Victor Fleming
(director of' 'Gone With the Wind") for a while on a picture, later starring
Gable and Greer Garson (' 'Gable's back and Garson's got him"), and found
him a most common sense and likeable person. I got more fun from his
hunting stories than he and Fleming got help from me on his picture script.
One day on the MGM lot a group of visitors were being shown around.
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Gable suddenly emerged from his dressing room or from somewhere. The
ladies in the group were electrified at seeing him. One of the main dowagers
pointed a trembling finger at him, stuttering in an overflow of excitement,
"There — there — he — he is!" and fainted dead away.
Also there is a large Valley bug known as a lion. It is supposed to be
a ferocious anteater.
put one's head in the lion's mouth
To do a foolish, daredevil act, for instance, Russian roulette.
button up one's lip
To be silent or discreet.
Keep a stiff upper Up.
Keep your Up out of other people's business.
"Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine"
One of the many temperance songs heard in the Valley and elsewhere in
the late years of the 19th and the early years of the 20th century. I first heard
it, partly recited and partly sung, by a Valley girl when I was a boy. She
was being courted by a farmer who had taken to drink, and as she recited
I wondered how she could let this swain's lips touch hers anyway, liquor
or not, for he was fearsomely ugly and had a droopy tobacco-stained
moustache.
"When your lips on mine imprinted farewell,
They had never been soiled by the beverage of hell,
But they come to me now with that terrible sign
And the lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine."
Good for her! But she later married him anyway.
Good liquor needs no water.
liquorhead
An alcoholic.
liquor up
To drink heavily, to get fired up with liquor.
Listeners hear no good of themselves.
"Listen to the Mockingbird"
In my youth this was not only a popular song for singing but a tune for good
fiddling. I first heard it from an itinerant fiddler and he used to be a marvel
to us all when, with a sort of water whistle in his mouth, he imitated the
bright notes of the mockingbird on the chorus, as he fiddled away. I learned
to play it but badly on my Sears-Roebuck fiddle, but I never tried a whistle.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
"I'm dreaming now of Hallie,
Sweet Hallie, sweet Hallie.
I'm dreaming now of Hallie
For the thought of her
Is one that never dies.
She's sleeping in the valley,
The valley, the valley,
She's sleeping in the valley
And the mockingbird is singing
Where she lies."
Chorus
"Listen to the mockingbird,
Listen to the mockingbird,
The mockingbird is singing
O'er her grave —
Listen to the mockingbird,
Listen to the mockingbird
Still singing where the weeping
willows wave.
"When the charms of spring awaken,
Awaken, awaken,
When the charms of spring awaken,
And the mockingbird is singing on the bough,
I feel like one forsaken,
Forsaken, forsaken.
I feel like one forsaken
Since my Hallie is no longer with me now."
Repeat chorus.
lit
Drunk. "Man, was I lit, and that's why the cops got me."
Little boats should stay near the shore.
little but loud
A little each day is much in a year.
Little knocks make great blocks.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
A little of everything is nothing in the main.
Little pitchers have big ears.
675
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A little pot is soon hot.
Little strokes fell great oaks.
Give a little and take a little.
Every little bit helps.
A little bird told me.
Gossip or news from an unnamed or indefinite source.
little bit
A tiny bit, a very small amount.
In a small way, in a picayunish manner. "He bores with a little bit and he
stays small, and Henry Spears bores with a big bit and he grows rich."
every little bit
Ever and anon, now and then. "Every little bit old Zeke Matthews would
holler out behind the bars, 'Come and get me, white folks, get me out of
this torment.' "
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And can't tell where to find them.
Leave them alone and they'll come home
Bringing their tails behind them.
Little Bo Peep fell fast asleep
And dreamt she heard them bleating.
But when she awoke she found it a joke
For they were still all fleeting.
(Nursery song.)
Little boy, little boy, who made your britches?
Ma cut 'em out and Pa sewed the stitches.
Little boy, little boy, where'd you get your knowledge?
Some I got at free school and some I got at college.
(A teasing rhyme.)
When I was a little boy
I lived by myself,
And all the bread and cheese I got
I put it on the shelf.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
The rats and the mice
They stirred such a strife
I had to go to London
To get me a wife.
The streets were so wide
And the lanes were so narrow
I had to bring her home
In an old wheelbarrow.
The wheelbarrow it broke
And give my wife a fall.
The devil can take 'em
Wheelbarrow, wife and all.
(Nursery narrative rhyme.)
Little boy blue, come blow your horn,
The sheep's in the meadow and the cow's
in the corn.
Where's the little boy that looks after
the sheep?
He's under the haystack fast asleep.
(Nursery rhyme.)
''Little Brown Jug"
A drinking song we often used as a lively work song in the fields.
"Me and my wife lived all alone
In a little log hut we called our own.
She loved liquor and I loved rum.
Twixt 'em both we had much fun.
"Ha ha ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, how I love thee!
Ha ha ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, how I love thee!
"Me and my wife had a bobtailed dog
Crossed the creek on a rotten log.
The log it broke and we fell in,
But I saved my jug of gin.
"Ha ha ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, how I love thee!
Ha ha ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, how I love thee!
677
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"If I had a cow that gave such milk,
I'd dress her in the finest silk.
I'd feed her on the finest hay
And milk her forty times a day.
"Ha ha ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, how I love thee!
Ha ha ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, how I love thee!"
Little David took a rock no bigger than a button
Killed old Goliath dead same as any mutton.
(A recitation rhyme.)
Little drops of water, little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean and the present land.
(Proverb rhyme.)
little end of the horn
A disadvantageous position.
Little head, big wit.
Big head, not a bit.
little house
A little house well-filled, a little land well-tilled and a wife well-willed are
great riches.
Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Eating his Christmas pie.
He stuck in his thumb
And pulled out a plum,
And said, "What a smart boy am I!"
(Nursery rhyme.)
little man
The deputy warden in a penitentiary.
A finger rhyme said to the baby as one touches the fingers of the little one,
starting with the smallest finger.
Little man
Ring man
Long man
Lick pot
Thumbo.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
679
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider
And sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.
(Nursery rhyme.)
Little Nancy Etticoat
In a white petticoat
And a red nose.
She has no feet nor hands,
And the longer she stands
The shorter she grows.
(Riddle. A candle.)
This little pig went to market,
This little pig stayed at home,
This little pig got roast beef,
And this little pig got none,
And this little pig said,
'Wee, wee, wee' all the way home, (or 'Wee, wee, wee, I want
some.')
(A nursery rhyme often recited in playing with a baby and tickling
his toes, beginning with the big toe.)
little pigs
Heartleaf, wild ginger, the early leaves resembling small pigs' ears.
Little Polly Flinders
Sat among the cinders
Warming her purty little toes.
Her mother came and caught her
And spanked her little daughter
For ruining her nice new clothes.
(Nursery rhyme.)
littler (littlest)
The younger one, the youngest.
Little River Academy
One of the many academies which dotted the Valley through much of the
19th century and on into the early part of the 20th. Many of them closed
during the Civil War, never to reopen. Little River was near the present town
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of Linden and of high reputation. Most of its faculty members were college
and university graduates. Like nearly all the early academies, it was
coeducational.
Little Robin Redbreast
Sat upon a rail.
Nibble nabble went his head,
Wiggle waggle went his tail.
(A recitation rhyme.)
Little ships stay near the shore,
Bigger ships can venture more.
A little spark may kindle a great fire.
little 'un
A small child, a little one.
Live and learn.
Live and let live.
live like a king
Live to learn and learn to live.
If a man die shall he live again.
through whom we live and move and have our being
The longer we live the more we learn.
live at home
Be independent from one's garden.
live dictionary
A talkative woman.
A live dog is better than a dead lion.
lively
Immoral, full of sexual high spirits.
as lively as a cricket
as lively as a kitten
live on the hump
Use up one's savings or capital, use stored up supplies.
liver lips
Thick lips.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
681
liver spots
The yellow or brownish spots that appear on older people's hands. "They
have nothing to do with the liver," says Dr. Fields.
liverwort
See "hepatica."
No man lives to himself.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
As a man lives so shall he die.
As a tree falls so shall it lie.
livestock
Head lice or fleas. "That boy's got a lot of livestock."
live with it
To endure, to accept as one's lot.
The living may hate death but the dead are satisfied.
by the living God!
An exclamation.
living in sin
A man and woman living together as man and wife without being married.
Ned Lambert and Agatha Tyson lived like this for several years and,
though it all happened quite a while ago, I still hear it talked about now
and then in the Valley.
The two were sweethearts from childhood. And by the time Agatha
was seventeen and Ned was nineteen everybody expected to hear any day
that they were to be married. Sunday after Sunday Ned would walk with
Agatha to the nearby Ebenezer Church or in bad weather drive her in his
daddy's buggy. He never showed any interest in any other girl nor she in
any other boy.
Time passed. They both finished high school, and Ned got a job clerking
in the village dry goods store. Agatha stayed at home looking after her now
invalid mother. Of the two sweethearts, Agatha was, as everybody knew,
the more persistent. Finally an announcement came out in the weekly paper
to the effect that Mrs. Joel Tyson announced the coming marriage of her
daughter Agatha Watson Tyson to Mr. Ned Ransom Lambert, the local
rising young businessman, on such and such a date. By this time Agatha
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was twenty-four and Ned twenty-six. Now preparations and hurry-scurry
of bridesmaids, flowers, and the usual to-do were at work.
But alas, at the church they waited and waited. No Ned. They found
him in his boarding house drunk. Heartsick disappointment all around and
none grieved more or wept so loud as Ned's little sister Cheryl, the main
bridesmaid, for she adored her brother. Perhaps Agatha's hurt pride
prevented her from showing outward too much of the inner agony of the hurt.
As for Ned, he moved to another job in another distant town.
More time passed. Agatha's parents died and she remained alone in
the big house with an old Negro woman and her pet cat. Finally Ned, now
nearing middle age and chastened and sobered, returned home. His former
employers relented and gave him back his job, for, as everybody said, Ned
was a likeable fellow. Pretty soon it was noised around that Ned and Agatha
were seeing each other again. No doubt she was the one that made the first
advance, and this time it was clear she intended by hook or crook to get
Ned to the altar.
When the two were seen at church service together, not once but several
times, it was assumed that they had made up.
In time Agatha sent out a few invitations to their wedding. Cheryl, who
had married and moved away, came along with her little daughter Lucy to
be bridesmaid. They assembled at the church and Agatha had engaged her
old Negro gardener to stay with "Mr. Ned and be sure he is rightly dressed
and on time.'' The wedding party waited for about half an hour and it seemed
the bridegroom was to repeat his absence. Then the door opened and Ned
in tuxedo appeared. He came staggering down the aisle, followed by a
pleading and half-weeping old Negro man calling out, "No, Mr. Ned, nossuh
— you can't do that!" But Ned could and he did. He was a frightful sight,
for hugged up against his white shirt was a huge piece of raw, bloody beef.
Agatha screamed as Ned staggered up to her, drunk as a coot, and dumped
the meat into her arms. Then he bowed about him and said,' 'Excuse me,"
and left.
This time there really was a scandal in the village. But Ned didn't remain
to feel the scorn of his neighbors. He left again. He was next heard of in
South America.
More years passed. Agatha became a recluse and, where she had had
one cat, now she had a swarm of them, each with its own special character
and name. Agatha in her loneliness read a lot and she found the names of
literary or historical characters intriguing — Alexander, Romeo, Delilah,
Juliet, and so on. These she gave to her cats.
More time passed. Then lo and behold, one day Ned, a bent gray-headed
man, appeared at the village grocery store with a market basket. When and
how he had come back no one knew. He made his purchases and returned
to Agatha's house. From then on the two lived there together "in sin."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
683
Agatha made it known that when he had come home this time, old and
penniless, she had given him shelter. But he still refused marriage, she said,
and what of it? It was now too late anyway. They were both too old for
that, she said. So—as Lonnie Cofield said — "Let 'em alone. They can't
do no damage nohow." So the neighbors did, with the exception of gossiping
about them.
One day Lucy Lambert, the niece, Ned's last living relative—Lucy
Atkins she was no w and a widow — received a telegram from Agatha which
said, "Ned is lying dead on my kitchen floor. Come and get him."
Lucy and her daughter Sadie set out in their old Buick car to go look
into the matter. It was the time of the great depression and Lucy was hard
up. There was no money for railroad fare and so she traveled by car, bad
tires and all.
When they arrived at Agatha's house, they were met by the old grayhaired lady dressed not in black but in her ancient and yellowed wedding
dress, and all the cats wore black bow mourning ties around their necks.
To make a long story short, Lucy and Sadie were ordered to get Ned
out and buried somewhere. They had no credit and decided to get him back
to their hometown and have him put cheaply and decently away in the local
churchyard. When night came on, they backed the Buick car up to Agatha's
kitchen, got Ned into it on the back seat somehow, covered the body with
a blanket and set out.
Sitting by the fire in our living room one night, Lucy told me of that
nightmarish drive. "At any minute," she said, "I expected one of the old
tires would blow out. Once we had to stop for gas and a cop came up and
looked into the car. 'What you got there?' he inquired. And Sadie spoke
right up — she was always quick on the trigger — and said, 'A lot of old
clothes we're taking home for the Salvation Army.' 'Well,' he said as he
looked at our old car, 'I hope you get there with them.' And we did finally.
"We got a cheap coffin and had a decent funeral for Ned. We had a
telegramof sympathy which Agatha sent, saying 'for Ned Lambert — gone
but not forgotten.' It was not signed by her, but by all the cats — Julius
Caesar, Mark Anthony, Romeo, Juliet, Cleopatra, Socrates, Aristotle, Abe
Lincoln, Queen of Sheba, Mary Magdalene, and Homer."
whale the living lard out of one
To beat unmercifully.
living pie
Dung. "He jumped out from behind a tree and scared the living pie out
of me."
a living shame!
A very great shame indeed.
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lizard
A protected little reptile.
As a boy I was taught that if you killed a lizard, its mate would come
at night and count your teeth while you slept, and if that happened, you
were — as Lonnie Cofield put it — "in a bad row of stumps." The same
belief was pretty common as to the black snake. Jim Faulkner, who used
to work on our farm and was an intriguing storyteller to us children, once
told us that he knew of a colored man, one Wingate Stephens, who said
he had a cow who lost her calf and in her grief adopted a black snake in
its stead. This snake used to suck her and at night when she lay down to
sleep and rest, it would cuddle up close to her and keep warm, Wingate said.
He finally got so fed up with this that he killed the snake, and he told me
— "and I believe it," said Faulkner — the cow lost all her appetite, finally
dried up from giving milk and at last died.' 'There are a lot of quare things
in this world," said Faulkner. And we entranced children heartily agreed.
lizzie
A T-model Ford car, usually referred to in the old days as a "tin lizzie."
Loaf and invite your soul.
Half a loaf is better than no loaf.
George Lobdell
Another dreamer in the long line of visionary seekers and workers in
the Valley. My friend, the Honorable John A. Gates, in his thorough and
estimable The Story of Fayetteville, gives a good account of Lobdell:
"Ever since assuming charge of the Lobdell Car Wheel Company of
Wilmington, Delaware, back in the early 1840's, George Lobdell had devoted
a large part of his time, money and energy toward improving the safety factor
of the then infant railroad industry. He was always breaking up car wheels,
studying them to see why they held up, or didn't.
"About the end of the War Between the States he got hold of some
car wheels from a captured Confederate military train. Lobdell was
astounded at the toughness of these wheels — they were as superior to the
average car wheel as a streamliner is to a switch engine.
"Immediately he set out on the trail of these captured car wheels in
an effort to locate the source of the iron from which they had been made.
The trail was long and devious, finally ending at the deserted ruins of John
Colville's log-pen furnace in the Buckhorn Hills.
"On the site of Colville's furnace, George Lobdell set about creating
a Pittsburgh of the Cape Fear country. A battery of modern blast furnaces
was proposed and construction of one began immediately with the others
to follow in rapid order. His engineers and geologists surveyed and tested
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
685
the surrounding ore beds.
' 'The first of his furnaces went into blast in 1876. From it poured over
300 tons of the finest iron he'd ever seen. Then the rich vein of ore he had
been mining was chopped off short by a rock fault. His geologists had placed
too much faith in surface outcroppings. The lost vein of Buckhorn is still
lost, and Lobdell's dream of an empire of steel in the red hills of Buckhorn
vanished with it."
loblolly pine
Pine, common old field pine, especially grown now for pulpwood.
locked bowels
An old folk diagnosis of constipation, appendicitis, or any condition in which
bowel movements were obstructed.
locket
A common ornament for women in the old days and often used to contain
a bit of a loved one's hair or tiny picture of him or her. Lockets are no longer
advertised in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue, which firm was the main source
of supply when I was a boy. Prices ranged from forty cents to six dollars
and seventy-five cents, "solid gold." Monograms could be engraved for
thirty-five to seventy-five cents.
lock horns
To fight, to have a hot argument, to oppose each other.
Lock wood's folly
A foolish or impractical undertaking.
As the story has it, mainly legend, a man named Lockwood came from
the West Indies into the lower part of the Valley in the late 17th or early
18th century and set to work in mighty doings. He thought he and his hundred
slaves could handle the Indians as well as take care of a kingdom of land.
He built a great mansion and set to clearing fields for his indigo, wheat and
tobacco crops. He marched out and attacked the marauding Indians, and
there, as Uncle Remus said, he broke his pipe stem. The Indians slaughtered
them all. The mansion was burned and the fields left to grow up in briars,
honeysuckle and brambles. People still call the old homesite "Lockwood's
folly'' and often say with living and therefore smug authority, "Lockwood's
folly teaches you never to bite off more than you can chew."
locusts
A horde of beggars.
lodge
To get caught or hung. "His hat got lodged in a tree and he couldn't get
it down."
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Loey hee hoey and hushaby baby,
Hushaby baby, don't cry.
Loey hee hoey and hushaby baby,
Your father (mother) will come by and by.
If I had a wife and she would get drunk
I tell you just what I would do,
I'd get me a boat and send her afloat
And paddle my own canoe.
(A lullaby.)
loggy
Drowsy, stupid, lazy.
log-heap
Logs cut in lengths for handling and piled in heaps for burning. In the old
days we used to clear a lot of land, cutting down trees, sawing them up and
selling the bigger ones for lumber, and the smaller ones we would pile in
heaps. Then at night we would set them afire with pieces of lightwood stumps
or logs. And it was a wonderful sight to see these great heaps burning at
night, and my father and the Negro helpers and we boys all working away
keeping them punched up and burning brightly. And, of course, often the
neighbors would be called in to help at the logrolling.
lollypop
Silly stuff, a foolish person. In the old days, a sweetened cake.
London Bridge
One of the most popular of all singing games. The verses often vary but
so far as I know the tune never. We used to sing it with an almost endless
list of materials with which to repair the old bridge.
"London Bridge is falling down, falling down,
falling down,
London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady."
The singing game continues with each of the following repeated according
to the above pattern.
Build it up with silver and gold, etc.
Silver and gold will fade away, etc.
Build it up with iron and steel, etc.
Iron and steel will bend and break, etc.
Build it up with sticks and stones, etc.
Sticks and stones will pass away, etc.
I suppose there is some cryptic or allegorical meaning in the fact that whatever
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
687
materials are used to repair the bridge, it always breaks down again — silver,
gold, iron, steel, sticks, stones, bricks, mortar — whatever. If a watchman
is set to guard the bridge, he will fall asleep. If a dog, it will be seduced by
a bone. If a cock, a hen will lure it away, and so on.
Two of the tallest players represent the bridge, clasping hands and holding
them high up. Other players in a line pass under while the two players
representing the bridge sing alternate verses. (Sometimes all of us players
would sing.) The two players (the bridge) agree on the time of catching a
prisoner, say, after any certain verse. Then they drop their arms around
the prisoner and they sing.
"Here's a prisoner we have got."
Then in a whisper one of the "bridge" asks which the "prisoner" would
prefer, say,' 'A diamond necklace or a small bag of gold." He chooses one
and stands behind the bridge player who represents that choice. The game
continues until all have made their choice. Then the players, now lined up
behind their respective leaders, engage in a tug of war. The side wins which
succeeds in pulling the other side across a given line.
"The Lone Pilgrim"
To me one of the most haunting of all old pre-Civil War hymns. Years and
years ago I came across it in Billy Walker's Southern Harmony and Musical
Companion and was taken with it. Right then I determined to get it into
one of my outdoor dramas — as part of our musical heritage just as I was
using historical characters and their actions as part of that heritage. I wrote
a play, put it in, then took it out as not exactly fitting into the play's story
needs. Finally, a few years ago I used it in a Texas play, "The Lone Star,"
and it is singing its lament on the Galveston stage each summer. I hope it
will keep on singing for a long time.
"I came to the place where the lone pilgram lay,
And pensively stood by the tomb,
When in a low whisper I heard something say,
'How sweetly he rests here alone.'
"The tempest may howl and the loud thunders roll,
And gathering storms may arise,
Yet calm are his feelings, at rest is his soul,
The tears are all wiped from his eyes."
It's a lonesome washing that has no man's shirt in it.
lone woman
A widow.
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as long as a country mile
as long as a piece of string
long and short of it
The whole story.
as long as Pat stayed in the army
A very short time indeed.
pull a long bow
To exaggerate, be boastful.
make a long face
To show unnecessary grief, to mock dolefully.
a long grace and no meat
A lot of to-do with little results.
the long-haired man
Jesus.
long haul
The long test, the continuing struggle.
long head
A very common-sense person.
long home
The grave. "Man goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the
street."
longleafpine
Once the tree-glory of the Valley as well as most of eastern North Carolina
below the fall line. For a long time these trees were sources of income for
the people in lumber, turpentine and tar. The great trees are all gone now,
save a few patches preserved here and there as on the James Boyd estate
in Southern Pines.
When I was a boy, we in the winter were typically busy cutting logs
for a bit of income. And what huge trees some of them were! Many of the
logs were so large (three and four feet in diameter) that deep gaps had to
be cut in them before the logcart-axle could straddle them for hauling.
Down in the swamp of Middle Prong Creek stood one of our pines,
unbelievably majestic — twenty-nine feet (I measured it) in circumference
and at least a hundred and twenty-five feet high. There was a hornets' nest
hanging from its lowest limbs and my brother Hugh and I often with our
beanshooters tried to hit it with pebbles, but it was so high up we never could
even rouse the hornets out.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
689
In those days trees were meant to be cut down. And so since this giant
one was too big for hauling, my father sold it to Mr. Joe Turner Matthews
for five dollars to make shingles out of. It took him and his three sons more
than two days to cut it down. Then it was found to be too tough for splitting
and so was left to rot. I was away at school when it was cut, but later Mr.
Matthews, with a light in his eyes, told me of the tremendous noise it made
on hitting the earth. "Why, Paul," he said, "it shook the world—and the
crows and varmints left the swamp same as if an earthquake had struck.
A lot of people came to see it fall and they said there'd never been nothing
like it."
The truth is, I think, Mr. Matthews was more interested in the drama
of the great tree's falling than in getting shingles. He was an experienced
woodsman and must have known such a monster would not be good shingletimber. The stumps of these trees are still a great source of fat lightwood.
See "lightwood splinters."
long (sweet) potatoes
Yams as contrasted with Irish potatoes.
longs and shorts
Long underwear and short underwear.
by a long sight
Much the same as long shot.
long-sighted
Sagacious, foresighted.
long straw pine
Longleaf pine.
Longstreet Church
An old Presbyterian church now in the Fort Bragg military reservation. The
voice of its preachers is long hushed away and the voices of mighty guns
in target practice rattle the windows instead. The church was founded by
that indefatigable servant of God, the Reverend James Campbell, in 1758,
along with Old Bluff and Barbecue churches (q.v.). In the early days the
sermons were in both Gaelic and English. Gradually the''auld tongue" died
out and English took over.
long sweetening
Molasses.
long taw
A great distance, a difficult undertaking.
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long trail
Death or the process of dying into death.
longways
Lengthwise.
look
A word of attention. "Look, Atlee, I don't want your worrying your head
about those biscuits."
Appearance. "John doesn't look good since he took all that calomel."
To search for. "I looked my cow all day long and couldn't find it."
Look before you leap.
Look both ways.
look nine ways for Sunday
Look not a gift horse in the mouth.
You may look farther and fare worse.
Don't look for the horse you ride on.
Don't look for your specs while they're on your nose.
look and see
To search for, to check on. "I'll look and see if the paper has come.'' Often,
"I'll go look and see."
Look at you!
A scolding.
to look as if butter would melt in his mouth
A hypocritically pious person.
Look-a-there!
An exclamation, calling attention to a matter or emphasizing something.
look back
To regret.
look big
To show off, to appear more than one is, to be rambunctious.
look down one's nose
To deride or to snub.
look for a needle in a haystack
To seek for something impossible of finding, or to try to attempt an action
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
691
impossible to perform.
Look here.
Pay attention, mind what one says.
looking
Appearance or condition. "You'll be a pretty looking thing with your ass
full of buckshot — stay away from that old man's gal."
No looking glass ever told a woman she was ugly.
looking sight
An odd appearance or spectacle. Also, a homely person, an ill-favored thing.
"When you put on that old dress you are a looking sight!"
looking to
Planning to, intending to. "I'm looking to go out to Texas next month."
Lookit!
Exclamation.
look on
To read with or to share a book with a person. "John, you look on with
Henry there and read that piece about the crane that got caught with the
cows."
look one's head
To search one's head for lice. "Come here, boy, and let me look your head."
look out
To be on one's guard, to watch. "Look out or you'll get hurt."
look over
To forgive, to ignore, to overlook.
look-see
A look around, an inspection, an appraisal, a search.
look sharp
Be careful.
looks like
It seems as if, also a sense of ought in the expression. "Looks like he'd take
care of his poor brother's little orphans." "Looks like it'll rain."
look up to
To defer to, to admire.
Look where you 're going!
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loo-loo
A stunning thing or act, same as lulu.
loon
A very wild bird, a crazy person.
as loony as an owl
loony bin
The lunatic asylum.
loop-legged
Bow-legged.
as loose as a goose
on the loose
Free, uncommitted, fancy-free.
have a loose screw
Lacking in common sense. "That girl has got a loose screw somewhere."
loosey-goosey
Relaxed, flexible. "I can hit the ball if I walk up there all loosey-goosey."
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
The Lord is slow to anger.
The Lord knows and he won't tell.
He hollers Lord and follows devil.
O Lord above, look down in love
Upon us, your little scholars.
We hired a fool to teach our school
And paid him nineteen dollars.
(A derisive rhyme.)
Lord a-mercy!
An exclamation.
lord god
The pileated woodpecker, a bird about the size of a crow, very striking with
. his red head, growing more and more rare each year in the South.
The Lord is in my mouth!
This was, and now and then still is, a common shout by fundamentalist Valley
preachers from their pulpits at street corners.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
693
As a boy I heard of "Reverend" Amos Whitney who dressed himself
hastily one cold morning to hurry to his pulpit in the nearby Holiness Church.
He put on his best pair of pants which had been hanging on a nail in his
room for some time. Unknown to him, wasps had built a nest in them. In
the midst of his sermon and shoutings of "the Lord is in my mouth," he
stopped suddenly. In the heat of his efforts, the wasps had got livened up,
and they suddenly let loose on him with their stingers. He gave out a yell
and started clawing at himself 'fore and aft. He shrieked, "The Lord may
be in my mouth, folkses, but the devil's in my britches!" And with that he
tore out of the house of God as if the dogs were after him and made for
the woods to shed his britches.
Lord love a duck
An exclamation.
Lord love you!
An exclamation.
lord manners
Leave something on one's plate. "Don't forget lord manners, son."
the Lord's patch (acre)
In the Valley it has been a custom in past times for a farmer to set aside
an acre of crops, the proceeds from which would go to the Lord. This is
usually referred to as the Lord's patch or the Lord's acre. My friend, Joe
Matthews, a sort of wildish young fellow, got religion at old Pleasant Union
Church, and he set aside an acre of cotton for the Lord. He tended it well,
but there came a long rainy spell and terrible floods fell and a great gully
was washed across the Lord's patch. Also, the crabgrass (or General Green,
as they called it) broke out and took over things. Joe looked at it and let
out an unbeliever's laugh saying, "Well, if the Lord don't care any more
about his patch than that, why he can have it." And so Joe abandoned it
and religion and went to sinning again.
the Lord's will
The will of God, the power that causes all things to happen as they do happen.
Lem Adams, a poor white tenant farmer, believed devoutly in God's
(the Lord's) will and was a fervent leader in the Holiness Church near Falcon
— called "The Sanctified and Only True Church of God." He didn't believe
in doctors, and so he and his little obedient wife trusted in prayer to save
his baby daughter lola when she fell sick with diphtheria. But prayer failed.
"Yes, my baby's dead, "he said to me, "and I try not to grieve, for I know
it's the Lord's will."
And he lifted his washed-out pale blue eyes trustingly to the sky as I
looked at him, troubled in my mind.
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Later Lem became a wandering preacher and held services on the streets
of Dunn and Erwin — wherever anyone would listen. Once or twice I saw
him preaching to the empty air, people passing him by without stopping.
And when that happens in the Valley or most anywhere in the South, you
can imagine how poor the preacher is — as well as how patient and
determined to follow the Lord's will.
the Lord willing
An expression of faith even by the unfaithful. "The Lord willing, and if
nothing don't happen, I'll be there a-Monday."
Lordy!
An exclamation.
"Lorena"
A popular Civil War song. It was published in 1857 — words by Reverend
H.D.L. Webster and melody by J.P. Webster, no kin. In a few years after
its publication it was being sung all over the country, especially among the
soldiers in the war. It became so popular that mothers North and South
named their daughters after the heroine of the piece. My grandmother named
my mother-to-be Betty Lorena Byrd. For all the beauty and romance of the
middle name, I am glad she was called Betty. It seems to me more down-toearth and homey and therefore more beautiful.
Perhaps the main reason for the song's popularity in the 1860's was that,
in addition to its heart-touching story and most singable melody, it brought
back remindings of sweet and tender lost times before the red carnage, waste
and sufferings of war afflicted the land. The contrast cried out its message.
"The years creep slowly past, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again.
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,
The frost gleams where the flow'rs have been.
But the heart throbs on as warmly now
As when the summer days were nigh.
Oh, the sun can never dip so low
A-down affection's cloudless sky—
The sun can never dip so low
A-down affection's cloudless sky.
"A hundred months have pass'd, Lorena,
Since I last held that hand in mine
And felt that pulse beat fast, Lorena,
Tho' mine beat faster far than thine.
A hundred months, 'twas flowery May
When up the hilly slope we climbed
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
695
To watch the dying of the day,
And hear the distant church bells chime—
To watch the dying of the day
And hear the distant church bells chime.
"The story of that past, Lorena,
Alas! I care not to repeat,
The hopes that could not last, Lorena,
They lived but only lived to cheat.
I would not cause e'en one regret
To rankle in your bosom now,
For 'If we try we may forget,'
Were words of thine long years ago—
For 'If we try we may forget,'
Were words of thine long years ago.
"It matters little now, Lorena,
The past is in th' eternal past.
Our heads will soon lie low, Lorena,
Life's tide is ebbing out so fast.
There is a Future! Oh, thank God,
Of life this is so small a part!
'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod!
But there, up there, 'tis heart to heart."
My mother used to sing this song around the house when we children
were small. Then as years passed and we grew older she quit singing it. Maybe
she had begun to consider war and all things connected with it a bitter and
dismal chapter in American history. And she could also have had a clutching
fear that a future war or wars might tear her sons from her.
She died before she could see at least part of that fear fulfilled.
You can't lose what you ain't got.
lose one's cool
To lose one's temper, to blow up in anger.
Lost time is never found again.
For the Son of Man has come to save that which is lost.
Lot
A character in the Bible whose wife became more famous by being turned
into a pillar of salt. Lot was usually used to impress us as young people with
the kind of luck that befalls a wayward and indecisive character.
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a lot on the ball
Gifted, adept.
loud
loud-mouthed, over-boisterous.
as loud as a horn
as loud as a loose-tongued woman
as loud as two skeletons wrestling on a tin roof
so loud you couldn't hear it thunder
He mashes on the loud pedal.
louse
A low-down fellow.
A small wingless flattened insect that used to inhabit the heads of most of
the Valley children. In our family the fine-tooth comb was in constant use.
Sometimes Mother used mercurial ointment or Fitch's horse liniment to
anoint our heads.
There was in the old days a common folk saying that if one would take the
first louse found on a baby's head and crack it on the Bible, the baby would
become a preacher, but let the louse go and the baby would become a lawyer.
We can take our choice.
to skin a louse for his tallow
To take much pain with little result.
louse path
The parting in a person's hair.
lousy
Crummy, dirty, cheap.
Love and weather can never be depended upon.
Love is blind.
Love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave.
Love is the fulfilling of the law.
Love it is a killing thing.
Beauty is a blossom.
(A rhyme.)
Love laughs at locksmiths.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
697
Love me little, love me long.
Love me, love my dog.
Love rejoiceth in truth.
Love thy neighbor as thyself.
Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you
and pray for them that despitefully use you.
You can't live on love.
All's fair in love and war.
Perfect love casteth out fear.
Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friend.
True love is the weft of life, but it comes through a sorrowful shuttle.
If you love me like I love you,
No knife can cut our love in two.
(An asseveration rhyme.)
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
The course of true love never runs smooth.
Hot love soon cools.
It's love that makes the world go round.
The hotter the love, the colder the freeze.
I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul and strength.
love apple
Tomato plant, formerly thought to be poisonous. My grandmother Green
grew the plant simply for decoration. "We never thought of eating them
when I was a child," said my father.
love child
An illegitimate child.
love curl
A little curl girls let hang down in front of their ears. Same as love lock or
beaucatcher.
It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
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The heart that has truly loved never forgets.
It's better to be loved than honored.
loveded
Loved.
love him to death
Excessive love.
love-in
A specially affectionate gathering.
love-knot
Entwined jewelry.
as lovely as a rose
love of Mike!
An exclamation.
love pirate
A Casanova, a love-'em-and-leave-'em guy.
love powder
Any of several powder concoctions put out by herb doctors and voodoo
artists to create or add to sexual attraction.
lover's knot
Sexual intercourse.
All the world loves a lover.
Lord love us!
An exclamation.
love vine
Known also as dodder or field dodder. It is a leafless parasite with whitish
stems. If allowed to have its way, it can overrun a flower bed or border and
choke the flowers into a stunted and even wilted condition. It also can play
havoc with a wheat or oat crop. Its clinging nature gives it its name. In the
old days some of the Valley people found it useful in treating sick cows and
mules.
lovey-dovey
Sentimental term of affection.
'low
Allow.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
699
as low as a snake
as low-down as a snake's belly
lower region
Hell.
lowground
Low land.
lowing cow
A sign of bad luck or death. Also denotes a cow in heat.
low man on the totem pole
One in an inferior position.
low-rate
To criticize adversely.
Lucifer
The devil conceived of as a fallen angel. "Yes," said Uncle Monroe as we
sat by the fire one night, "you ask about the devil. Yes, I believe in him,
and his name was Luseefer."
One of the many names for the devil. According to Scriptural legend, Lucifer
was once a bright angel in heaven but, because of his pride and his rebellion
against God, he was cast out and became the ruler over the damned souls
in hell. See Isaiah 14:12-14 which says in poetic language—
"How art thou fallen from heaven,
0 Lucifer, son of the morning!
How art thou cut down to the ground,
Which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart
'I will ascend into heaven
1 will exalt my throne above the stars of God,
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation,
In the sides of the north
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the most High.' "
down on one's luck
To have a long spell of ill luck.
fisherman's luck
No luck at all. To come home hungry, wet, disgusted and with no fish to
show.
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worse luck!
An exclamation.
lucky in cards, unlucky in love
lucky star
To be born under a lucky star is to be especially lucky in one's efforts and
plannings. There's an old astrological belief that each person born in the
world is born under a star, and some stars are unlucky and some are lucky.
This makes about as much sense as the Freudian curse of the unconscious
with which man, so Freud says, as I understand him, is born into the world.
lug
The nut on a wheel bolt. Also a sorry person.
luggish
Heavy, sluggish, dull, slow. "I feel luggish today."
lugs
The lower leaves of a tobacco plant. They ripen first and are gathered in
the first "priming."
a lulu
A faux pas, same as loo-loo." Nixon has picked some lulus in his cabinet.''
lumber room
A room in a dwelling where odds and ends are kept. Also known as plunder
room.
lump in
To include. "No wonder he had such a big expense account, he lumped in
all his side expenses."
If you don't like it, you can lump it.
Accept, even if unhappily or with dissatisfaction.
lump sum
The complete and exact amount, total amount in one payment. "I'll put
in your sewer for the lump sum of $4000."
lunch hooks
Fingers.
lush
A low-down, dangerous person, also refers to a gangster's moll.
Lydia Pinkham
A famous name in patent medicine realms. Mrs. Pinkham's Vegetable
Compound has brought relief for female disorders to generations of sufferers
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
701
in the Valley and is still going strong. Ask at any drugstore.
We boys used to have a lengthy song we sang about Lydia and her
medicine, beginning thus:
"O sing, sing, sing of Lydia Pinkham
And of her friendship for the female race—
She invented her vegetable compound,
Now the papers all publish her face.
"Mamie Twitchum was brokenhearted,
She had nothing beneath her blouse
Till they fed her three bottles of Compound—
Now they milk her with the cows."
And so on to ever more miraculous physiological improvements.
It now comes in liquid and tablet form. The current price in the Chapel
Hill drugstores is $3.68 for 72 tablets and $3.17 for a small bottle of the liquid.
lye soap
A homemade product made from a mixture of lye, water and grease.
My mother made it in the same big iron pot we used for heating water
for hog-killing. First we would get a can or two of Red Devil Lye, mix this
in water, stirring and stirring until the lye was thoroughly dissolved. Then
hog grease would be added. This would be boiled for a good while, maybe
twenty minutes. Any kind of grease would do — bacon grease, side meat
grease — grease from any part of the hog.
The heavy mixture was put into the big pot, water was added, perhaps
a few gallons. A fire was built around the pot and kept going for hours.
The hot water would gradually evaporate and the mixture slowly rise to the
top as soap. When the proper amount of boiling had been done, the fire
was let die out and the ingredients cool and the soap harden. The next day
Mother would take a kitchen knife and cut the somewhat hardened mass
into cakes. Now we had soap enough to last for months. Sometimes the
more fastidious housewives put perfume in their soap. A favorite and easy
way was to boil heart leaves (wild ginger) with the mixture. By the time I
was a teenage boy, homemade soap was passing away. Octagon soap and
other manufactured brands were taking over.
I remember my mother saying that her mother used hickory ashes
instead of lye, this last not being available in the earlier days.
lying down
Cowardly, will-less. "And cuss him as I would he took it all lying down."
lying out
Untended, left lying fallow. "All my corn land is lying out, now that Uncle
Sam pays me to put it in the soil bank."
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lynch law
The law of the mob which is no law at all. The practice, especially in the
South, of mob vengeance on an unlucky person accused of a crime whether
guilty or not. "The taking of the law into one's own hands."
The story of lynchings in the South, and sometimes in the North, is
a shameful one in the history of this country. True, we have dropped the
atom bomb on thousands of helpless people and we helped destroy both
Vietnam and Cambodia, but we have improved in one matter — lynching.
I never saw a lynching except in my imagination but I remember a hot
summer day when our sawmilling was stopped because of one. When the
whistle blew at twelve o'clock, Mr. Moody, the sawyer, made an
announcement to us. "Well, boys," hesaid, "we ain't gonna saw this evening
(afternoon)." "Why not, Mr. Moody?" someone asked. "Because," said
he, "I got to go off and help lynch a nigger."
He said no more and drove away in his A-model Ford.
Mr. Moody boarded at our house, and that night at the supper table
I kept looking at his strong, long-fingered brown hands, wondering,
wondering. It was our custom to go out on the front porch after supper and
sit in the cool darkness awhile before going to bed. I was a-quiver to ask
him about the lynching. He smoked his cigarette in silence. Finally I could
endure it no longer.
"What — what happened, Mr. Moody?" I said.
"What happened what?" he answered.
"I mean — mean about the lynching, sir?"
'' Aw,'' he said disgustedly, "I got there too late. They'd already hanged
the black son of a bitch and he was dead as a nit. But I reached up with
my pistol and put three bullets through his head. Well, good night, I want
some good sleep, got a lot of sawing to do tomorrow." He threw away the
stub of his cigarette and went off to bed. No doubt he got his good sleep,
but I didn't.
lyre-leaved sage
This plant grows in most parts of the United States and is common in North
Carolina. Its big lyre-shaped leaves give it its name. It flourishes in sandy
woods and barrens and is conspicuous for its lavender blooms. Sometimes
called Cancer Weed, its juice is used to remove warts and other cancerous
growths. Was used, I should say, for now in our more enlightened days we
have the surgeon's knife and chemotherapy.
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M
Mac
A person, anyone. "Hey, Mae, close that gate when you go out."
Allan MacDonald
The husband of the famous Scottish heroine Flora MacDonald. He was a
strikingly handsome man and was so described by Drs. Johnson and Boswell
when they visited him and Flora in the Hebrides. The description from their
journal ran as follows: "He was quite the figure of a gallant Highlander
— 'the graceful mien and manly looks.' He had his tartan plaid thrown about
him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribbon like a cockade, a brown
short coat of a kind of duffle, a tartan vest with gold buttons and gold
buttonholes, a bluish fillibeg and tartan hose. He had jet black hair tied
behind and with screwed ringlets on each side, and was a large stately man
with a steady sensible countenance." And Boswell goes on to say that his
heart was sore to learn that Allan had fallen sorely back in his affairs, was
under a load of debt and intended to go to America. "However, nothing
but what was good was present, and I pleased myself in thinking that so
fine a fellow would be well everywhere."
Allan was one of the commanders at the tragic Battle of Moore's Creek
Bridge in 1776 where the Tory power in North Carolina was broken. This
battle, though much ignored by the historians, actually was one of the most
important in the Revolutionary War. If the Tories had won on that day,
then the Patriot cause in North Carolina would have been split in two and
no doubt the Tory power would have grown enormously and perhaps become
too strong to be dislodged in the South.
In this battle Allan and his son Sandy were captured along with several
hundred other Loyalists and finally were sent in exchange to Canada—where
many a self-reliant and determined follower of the King was later moved.
The story of the Tory upheaval in the Valley has never been fully told —
in fact, a shameful story and one too often written by the true red-blooded
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American devotee of individuality and democratic prowess. Many Loyalists
after the war were robbed of their possessions and some who were not so
loyal to Britain were likewise so dispossessed. All that was needed for this
sort of robbery was for some Whig of importance to squeal that so-and-so
was a Loyalist, get him dispossessed and then fall heir to his land and holdings
through court action. And so the Loyalist victim would find himself on the
long migration to join his fellows in Canada. See "go to Halifax."
Flora MacDonald
Allan MacDonald's wife, the famous Scottish heroine. In the JohnsonBoswell Tour to the Hebrides she is described thus: " By and by supper came,
when there appeared his (Allan's) spouse, the celebrated Miss Flora. She
was a little woman, of a mild and genteel appearance, mighty soft and wellbred. To see Mr. Samuel Johnson salute Miss Flora MacDonald was a
wonderful romantic scene to me." And Johnson himself said: "We were
entertained with the usual hospitality by Mr. MacDonald and his lady Flora
MacDonald, a name that will be mentioned in history and, if courage and
fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honor. She is a woman of middle stature,
soft features, gentle manners and elegant presence."
Flora became the darling of Scotch society and of some English society
too for her heroic preservation of Bonny Prince Charlie. After the Battle
of Culloden Moor in 1746 when English soldiery were searching for the
fleeing prince, a price of 30,000 pounds being set on his head, she helped
him escape by disguising him as a maidservant in her service. It is remarkable
that in the upheaval of the Scottish citizenry of that time not one of the
poverty-stricken crofters or dissident people betrayed the prince, whatever
the enormous reward for such betrayal.
For a while Flora was shut up in the Tower of London for this loyalty
to theHouseof Stuart. But soon the King pardoned her. Ballads were written
about her, toasts were given in her name, and everywhere she went she was
acclaimed by admiring crowds.
Times were hard in Scotland in the middle 18th century, and Allan and
Flora finally in the year 1774 migrated to North Carolina in search of a better
life for themselves and their children. The Revolutionary War was brewing,
and when once more trouble swirled about their heads, the blood oath of
loyalty, which the MacDonalds along with other Scotsmen had taken after
the Battle of Culloden in 1746, still had its power over them. (See "blood
oath") And too, Flora devoutly believed by this time in the stability and
Tightness of royal authority. When the Revolutionary War broke out, she
considered the Patriots' cause to be that of raggle-taggle irresponsible rebels.
She stood firm for Britain. Consequently as time went by she and her
household (Allan and Sandy already being prisoners of war in the North)
were driven from North Carolina and she returned to die in penury and
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
705
despair in Scotland.
Some years ago I wrote a play about her but in no way did justice to
this fine and beautiful character.
Hugh MacDonald
Flora's stepfather. This Hugh had kidnapped Flora's young widowed mother
and married her when Flora was a child. He was supposed to be one of the
most physically powerful men in all Scotland. Strange as it may seem, he
was a captain in charge of a company of young soldiers who apparently
tried to capture Bonny Prince Charlie even while Flora was guiding the
luckless prince through bracken and mountain passes to safety. Old Hugh
— one-eyed Hugh as he was called, for as a child he had lost the sight of
one eye by running into a jagged limb — migrated to North Carolina ahead
of Flora and settled far out in Anson County. Allan and Flora finally settled
nearby on Cheek's Creek and there started to build their new life which was
destroyed, as I say, by the Revolutionary War. Old Hugh died in 1782 and
is buried in an unmarked grave there on a hill above Mountain Creek.
mackerel sky
A sky dappled with little clouds more decorative than rainy.
holy mackerel!
A free interjection.
mad
A rage. "He's got a mad on and you'll have to wait till he cools off."
mad as a hatter
mad as a hornet
mad as a March hare
mad as a snake in haying time
mad as a wet sitting hen
as mad as fire
mad as hops
mad as the devil
so mad he couldn't spit
have a mad on
To be infatuated with.
made
To go. "He made right out the door."
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To have sexual intercourse. "The first night I met that girl I made her."
"Mademoiselle from Armentieres"
A song especially popular with the A.E.F. in World War I. Innumerable
versions were sung, and many of them, even in the license of today,
unprintable. Though tinged with Sunday School puritanism, I sang them
along with my buddies — there in the muck and misery of Flanders Field.
Wepronounced "Armentieres" in good old Valley English, "Armenteers."
"Mademoiselle from Armentieres,
parlez vous,
"Mademoiselle from Armentieres,
parlez vous,
"Mademoiselle from Armentieres,
Hasn't been kissed (f~ked) in forty years—"
And so on — as rough as we could make it.
made out of whole cloth
Of solid character.
made over
Petted, cuddled. "She made over him all the time."
madstone
A stone supposed to be found in the stomach of a deer. It was especially
efficacious against the bite of mad dogs. According to dozens of witnesses
— lawyers, doctors, preachers — whom I have consulted, there is no doubt
about it. This stone is a reality and a most powerful cure not only for mad
dog bites but for poisonous infections of all sorts, including snakes.
In size these stones were about an inch wide and two or three inches
long, gray colored, and of a porous nature. Luther Gunter told me that his
grandfather, old man Darge Singleton, once had a Negro slave boy bitten
by a rabid dog and he went over to Boyd Urquhart, some thirty miles away
beyond Smithfield, to get his stone. Urquhart wouldn't send it till old Darge
had entered into a bond in the amount of $1,000 for its safe return. He sent
the required bond by his son Corbett and got the use of the stone and cured
the Negro boy. Urquhart used to charge as much as $50 for each use of it.
Bishop Cheshire, a man of repute and strong in the Episcopal Church,
once told me he had seen one of these stones applied and, when it was laid
against the poisoned wound, it seized upon it and stuck tight as a leech or
a Harnett County seed tick. Then as the poison was being sucked out of
the wound by the stone, the stone gradually turned dark. Presently, full of
poison, it fell off and dropped to the ground. After this the stone was placed
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
707
in a bowl of milk and left there several hours, and the poison exuded from
it, turning the milk a sickish green. At the proper time the stone was lifted
out, dried off and ready for another use at $50 a suck.
For years I have tried to find one of these ancient stones. They all seem
to have disappeared forever but the fame of them remains.
Mae West
An especially strong cocktail. "Drink it, and you won't come up sometime.''
maggots in one's head
Crazy.
magic lantern
Japanese lantern.
magic numbers
See "numbers."
magnolia
A beautiful and popular shade tree throughout the Valley and the South.
It has become a sort of cognomen for the culture, the beauty and the oldtimeyness of the region.
magnolia leaf
A fetish token.
Galley Farrington who works for me now and then told me recently
of his experience with a magnolia leaf and the woman who used it. "She
came driving down there to the store," he said, "where a lot of us fellows
were chewing the rag — this woman did — and whew! what a knockout
she was. She smelled high of cologne and had some sort of brass earrings
big as silver dollars in her ears. She said that she was out to bring joy to
mankind. 'You all fellows are always broke, ain't you?' she said. We agreed
that was mostly true. 'Well,' shesaid, 'I can show you how never to be broke.
See these magnolia leaves,' and then out of her big wove handbag she pulled
alot of magnolia leaves. 'If you will take one of these here leaves,' she said,
'and put a dollar bill on it and fold it up inside, put it in your pocket, you'll
always have good luck and you'll never be broke for you'll have that dollar.
But mostly and the main thing,' she said, 'is you'll have good luck. Who's
got a dollar?' Some of us had a dollar. I just happened to have one bill so
I handed it to her. She folded it up in the leaf into a tight little wad and handed
it back to me. 'Now put that in your pocket, honey,' she said, 'and keep
it there and the first thing you know good luck will start happening.' Two
or three of the other fellows had dollar bills and fool-like — just like me
— they handed them over to that woman and saw her fold 'em into the leaf
and hand it back to them. 'Now you see,' she said, 'I ain't charging a penny
for my service. I just want to do good to my fellowman. Now you all boys,'
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she said, 'don't touch them leaves in your pocket for the next hour. Let 'em
stay in there and get 'climated to your body. Then it's all right to feel them.
And good luck to you all boys now and I'm on my way to help other folks.'
And she got into her late Ford roadster and drove off.
"It was Satiddy time and we didn't have to go to work anywhere and
so we stood around chewing the rag some more and still smelling the heavy
scent of that woman that was gone off. Maybe it was that scent that made
us play the fool. Anyhow, after about a' hour by the clock on the Home
Savings building we pulled out our magnolia leaves, opened them and, dang
my soul, there was no dollar bill in any of them. That woman had really
reamed us. We saw her driving sassy around Chapel Hill several times after
that and far as I know she might have reamed some of them smart professors.
Anyhow we were so ashamed to be made fools of by her that we didn't call
the cops in to arrest her."
magpie
A talkative person.
Aunt Mahaly
A legendary witch woman who was supposed to live in the depths of the
Cape Fear River swamps. I wrote a short play about her and how she bewitched and destroyed two Negro criminals.
maiden land
Land that comes to a man with the maid he marries.
maiden's blushes
Something of a subtropical shrub which grows from North Carolina to
Florida. It prefers wet, boggy soil. Its greenish and pale yellow capsules grow
in thick clusters among the leaves. In the autumn these mellowing leaves
become ruddy-tinged, therefore the gothic name, which to me is the most
important thing about the plant. In the old days it was used like Peruvian
bark (quinine) for intermittent fevers.
mail-order marriage
A marriage arranged by correspondence, usually through answering an ad
in a lonely hearts column. More than one person in the Valley has got a
husband or wife by advertising for such in these love columns of magazines
and papers, sometimes with good results and sometimes with bad, about
the same ratio, I suppose, as occurs in the ordinary love matches arranged
by closer and more passionate contact.
Take the case of Miss Maria Stuart. The people in our neighborhood
used to call her the "Queen of Scotland." Of course she wasn't any queen
but we called her that because she was so beautiful and was so proud and
because of her name. In my past boyhood recollections I can't recall any
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
709
girl more beautiful than she was. I never saw Laura Searles who by all
accounts was the most beautiful girl ever born in the Valley and who later
married a titled Englishman. As a boy I used to see Miss Maria at church
always radiant and fresh as a rose. And how she loved to sing in the church
that old hymn' 'Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine''! She was besought and
beset by all the young blades thereabouts, but she married none of them.
The reason, so my mother said, was that she couldn't find any that suited
her choosey ways. Finally she woke up one day to find herself an old maid.
She was past thirty and she who had been so popular and cherished was
left with only one hanger-on, a short, sawed-off fellow and bowlegged at
that, named Rufus Ellington. So there she was with her memories of lovers'
hand-squeezes, kisses, and dances and perfumes, fans and whispered
flatteries at parties, serenading and moonlit hayrides. At last she got so
desperate that she advertised for a husband. She got one all right, a fellow
up out of Texas named Moulton, and he turned out to be nothing, worse
than nothing. He flattered her so he got her crazy about him and had her
sign over all of her property which wasn't much but which would have been
enough to support her in her old age. And when he had done that, he sold
the property, deserted her, went back to Texas where he had come from,
and before too long she died. Her uncle put up a small tombstone to her
in the churchyard, for she was penniless.
main drag
The main highway or central street in a small town. Also big business.
main strength and awkwardness
Action or procedure in a helter-skelter manner, without any plan or logical
design.' 'Earsy was brung up by main strength and awkwardness and that's
how come he's so mean."
make
To succeed, to win out, to get there on time. "I was coming along through
the Arboretum from class one day and heard footsteps behind me, and there
was elderly Collier Cobb trotting along — and on he came passing me and
jiggling his heavy briefcase in his hand — 'I've got to make a train, Paul.
Excuse me.' And on he went."
Mature. "The corn will make now after that good rain."
Figure, shape. "That new schoolteacher that's come to Olive Branch sure
has a pretty make."
Make hay while the sun shines.
Make yourself all honey, and the flies will eat you.
If you make a rough bed, you have to lie in a rough bed.
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As we make it, so we have it.
As you make your bed, so shall you lie on it.
make a branch
To urinate. "Come on, sonny, do you want to make a little branch?"
make a break
To make a faux pas, also to dash for freedom as a prisoner on a chain gang.
"I warned the boys not to try to make a break," said Thaddy Matthews,
"but one day one of them did and, just before he darted into the woods
200 yards away, I pulled down on him and over he went with a broken leg."
make a leg
To put one's leg back as in a curtsey or bow.
make a mess
To have a bowel movement.
To turn things upside down.
make a puddle
To urinate. Same as make a branch.
make a smell
Go to the bathroom.
make a spring
Urinate.
make 'aste
Make haste, hurry.
make at
To rush to meet as in a fight. "He made at me with a knife and I conked
him with that handspike."
make a trip
Also to go to the bathroom.
make away with
To waste, to kill, to consume. "At the cornshucking they made away with
a whole kettle of chicken stew."
Also to get away with. "The thieves made away with a lot of silverware."
make buckle and tongue meet
Make one's income equal the outgo.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
711
make for
To hurry to reach. "A big cloud is coming up over there and we had better
make for the house."
make game of
To mock, to laugh at.
make good
To succeed.
make it
To recover, to live through sickness. "Cal Upchurch is down sick again and
from what they say it don't look like he's gonna make it this time."
make it fly
To do a job swiftly.
make it warm for
To punish, to spank.
make like
To pretend.
make medicine
To hold a conference, to plan some action.
make no mistake
A phrase used for emphasis. "Make no mistake about it, as a man sows,
so shall he reap."
make off with
To steal, to carry away.
make one's mark
Become well-known, succeed.
make one'spile
To amass a fortune.
make out
Same as make like. "Why do you make out like you're rich when you ain't?''
To make love. "They were gone a good while, but I think they were just
making out."
To get along somehow, to make ends meet, much the same as make do.
To decipher, to read as in a poor light. "Can you make out the items on
the dinner check?"
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To understand, comprehend. "Speak a little louder, I can't make out what
you're saying."
make out with
To tolerate, put up with, endure.
make passes at
To try to hug a girl, to try to fondle, flirt.
make the feathers (fur) fly
To fight tooth and claw in a fisticuff, to work with fierce energy.
make the grade
To win out, to have success.
make tracks
To depart hurriedly, to run.
make up
To be reconciled, to become friends after a fight or quarrel.
To even up, repay. "His intensity as an artist makes up for what he lacks
as a technician."
make up to
To court, to soft soap.
make whoopee
To celebrate hilariously, to hold a spree.
makings
The ingredients. "I planned to have pie for supper, but I don't have the
makings."
Traits, talents. "He has the makings of a good student if he'd only work
harder."
making up
To gather, to prepare, to get ready for action. "The clouds are making up
in the west. We'd better hurry."
malaria cure
Have plenty of sunflowers growing about the house.
Malice drinketh its own poison.
There's as much malice in a wink as a word.
With malice toward none and charity for all.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
713
Mamma, Mamma, what is that
Twixt your legs like a hairy cat?
Pappy, Pappy, what is that
Twixt your legs like a baseball bat?
(A low recitation rhyme.)
Mamma, Mamma, have you heard?
Papa's going to buy me a mockingbird.
If that mockingbird don't sing,
Papa's going to buy me a diamond ring.
If that diamond ring turns brass,
Papa's going to whip me on my ass.
mammy
To spoil, to be over-affectionate. "She mammied that boy to death when
he was young and now he's grown up he ain't worth a cent."
mammy-sick
A spoiled child, over-dependent on its mother.
man
A familiar term of address, usually for emphasis and applied to either sex.
"Yes, man, he's a holy terror." "And, man, did that dog run when I put
turpentine under his tail."
Strength, physical power. "Get in there with that axe, Bo, and show your
man."
Man brought nothing here and he'll take nothing away.
Man doth what he can and God what he will.
Man evolved from the lower animals.
Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.
Man is conceived and born in sin.
Man is of the earth, earthy.
Man proposes, God disposes.
Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.
Man wants but little here below nor wants that little long.
Man was made from the dust.
Man works from sun to sun,
Woman's work is never done.
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A man is known by the company he keeps.
A man is down but never out.
A man is never a hero to his own servant.
A man is not known by his looks.
A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds.
A man without a wife
Is not worth a wife.
A man who beats his mule will beat his wife.
A man who kicks his dog will kick his wife.
Beware of a smiling man.
God made him and therefore let him pass for a man.
No man can serve two masters.
Get a man drunk if you would know him.
Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.
Every man has his price.
As for man, his days are as grass.
No man is a prophet in his own country.
A silent man is a wise man.
As a man lives
So shall he die.
As a tree falls
So shall it lie.
An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.
No man should be both accuser and judge.
No man stays far from the sweet mouth and a good table.
There's more hope for a drinking man than a lazy man.
Every man to his taste as the skunk said to the billy goat.
It takes a wise man to play the fool.
Never hit a man when he is down.
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715
Don't bother a man when he's busy.
A drowning man will catch at a straw.
A poor man with children has got a millstone about his neck.
man about town
Sport, an easy liver, a fashionable guy.
Good management is better than big wage.
man alive!
A mild interjection.
the man for my money
Chosen over others, reliable person, one to be trusted.
man in the moon
The physiognomy of the moon's face which at a careless glance looks like
the face of a man. According to the old legend he was put there as a
punishment for burning brush on Sunday. We children were told that so
we'd behave better and be quieter on the Sabbath Day.
The man in the moon
Came down too soon,
Asked the way to Norwich.
He went to the South
And burnt his mouth
A-eating hot pease porridge.
(A nursery rhyme.)
man killer
A vicious horse, also a wild woman.
mankind
An interjection. "Mankind, that was a flood and Bowling Creek looked
like a lake!"
All mankind loves a lover.
manna
Extra or excess profit, financial gain with little effort.
mannerable
Of good manners.
no manner account
No good at all, lazy, indolent.
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mannerly
Well-behaved.
manner of means
For emphasis. "Dan MacDougald is not buried here by any manner of
means."
in a manner of speaking
An introductory phrase often used in a conjunctive sense similar to "as you
might say so."
manners
Courtesies, polite actions. "Go over and make your manners to Aunt
Nettie."
Manners make the man.
man or a mouse
A phrase used in reference to weak-willed, quiet, mouse-like man. "Tell
me, are you a man or a mouse!"
man person
A man.
A man's a man for all that.
man's best friend
The dog.
I remember Uncle Bob Green telling me about the dog that Grandpa
John Green had named Queenie. It seemed that Grandpa John's brother,
my great-uncle William, decided to go to Texas, and he asked Grandpa if
he could take Queenie with him. Grandpa finally agreed and off they went.
Some months went by and one night there was a scratching at the door, and
Uncle Bob said that Grandpa went to the door and there was a little spotted
dog, whining and all scratched up and sore-footed, and it was Queenie. She
had come all the way back. Later they had a letter from Uncle William which
said that Queenie went with him across the Mississippi River and swam along
as he swam his horse across. So the dog had actually swum back across the
river and found her way the hundreds of miles home.
I told Dr. J.B. Rhine of the Extrasensory Perception Laboratory at
Duke University about Queenie when he and his wife were gathering
examples of the power of animal and bird instinct, and he was very much
interested. But when I finally told him that according to Uncle Bob Green,
Grandpa for a long time didn't recognize Queenie because she had worn
off about six inches of her legs and was much lower down on the ground
than formerly — when I told him that, Dr. Rhine looked at me and then
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
111
folded up his notebook.
A man's house is his castle.
A man's death ought to be like him.
A man's man is a woman's man, but a woman's man is nobody's man.
A man's self is his own enemy.
Better an old man's darling than a young man's slave.
mansion in the sky
A dream home in the hereafter, hungered for by the soul-starved workers
here below and to which all Lord-servers can go when they die.
A hairy man's rich,
A hairy wife's a witch.
mantrap
A woman's privity.
A woman of sexual powers. Some authors, including St. Paul, apply the
term to women generally.
manufacture or manufac
Plug tobacco as contrasted with the old homemade twist.' 'Uncle Tom, give
me a chew of that good manufac you got in your pocket."
manure
Worthless talk, soft soap.
many a one
Many.
Many a person digs his grave with his teeth.
Many are called, but few are chosen.
Many a true word is spoken in jest.
Many hands make light work,
as many as a dog has fleas
as many as Carter had oats
Nothing.
Many happy returns of the day.
An old and tiresome birthday greeting.
map of Canaan
The holy, sanctified and salvation look that often shows on a person's face
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when he or she has become saved from sin or, as it is so often put, saved
from nature to grace.
Hiteous Belch got religion in the local church down below Smithfield
and he put' 'the map of Canaan'' in his face, and so he gave up the worldly
practice of "hollering" in the fields at sundown or in the late afternoon
when he was ploughing away. And from then on he apparently was a good
and rather holy man, but as Itimus Ochiltree declared, "He weren't half
as much fun to his friends as before.'' And he went on to say that he thought
it was "a poor religion that makes a man a worse neighbor."
marble orchard
Graveyard.
Marbles
An everlastingly popular game among boys everywhere. We boys in the
Valley played marbles usually in a ring. The ring could be almost any
diameter, depending mainly on the levelness of the ground. Sometimes the
ring was three feet across, sometimes four or five or even six or seven. Each
player put his assortment of dinahs into the ring and then each player in
succession shot at these dinahs with his taw, shooting from the ring mark.
And how wonderful these taws were, and usually of glass and beautifully
patterned. We often got little tobacco sacks to carry our marbles in and how
many fisticuffs broke out as we quarreled over the spoils. For when we played
for keeps, each player kept the dinahs that he knocked out of the ring with
his shooting. And sometimes if two were knocked out, and the shooter failed
to cry "dubs" before someone else cried out "venture dubs," he could only
keep one dinah. How many variations on this game, and how many mothers
in the Valley complained at the worn-out knees of the boys' stockings or
their trousers! But it did no good, for marbles had the day. The game is
not as popular as it once was, but it has shown no signs of actually dying out.
marbles
Money, dollars. Also testicles.
If March comes in like a lamb, it will go out like a lion. And vice versa.
March hare
A wild, irresponsible person.
Marching to Jerusalem
A play-party game. It was usually played with more than six people, boys
and girls. The chairs in a room were arranged in a line back to back. There
was always one chair less than the number of players. The players would
line up and when the music started (piano, record, organ, a solo singer or
whatnot), they would march around the chairs. At the sudden stop in the
music they would scramble to find seats. The one who failed to get a seat
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
719
would drop out of the game. One chair would be removed and the game
go on until one of the final two marchers won.
The game was especially rough on chairs. My mother would nearly
always say to us, "If you children are going to play that rough game, find
you the sorriest chairs I've got — some I won't mind so bad your breaking
up."
mare dogs
Mad dogs.
mare's egg
A pumpkin.
I remember when I was a little boy hearing a story about Pat, the
Irishman who came into the Valley from the old country. Usually Pat was
accompanied by his fellow companion Mike, but this story had to do only
with Pat. Pat is coming along and he stops where some men are building
a house and asks the way to Wilmington. The men tell him and then he sees
a pumpkin out in the field on the slope near the river and he asks what that
is. And one of the wags in the crowd tells him that this is a mare's egg. "A
mare's egg? "says Pat. "What do you do with a mare's egg?" "Why," he
says, "if you'll take that and set on it for an hour or two and get it good
and warm, you'll hatch out a little colt." And Pat says, "Faith me Christ,
I think I'll try it." So he went out in the field and sat down on the pumpkin
to hatch it and the wag called out,' 'After you set there an hour or two, then
take the mare's egg and roll it down the slope and the little colt will jump
out." Of course, the wag knew the pumpkin would roll into the river and
Pat would be left with the joke on him. So after about an hour Pat got up
and rolled the pumpkin down the slope and it happened to hit a stump and
break wide open. Now a rabbit was sitting behind the stump and the rabbit
jumped up and away he went, and Pat was after him hot and heavy, calling
out,' 'Wait, little colt, wait, little colt. Your pappy's after you.'' Of course,
the people laughed and had their fun, and finally Pat was made acquainted
with the joke and went on up the road crestfallen.
mare's nest
A hoax, the kind of hoax played on the above Pat.
marigold
One of the choicest and most popular flowers in the Valley gardens. In the
old days a tincture of this highly aromatic plant had many medicinal uses.
It was used for cuts and bruises, sprains and so on, and it was reported to
be good even for protection against gangrene.
marijuana
Locoweed, crazy weed. This was first introduced as a fiber crop and escaped
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into waste places. Now it is illegal to grow it for smokers use it as an
intoxicant. It goes under many folk names—joints, sticks, teasticks, weed,
grass, hemp, griffo, mohasky, roaches, Mary Jane, reefers, pot, muggies,
mooters, Indian hay, gigglesmoke, and so on. Heroin has its own
nomenclature, such as snow, stuff and junk.
mark
To castrate, as mark hogs. Also to cut a notch or ownership sign in the ears
of a hog or in cattle, for in the old days the stock ran wild in the woods.
easy mark
A mush head, a sentimental person.
toe the mark
To measure up to, to fulfill all expectations, to behave as demanded or
expected.
To market, to market
To buy a fat hog.
Home again, home again,
Jiggety jog.
To market, to market
To buy a fat pig.
Home again, home again,
Jiggety jig.
(Nursery rhyme.)
Old Market House
A famous old city center in Fayetteville. This historic landmark is a great
obstruction to traffic, and many a motorist in a hurry has cursed it as he
had to slow up and poke traffic-bound around it, but the historically minded
people of Fayetteville are determined to keep it no matter how the lava flow
of traffic pushes.
Marley Bright (Molly Bright)
A children's chase game. Players are divided into two groups, and they
arrange themselves on their base in two lines, say, about forty or fifty yards
apart. One player,' 'the witch,'' takes his or her position to one side, halfway
between the base lines. The leader on one side calls to the leader on the other,
"How many miles to Marley Bright?" The other answers, "Three score
and ten.'' The next question is "Can I get there by candlelight? " The other
player calls back, "Yes, if your legs are long and light and the old witch
don't catch you." Both lines then start scattering and running, each trying
to reach the other's base. A player caught by the "witch" becomes the witch,
and the former joins one of the lines.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
721
This game is supposed to go back to medieval times.
marm
Ma'am. One common usage was in referring to a schoolmarm.
To have good luck in marriage the bride should wear —
Something old, something new,
Something borrowed and something blue.
Before marriage keep both eyes open; after marriage shut one.
Marriages and hangings go by destiny.
Marriages are made in heaven.
More's married now than's doing well.
Not married till bedded.
He that marries a widow with two daughters has three back doors to his house.
marrow bones
Deep inside one. "I could feel that fear right to my marrow bones."
Marry in haste and repent at leisure.
Marry for money, and you'll be sorry you married at all.
Marry in black, you'll wish yourself back,
Marry in red, you'll wish yourself dead,
Marry in yellow, you'll be 'shamed of your fellow,
Marry in green, you'll be 'shamed to be seen,
Marry in brown, you'll live out of town,
Marry in gray, you'll live far away,
Marry in white you have chosen just right,
Marry in blue, you'll find that will do.
(A proverb rhyme.)
marry up
Marry.
marsh pink
A lovely little flower common to bogs and moist soil. This herb is a good
tonic and is said to have been used in the old days as a substitute for quinine.
martin
A grayish black brave little bird that is noted for his tenacity in attacking
crows, hawks or any large bird and driving them away from the farmhouse.
The martin is pretty much disappearing in the Valley. Last Sunday I was
out driving and I saw one fly across the road. This was the first martin I
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had seen in years.
can't do nothing till Martin comes
This is a proverbial saying in the Valley, and as a little boy I was told how
it got started. You'll often hear around a sawmill or any job where men
are lolling about waiting for the boss-man to come or waiting for supplies
— hear someone say, "Can't do nothing till Martin comes."
The old story ran as follows. Massa Landlord bet one of his slaves five
dollars that he wouldn't dare stay in an old empty cabin down by the river
which was supposed to be ha'nted. This Negro was a preacher and sort of
a holy fellow and said he was not skeered of anything above the earth, on
the earth, or below the earth. He said he would take up his master on the
bet and win this five dollars.
So one night the reverend got his Bible and went to spend the night
in the haunted cabin. He built himself a fire and took out his Bible and sat
there reading it. While he was reading he heard a little wind blowing in the
trees outside. He listened an instant and then went on with his reading.' Tor
verily sayeth the Lord — " At this moment the old door creaked on its hinges,
opening a bit, and in came a great black cat. The preacher looked at the
cat and said nothing. The cat went over to the fireplace, stuck his head in,
got a mouthful of coals, chewed them a bit and spat out the sparks, and
then went over to the side of the hearth and sat down and looked at the
preacher in silence. The preacher began reading away again. Presently the
door squeaked once more and in came another cat, much bigger than the
first, big as a dog. This cat likewise went over to the fireplace, stuck his head
in, got a great mouthful of red-hot coals, chewed them and spat out the
sparks, swallowed the coals and went over and sat down by the first cat.
The preacher began to shake and shiver but he went on reading his Bible.
"Verily in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would
have told you.'' The old door squeaked again and in came a third great black
cat, this time he was as big as a small calf. He went over, stuck his head
in the fireplace, got a great mouthful of red-hot coals, chewed them, spat
out the sparks, swallowed the coals and then took his place by the other
two cats. The first cat says to the second cat, "We can't do nothing." The
second cat looked at the third cat and said,' 'No, we can't do nothing yet,''
and then the third great cat let out in a great big bass voice, "Can't do nothing
till Martin comes.'' The preacher slammed his Bible into his pocket and said,
"Well, you gentlemen tell Martin when he comes that I done been called
away," and with that he plunged through the open window carrying the
sash with him and disappeared into the night.
The story never told any further as to what Martin looked like or whether
he arrived.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
723
martin-gourd
We used to see on every farm a tall pole with cross arms from which gourds
were hanging, with an opening cut in each gourd. These were called martingourds and the martins used to build nests in them and so help keep watch
over the house, driving hawks away especially so that the farmers' chickens
could thrive in peace.
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.
It followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rule.
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.
(Popular nursery rhyme.)
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty girls all in a row.
(Nursery rhyme.)
mash
Push, press. "Mash the doorbell, please."
Marsh.
mashing
Dandified or sentimental flirtation.
mash-tub
A tub in which the mash for making liquor was fermented.
Mason's first pin
Safety pin.
Massacre ofPiney Bottom
One of those wasteful and human-inhumane acts of wartime. The story of
Piney Bottom still lives among the old folks in the Valley. My friend and
Valley historian Malcolm Fowler put it thus in his book They Passed This
Way: "When Cornwallis moved through upper South Carolina and into
North Carolina on his way to Guilford County Courthouse, many patriots
in his path fled with their families to refuge with friends on the Neuse River.
Among them were Capt. Gulp of South Carolina and Col. Wadeof Anson.
"After the British had left Wilmington for Yorktown and Greene had
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marched back to South Carolina, Gulp and Wade started back home with
their families and several friends.
"They crossed the Cape Fear at Sprowl's Ferry (McNeill's) and camped
for the night on Anderson Creek. During the night one of their party stole
a piece of cloth from an orphan girl named Marion McDaniel. It was just
a coarse piece of cloth but to the girl it meant a dress to wear to the kirk
at Barbecue.
"This theft was the spark that touched off the powder keg. John
McNeill, another of Archie's and Jennie Bahn's (sic) sons, seems to have
been the principal leader. For it was he who dispatched messengers to the
various Tory hangouts during the day following the theft of the cloth. But
McNeill found it convenient to spend the afternoon at Col. Folsome's,
leaving there just at sundown.
"From Folsome's to Piney Bottom was a matter of over forty miles.
But John McNeill was riding with Col. McDougald when they struck the
Whig encampment at three o'clock in the morning. Several of Gulp's party
were killed, including a young boy whose head was slit open by one of the
attackers. Culp, Wade and several more escaped and rode for help while
the Tories plundered the wagons before setting them afire and leaving.
"Culp and Wade returned to Cumberland County with 100 men and
began a program of senseless bloodshed without parallel in the Valley. Not
even Fanning could match them in brutality.
"It is interesting to speculate what would have happened had Fanning
been available at this time. But he was in the Deep River country recovering
from wounds received in the Cane Creek Battle.
"Before they satisfied their lust for blood, Culp and Wade had
murdered at least eight men, besides robbing many more and burning a
number of homes. Oddly enough, Culp and Wade stayed out of Harnett
during this raid of revenge, confining their operations to what is now Moore
and Hoke territory. Maybe they were hesitant to tackle the Tory big wheels.
"Right after this raid, Culp himself was murdered.
"After the war, Colonel Wade had John McNeill tried for his life for
his part in the affair at Piney Bottom. However, McNeill put Colonel
Folsome on the stand and proved he was at Folsome's home until sundown.
"The jury promptly returned a not guilty verdict. It was impossible,
they said, for a man to ride from Folsome's to Piney Bottom in the time
stated. From then on McNeill was called 'Cunning John.'
"But John McNeill did make that ride. He practically had lived in a
saddle all his life. Arch McDougald and John's brother Daniel knew he made
it; they were at Piney Bottom with him. But they were in Nova Scotia when
John was tried. McDougald returned in later years. He is buried at Cameron's
Hill, near the present village of Spout Springs.
"Marion McDaniel knew McNeill made the ride, but she wasn't called
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
725
as a witness. McNeill returned her piece of stolen cloth the day following
the Piney Bottom incident. Now she could have her dress. It should have
been a thing of wonder too. Fifteen men died on account of it!"
"Massa's in de Cold, Cold Ground"
Another of Stephen Foster's heart-touching darkey songs. It used to be a
favorite with our barbershop quartet, as it was and still is everywhere. Many
would-be authorities have claimed that this song was written as a memorial
to the composer's dead father. This is wrong. The song was written in 1852.
William Foster died in 1855. It seems obvious that Foster had in mind an
imaginary and benign "Old Massa," and accordingly it would naturally
follow that the massa's slaves grieved after him.
"Round de meadows am a-ringing
De darkeys' mournful song
While de mockingbird am singing
Happy as de day am long.
Where de ivy am a-creeping •
On de grassy mound.
Dere old massa am a-sleeping
Sleeping in de cold, cold ground."
Chorus: "Down in de cornfield
Hear dat mournful sound.
All de darkeys am a-weeping.
Massa's in de cold, cold ground."
massy
Mercy. "Lord-a-massy child, what are you doing with that snake in your
hand?"
mast
The seeds of pine or beech and other trees.
Like master, like man.
Every man is master in his own house.
An early master makes a long servant.
A falling master makes a standing man.
He who is master of himself will master others.
We cannot all be masters.
No man can serve two masters.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
match
A well-suited pair, bride and groom, or two horses or two mules.
Don't blow out the match before you've lighted the candle.
Lighting three cigarettes on one match is unlucky.
matching pennies
See "crack a loo."
'maters
Tomatoes.
matrimony vine
The climbing nightshade.
matter
Discharge showing in the corner of the eye, also pus in a sore. "There's a
lot of matter in that bone felon that ought to be cleaned out."
Wrong, unfitting. "Something's the matter with the doorbell, it won't ring."
more matter with less art
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on —
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels 'round my head,
One at my head and one at my feet
To guard my soul while I'm asleep.
(A prayer rhyme.)
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
God bless this bed that I lie on.
If anything appear to me,
Sweet Christ, arise and comfort me.
(A child's prayer rhyme.)
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Saddle the cat and I'll be gone.
(A smarty rhyme.)
mattress-jig
Lovemaking in bed.
maul
A homemade wooden farm implement which was used in the old days to
hammer the steel wedges and gluts (q.v.) for splitting timbers and rails. These
mauls usually were made from dogwood trees. A proper tree about six to
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
727
ten inches in diameter at the root would be chosen and dug up. The rooty
end of the tree would be the maul head, to be rounded and shaped like a
cylinder. Then some ten or twelve inches up the trunk of the tree an incision
would be made. This would be girdled and this part of the tree chopped
away until a rounded handle would be left. The handle would be three to
four feet long, and with this heavy huge wooden hammer a man could really
maul a day's work. I heard of one powerful Negro in the Valley who it was
said could maul, or split, a thousand rails a day. Clinton McNeill, another
hard-working Negro who could put up a brick chimney in a day, told me
that he once mauled 1500 rails in one day.
may apple
A big-leaved, low-growing plant common in the Valley. It has an evilsmelling white bloom which produces one "apple" about the size of a large
bullace or musket ball. Sometimes the plant was called wild lemon, or
mandrake. It was used as a cathartic and also for numerous diseases like
most every plant in the Valley.
maypop
The passion flower. It bears a so ft pulpy fruit about the size of an egg. When
it is well-ripened and yellow, the pulpy watery insides are sweet to the taste
and good for eating as we children proved with many a tight bellyful. It
has a big flat purple bloom, and in the center is the "Trinity" and around
that "the Twelve Apostles." Go out into the fields in May or June and see
for yourself in studying the bloom. Hence, its name. The juice squeezed
from the leaves and dried made a good medicine for croup and children's
pains. A poultice made of warm leaves was also good for neuralgia and the
toothache.
maypop war
We boys used to have great fun especially on Sundays when we'd slip away
from the old folks and go far down in the corn fields where the maypops,
after the crops were laid by, were growing all over the ground with their
oblong pods of fruit. We would gather these maypops and organize ourselves
in opposing parties and go to it, throwing these at one another. As a boy
I visited some friends up near Kipling, and these boys made fun of us who
played war with maypops. They played war with rocks. I got in the war with
them and the first thing I knew a big rock had laid me out pretty cold when
it hit me on the side of the head. From then on my admiration for the Kipling
boys was unbounded.
mazuma
Money.
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Reverend Hugh Me Aden
An early Presbyterian minister who came down from Pennsylvania into the
Valley in 1755, seeking souls to save. And from records of the times there
were plenty living in a lost condition and in need of salvation. He kept a
journal of his travels and preaching, and many of his entries attest to that
fact. For instance, on January 29, 1756, he wrote — "Preached to a small
congregation, mostly Highlanders, at Alexander McKay's up the Yadkin
Road, who were much obliged to me for coming and highly pleased with
my discourse. Though, alas, I am afraid it was all but feigned and
hypocritical, for they stayed around the house all night drinking and
carousing."
McAden has been called the father of Presbyterianism in North
Carolina.
Colonel Alexander McAllister
One of the earliest Scotch pioneers in the Valley. He came over in 1729 to
spy out the country and a few years later he led a large group of his
countrymen to this "the promised land" or, as he put it, "the best poor
man's country on earth." When the Revolutionary War came on, he took
the Patriot side against a majority of his neighbors and kinsmen. Appointed
lieutenant colonel in the Cumberland militia by the State Congress
(legislature), he was active in rallying people to his cause. He is buried in
Old Bluff churchyard, and I claim him as a forebear. In fact I was inducted
into the SAR along with Frank Graham, by way of him. A massive chunk
of granite was set in the Bluff Churchyard several years ago to honor Colonel
McAllister. Its attached bronze plate says that he "was buried near this spot"
and then lists him as follows — "Colonel of Cumberland County Militia,
Justice of the Peace of Cumberland County, member of the N.C. Provincial
Congress, member of the N.C. Committee of Public Safety, Elder of Bluff
Presbyterian Church."
Archibald McBride
An early 19th century educator whose collected papers have served as a source
for much of the early history of the Cape Fear Valley, notably the work
of Caruthers.
Steve McDaniel
He was supposed to be the laziest man that ever lived in our neighborhood,
or any neighborhood for that matter, even lazier than the trifling Negro
Big John (q.v.). One day Mr. Mac and I were poking around in the old Tirzah
Churchyard looking at tombstones and their various epitaphs and copying
one or two now and then. We came to a little squat field stone with the name
Steve McDaniel on it. We stopped as Mr. Mac stared down at it.
"Steve died when I was a boy," he said,' 'but I remember him all right.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
729
He was the talk of the neighborhood because of his triflingness and the way
he stayed in bed all the time, claiming he was too sick to be up and about,
though, as I say, most of the people really believed he was shamming. I mean
they sort of believed it, for all the time the better-hearted women in the
neighborhood like Miss Gallic Senter toted food to him. Zack Broadhuss,
a powerful fun-loving strong man, decided he'd test old Steve. He hid behind
his house one winter night, set an armful of hay afire and hollered 'Fire,
fire! the house is a-burning!' Steve came tearing out into the cold air in his
nightgown and run off down in the orchard. The ground was hard frozen,
and by the time he'd caught on to the false alarm and the fact he'd been
tricked and got back into the house, his feet were half frostbit. He hopped
right back into bed. And this time he was struck with the palsy worse than
ever. A lot of folks thought he was pretending like before. But he wasn't.
In a week he was dead, and my daddy and the neighbors brung him here
in a pine coffin box and buried him. Yes, that's right."
McGregor
A prideful Scotch Valley name. There's an old saying, "where McGregor
sits is the head of the table."
One "Neck" McGregor used to quote this old saying to me as having
special reference not only to his family and forebears but to him himself.
Mr. Mac said he knew Neck a long while before he died. He got his nickname
from Civil War times, said Mr. Mac. "One day in 1865 Sherman's Yankee
bummers rushed up to his farm on Rockfish Creek and captured him. He
wouldn't tell where his horses and silverware were hid, so they hung him
up by the neck the way they later did our poet Miller. Then they cut him
down alive, and still he wouldn't tell. Later on some more of Sherman's
bummers come by and hung him again but he wouldn't tell. Maybe he
couldn't tell. Maybe he didn't have any silverware by this time for it all had
gone into the southern cause, he being a mighty patriotic fellow. Finally
a third gang of Yankee guerrillas came by and hung him a third time and
that nigh 'bout ended him. They left him for dead, but some of the neighbors
arrived in time to cut him down and revive him. From that day on though
he walked with a crooked neck and with his head turned slanchindicular.
So about all he got out of working for the Confederate cause was a maiming
for life and the nickname "Neck." That name fitted him right on up to the
end. One day on his way to MacDonald' s Mill he met a few old Confederate
soldiers coming around the bend on horses. They were on their way to
Fayetteville for a reunion and were carrying a Confederate flag held high
and proud before them. The flag flapping in the wind and the troops coming
around the curve so sudden-like scared Neck's mules, and they ran away
with him, throwing him out of the wagon and on his head and killing him.
This time his neck was really broken."
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Rev. John McLeod
A young 18th century clergyman who preached for a while at old Barbecue
Church where Flora MacDonald and her husband and others of the clan
worshipped. It was his wont to preach a sermon both in Gaelic and English,
for some of his congregation knew one language better than the other. When
the Revolutionary War came on, the Gaelic and English groups split and
on one occasion, according to what Mr. Mac told me, they fell to fighting
and there was quite a bloody to-do which spilled out into the Barbecue
churchyard. Young McLeod took the Tory side and he, with the MacDonalds
and many of their neighbors, was driven from the Valley to find refuge in
Canada or to return desolate and destitute to Scotland.
Colonel A. S. McNeil!
A tough and determined builder and businessman. He and his associates
got caught in the canalizing fever of the early 19th century and set out to
tame the Cape Fear River below the fall line. A company was formed, capital
raised, Italian and Irish labor hired, and the enterprise was under way. But
down below the present town of Lillington the diggers and blasters ran into
a ledge of white flint rock and, strive with might and main and all the power
of gunpowder as they would, they failed to break through this ridge. The
company finally went bankrupt and in time Colonel McNeill died. He left
instructions that a boulder of this flint rock which had been dislodged should
be set as a tombstone at the head of his grave. Since he couldn't whip it in
life, he would see to it that the "domned tough stuff" would honor him
in death. And there he sleeps in old Tirzah churchyard on the ridge just west
of Lillington with this boulder at his head. You can see it with its slowly
fading inscription "Col. McNeill, died September 6, 1876." The date of
his birth is not decipherable.
Hector McNeill
An 18th century Gaelic poet who lived in Robeson County and sang the
praises of the Valley in verses sent back to his waiting kinsmen in Scotland.
He has become a figure more legendary than factual so far as any extant
sample of his poetry is concerned. I have searched and written here and yon
to find some of his verses but so far I have not succeeded. In Scotland too
I once searched but with no luck.
Janet McAllister McNeill
The romantic daughter of the fiery old Scotchman, Colonel Alexander
McAllister. The colonel was one of the leading patriots of the Valley and
as zealous in his family affairs as in those of the colony. I have one of the
ancient letters in which he tells of Janet's runaway marriage, and that as
long as she stayed well he hoped not to look upon her face again. He
disinherited her for marrying Malcolm McNeill who, he wrote, was much
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
731
beneath him and her since he was tainted with Toryism. I have one of the
piteous letters written to her father in May 1771 which because of its
contemporary spelling is even more piteous. Part of it ran as follows:
"Honored father — it is no longer in my power to Consele the gref of mind
that I have fealt Seance I commited so ondutiful a crime as I shale Ever Call
it — and that which hath aded to my greff the seeing of you twice or thre
times with your Ever takeing the Lest notis of me which has allmost broke
my hart. . ."
I have never been able to learn whether her father ever made up their
quarrel or not. Anyway she lived on with Malcolm, made him a good wife
and bore him seven children. He later drifted away from her and the children,
moved farther west into the sandhills country and became the first sheriff
of Moore County.
Janet lies buried alone in old Tirzah churchyard with a sturdy waisthigh headstone which says,' 'In memory of Janet McNeill, relict of Malcolm
McNeill, who departed this life April 25th, 1832, aged 75 years."
Jennie Ban McNeill
A real and yet semi-legendary character in the Valley. The word ban means
fair as opposed to dark or brunette. This Jennie Ban was redheaded. She
and her husband Archibald, called "Scrubblin" Archie" (q.v.), accumulated
great holdings of land as well as cattle. The story is handed down that Jennie
Ban herself used to drive her cattle north to the market in Virginia, and once
she went on to Philadelphia to buy things for the house on Little River. There
at a party she met Benjamin Franklin and a friendship grew up between
them. He gave her some kind of a locket which the historian Mr. Mac says
he once saw as a boy, but it's been lost since then. They say she and Franklin
corresponded for years, but I have never been able to find any of the
correspondence. Long before she and Franklin met, Franklin's partner Hugh
Meredith had sold his share of the printing business to Franklin and came
down into the Valley to explore round and about. He wrote a piece in praise
of the land which was published in a little book, An Account of the Cape
Fear Valley, which is in the University Library at Chapel Hill.
According to tradition, Jennie Ban was a wily woman in more ways
than land trade. Tradition tells that in the Revolution she bet on both sides,
and three of her sons became Tories and three Whigs. One of them, the Tory
John McNeill, helped massacre Colonel Wade's band of Whigs. (See
"Massacre of Piney Bottom.") One of her sons was the same Malcolm who
despite rumors of Toryism fought on the side of the Whigs and married
Colonel Alexander McAllister's daughter Janet (q.v.). Jennie Ban lies buried
there in the old family graveyard near Little River. I was there recently with
a group of local historians, and Malcolm Fowler gave one of his interesting
talks about the McNeill family and about the mansize obelisk marking the
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Paul Green's Wordbook
grave. "This tombstone is only the top part of the monument," said
Malcolm. "The total monument was brought up from Wilmington on a
flatboat and during the unloading the heavy base of it fell into the river.
Folks couldn't get it out and so brought on to the graveyard here only the
top part.'' Someone in the group asked if the base was still in the Cape Fear
River. "No," said Malcolm, "some years ago they got it out with a crane,
cut it up and the pieces of it were used in the bank building there in
Fayetteville. I don't remember the name of the bank, but anyone who wants
to can find out and can go and see it." So he said.
Cunning John McNeil!
Son of Jennie Ban and "Scrubblin' Archie." See "Massacre of Piney
Bottom."
John Charles McNeil!
The beloved of Valley poets. When I was a high school student, I fell in
love with his poetry, learned reams of it by heart and wrote literally thousands
of verses under his spell. I used to plough in the fields reciting him joyously
furrow after furrow under the hanging-down, suffocating, relentless sky.
How beautiful to me were such stanzas as these from his poem' 'October'' :
"The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes,
O, month of memories!
Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of,
Old joy, dead hope, dear love,
"I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet
To cast down at thy feet
The garnered largess of the fruitful year,
And on thy cheek a tear.
"Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf
To blind the eyes of grief;
Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit
That sorrow may be mute."
And so for eight more stanzas — pouring out his feeling about this lovely
fecund month, and all under the spell of Keats' "Ode to Autumn," and
with a great weakening of beauty, just as my poor verses were a weakening
of his, McNeiU's. Recently we local historians held a meeting of honor at
McNeill's grave there by the road near Laurinburg. I was surprised and
pleased to see how many of the historians could recite long stretches of poetry
from McNeill's two books, his Songs Merry and Sad, and Lyrics From
Cotton Land.
In 1977, Richard Walser, a beloved teacher of English at North Carolina
State University and indefatigable anthologist, published a third collection
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
733
of McNeill's poetry — Possums and Persimmons, — chosen from the
"Charlotte Observer" files, "Wake Forest Student" and "Century
Magazine."
PhilMcNeill
A valley hermit. When William Jennings Bryan was running for president,
Phil vowed an oath he would never cut his beard or shave until Bryan was
elected. Year after year went by and Phil's beard grew longer and longer
as Bryan kept being defeated. Phil was a sensitive fellow, and his long beard
began to embarrass him and he appeared less and less in public. (This was
long before the present age of hairy heads and faces, of sloppy shoes and
patched jeans.) Finally he moved far out in the sand barrens in western
Harnett County and put up as a hermit in a little shack, eking some sort
of a poor living out of a sandy hillside. I visited him in his old age. The side
road leading to his shack had grown up in blackjack, sassafras and dogwood
bushes, and I had to park my Ford and get on through the briars and thickets
as best I could. Phil met me in front of his shack — blear-eyed and incredibly
dirty. We sat down under an oak tree and he began reciting Burns' poetry.
"John Barley Corn is dead,'' he sang up toward the branches of the sheltering
oak. Later he showed me his sleeping place — a pallet on the floor of a little
log smokehouse. His dwelling — a somewhat better building — was locked
up. He had for a pillow in the smokehouse a single piece of oak log with
an old coat thrown over it. The pallet was placed in front of the fireplace,
and the fireplace was open to the weather at the back, for the stick-and-dirt
chimney had fallen down.
"I don't sleep in that there house," he said pointing to the dwelling
off a few yards. "The ha'nts run about so that I can't sleep, so a year or
two ago I moved out here in the cookhouse."
"What sort of ha'nts, Mr. McNeill?"
' 'Oh, I don't know—just ha'nts. At night you could hear 'em running
just like big rats. I couldn't stand it. So I come out here."
"You sleep pretty well here?" and I gestured.
"No, I don't sleep much a-tall. Old Anarchy bothers me so."
"Anarchy?"
" Yeh, between old Anarchy and the ha'nts I have been having a tough
time. Let me show you.'' He stood suddenly up and dropped his dirty trousers
down and there was his hip all raw and festered — a terrible sight.
"Good gracious, Mr. Phil, how in the world did that happen?" I cried.
"Like I told you," he said looking down at the spectacle coldly and
peeringly, "Anarchy." And he went on. "About a week ago while I was
lying asleep — I usually keep a little bit of fire going in the fireplace to keep
me warm — old Anarchy crept up outside the house, reached in and put
a handful of fiery punk inside my britches. When I woke up I was all afire
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Paul Green's Wordbook
and the side of my hip was burnt clean off."
"I'm going to get you to a doctor," I declared.
"Nuh-uh, you ain't either," he answered stoutly, and he jerked his
trousers up, buttoned their one front button, and hooked his old greasy belt
tight again. Then staring off he broke into another recitation. — " 'My luve
is like a red red rose so early sprung in June.'
"I got to go back to chopping my corn," he said abruptly and turned.
He limped swiftly away picking up an old worn-out hoe lying on a log as
he went. I stood looking after him.
"My corn needs chopping bad," he called back, and on he went into
a scattering of little pine trees and there began to chop. I noticed some feeble
little stalks of corn here and there which he had planted among the pines.
I turned away and mournful were my thoughts as I walked back to my
Ford. No one knows in this world what may happen to his mind, I thought
to myself. Let me pray mercy of the mute air and the turning earth and the
reaching universe that I may escape such a fate — and that mercy might
still come to Phil McNeill.
But mercy did not come. During the winter a heavy snow fell in the
sand barrens and the county dirt roads were shut off for a week or two.
I kept thinking about the hermit of Harnett and when the snow melted I
went off to inquire. Phil McNeill was already dead. A distant neighbor seeing
buzzards roosting on top of his house, cold as it was, had gone to inquire
and found him lying stiff and stark in his cookhouse with his head on his
wooden log. Old Anarchy would bother him no more.
Red McNeill
He was called Red Giant McNeill and lived at the now perished town of
Averasboro. Many tales have been handed down about this Scotsman.
According to my friend John A. Gates, the learned Fayetteville historian,
Red McNeill along with hundreds and thousands of other Scotsmen had
migrated to the Valley. Red settled near what is now Smiley's Falls. Scarlet
fever broke out among the Scotsmen, a fever they were unacquainted with,
and Red McNeill was laid low by it. His friend Archie Buie — a family name
for which Buie's Creek is named — made him a coffin out of a huge gum
log and lid-fastened with wooden pegs. According to Gates, Reverend James
Campbell (q.v.) went to see the dying man. "The old Scotchman said to
him 'Ye are welcome as a friend, dominie, but I want none o'yer paulin'
prayers or yer religious cantin'. I ha'e ne'er called on Him when I was strong
and I'll be dom'd if I go whimperin' like a coward to Him now!' The preacher
offered a prayer in Gaelic and went away. Little Archie," says Gates, "had
promised to take the body of Red McNeill across the river and bury it but
the waters were too high. They dug a grave on the east bank, and tradition
tells us that little Archie Buie played with his bagpipe McNeill's Lament:
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
735
" 'Here lie I, Red McNeill;
Have mercy on my soul, Lord God,
As I would do were I Lord God
An ye were Red McNeill.' "
Later another great freshet overflowed the river and washed up Red's
gum coffin and all out of the grave. Only the gum coffin was ever found
and it along with Red's giant bones has been forgot.
Scrubblin' Archie McNeill
Husband of Jennie Ban. According to Wright's Dialect Dictionary,
scrubblin' means dirty, low, inferior, hardworking. Which of these adjectives
fitted Archie, I don't know. Malcolm Fowler says he thinks it refers to
Archie's small size. I haven't been able to find out but, anyway, all of our
local historians agree that Archie was tied to a most remarkable woman,
even something of a hellcat, in his redheaded partner Jennie. He lies by
Jennie's side, quiet and subdued as in life, there in the thicket overgrown
McNeill cemetery on Little River.
meadow beauty
A charming little flower, as beautiful as its name, much like a scarlet evening
primrose if there were such a thing. The leaves have a sweetish acid taste
and are tasty to deer. Therefore, sometimes this meadow beauty is called
deer grass although it is not a grass at all.
meadow muffins
Cow pies, cow dung.
meadow parsnip
This plant grows in the upland woods as well as along the river flood plains.
It is mainly found in the Piedmont and the mountains but there is enough
of it in the Valley to make itself noticed. A tincture of this plant used to
be used as a nerve irritant and also in the treatment of syphilis. Tea drunk
from it makes a person sweat profusely.
meadow rue
This plant is of the crowfoot family and has a graceful drooping foliage
and small white flowers which appear in April or May. The roots of the
plant have been used as a purgative and also for sciatica and snakebites.
It is supposed to be poisonous to stock for it contains an alkaloid.
meal bag
Food. "Come on you folks, put on the meal bag."
meal barrel
The source of supply, the welfare board.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Taking out of the meal barrel and never putting in is the way to the poorhouse.
Scraping in the bottom of the meal barrel makes mighty poor music.
meal ticket
A wage earner, one who pays the bill. "He's my meal ticket and so I treat
him like sweet papa."
mean as all get out
mean as a snake
mean as he (she, it) can be
mean as Old Scratch
mean as pizen (poison)
mean as Satan
mean as the devil
mean as they make 'em
Me and my wife and a bobtailed dog
Crossed the river on a hickory log.
The log did break and she fell in.
So I lost my wife and bottle of gin.
(A recitation rhyme.)
measly
Cheap, small, no good. "A few measly bushels of corn he had — no more."
If you measure a baby for his size,
A coffin soon will cover his eyes.
(A proverb rhyme.)
measuring worm
A small caterpillar which, if found crawling on a person's clothes, shows
that he, the worm, is measuring the person for a coffin or a shroud. One
day when someone pointed in alarm to a measuring worm crawling on Lily
Wilder's dress, Lily gave her wild laugh and said, "It's bad luck to kill him
and I can tell you he ain't measuring me for a coffin, he's measuring me
for a new dress." But maybe the worm really was at his funereal business,
for a year later light-hearted Lily died of typhoid fever.
One man's meat is another man's poison.
meat auger
A nonexistent tool, an April fool item. "Bud, run across to Mr. Tysinger's
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
737
and borrow his meat auger for me. I need it bad to bore my hams."
medicine
Penalty, punishment. "Well, the only thing that a defeated politician can
do is to take his medicine."
There is no medicine against death.
me either (me neither)
A self-inclusive phrase of agreement. "I don't like that fellow and never
have." "Me either."
meek as a lamb
meek as a mouse
meek as Moses
Meet the King and Queen
A practical joke game. We used to have a lot of fun playing this in the parlors
on Sunday evenings. Some person who didn't know the game would be the
gull. Three chairs would be set in a row, two facing outward and the other
one facing backward. These would be covered with a sheet or blanket and
the king and the queen would sit side by side on the two chairs facing forward
with the blanket stretched between them. The leader would go to the door
and ask the gull if he wanted to meet the king and queen. The answer was
always yes. He was led before the king and queen, who in unison would
repeat his name and say, "We are glad to meet you." The recipient of the
joke would then be asked to sit down between them. He would turn and
take his place and as he sat down, they would rise and down he would go,
usually into a pan or tub of water hidden under the blanket. Then squeals
of laughter and hopping up and down with joy. Sometimes the recipient
of this joke got mad indeed and it would be difficult to make peace.
meet up with
To meet by chance, unexpectedly, to fall in with.
mell of a Hess
A hell of a mess.
mellow
To beat, to pummel. "Just mess with me, Bo, and I'll mellow your head."
mellow bug
A water bug which has a strong scent when crushed.
melt
The spleen, often pronounced "milt."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
He looked so holy that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
member
The penis.
me, myself and I
A jocular phrase for emphasis.
Men are old as they feel and women as they look.
Men are sorry witnesses in their own cause.
Fat men are jolly.
Old men are twice children.
One-legged men better dance away from the fire.
All men can't be masters.
Wise men learn by other men's mistakes.
When all men speak, no one hears.
Mend your manners and your manners will mend you.
Truly mending saves much spending.
mend one's fences
To look after one's neglected business, to make political hay, reconciliation
of a quarrel.
don't mention it
A cursory polite phrase, as don't bother, never mind, thank you just the
same, and so on.
meracle
Miracle.
merchants of death
Munition makers and sellers.
mercury
The old cure for syphilis. I've seen more than one man at church or at court
or at picnic gatherings all stumbling and shaking and one arm half-dangling
because of this terrible disease. Mercury was supposed to be very effective
for a normal case of the disease but when the nervous system was affected,
the case was pretty much hopeless. The following crack is cynical enough
and of little comfort. " One night with Venus and three years with mercury.''
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
739
mergms
See "murgins."
mermaid point
A point of land below the old perished town of Haywood where the Deep
River meets the Haw River. It is said that in the days long gone mermaids,
tired of the Atlantic, would swim up the Cape Fear River and battle their
way through Smiley's Falls above Erwin. According to Mr. John A. Gates,
the Fayetteville historian, they would finally get over the Great Falls at
Buckhorn and relax on the white sands of the point. Malcolm Fowler,
another Valley historian, says he thinks the story got started because of some
huge garfish that used to leap and bounce in the water, and people halfseeing them created the story.
as merry as a cricket
as merry as birds
merrygold
Marigold.
merry legs
A harlotry girl.
merry widow
Condom, birth control rubber.
mess
A harum-scarum person, jocularly used.' 'Ain't that Jenny Jones a mess!''
Enough for the meal. "He got a mess of turnips for dinner."
mess about (around)
To fool away time, to loaf.
Messiah
The Savior of the world. According to the Jews, the world still awaits his
coming. The Christians believe he has already come and been crucified for
their sins.
Methodists
The religious sect that has the true method, or claims it has, for man's happy
dwelling on this earth and his soul's salvation in the hereafter. Next to the
Holy Roller and Jehovah's Witnesses, it is perhaps our most emotional
church. Its revivals or protracted meetings, as they are often called, are well
known for the amount of shouting that takes place. The shouters are usually
women. At old Pleasant Plains near Buie's Creek, I as a boy saw and heard
a lot of shouting women moving up and down the aisles clapping their hands
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Paul Green's Wordbook
and now and then mingling shrieks with their shouts. And all the while their
faces were ecstatically lighted up, and the "map of Canaan" was shining
there.
Methuselah
The famous character in the Bible who was supposed to have lived 969 years.
Methuselah has been a very vivid personality in Negro folklore, especially
in Negro spirituals.
middling
Sidemeat, bacon. The middle part of the hog between the ham and the
shoulder.
Mediocre, fairly well, pretty good. "How're you feeling?" "Just middling,
just middling." or "fair to middling."
middy blouse
A young girl's blouse fashionable back in the teens and twenties but now
pretty much forgotten.
Might is not right.
Might makes right.
•with might and main
With all one's strength.
might can do
May be able to, same as may can do.
might could
Perhaps could.
might nigh (mighty nigh)
Almost, nearto. "When Mary Lou married that other fellow, John'sheart
was might nigh broke."
mighty
Very, much. "Not so mighty long ago." "He's a mighty sick man."
mighty much man
Of great strength.
migration to Texas
Before the Civil War and even after the Civil War there was a great movement
of people out of the Valley toward Texas, especially a movement of young
wildish fellows. If a youth got a girl in trouble or if he got into a cutting
scrape, or even committed murder, he was up and off to Texas where he
was always pretty much safe from the following and reaching arm of the law.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
741
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
milk
To quiz, to question extensively.
Don't cry over spilt milk.
give down one's milk
To pay a debt.
Milking a cow on the ground (without a bucket) will cause her to go dry.
milk purslane
A curse in many a garden. This much-branched radiating annual is as prolific
as crabgrass and as common in all of the dry and sandy soils of the Valley.
It has many names such as spotted eyebright, spotted spurge, spotted pusley,
and according to a book I read, like many other plants, it is good for nearly
everything under the sun medicinally — being "emetic, expectorant,
cathartic, diaphoretic, astringent, rubefacient, blistering, stimulant and is
used in dropsy and as a powerful external stimulant.'' The Indians used this
plant as a purgative.
milk stage
That condition of corn just before its maturing. The Indians especially liked
corn in this stage.
milk-suck
Young, immature. "He was in the milk-suck age."
milkweed
There are numerous kinds of milkweed in the Valley and all are noted for
their juicy milky stalks and for their feathery seeds that blow easily in the
wind. We children used to have more fun taking the blossoms and running
in front of each other and blowing the downy stuff into one another's faces.
go through the mill
To have a tough experience, to be treated to a rough course of sprouts.
miller's turn
To have one's turn in being served. From the old custom of grinding grain
for the farmers in order of their arrival. Same as first come, first served.
millet
A farm grain. There are about a dozen kinds. When my father and the rest
of us got so tired of pulling fodder, the newly advertised millet seed was
adopted with the hope that some of the hard labor of fodder pulling would
be got rid of. For a while we tried it but with the difficulty of harvesting
we decided to go back to fodder pulling. Fodder pulling now has passed
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Paul Green's Wordbook
out entirely and hay, small grain and other substitute feeds have taken the
place of the sweaty worked-out earlier feed. Here and there millet growing
has reappeared and now that cattle are becoming profitable in the Valley,
more and more corn silos are being built.
million
Melon.
The mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small.
A good millstone grinds; a poor one is ground.
A man with a passel of children has got a millstone about his neck.
It is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were
cast into the sea.
mimick and momick
To make a mess of things.' 'That new hired girl just mimicks and momicks.''
mince
To split hairs, to be overly particular. "Quit mincing matters and come on
with the truth."
mind
To intend. "I mind to get me a new Chevrolet as soon as I sell my tobacco
crop."
To obey. "You children mind your mammy."
Mind your own business.
Be ye all of one mind.
I'm a good mind to
Inclined to take action or plan to.
mindful
Careful, obedient.
Never mind!
A command in the negative.
mind out
Be careful, watchful, take care. "Mind out or you'll cut yourself with that
razor."
He who minds his own business has no time to mind other folks'.
The minds of great men run in the same channel.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
743
mind the store
To be in charge, tend to business.' 'The old Jew was dying, and his relatives
were gathered around. Suddenly he cried out, 'Who's minding the store?' ''
What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine.
minner mind
To have a mind to. My Uncle Tom Green used to use this phrase all the time.
Once I heard him say after he had failed to get a lazy tenant woman out
of bed, "I minner mind to go down there and whup that old huzzy."
miniskirt
The recent abbreviated garment that in some cases looks like only a widened
belt. This reminds me of an old rhyme which was popular in the flapper days.
" 'If the dresses get any shorter,'
Said the flapper with a sob,
'There'll be two more cheeks to powder
And a lot more hair to bob.' "
minny ball
Atypeof conical rifle bullet invented by CaptainC.E. Minie, aFrenchman,
and much used in the Civil War. As a boy listening to old veterans tell of
their Civil War doings, I always heard much mention of minny balls. My
Uncle Dan Green was hit by six minny balls, so 'twas said, in the battle of
MalvernHill, yet lived. See "KuKluxKlan" and "immaculateconception."
mint
There are quite a number of mints that grow in the Valley. The most common
one of course is the garden mint which is used widely in iced tea and especially
in the flavoring of mint juleps.
mint of money
A lot of money. "I hear tell Henry Spears has got a mint of money."
in a pair of minutes
Immediately, at once.
mirate
To wonder, to stand in amazement before.
miration
Amazement.
mirror
There are many old sayings connected with the mirror and of course many
superstitions. For instance, breaking a mirror foretells seven years bad luck.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Hold the mirror up to nature.
The end of mirth is heaviness.
the mischief!
A mild interjection.
mischeevous
Mischievous, wild, proguing, untamed. "My cow is mischeevous as she can
be — all the time breaking into the corn field."
misery
A pain or ache, especially rheumatic pains or arthritis. "I can't hardly travel,
son, I got the misery in my back so bad."
Misery loves company.
Misery makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows.
misfortune
A bastard birth. "Did you hear about Mis' Mollie Betts — she's had a
misfortune. A little woods colt was born on her last night."
Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.
Misfortunes never come singly.
mishap
To make a mess in one's trousers. Also a loss of virginity or a miscarriage.
mish-mash
A messy mixture, sloppy stuff.
mislick
A misdirected blow.
mismeant
A mistake, an error in judgment.
misremember
Fail to remember.
A miss is as good as a mile.
missing link
An extremely ugly person.
miss one's guess
To be mistaken, to be off in judgment.' 'That man's going broke or I miss
my guess."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
745
Missouri
The home of skeptics, of doubting Thomases. "I'm from Missouri, you'll
have to show me."
miss the boat (bus, train)
To lose out, to fail an opportunity.
Mist in May and heat in June
Makes the harvest come right soon.
(A weather proverb.)
mistletoe
A romantic parasitic plant that grows mainly on oak trees. It is especially
popular at Christmas time and young people, even old ones, hang up sprays
of mistletoe about the house. When a person happens to be under one of
these sprays, another person has the privilege of kissing him or her. The
leaves of the mistletoe have been chewed to relieve toothache, and it is said
that more than one person has died from eating the berries. I have never
known of a case myself. Some of the old people used to put the leaves between
the children's toes to cure ground itch.
"The Mistletoe Bough"
A heart-touching ballad.
Along with the piteous "In the Baggage Coach Ahead" and "The Fatal
Wedding,'' my mother introduced us children to this song-story. I recently
came across its words and music in Vance Randolph's Organ Folksongs.
"The mistletoe hung in the castle hall,
The holly branch shone on the old oak wall.
The baron's retainers were blithe and gay,
Keeping the Christmas holiday.
The baron beheld with a father's pride
While she with her bright eyes seemed to be
The star of that goodly company.
Oh, the mistletoe bough!
" 'I'm weary of dancing now,' she cried,
'Here tarry a moment, I'll hide, I'll hide,
And, Lovell, be sure thou are the first to trace
The clue to my secret lurking place.'
Away she ran and her friends began
Each tower to search and each nook to scan,
And young Lovell cried, 'Oh where dost thou hide?
I'm lonesome without thee, my own dear bride.'
Oh, the mistletoe bough!
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Paul Green's Wordbook
"They sought her that night, they sought her next day,
They sought her in vain when a week passed away.
In the highest, the lowest, the loneliest spot
Young Lovell sought wildly, but found her not.
And years flew by, and their grief at last
Was told as a sorrowful tale long past,
And when Lovell appeared the children cried,
'See the old man weeps for his fairy bride.'
Oh, the mistletoe bough!
"At length an oak chest that had long laid hid
Was found in the castle, they raised the lid
When a skeleton form lay moldering there
In the bridal wreath of that lady fair.
Oh sad was her fate, when in sportive jest
She hid from her lord in the old oak chest.
It closed with a spring and a dreadful doom,
And the bride lay clasped in a living tomb.
Oh, the mistletoe bough!"
a mistook
A mistake.
give the mitten to
To dismiss, to jilt.
mixed blood (White-Negro)
A "shameful mixture" and until recently to be condemned, and yet, until
recently, too, mulattoes were considered in the Valley and elsewhere as
naturally superior to the pure blacks. And now black as a color is being
considered by the blacks as superior. Only recently I heard a local mulatto
youth say he was shamed at school by being referred to as "old half and
half." The laws in the Southern states and in most states of the Union
prohibited the intermixing of white and Negro blood. If a person was oneeighth Negro, or in some states even less, this prohibition obtained. The
U.S. Supreme Court is to be thanked for wiping out such laws.
Back in the Revolutionary War one of Cornwallis' soldiers had been
wounded and left behind on the retreat from Guilford Courthouse to
Wilmington. And he was cared for by a Negro girl and her mother. He fell
in love with this girl but of course couldn't marry her. Through her nursing
he recovered from his bad wounds and so was determined to stay with his
newfound love. Some of the Valley folks threatened and were determined
to drive him away. The girl fell sick from grieving. The doctor came and
bled her into a pan. And what did the young soldier do? He picked up the
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
747
pan of blood and drank it. And then he took the girl by the hand and went
before the Justice of the Peace and declared that he had Negro blood in
him and the J.P. couldn't gainsay him. And so a license was finally issued
and the two young people were married. They lived a happy life, and their
descendants are among the best citizens in the Valley to this day. Of course,
a lot of us know that some of them have Negro blood in them but we make
no point of it.
mix medicine
Ability to cope with any situation. "That fellow knows how to mix his
medicine all right."
mixtry
Mixture.
mizzle
Drizzle, a soft rain.
mo
A moment.
moan like a dove
The mob has many heads, but no brains.
moccasin flower
See "lady slipper."
highland moccasin
A deadly poisonous snake common throughout North Carolina.
Bad luck will come to you if you mock a crippled person.
mockingbird
To my way of thinking, the most famous bird in America, and if this mighty
singer had been a native of England, think of the hundreds of wonderful
poems that would have been written to it. He has the nightingale beat a mile.
I remember long ago a fiddling tune I tried to play called "Listen to the
Mockingbird" (q.v.).
modesty
A weed or flower from the mallow family. It is a pest to the farmer, sometimes
called shoo fly.
Mohammedan
In the old days any foreigner. When I was a boy, a peddler named Joe
Thomas used to come through our neighborhood, and everybody spoke of
him as being Mohammedan, meaning a foreigner of a strange nationality.
Actually he was a Syrian.
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A mole on the neck
Means money by the peck.
(A folk belief j-hyme.)
In contrast to this belief I used to hear the old saying that moles on the neck
meant that a person would be hanged by the neck.
If a mole's foot is tied around a baby's neck, the baby will have no teething pains.
Molly Cottontail
The ordinary rabbit.
mollygrubs
Mulligrubs.
momick
To completely disarrange, to make a mess of.
Monday for wealth,
Tuesday for health,
Wednesday the best day of all,
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
And Saturday no luck at all.
(A proverb rhyme.)
I never learned what happened on Sunday. Since it was for resting and
worship, I suppose there was no need to mention it.
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is merry and glad,
Thursday's child is sorry and sad,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath Day
Is blithe and bonny, good and gay.
(A folk wisdom rhyme referring to day of birth.)
I have also heard:
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
And Thursday's child has far to go.
Another version of this rhyme is:
Friday's child is full of sin,
Saturday's child is pure within,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
749
The child that is born on the Sabbath Day
To Heaven its steps shall tend alway.
Money can do anything.
Money has more power than words.
Money is the root of all evil.
Money makes the mare go.
Any fool can make money but it takes a wise man to know how to spend it.
Put money in thy purse.
A little money is soon spent.
He would steal the money off a dead man's eyes.
If you would know the value of money try to borrow it.
money bags
A rich person, a skinflint.
Money burns holes in one's pocket
Usually spoken of a spendthrift.
money crop
The main crop of a farmer which can be disposed of for ready cash. Back
in the Colonial days and up into the late 19th century tar, pitch and turpentine
were the money crops. Then later cotton became the mainstay. Now today
it is tobacco, but cattle and peanuts are creeping on up, and if the American
people finally decide that cigarette smoking is as deadly as the surgeon general
says it is and can act accordingly, tobacco will no longer be the prime crop
in the Valley. Perhaps by that time soybeans or cattle or peanuts or truck
farming will be the money crop.
man for one's money
A reliable person, a go-getter, a man "straight as a shingle."
money from home
Easy pickings, a windfall.
money grubber
A skinflint, a miser.
Money Island
A little island in Greenville Sound near Wilmington, N.C. Here Captain
William Kidd, the notorious pirate, was said to have hidden his gold back
in the late 17th century. Thus the island got its name. A multitude of
passionate treasure seekers have overrun this island with their shovels
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through the generations but no gold has ever been found.
This William Kidd was a Scotsman, born probably in Greenock about
1645, say the historians. He took to the sea at an early age and by the last
decade of the century had become a sea captain and a ship owner in New
York. In the war with France he placed his ship at the service of the crown
and set forth against the French privateers. Richard Coote, Earl of
Bellamont, was appointed Governor of Massachusetts and New York with
instructions to suppress piracy. Kidd was commissioned to privateer against
the French ships. The only pay he was to receive was to come from the prizes
he took. He sailed to New York where he augmented his crew and made
all ready. Then he set forth to Madagascar hunting for the French.
Before too long word got around that Kidd was not only taking enemy
ships but that he was taking and robbing friendly ones as well. In time he
was proclaimed a pirate and a price set on his head. He sailed his ship to
America and came ashore at Boston. Protesting his innocence he defied the
local court, declaring in his defense that he had been forced to piratical action
by a mutinous crew and had yielded only to save his life. Nevertheless he
was found guilty and sent back to England for punishment, and there in
London he was hanged on May 9, 1701. His body stayed in the gibbet for
two weeks or so as a warning to all and sundry to mend their ways.
Before the hanging, and even during that grisly ceremony, the usual
Grub Street poet was busy hawking his ballad among the crowd. The ballad
has come down to us with the tune popular at the time — a tune that is still
with us in, say, that "damn your eyes" ballad of "Samuel Hall." In the
original Kidd is referred to as "Robert" instead of "William."
"My name is Robert Kidd As I sailed, as I sailed.
My name is Robert Kidd
As I sailed.
"My name is Robert Kidd
And God's laws I did forbid
And much wickedness I did,
As I sailed, as I sailed,
And much wickedness I did,
As I sailed.
"My father taught me well,
As I sailed, as I sailed,
My father taught me well...
For to shun the gates of hell,
But yet I did rebel
As I sailed.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
751
"He put a Bible in my hand,
As I sailed, as I sailed,
He put a Bible in my hand...
And I sunk it in the sand
Long before I left the land,
As I sailed, as I sailed.
"Now come, all ye young and old,
As I sailed, as I sailed,
Now come, all ye young and old,
You are welcome to my gold...
For it made me lose my soul,
As I sailed."
money's worth
Full value.
money to burn
A superfluity of money. "I've got money to burn but, brother, I don't like
to smell the smoke."
money vine
See "moneywort."
put your money where your mouth is
Let your money do the talking, usually a gambler's command to make one's
bet, or an admonition to one who speaks strong opinions.
moneywort
Also called Creeping Jenny, a European perennial with bright yellow flowers
usually found in damp places in lawns and fields. It has of late years become
an ornamental plant.
monish
Admonish.
The monkey and the coon
Were playing in the grass.
The coon stuck his finger
Up the monkey's ass.
Don't that looka like shortening, short'ning,
Don't that looka like short'ning bread.
(A vulgar jocular rhyme.)
monkey glands
A supposed restorer of manhood, etc. Thirty or forty years ago there was
quite a rush among the male population to be operated on to receive these
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glands. A certain Valley gentleman, so it was said, couldn't get monkey
glands and used goat glands instead. Barney Cofield opined that' 'the doctors
operated on the wrong place — they should have worked on his head."
Monkey, monkey, bottle of beer,
How many monkeys have we here?
One, two, three, out goes he
Down to the bottom of the deep blue sea.
(A counting out rhyme.)
monkey business
Underhand dealing, scheming actions.
monkey riding
In the old sweaty hard-working days in the Valley the "monkey" was a
familiar fancied creature. If a person began to show signs of exhaustion
from hard work, some wag would call out that the monkey was riding him.
Often a big buck fellow would declare in his braggadocio strength, "Ain't
no monkey can ride me!"
monkeyshine
Wild and ugly behavior, atantrum. "If you don't cut out that monkeyshine,
boy, I'm gonna thrash you to a fare-you-well."
Monkey sitting on a pine tree rail
Picking his teeth with the end of his tail.
Mulberry leaves and calico sleeves,
Old schoolteachers are hard to please.
(A derisive rhyme.)
monkey suit
- Any kind of loud uniform such as worn by majordomos and doormen in
front of fashionable hotels.
"The Monkey's Wedding"
This was another merry nonsense song we used to sing while chopping cotton.
"The monkey married the baboon's sister,
Gave her a ring and then he kissed her.
He kissed so hard he raised a blister.
She set up a yell.
"The bridesmaid stuck on some court plaster.
It stuck on fast, it couldn't stick faster,
Surely 'twas a sad disaster
But it soon got well."
And so on through the wedding ceremony, the dinner to follow, and then
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
753
to the dancing.
"What do you think were the tunes they danced to?
What were the figures they advanced to
Up and down as they chanced to?
Tails they were too long.
" 'Ducks in the Kitchen,' 'Old Aunt Sally,'
'Plain Cotillion,' 'Who Keeps Tally?'
Up and down they charge and rally!
Ended is my song."
monkshood
A poisonous aconite, sometime called wolf bane or trailing monkshood.
It grows in moist and shady places and has been used in the treatment of
gout and rheumatism.
monotheism
The belief in one god as the creator, the all-knower, the all-mover, omniscient
power, and the creator of all that is. Thus the actual reality of nature and
man's place in it become of no real significance.
month of Sundays
An indefinite period but certainly a long time.
moola
Money, same as spondulicks, the long green, mazuma, etc.
The moon is made of green cheese.
A change in the moon brings a change in the weather.
Pale moon doth rain
Red moon doth blow.
White moon doth neither
Rain nor snow.
(Weather proverb.)
Look at the moon over your left shoulder and make a wish and it will come true.
Don't let the moon shine on your face when you're sleeping or it'll make you
go crazy.
moonack
A wild fabulous creature that is supposed to live in the deep swamps of the
Cape Fear.
moon beliefs
There are all sorts of superstitions and beliefs concerning the moon. For
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Paul Green's Wordbook
instance, if you sleep outdoors and the moon shines on you, you'll become
a lunatic.
in a blue moon
A long time, perhaps as long as a "coon's age."
moon calf
A fool, an idiot.
moon-eyed
Unreliable, erratic, also said of a horse which goes blind on certain days
of the month.
mooneyes
Silly, adoring looks. "Every time that fellow sees her he makes mooneyes
— and she two-timing him."
moonlighting
Holding two or more jobs at the same time, an after-hours job.
moon mad
Crazy.
George Moore
An indefatigable worker in the Valley during the early part of the 18th
century. He owned a great plantation through which he had his slaves dig
a canal, which many called the devil's ditch. The marks of this ditch are
visible today near Wilmington. Among his other accomplishments he was
the father of twenty-eight children.
the Moore Family
There were several of these Moores in the early 18th and on into the 19th
century — James, Morris, Roger and Nathaniel, all brothers. They stood
high and mighty men in the Valley in the early days and built great plantation
homes for themselves. One of these homes still remains as a showplace on
the Cape Fear, the plantation house of Orton. The azalea gardens of this
plantation are famous far and wide. Roger Moore who built Orton was called
"King Roger" because of his munificence. Colonel James Moore was in
command of the American troops with Braddock's army, and George
Washington served under him.
Battle of Moore's Creek
This was a battle fought on February 27,1776, in which the Tories and the
Loyalists of the Cape Fear Valley country were defeated by the Patriots.
This battle kept the power of the King from getting control of the Carolinas
from the mountains to the sea and thus prevented the splitting of the Patriot
cause in two. The importance of this battle has been ignored pretty much
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
755
by historians, but nevertheless it was one of the most important of the
Revolutionary War.
Moorfields
The famous plantation home of the industrious aforesaid George Moore.
Like nearly all of these great plantation homes, it has long disappeared.
mophead
A person with wild hair flaring in the wind.
mop Mary
A charwoman.
all mops and brooms
Drunk.
mop up
To beat unmercifully, to trounce completely.' 'He mopped up the floor with
him."
more rain, more rest
the more the merrier, the fewer the better
not more'n half
Half heartedly, incompletely, neglectfully. "He didn't more'n half try to
win that ball game."
morgue
Early newspaper files where the already written biographies of prominent
persons were kept, waiting for the biographees to die.
in the morning
Tomorrow morning. "He is going to phone me in the morning."
morning after the night before
The sad, headaching condition of a person after a night's carouse.
morning droop
Morning depression, the blue Monday feeling.
morning sickness
Nausea caused by pregnancy. My mother used to carry a small hunk of
magnesia in her apron pocket and take a bite of it now and then when she
was in that condition.
morphidite
Hermaphrodite.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
holy Moses!
An exclamation.
Where was Moses when the light went out?
Standing in the corner with his shirttail out.
(A jocular rhyme.)
mosing (moseying)
Poking around, moving slowly.
mosquito hawks
Dragon flies.
mosquito net
In the old days this was used to cover beds and baby carriages to keep away
mosquitos.
Moss always grows on the northside of a tree.
Most often green, but sometimes red,
Has its heart inside its head.
(Riddle: A cabbage.)
A mother will give as much milk for a little baby as for a big one.
mother fucking
A term for a lowdown person, one especially lowdown, but when "son of
a bitch" is added, he is even lower still, and a fight is supposed to result.
Mother Goose
A legendary character associated with nursery rhymes. This old woman,
so far as I know, is always depicted wearing a highpointed hat and carrying
awand, illustrative of her wonderful magic rhymes and stories. She is always
shown riding an enormous goose through the air and has become a part
of the children's folklore in nearly every land.
mother mark
A birthmark.
Mother, mother, may I go out to swim?
Yes, my darling daughter.
Hang your clothes on a hickory limb
And don't go near the water.
Not all nursery rhymes and jingles are very old. The "Mother, Mother"
one is about the oldest. A similar one for which the above is no doubt a
parody was compiled by one Hierocles hundreds of years ago —
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
757
"Father, father may I go to war?
Yes, you may, my son,
Wear your woolen comforter
But don't fire off your gun.
Mother, Mother, I am sick.
Send for the doctor, quick, quick, quick.
Doctor, doctor, shall I die?
Yes, my darling, bye and bye.
How many flowers shall I have?
One, two, three, four....
(A rope-jumping rhyme.)
mother's day
Day that welfare checks arrive.
mother's pet
Usually the spoiled son of "the family.
mother's white-haired boy
Much the same as mother's pet, the hopeful of the family.
mother wit
Native common sense.
mount
To mount a woman for sexual copulation. Also to stage a play.
Never make a mountain out of a mole hill.
mountain laurel
Although mainly limited to the mountains of North Carolina, the mountain
laurel has escaped — maybe the seeds were carried by birds or freshets —
and is found growing here and there far down in the Valley, especially on
the north side of hilly stream banks. The leaves are supposed to be narcotic
and poisonous to both man and beast, but preparations from them used
to be good treatment for diarrhea and skin eruptions.
Mount of Olives
A place of prayer and meditation where Jesus went before his crucifixion.
Mount of Venus
A woman's pudendum.
mourners' bench
See "age of accountability."
mournful as a dove
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mourning bride
Daisy fleabane.
mourning fingernails
Dirty fingernails.
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Can never be a mouse of any soul.
mouse bush
The pussy willow.
mouse-ear chickweed
A lower annual or perennial with small white flowers that seems to want
to overrun the earth in the early spring. It is a garden pest but with plenty
of care and muscle power it can finally be overcome. It is not nearly so tough
a customer as wiregrass.
mousetrap
A woman's privity.
mout
Might. "Mess with me, Bo, and I mout up and wham you against the
ground."
mouth
Insult, back talk. "Don't give me none of that mouth, child, or else."
A dog's natural bark. "That's old Joe's mouth we hear."
The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom.
A closed mouth catches no flies.
Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out.
What enters the mouth goes into the belly.
Every time he opens his mouth he puts his foot in it.
Keep your mouth shut and your purse closed.
Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.
down in the mouth
Discouraged, melancholic.
laugh on the wrong side of one's mouth
To be embarrassed, chagrined.
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An Alphabet of Reminiscence
shoot off one's mouth
To be over-talkative, irresponsibly garrulous.
Don't be butter mouthed (honey-mouthed,
sugar-mouthed).
mealy-mouthed,
mouthful
A bit to eat. "No, thank you, I've already had a mouthful."
The exact truth, the honest truth, a statement of actual fact. "When you
say Billy Graham's the best preacher since St. Paul, you've said a mouthful.''
don't hold his mouth right
Not reliable, not truthful.
mouth-watering
Desirable.
movement
A bowel action. "I went to the bathroom, Ma, but I didn't have a
movement."
get a move on
To speed up, hurry, start to work.
Two moves are worse than a fire.
He moves like walking on pins.
moving days
Same as for marriage:
"Monday for health,
Tuesday for wealth,
Wednesday the best day of all," etc.
Mr. Mac
A somewhat fabled Valley historian and storyteller. A great deal of the
material in this book came from his storehouse of folk tales and talk, and
many a night I've sat with him in his millhouse talking over the old days.
much man
Strong, with stamina. "That Eddie York is a much man."
much obliged
Thank you.
Too much of a good thing is nothing.
much of a muchness
Too much, an overdoing.
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much of nothing
A sorry person or thing, no good.
much up
To pet, fondle, cajole. "If you'll much up that dog, he'll like you."
mucky
Mirey, muddy, messy.
He who looks for mud usually finds it.
coon muddle
Brunswick stew.
mud-fat
Especially fat. "Uncle Billy is so mud-fat he ain't seen his knees in seven
years."
mud-flat
The low bottom land along a stream.
mudsill
The bottom support, the mainstay. "That Josie Pettigrew is the mudsill in
her family."
mudslinger
A malicious gossiper.
muff
A woman's pudendum.
muff-diver
A cock-sucker.
mug
The chamber pot. In our family the chamber pot was never called such. It
was always spoken of as the mug. We children would have been ashamed
to call it by its proper name.
mug shot
A cheap photo of the face, especially of a criminal.
mugwump
An ironical term for a leader, a well-known politician, a fence straddler.
"His mug on one side of the fence and his wump on the other."
mulberry
A common fruit in the Valley for feeding hogs and children. On our farm
we used to have two kinds of mulberries, the white and the black, and in
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
761
the early spring we children watched the trees with avid appetites. As soon
as the berries were beginning to get ripe, we would climb up and stuff
ourselves and then we had plenty of trouble with diarrhea. We boys used
to use the inner bark of the tree to make whips, calf traces, swings, jumping
ropes, and so on.
When the mulberry buds appear, the frost is over.
"Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush"
A singing, imitating game. The children form a ring, all joining hands, and
dance or skip around as they sing.
"Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush,
Here we go round the mulberry bush,
So early in the morning."
As they sing the last line they unclasp hands and begin imitating in pantomime
the next activity in their song.
"This is the way we dress ourselves,
Dress ourselves, dress ourselves,
This is the way we dress ourselves,
So early in the morning."
And so on with "This is the way we comb our hair," "This is the way we
go to school," "sweep the floor," "bake our bread," and on until the list
becomes tiresome and the game ends.
mule
Once the Valley farmers' mainstay for ploughing and hauling, but of recent
years replaced there as elsewhere by the farm tractor. Missouri mules were
supposed to be the best. Every late winter or early spring they would begin
to arrive by rail in the towns and hamlets for sale or swapping. There were
all sorts of folk sayings and lore about mules, such as—
"One white foot, buy him,
Two white feet, try him,
Three white feet, look well about him,
Four white feet, do without him."
And so on to—
"Gray mules never die, they turn into Baptist preachers."
Often a farmer would develop great affection for his mule or mules.
We had two loyal ones, Mike and Tom. They became almost like members
of the family. When they grew too old for regular work and my father had
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to swap them off, we children wept, and he looked tight-lipped and grave
enough too.
I am reminded of Amos Honeycutt, a Negro tenant farmer who lived
some miles from our home and who had a mule named Nora. She took sick
and died. Amos couldn't get over grieving for her and finally committed
suicide. I saw the half-legible note he left in his ragged cap by the fish pond's
edge — "My old mule is dead, and I am drownded in this pond."
I recall too the doings of another Valley farmer, one Dennis Ryan. He
got himself a Missouri mule, named her Sara and by late spring had her
pretty well broke for ploughing and hauling. A spur line railroad was being
built from Raleigh to Fayetteville at that time, and there was much publicity
as to the day the first train was to come through the neighborhood on the
new track. Dennis' wife Ruby said for sure and certain they must take the
children over to the near siding to see that happen. So when the day came,
Dennis hitched his still somewhat skittish Sara to his one-horse wagon, loaded
wife and children in, and they all set out. When they got to the little siding,
Dennis unhitched and tied Sara to a tree limb and said he would ease the
wagon down the slope nearer the tracks himself. Ruby and the children could
then have a closer look at the new wonder. He put himself between the shafts
and pulled the wagon slowly down the slight incline. Suddenly here came
the train, out of the woods as it were, with a great sloosh of sparks pouring
from its smokestack, its bell ringing and its whistle shrieking. In his sudden
surprise and terror Dennis tore away from there as if the dogs were after
him. The trouble was he forgot to let go his convulsive grasp on the shafts
and thus in his flight hauled wagon, wife, children and all with him. The
wagon hit a stump and turned over. Everybody was spilled out. Most of
the family suffered some bruises and the oldest boy, Billy Sunday, broke
his arm. As for tiny Bo-peep, her nose bled and bled.
A lot of jeering and hee-hawing about the incident filled the
neighborhood for a while, and the local wit Barney Cofield said he'd be
glad to take Dennis in charge and mule-break him good. He'd do it for
nothing, he said, provided he could get the use of him to plough his garden
a time or two.
For some time Dennis was the butt of a lot of joking, and the Ryan
children were shamed too at school when their father was gleefully referred
to as a mule.
But before too long it all passed over. Dennis and Ruby by hard work
through the years accumulated some property and gave all their children
a good education. One child, Billy Sunday, for all his mother's hope and
naming, never became a preacher. Instead he turned to the law and
successfully so. He ran once for congress but failed in that bid.
Also a barren husband, a sexually impotent man.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
763
If you want to make a good crop, you've got to take care of your mule.
The mule's gallop is soon over.
muley (mulish)
Stubborn like a mule.
mullein
A common plant throughout the Valley. It loves to grow in fence jambs
and along the roadsides. It grows up to the height of a man's head or beyond
and has a whitish fuzzy bloom. It is also called Achilles' heel after the famous
Greek warrior. The tea of this mullein was especially good for stomach pains
in children and also the warmed leaves, as in the case of Jimson weed or
collard leaves, placed on sores and poisoned places were considered, and
still are, a good remedy to bring down the swelling. Many a young girl in
the Valley has been wont to make her cheeks pretty and pink by rubbing
her face with the velvety leaves. Another good folk medicine from mullein
used to be to take the root of the mullein, stew it along with wild cherry
bark, brown sugar and a little vinegar, and then keep it on hand for colds
and coughs.' 'They ain't nothing better in this world to cure up that hacking
and barking," said Mr. Jimmy Ackland. The oil from its blooms used to
be recommended for earache. According to one book I read, the Romans
called the mullein "candelaria" from their custom of taking the long dry
stalks and dipping them in suet or some kind of oil and using them as funeral
torches. The Greeks were supposed to utilize the leaves for lamp wicks. It
was sometimes called Indian tobacco since the Indians were wont to smoke
the leaves.
mulligrubs
Melancholies, the blues. Same as the dismals.
In the multitude of counselors there is safety.
mum as an oyster
Mumble Peg
A game of dexterity. A double-bladed knife was always necessary for this
game. The long blade would be open full and the short blade half way, and
each boy in turn would take the knife and throw it so that one or the other
of the blades would hopefully stick into the ground. If the knife fell on its
side, it counted for nothing and the next player took over. If it fell on its
back, the thrower scored five points. If only the short blade was stuck in
the ground and the rest of the knife did not touch, he got fifteen points.
Sometimes the method of scoring was different in different localities. There
were many movements in the game, one finally being the holding of the knife
flat in the hand and throwing it over one's shoulder to see if its blade would
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stick in the ground. Another one was to lay the knife in the hand with the
blade sticking out and then with the forefinger flip the blade in such a way
as to make the knife spin in the air and if it stuck in the ground, that was
a certain number of points too.
In some localities the game was played specifically as follows:
1. The knife was held in the palm, first in the right and afterwards
in the left hand with the point of the blade outwards and thrown
so as to revolve towards the player. If it stuck in the ground, the
player would continue with the proper number of points.
2. The knife was rested on the right and left fist with the point
uppermost and thrown sideways.
3. The knife was pressed with the point resting on each forefinger
and thumb of both hands in succession and cast outwards. After
this it is held by the point and flipped, (4) from the breast, nose
and each eye, (5) from each ear, crossing arms and taking hold
of the opposite ear with the free hand, (6) over the head backwards.
Some folks call the game stick-knife.
mummick
Same as momick.
mummy
Mother.
mums
Abbreviation for chrysanthemums.
Mum's the word.
munts
Months.
cry blue murder
Loud squalling, an outcry.
Murder will out.
The wounds of a murdered man will bleed when the murderer comes near him.
murgins
A multitude, a tremendous number, a great deal, much, sometimes spelled
"mergins." I have asked many scholars where this word came from and
I have never been able to find a satisfactory answer. Perhaps it is a
mispronunciation of margins. "John Allen Matthews has murgins of
dollars."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
765
muscadine
Wild black grapes that used to grow plentifully in the Valley. They are
becoming rarer and rarer. What happy hours we boys used to have climbing
high in the trees where the muscadines grew and where after frost they were
black as the ace of spades and sweet as sugar. I remember many times eating
so many up in a tree that my head swam and I had to be careful how I climbed
down.
muscle out
To hold an object extended at arm's length. A test of strength with us boys
used to be to take an axe and hold it by the end of the helve and stretch one's
arm out level and full length and see if the axe could be held extended. "Say,
Ervin, let's see you muscle out that axe."
Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.
And then we used to recite a somewhat derisive rhyme:
"Music hath charm to soothe a savage,
Rend a rock or bust a cabbage."
face the music
To measure up to one's responsibility, to face trial or meet one's punishment.
Musical Chairs
A popular young people's game. See "Marching to Jerusalem."
mush-head
A foolish, light-headed person.
mushmelon
Muskmelon.
music roots
Sweet potatoes.
a bit of muslin
A girl.
mustard
High spirit, spicy behavior or talk, pep.
mustard plaster
A soft cloth spread with a paste of dry mustard mixed with water. This put
on a child's chest was to relieve croup or cough. And what terrific things
these plasters were! I remember when my mother would put one on me,
I would lie there waiting for it to fire up and soon it would. Under the fiery
burning, coughs and pains and aches were all forgotten. Thus the cure. See
"Aunt Jemima's plaster."
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must did (musted)
Must have. "I went in there to make up the bed and you must did, for it's
done made up."
muster day
The time appointed for the military training in the Civil War.
muster grounds
The grounds where the soldiers gathered. When I was a little boy, I used
to hear my father speak about a place up the road as "the muster ground.''
I thought it had something to do with growing mustard there until I learned
better.
Mutt and Jeff
A tall and short couple, also refers to the once-popular comic strip.
mutton head
A dull fellow.
mutton suet
The fat from sheep or cattle used to grease one's chest as therapy for the
croup.
muzzle
An old-timey contrivance of wires and sometimes white oak withes. It was
used over the mouth of a mule, a horse or a steer so that the animal wouldn't
eat the corn or cotton while plowing.
My dame hath a lame tame crane.
My dame hath a crane that is lame.
Say, sweet Jane, let the dame's lame crane
Feed and come home again.
(A tongue twister.)
my eye!
A mild interjection.
"My Faith Looks Up to Thee"
A beautiful and ever-comforting hymn. It has always been one of the Valley
favorites and is known throughout the world, having been translated into
some two dozen languages. The words are by Dr. Ray Palmer (1808-1897)
and the melody by Lowell Mason (1792-1872).
"My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary,
Saviour divine.
Now hear me while I pray,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
767
Take all my guilt away,
O let me from this day
Be wholly thine."
My Mama Sent Me
A child' s game .The children divide into two groups and oneofthem,"It,"
selects some form of housework that they should all imitate. The first action
group marches up to the second and says, "My mama sent me to you."
"What for to do?" "To do as I do." Then the first group goes through
the motions of the work chosen and the other side tries to guess what the
work is. When the guess is correct, then that second side becomes the active
group and marches up to the first group, and the game goes on.
My mama told me long ago
Don't marry a girl that you don't know.
She'll spend all your money,
Sell all your clothes.
And what will become of you
God only knows.
(An advice rhyme.)
"My Old Kentucky Home"
Now the Kentucky State song, made so by act of the Legislature in 1928.
It is always played and received with wild enthusiasm at the Kentucky Derby
and at the University of Kentucky's football games. There was long a
tradition that the song referred to the Old Federal Hill mansion in Bardstown
where Stephen Foster was said to have visited and where he was also said
to have composed it. The Honorable John Rowan, owner of the place, was
a cousin of the Fosters, and Stephen's sister Charlotte was supposed to be
engaged to young Rowan. She died of typhoid fever while visiting there,
October 20, 1829.
The mansion is in the public mind supposed to be the actual Kentucky
Home referred to in the song. But if one looks closely at Foster's lyric he
will realize this cannot be. Actually the composer had in mind a slave cabin
as he wrote the song and not any white folks' mansion.
"The young folks roll on the little
cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright,
By'n by Hard Times come a-knocking
at the door.
Then my old Kentucky Home, good night!
Weep no more, my lady,
Oh, weep no more today!
We will sing one song for the
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Old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home faraway."
"Federal Hill" is now a historic shrine, and thousands visit it each year.
In the late 1950's a number of citizens in Bardstown organized a
' 'Stephen Foster Drama Association.'' Funds were raised privately and by
State appropriation for the construction of an amphitheater in the woods
just south of Federal Hill. There "The Stephen Foster Story," a
dramatization of a few intense years of the composer's life, opened on June
26, 1959. It has been presented nightly for some ten weeks each summer
since 1959 to enthusiastic crowds.
My old mistUS promised me
When she died, she'd set me free.
She lived so long her head got bald.
She got outer da notion of dying at all.
Now she's done and gone to hell
I hope the devil will burn her well.
(An old minstrel song.)
myself
Used for emphasis. "I wouldn't be that crazy for a million dollars myself.''
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
769
N
nabel
Navel.
nabob
A highfalutin person, a showy person, a representative of royalty.
One nail drives out another.
nails
Difficulties, obstructions in the way.
One of the trials of our barefoot days as children was the danger of
stepping on protruding nails in old lumber. There were many cures for this
hurt, and Miss Cissie Atwater, the Negro schoolteacher, told me that once
when she stuck two nails in her foot at the schoolhouse grounds where the
carpenters had thrown nail-infested boards aside, she went on home, put
a dough poultice on her foot, then got the two nails, greased them well and
stuck them between the cracks of the schoolhouse weatherboarding. Every
day for five days she went and greased these nails to keep off the lockjaw.
It worked, for Miss Cissie didn't have any lockjaw as a result of her wound.
I thought about this afterwards and remembered that Miss Cissie had an
A-l teacher's certificate provided her by the county school board.
cut-nails
As differentiated from hand-wrought nails. But of course after the wrought
or blacksmith-made nails disappeared from the scene the word "cut" was
dropped off too, and only the word "nails" remained.
nail the lid on the coffin.
To complete a crushing defeat, put an end to, finalize a distressful fact or
result.
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nail to the cross
In the game of Roly Holey when one player received three pigs — that is,
had missed hitting another player three times with the thrown ball — he
was stood up against the side of the house or the barn with his back turned
to the players, and three efforts would be made to nail him to the cross with
the ball.
nairn
Nary one, not one.
naked as a shorn sheep
naked as a stone
naked as a yard dog
as naked as the day he was born
I was naked and ye clothed me not.
naked bed
Bed without sheets or any covering.
naked truth
The pure truth.
name
Good reputation. "That man had a name in his neighborhood."
A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.
named after
To give one person the name of another. "My least 'un there is named
Woodrow, after Woodrow Wilson."
name dropper
A person who brags on his acquaintance with people of importance. In
conversation, with seeming carelessness, he drops the names of these
personages.
name is mud
To be in disgrace.
in the name of
Introductory part of an exclamation or asseveration, as Archibald
Henderson's snort, "What in the name of goodness are you doing in my
bed, Bill Faulkner?"
"Nancy Till"
My youngest sister Erma was taught this song early and, when she was four,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
111
she could stand up in bed and sing it merrily as a bird, and we would sweep
her into our arms with happy cries, saying, "You're sweet enough to eat!"
Believe it or not, she didn't grow up spoiled.
"Down in the canebrake close by the mill
Lives a purty little girl, her name is Nancy Till.
She knew that I loved her, she knew it long,
Walk about and promenade and sing a little song.
Come, love, come and go along with me,
My boat lies high on the old Tennessee."
In the Frank Brown Collection, Vol. Ill, p. 491, this is set down as a Negro
song as sung by Dr. Kemp P. Battle, UNC President, 1910. Dr. Battle sang
many old songs and recited jingles and proverbs for Dr. Brown which he
copied.
nanny goat
A female goat.
nap
Nape. "He took that old suck-egg hound by the nap of the neck and twisted
him round his head and sent him flying through the air like a bird. Amen!''
nappy
Stylish, meticulously dressed.
nappy-headed
Sleepy. Also kinky, as "He's got a gang of nappy-headed children."
nard homespun
A cheap and popular cloth in the old days, evidently "nard" being a
corruption of "Northern."
nar'n
Nary one.
nasty-particular
Over-particular, choosy.
in the nation!
A mild exclamation. "What in the nation are you up to, boy?"
national security
A phrase too often used to cover up a nation's territorial ambitions.
natural born
So born by nature, born so. "The trouble with him is he's a natural born
fool."
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natural law
A generalization about the nature of things and their behavior. It would
seem that matter does not obey laws but rather it behaves in such a way that
we read laws from the behavior.
natural order of man
The racial hierarchy of man on earth as set and determined by the divine
power which of course, according to the whites, sees to it that the white race
is superior to the darker races.
nature
Sex power or ability. "Cleveland got tore up by a sawmill belt and for a
while he thought he'd lost his nature — but when that pretty nurse come
to wait on him, he said he found out he hadn't."
nature of things
The basic way of the world.
navigate
Irrigate. "Mr. Jones is navigating his tobacco and what a difference it's
making!"
Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth ?
"Nearer, My God, to Thee"
One of the most favored of all hymns. It has brought comfort to many a
soul in final distress. It was said that the fatally injured President McKinley
had it sung to him often during his long ordeal into death. And I remember
how we cried at home over the going down of the mighty Titanic and the
touching brave last moments as the ship's orchestra played this "Nearer,
My God, to Thee."
The hymn was also a favorite of the sportive Edward VII. The words
were written by a young Englishwoman, Sarah Flower Adams, and the music
by our American Lowell Mason who wrote some 1200 hymns, among them
the consoling "My Faith Looks Up to Thee" and "From Greenland's Icy
Mountains."
"Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee,
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!"
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
773
nearly 'bout
Almost. "I'm nearly 'bout finished."
near side
The left side.
near thing
A close call, a close shave.
neat
Unwatered, straight. "I like my whiskey neat."
neat as a pin
neat but not gaudy
An old saying. "Neat but not gaudy, as the monkey said when they painted
his ass green."
Nebusadnessar
Nebuchadnezzar.
necessary
A privy.
Necessity is a hard nurse but she raises strong children.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
neck
To hug and kiss and indulge in sex play. "I've been necked down to a nub,''
she said, fanning herself.
neck and neck
Almost equal, a close contest. "The horses came in neck and neck."
I'd rather my neck felt the yoke than the axe.
in the neck
To be badly hurt or abused, an unhappy result. "He got it in the neck."
to save my neck
Used for emphasis. "I can't think of his name to save my neck."
necked
Naked.
neck of the woods
The neighborhood, the local region. "The folks are God-fearing people in
this neck of the woods."
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neck or naught
All or nothing.
Limber necks live longer than stiff ones.
necksher
Handkerchief.
necktie
A halter, a noose.
necktie party
A hanging, a lynching.
Old Ned
A bad temper, the devil. "That fellow's got Old Ned in him, and you better
watch out or he'll cut you with that switchblade knife."
Need hath no law.
don't need it any more than a goat needs a trombone
don't need it any more than a pig needs a sidesaddle
need be
Required, compulsory, necessary. "You'll have to be ready to pay in that
money if need be."
A thing not needed is easily found.
on needles and pins
Nervous, anxious, apprehensive.
Needles and pins, needles and pins,
When a man marries, his trouble begins.
(A proverb rhyme.)
Needle's Eye
A courting game, even if most often a shy one. It is much like "London
Bridge." Two players, a boy and girl, raise their clasped hands in an arch.
The other players pass under in a line, all singing.
"That needle's eye
That does supply
The thread that runs so true.
"O many a lass
Have we let pass
For the sake of kissing you."
(Because we wanted you.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
775
or
"Many a beau
Have we let go
Because we wanted you."
On the word "you" the arch falls around the neck of the person beneath
it at the time. If the one caught is a girl, she is supposed to let the boy who
helped form the arch kiss her. If a boy, then the girl arch partner is supposed
to kiss him. Then the player who does the kissing drops out and the one
kissed takes his or her place and the game goes on.
With the automobile so available for snuggling up and/or courting,
this game like many others has pretty much disappeared from the Valley.
But I prophesy that it and many others will someday return.
needless to say
An introductory cliche.
nee'n
Needn't.
Don't neglect your own field to plant your neighbor's.
Negro blood
Blood thought in the old days to be different from white blood and thus
contaminated. The laws in the Southern states and in most states of the Union
have until recently prohibited the intermixing of white and Negro blood.
If a person was one-eighth Negro, this prohibition obtained. Many tragic
stories have been recounted because of this concept. See "mixed blood."
Negro news
News passed along by Negroes, somewhat like grapevine news.
Neighbor, Neighbor, Lend Me Your Hatchet
A popular game in the old days.
Neither a lender nor a borrower be.
Neither beg nor borrow.
It's neither here nor there.
Indefinite, insignificant.
neither fish, flesh nor good red herring
An indefinite thing, a person or thing lacking in character.
nellify
Nullify.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
nerts!
An interjection, nuts!
to get on one's nerves
To irritate, to disturb.
nervous Nellie
An easily upset person.
nervy
Bold, impudent.
nest
The female pudendum.
nestes
Nests.
Cast down your nets where you are.
If you gently touch a nettle,
It will sting you for your pains.
Grasp it like a man of mettle
And as soft as silk remains.
(Proverb rhyme.)
Out nettle, in dock,
Dock shall have a new smock.
(Nonsense rhyme.)
never
For emphasis. "He lammed at me with his fist and he never even touched
me."
Never be weary of well-doing.
Never bite off more than you can chew.
Never buy a pig in a poke.
Never fall out with your bread and butter.
Never fish in troubled waters.
Never leave till tomorrow what you should do today.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Never make a mountain out of a molehill.
Never run when you can walk.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
111
Never sit when you can lie.
Never speak of a halter in a house where one has been hanged.
Never stir up more snakes than you can kill.
Never walk when you can sit.
never mind
Don't bother.
never, never land
A dreamland, Utopia, unreal, imaginary place.
never no more
Never more, never again.
There's nothing new under the sun.
new ball game
A new start, new plans.
A new broom sweeps clean.
A new broom sweeps clean, but an old broom knows where the dirt is.
newground
A piece of ground newly cleared for cultivation or land in the process of
being cleared.
New Jersey tea
More of a shrub than a flower. It grows plentifully in dry woods or gravelly
places. In midsummer its white feathery flower centers show up clearly. The
Indian doctors used this plant for the treatment of wounds and venereal sores.
New moon, new moon, moon so bright—
Wish I may and wish I might
See before tomorrow night
Someone who would please my sight.
(A divination rhyme.)
If one would turn around three times on the left heel while reciting this rhyme
and then make three wishes, the wishes were supposed to come true. I never
have tried it.
No news is good news.
news toter
A gossip.
Bad news travels fast.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
New Year's Day
The time for new resolutions and the taking of vows to do better, to break
off bad habits such as drinking liquor, smoking cigarettes and indulging
in indolence and sloth. And for good luck and health during the year, one
should be sure to eat turnip greens, hog jowl, and blackeyed peas. My mother
always served these peas on this holiday and jocularly urged us children to
eat a lot for good luck.
next to nothing
Of poor worth or quality. "His excuse was next to nothing."
n.g.
An abbreviation for "no good."
nice as pie
nicely
Satisfactorily. "Harry Lucas has had his gall bladder out and the report
is he's doing nicely."
Nicholas
See "second sight."
in the nick of time
Just in time. "The fire engine arrived in the nick of time."
Old Nick
The devil.
bad nigger
One who violated the old Southern concept of "the Negro in his place."
Give a nigger a book and you just as well kill him.
Give a nigger an education and you'll ruin a good ploughhand.
to nigger
To work hard, to behave obsequiously. "No suh, I ain't gonna nigger for
him!"
nigger head
A kind of scattered, dark, field rock showing here and there through the
soil.' 'Flora MacDonald's daughter Ann and her husband Captain MacLeod
lived over there in the woods and you can still find the place because of the
niggerheads scattered all around," said Mr. Mac.
nigger head point
A projection of land in the Cape Fear River near Wilmington which always
denoted to a ship pilot that he was nearing the town.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
779
nigger in the woodpile
A hidden obstruction, undisclosed difficulty, concealed cause.
nigger lover
One who has a sentimental attachment to the cause of racial justice.
nigger luck
Undeserved luck, luck that outlucks luck.
nigger rich
Very rich indeed. In the old days the owner of many slaves was so designated.
All niggers look alike to me.
niggertoes
Brazil nuts. How we children in the old days on Christmas morning would
rush to get our stockings and there find wonderful English walnuts, and
raisins, an orange or two and especially the good old niggertoes! "Be a good
boy and Old Sandy Claus will bring you a heap of niggertoes for Christmas"
was a common saying around our house.
white man's nigger
An Uncle Tom term, a Negro who "knows has place" and is popular with
the poor whites and rednecks in the South.
The night makes no difference to a blind man.
To rest well at night
Let your diet be light
Or else you'll complain
With stomach and pain.
In the night all cats are black.
Eat light at night and you'll sleep well.
If a man walk in the night, he stumbleth.
There's no night without day.
night rail
A nightgown.
night rider
A shady character, one who slips about in the night and secretly terrorizes
his neighbors. A term also applied to the Ku Klux Klansmen.
night soil
Human excreta used for fertilizer.
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as nimble as a flea
nincompoop
A stupid person.
Nine O'clock is striking.
Mother, may I go out?
Three boys are waiting
For to take me out.
One to give me candy,
One to give me pears,
One to give me fifty cents
For a kiss behind the stairs.
I don't want your candy,
I don't want your pears,
I don't want your fifty cents
For a kiss behind the stairs.
I can wash the dishes,
I can sweep the floor,
I can kiss the Chinaman
Behind the kitchen door!
(A teasing rhyme.)
nineteenth hole
The bar or refreshment room of a golf course.
nine to the dozen
A short dozen, short change.
"The Ninety and Nine"
Another Valley standby hymn. It always had and still has a telling effect
in revival meetings when the pursued sinner is made to feel that ninety-nine
"sheep'' out of a flock of one hundred are "in the shelter of the fold" and
he, the' 'lost sheep,'' should give up his bullheaded sinfulness and join those
in the safety of the heavenly Shepherd's care.
It is said the words were written by Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane, an
English schoolgirl, in her exercise book and were not published till after
her death at the age of 37. Ira D. Sanky (1840-1908) of the Moody-Sanky
team wrote the tune.
The hymn had its prompting from the reference to the ninety and nine
inMatthew 18:12-13, which says, "Howthinkye? If a man have a hundred
sheep and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine
and goeth into the mountains and seeketh that which is gone astray? And
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
781
if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep
than of the ninety and nine which went not astray."
"There were ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold,
But one was out on the hills away,
Far off from the gates of gold.
Away on the mountain wild and bare,
Away from the tender Shepherd's care,
Away from the tender Shepherd's care.
"But all through the mountains, thunder-riven,
And up from the rocky steep
There rose a glad cry to the gate of heaven,
'Rejoice, I have found my sheep!'
And the angels echoed around the throne,
Rejoice, for the Lord brings back his own.
Rejoice, for the Lord brings back his own."
nine ways for Sunday
In every direction, helter-skelter.
nine yards square
Absolutely honest, reliable. "He's nine yards square."
ninny
Mother's milk. Also the teat. "Give that baby its ninny, Ella, and it'll stop
its crying."
nip in the bud
To stop a thing at its beginning.
nipping frost
A cold and biting frost.
nirvana
A common word for oblivion, nothingness, complete indolence, mental
emptiness, final rest. A Buddhist term.
nits will be lice
Boys will be men, little evils grow to be big, small habits grow large, and so on.
nitty-gritty
Tough going, the showdown. "Well, when you get down to the nitty-gritty
you'll know who your friends are."
"Nobody Knows de Trouble I See"
One of the finest of all laments of a grieving people. This was a favorite
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in the repertoire of the great and tragic Paul Robeson, and thousands heard
him sing it, and thousands still hear him on phonograph records — hear
him and wonder at and ponder in these latter days the nature of our
democratic faith and the practice thereof that kept our brothers in murky
bondage for three hundred years and more.
"Nobody knows de trouble I see,
Nobody knows but Jesus,
Nobody knows de trouble I see.
Glory, hallelujah!
"Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down,
Oh, yes, Lawd!
Sometimes I'm almost to de groun'.
Oh, yes, Lawd!
"Nobody knows," etc.
no can do
Unable to do.
no compris
Not understanding.
no 'count
Trifling, lazy, no good.
no cross, no crown
Even Homer nods.
no earthly good
No good at all, absolutely worthless.
no end
A great deal, very many, much. "It pleases me no end to see you up and
about again."
no-fair
Unfair. "That's no-fair to treat me like that."
no flies on him
A person of good character, honest dealings, an industrious individual.
No fool like an old fool.
no go
No deal, no action, a cancellation.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
783
no good
In poor health, feeling poorly, rundown.
no how
Not at all, not good. "How're you feelin' this hot day, Mr. Tenney?"
"No how."
no ifs and ands
No arguments about it, the certain truth.
noisy as a boiler factory
no'm
No, ma'am.
no manner account
Worthless, an indolent, lazy person.
of no more use than a man's titties or the Pope's balls
A little nonsense now and then
Is relished by the wisest men.
none so blind as those who won't see
none so deaf as those who won't hear
no nothing
An emphatic statement of nothing. "You know what kind of garden I've
got this year? — no nothing, that's what."
"No, Not One"
A popular church and Sunday School hymn which says among other things,
"There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus. No, not one, no, not one."
no occasion
No cause to, no reason for. "He had no occasion to quarrel with Henry
Spears."
nooget
Nugget.
No pains, no gains.
norate
To spread by word of mouth, to gossip, to pass on rumors. "It's norated
all about that the big meeting at Pleasant Union is stirring up sinners to a
fare-you-well."
�784
Paul Green's Wordbook
No Robbers Out Today
A simple child's game. One or two players hide in a hedge or ditch, and
then the other players come innocently along singing or chanting.
"No robbers out today,
No robbers out today.
We are singing on our way
For there's no robbers out today."
And then suddenly the robber (or robbers) darts out and tries to catch one
of the passersby. Those that are caught join the robber gang and the game
goes on until all become robbers or they become tired of playing.
no rose without a thorn
He can't see ahead of his nose.
He is led by the nose.
He prays through his nose.
If the nose itches, company is coming.
An itchy nose shows that someone is talking about you.
Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
nosebleed cure
A nosebleed can be stopped by applying a wet cloth to the back of the head.
keep one's nose clean
To be above reproach, to act circumspectly.
long nose
A meddler. "There comes old Mis' Leary with her long nose and now the
fat is in the fire."
on the nose
The exact place or time.
nosebag
A term designating mealtime.' 'Hey, you folks, time to put on the nosebag.
Come on now."
nose out of joint
A condition of jealousy. "Little Jonas has got a new baby sister and, man,
is his nose out of joint!"
nose rag
Handkerchief.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
785
nose to the grindstone
A hard-working or penurious condition descriptive of a plodder or an
overworked person.
nosing
Smelling.
no soap
No deal, no business, lack of success.
not a Chinaman's chance
No chance at all. "I don't have a Chinaman's chance of getting that job."
not by a long shot
By no manner of means.
notch
The female pudendum.
notch on a stick
A good-for-nothing. "Brother, you ain't more'n a notch on a stick in that
church."
note shaver
A usurious note-discounter, a stingy money-lender.
no telling
No estimating. "No telling how many poor old women died in that
bombing."
not that I know of
Not to know. A common phrase for pleading ignorance.
Nothing is certain but death and taxes.
From nothing nothing comes.
"Nothing But the Blood"
One of the favorite revival or big-meeting hymns. It takes a tough sinner
to stand against its pounding four-four time, the preacher's loud calling
for repentance and the elderly sisters giving out their shoutings — all a
pouring of mighty sound.
"What can wash away my sins?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
�786
Paul Green's Wordbook
Oh, precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow,
No other fount I know—
Nothing but the blood of Jesus."
nothing doing
No agreement, a denial.
if nothing don't happen
If all goes well. "I'll see you tomorrow if nothing don't happen."
nothing much
Very little, hardly any. "Since I got my Social Security I don't do nothing
much."
nothing to crow over
A small, unimportant thing or matter.
nothing to write home about
The same as nothing to crow over.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
to have a notion
To have the impulse to act.
not on your life
Emphatically not.
not particular
Not especially, notmuch. "Do you like turnip greens?" "Not particular."
not worth a damn
Worthless.
not worth a continental
Of no value, worthless or nearly worthless, referring to the paper money
issued by the Continental Congress prior to 1789.
not worth a hoot
Worthless.
no two ways
A definite and positive statement of fact. "That Farquhar Campbell
according to the records was a combination of Tory-Whig in the
Revolutionary War and no two ways about it—just go read the old records.''
No use having a dog and doing the barking yourself.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
now
787
A moment back, recently. "He's just now left here."
no ways
Not at all, by no means.
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
A child's prayer, and how often did we Green children kneel at our beds
and sing out this snug little happy feeling prayer to some great kindly
omnipotent power in the dark air, around the house and up among the
reaching far stars above.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
There were variations on this, but the' 'Now I lay me" was the most popular
one with us. Sometimes in lighter moments and in no prayerful mood at
all we would chant out some other prayer statements —
I lay me down upon my side,
I pray the Lord to be my guide,
If I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.
Then there was another one we sometimes liked to say—
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head,
One to pray, one to wake,
Two to guard me till daybreak—
And, blessed guardian angels, keep
Me safe from danger while I sleep.
No, you ain't!
An expression of astonishment or disbelief.
nubbin
A small underdeveloped ear of corn. "No wonder Roy's mule's ribs show
through like bed slats — he only feeds him a few nubbins once a day."
A young girl's swelling breasts.
"Nuisance and Disturber"
The News & Observer. See "Old Reliable."
�788
Paul Green's Wordbook
number one
One's self or one's own belongings or interest.
Urinating. "Wait for me, I've got to do number one."
numbers
According to popular belief, whether folk or cultured, certain numbers
represent mystic powers and divine events and therefore have metaphysical
as well as allegorical significance, such as 3, 7, 11, 70 and so on. And, of
course, there is one number that has a malevolent power and influence —
the number 13. Many hotels and business buildings have no 13th floor.
number thirteen
According to superstition, the most unlucky number.
number two
Defecation.
have one's number up
A time when one must face death, or the moment of responsibility or ordeal.
nunh-unh
A grunt of disapproval or negation.
to be nursed in cotton
Petted, spoiled.
nuss (nurse)
To suckle, to nurse.
nussing child
Unweaned child.
nut
A downpayment on a purchase, the cost of the job.
A financial risk, investment. "Now that he has recovered his nut he can
spend more money on the show."
Head.
A bolt head, the female part that screws on the male part.
nut grass
A most cantankerous field pest. I know from much experience of hoeing,
chopping, digging and burning the stuff. We'd do that and then the next
morning there its little evil green heads would be peeping up out of the earth
again. Many a farmer has cursed the day this pest got started on his farm.
"Yes sir," said Emmet Ennis to me one day, "there's many a tough
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
789
thing in this Cape Fear River Valley, Mr. Paul, many a tough thing. You've
heard of whit leather. You've heard of dried sweetgum trees, of seasoned
dogwood, of blackgum trees that neither lightning nor dynamite can split
— but I'll tell you there's nothing as hard to wear down and out and get
rid of as this here nut grass that grows in the fields. Ma and Pa fought it
for many years. Now old Judge Hinton had told Pa that hogs would kill
it. So Pa tried hogs for years. The hogs would root and dig and get after
this stuff and then when we thought we'd got it whipped and started corn
or cotton there, out it would come thick as ever. Finally Pa said to me when
I was a little teeny boy, 'Son, there's nothing to do but move off and leave
this stuff. Let it take over.' So we decided to let that land lie out and the
pines grow up and take it. Well sir, twenty years went by and the woods
growed up over the place and of course the nut grass disappeared. We sold
that timber off for pulpwood and got a bulldozer to push up the stumps
and went back to farming the land — twenty years now, later! Do you hear
me! Well sir, what do you think? That nut grass come up thick as hairs on
a dog's back that spring. The stuff had been lying deep in the ground just
waiting its time. So we give up the fields again and when you drive by my
place you'll see thick young pine timber growing there again. Won't be long
before we'll sell that timber off but, believe you me, we won't try to farm
that place — we'll plant new pine seedlings on it. Yes sir, take it from me,
nut grass is the toughest stuff the world has ever seen!"
It is reputed to be so tough that farmers burning it say it reseeds itself
from the smoke.
nut her
Neither.
nut house
Asylum for the insane.
nutmegs
The testes.
nuts
Testicles
Reference to a hysterical person, crazy even.
nuts!
An exclamation of disapproal.
nuts about
Crazy about, be devoted to. "Jackie Gleason says he's nuts about country
music."
�790
Paul Green's Wordbook
nuts and bolts
Inner workings, important matters. "Let's get to the nuts and bolts of the
thing."
in a nutshell
In a concentrated form, abbreviated.
Nuts in May
A children's singing game. This is one of the oldest games in the Valley and
comes from far back out of its English heritage. But of course in the Valley
there aren't any nuts ripened in May, and some scholars say that nuts stand
for knots and that the ancient song was "knots in May,'' knots or nosegays
of the flowering hawthorn. The game is played by children joining hands
and forming two straight lines some several feet apart. One of the lines skips
toward the other singing as it comes—
"Here we come gathering nuts in May,
Nuts in May, nuts in May—
Here we come gathering nuts in May
On a cold and frosty morning."
The first line now stands still while the second line advances and retires.
"Who will you have for nuts in May,
Nuts in may, nuts in May—
Who will you have for nuts in May
On a cold and frosty morning?"
The song goes on with the first line agreeing on a child whom they choose,
and so they march forward and then retire, singing—
"We will have (so-and-so) for nuts in May,
Nuts in May, nuts in May—
We will have (so-and-so) for nuts in May
On a cold and frosty morning."
And then the line chooses one they wish to pull away and so, as the song
goes on, a child is pulled from one side to the other.
nutty
Crazy.
nuver
Never.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
791
0
oak
A popular and prolific shade tree in the Valley. There are several kinds of
oak, the most beautiful perhaps being the white oak, though some people
prefer the willow or water oak. There is also the red oak, the blackjack oak
and the chestnut oak.
oak apple
oak gall.
oak bark
The inside of oak bark was used to make poultices and teas and tinctures
and decoctions for all sorts of diseases. I remember when I had a case of
osteomyelitis or "white swelling" (q.v.), one of the remedies proposed by
many neighbors was to boil red oak bark and mix with cornmeal to make
a poultice. My mother did that. And I used to carry that heavy poultice
wrapped around my right arm. For a while it helped me — as long as I thought
it did. Then when I realized it didn't, there was no help at all. Mrs. Hockaday
at Angier said that one of the reasons I decided it didn't help me was because
we failed to get the original bark from the north side of the tree and we should
have put sugar in it. Tea from oak bark was also a drink good for a child's
diarrhea, and a good preventive for bed sores was to bathe the tender place
with water in which the oak bark had been boiled. It was supposed to be
good for rheumatism, boils, neuralgia and all sorts of diseases, too.
Great oaks from little acorns grow.
to put in one's oar
Push into a matter which is mainly the concern of others, to give gratuitous
advice.
rest on one's oars
To loaf, to take things easy.
�792
oats
Paul Green's Wordbook
Common small grain. According to the Valley cow doctors, dry oats, if eaten
in large quantities, will cause balls of undigested stuff in the stomach of cattle.
Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow
A courtship game, also a game of pantomime. The words ran thus:
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
You nor I nor no one knows
How oats, peas, beans and barley grow.
Thus the farmer sows his seed.
Thus he stands and takes his ease.
He claps his hands, he stamps his foot
And turns all 'round to view the land.
He's waiting for a partner.
He's waiting for a partner.
So open the ring and take her in,
And kiss her as she enters in.
Now you're married, you must obey,
Now you're married, you must obey,
Now you're married, you must obey,
So take a kiss and walk away.
wild oats
Dissolute behavior and doings, youthful folly, usually of a sex sort. Usually
to "sow wild oats."
He who cannot obey cannot command.
obleege
Oblige.
as obstinate as a mule
obstitute
According to my friend P. B. Wadsworth, "An obstitute would constitute
a substitute for a prostitute who was destitute and will restitute in the
institute."
oceans
A large amount. "Pulling that fodder in July brings out oceans of sweat
in the workers — good for them."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
793
"O Come, All Ye Faithful"
For more than two hundred years this great Christmas hymn has brightened
many a fireside, church and hall. First known in J. F. Ward's "Cantus
Diversi" (1751), it was sung in Latin for nearly a hundred years—
"Adeste fideles laeti triumphantes,
Venite, venite in Bethlehem.
Natum videte, Regem angelorum
Venite adoremus, venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus Dominum."
In 1841 Frederick Oakley made his perfect translation into English.
"O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant.
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold him,
Born the king of angels.
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
Christ, the Lord."
Octobers
Chrysanthemums.
odd
Crazy, retarded. "Poor Mis' Matthews had that odd boy, and he's a trial
and tribulation in church."
Odd or Even?
A guessing game usually played by two people. One will hold his closed hand
out in which he has perhaps grains of corn or pennies or some item and asks
the other player to guess' 'odd or even?" If he guesses rightly, then he gets
the contents of the hand; if he guesses wrongly, he has to pay the other player
one item to make the number match his guess.
od drat (drot) it!
A mild expletive.
odds and ends
A scattering or collection of little things, a medley of matters.
ods
God's. "Ods daggers and blades, as the play says, take your hand off my
leg!"
�794
Paul Green's Wordbook
Oedipus complex
According to the Freudian mythology, a fascination-complex for one's
mother, usually in terms of a son wanting to have intercourse with his mother.
Here is just another of Freud's blasphemous ideas.
of
On. "I fell flat of my back."
off and on
Vacillating, unsteady, unreliable.
off base
Wrong, ignorant of the fact.
If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.
offish
(stand-offish)
Cool, aloof, reserved.
off one's chest
To speak out, to tell of one's hidden troubles. "Get it off your chest and
you'll feel better." This is a good Freudian doctrine even to action, and
contrast that with the advice of Samuel Johnson to his friend Boswell.
Boswell had written to Johnson in the year 1776 telling him that he was
downhearted, had the melancholies, and asked for Johnson's sympathy and
advice. Johnson wrote back, "Do not however hope wholly to reason away
your troubles; do not feed them with attention, and they will die
imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your eatables
with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind." If this
isn't good advice, then my mother and dad were both monkeys. Freud wants
a person to lie on a cot session after session and keep telling about his troubles.
I've known people who have done that so much and got so hipped on their
so-called diseases that they have gone plumb crazy and have had to be shut
up in the nut house. Let us hope for an early return of the Sam Johnson
good sense in the halls of the psychologists and in the dens of the psychiatrists.
off one's feed (oats)
Feeling unwell, without appetite, sickish.
off one's rocker
Irrational condition, behavior.
off the cuff
Ad lib, extemporaneous, snap judgment.
off the hook
Released from a difficult situation or dilemma.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
795
off the top of my head
A spur-of-the-moment estimate or comment, a hurried guess.
off yonder
Quite a distance away.
oh baby!
A mild interjection. Same as oh-boy!
O dear, what can the matter be,
Johnnie's so long at the fair.
He promised to bring me a bow of blue ribbon
To put in my pretty brown hair.
(A recitation rhyme and lyrics to a folk song.)
Oh, Georgie Buck is dead.
The last thing he said,
Was "Never let a woman have her way."
(Negro rhyme proverb.)
"Oh, John Hardy"
Another murderer-hero song, often confused both as to tune and words
with the epic John Henry of Negro lore. We young farm workers sang it
in the fields and in the timber woods, the while we sympathized more with
the killer than with the killed.
"Oh, John Hardy was a mean and desperated man.
He toted two guns every day.
He killed him a man in a West Virginia town
And now he's gonna hang today, today.
Lord, he's gonna hang today.
"John Hardy said, 'Momma, lend me fifty cents.'
She said, 'I haven't got any change.'
'Then hand me down my good old forty-four,
I'm gonna blow out my aggervating brains,
Lord, blow out my aggervating brains.'
"John Hardy had a purty little wife,
The dress she wore it was blue.
She threw her arms around John Hardy's neck,
Said, 'Honey, I've been true to you.
Lord, honey, I've been true to you!'
"Now his little loving wife is standing by his side
When John Hardy mounts up the scaffold high,
�796
Paul Green's Wordbook
And the very last words they hear John Hardy say
Is, Til meet you in the sweet by-and-by,
Lord, I'll meet you in the sweet by-and-by.' "
'Oh Little Liza Jane"
A jolly piece for Valley group singing and fun.
"I got a house in Baltimore
Sixteen stories high
And every story in that house
Is full of chicken pie,
Oh little Liza, little Liza Jane,
Oh little Liza, little Liza Jane!
"When I go a-fishing
I take my hook and line,
But when I go a-courtin'
I court this gal o'mine.
Oh little Liza, etc.
"You climb up an oak tree,
I'll climb up a gum,
When I see my Liza,
I want to kiss her some.
Oh little Liza," etc.
'Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep, Don't You Mourn"
This old Negro folk piece was a popular work song, especially for us laborers
in the cotton fields.
"Some of these days about twelve o'clock
This old world's gonna reel and rock—
Pharaoh's army got drownded—
Oh, Mary, don't you weep.
"Oh, Mary, don't you weep, don't you mourn.
Your son's in heaven with a harp and a horn—
Pharaoh's army got drownded—
Oh, Mary, don't you weep.
"If I could, I surely would
Stand on the rock where Moses stood—
Pharaoh's army got drownded—
Oh, Mary, don't you weep.
"All you sinners better kneel and pray,
'Please, Suh, don't send yo' judgment day'—
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
797
Pharaoh's army got drownded—
Oh, Mary, don't you weep."
"Oh, My Darling Clementine"
One of the most popular picnic, hayride, and barbershop quartet pieces the
Valley has ever known. Its outlandish story words, like Foster's "Oh
Susanna" and many others, seem to have added to its popularity.
"In a cavern, in a canyon
Excavating for a mine
Dwelt a miner, forty-niner,
And his daughter Clementine."
Chorus
"Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling Clementine,
Thou art lost and gone forever.
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
"Light she was and like a fairy
And her shoes were number nine.
Herring boxes without topses
Sandals were for Clementine." (Chorus)
And so on, with an account of how she fell into the foaming brine, "blowing
bubbles soft and fine.'' Then because the lover was no swimmer he lost his
Clementine to drown, and she was buried in a churchyard near the canyon
"where the myrtle doth entwine" and "the miner, forty-niner,
Soon began to peak and pine,
Thought he oughter join his daughter.
Now he's with his Clementine." (Chorus)
"In my dreams she still doth haunt me,
Robed in garments soaked in brine.
Though in life I used to hug her,
Now she's dead, I'll draw the line." (Chorus)
Oh, my ass!
Exclamation.
Oh, sugar!
An exclamation.
"Oh, Susanna"
One of Stephen Foster's cherished songs, and one of the Valley favorites
for quartets or hayride singing.
It was a singing piece for the forty-niners on their long marching to
�798
Paul Green's Wordbook
the California gold fields. Over the years millions of copies have been sold,
but Foster received about $100 for it, says the Americana Encyclopedia,
but Jack Burton in his The Blue Book of Tin Pan Alley says he received
$10. Either one was a shame and a scandal. As was Foster's custom after
his first important composition, "Open Thy Lattice, Love," he wrote his
own lyrics. The words for "Oh, Susanna" are of the extravagant nonsense
class popularized, for example, by the E. P. Christy blackface minstrels.
"I come from Alabama
Wid my banjo on my knee,
I'm g'wan to Lou'siana
My true love for to see.
It rained all night the day I left
The weather it was dry,
The sun so hot I froze to death,
Susanna, don't you cry.
Oh, Susanna,
Don't you cry for me!
I come from Alabama
Wid my banjo on my knee."
And so even to the unflattering but cherished also—
"De buckwheat cake was in her mouth,
De tear was in her eye
Says I, I'm coming from de South,
Susanna, don't you cry."
'Oh, the Old Gray Mare"
This is another nonsense song that used to be popular in the Valley at picnics
and on hayrides. Also it was a good male quartet number at schoolbreakings.
"Oh, the old gray mare she ain't what she used to be,
Ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be,
Oh, the old gray mare she ain't what she used to be
Many long years ago."
Refrain
"Many long years ago
Many long years ago.
Oh, the old gray mare she ain't what she used to be
Many long years ago.
"Oh the old gray mare she kicked o'er the swingletree,
Kicked o'er the swingletree, kicked o'er the swingletree,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
799
Oh the old gray mare she kicked o'er the swingletree
Many long years ago."
As to the other doings of the old gray mare, I found no record.
"Oh, when I'm dead, don't bury me at all,
Just pickle my bones in alcohol,
Put a bottle of booze at my head and feet
To tell the world I'm sleeping sweet,
And a brand new suit and my Stetson hat
To tell the boys I died standing pat!"
(A graveyard brag song.)
Oh yeah!
A mild expletive expression of disbelief, derision or denial.
Oil and water won't mix.
Pour oil on troubled waters.
oiland
Island.
oiled
Liquored up.
oil on the fire
To add trouble to trouble, to touch off an explosive situation.
okay
The worn-out term of agreement, fine, everything shipshape. It was used,
according to H. L. Mencken, as early as 1841.
okay by me
I agree.
okey-doke
Same as okay.
okra
A tall garden plant bearing long pointed green fruit pods. This vegetable
is especially popular with Valley people for stews and soups. Also of late
the pods cut into bits and fried are found in the restaurants and cafeterias.
I've heard my father say, too, that back in the Civil War days folks made
mucilage from the slimy ripe pods, and in those hard times the parched seeds
were used for coffee along with parched corn grains and peas. In the early
days the settlers made dye from the blossoms.
as old as Methuselah
�800
Paul Green's Wordbook
as old as the hills
as old as the itch
An old bear is slow in learning to dance.
The old make the laws and the young die for them.
Old men are twice children.
The old must give way to the new.
The old order changeth.
An old woman's dance is soon over.
Honor the old.
You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
never too old to learn
old and young
A folk superstition. Old people and young people should not sleep together,
for the old ones take the strength away from the young.
Old Bad Boy
The devil. He is also called Old Davy, Old Harry, Old Ned, Old Nick, Old
Roger, Old Scratch, etc. Sometimes he is even called The Old Black Man.
old bag
An old woman.
Old Billy Buck
A child's guessing game. One child puts his head in another's lap and as
his back is slapped rhythmically, the slapper says, "Old Billy Buck, try your
luck, how many fingers do I hold up?" And the child with his head down
guesses. If he guesses correctly, then the two change places, but if he guesses
incorrectly, say three fingers are held up and the guess is two, then the rhyme
goes on. "Two you said, and three it was, Old Billy Buck, try your luck."
And so on.
old bird
An experienced criminal.
"Old Black Joe"
Stephen Foster's immortal tribute to a black friend. This Joe was a real
person. He drove Dr. Andrew McDowell's buggy for many years, serving
in addition as yard man, butler and general factotum. Dr. McDowell was
the father of Jane McDowell, "Jeanie with the light brown hair," Foster's
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
801
boyhood sweetheart and later his wife.
Mrs. Jessie Welsh Rose, a granddaughter of the McDowells, in her
reminiscences, published in The Pittsburgh Post in 1926, says of Joe, "In
the evenings he pottered, as grandma expressed it, around the house and
felt all dressed up in an old blue coat with brass buttons on the tails — the
coat only doing duty when Joe 'buttled' in the house. He loved 'his family'
dearly and when the beaux of the period brought their stiff starched bouquets
to the McDowell girls, five of them living, no one was more intensely pleased
than Joe. Grandma recalled him shuffling down the hall carrying a bouquet
behind his back, his countenance shining with delight, and calling in a pleased
voice 'Miss Jinny! Miss Jinny! Come see what I have for you!' When dusk
came, Joe lit the candles and lamps — laid the logs in the fireplace and waited
upon the door. All through the sweetheart days Joe watched Foster come
and go. The two became great friends. 'Someday I'm going to put you in
a song, Joe,' Foster told him and felt in his heart that it was a promise. The
old man was gone when the day of fulfillment came, but today and perhaps
always 'Old Black Joe' lives again.
"There is one remembrance that comes to me at this writing, and that
is how inseparably the song 'Old Black Joe' was associated in my
grandmother's mind with her own life and family. It was the one song we
couldn't sing in Grandma's hearing during her last years. It brought back
days of unforgettable happiness among those she had loved and lost, and
left her always in tears."
"Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are the friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling 'Old Black Joe.'
I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low.
I hear their gentle voices calling 'Old Black Joe.'
I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low.
I hear their gentle voices calling 'Old Black Joe.' "
old buck
A common name for an aged ram or steer.
old cat die
Allowing the rope or porch swing to come to a natural stop.
Old Christmas
Twelfth Night, Epiphany, January 6. In some places in North Carolina it
is still celebrated, especially on the Outer Banks. It used to be celebrated
in the Valley, but I haven't heard of such for several years.
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Old COOn for cunning,
Young coon for running.
'Old Dan Tucker"
A play-party song. The tune is a prime favorite also at fiddlers' conventions.
The piece was sung in minstrel shows as early as 1841, says Vance Randolph
in his Ozark Folksongs (four volumes). It is credited to that Ohio native,
Dan Emmett, who wrote the Southern national anthem, "Dixie."
In the game the players, boys and girls, choose partners. They then form
acircle, holding hands. "It," an additional boy, is "Old Dan," and he stands
in the center of the circle. The music — fiddle and banjo usually — strikes
up and the players sing.
"Old Dan Tucker's come to town,
Swinging the ladies all around.
First to the right and then to the left
And choose the one that you love best."
At the words "First to the right," "Old Dan" has the privilege of pulling
a girl out into the ring by the right hand, thrusting her back into her place
again, and on the words "and then to the left" he pulls a girl out by the
left hand and thrusts her back as before. Of course there are breaks in the
singing, while the turning and thrusting back are taking place, the music
continuing the while. At the words, "And then to the one that you love best,''
each boy swings his own partner. During the swinging "Old Dan" tries to
snatch a girl for himself. If he succeeds, the boy who loses his partner becomes
"Old Dan."
Refrain
"Get out'n the way, Old Dan Tucker,
Get out'n the way, Old Dan Tucker,
Get out'n the way, Old Dan Tucker—
You're too late to get your supper.
"Old Dan Tucker's a son of a bitch,
He got drunk and fell in a ditch.
Old Dan Tucker he got drunk,
Fell in the fire and kicked out a chunk.
Get out'n the way, Old Dan Tucker—
"Old Dan Tucker's a fine old man,
Washed his face in the frying pan,
Combed his head with a wagon wheel,
Died with the toothache in his heel.
Get out'n the way, Old Dan Tucker—"
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
803
And so on with more nonsense words and rollicking joy.
Old Dead Sheep
A catch. One speaker starts off by saying, "I saw an old dead sheep." The
second answers, "I one it." And it goes on, "I two it," next "I three it,"
next "I four it," next "I five it,", next "I six it," next "I seven it," next
"I eight (ate) it." Then the children go off into gales of laughter.
Old Doctor Foster
He went to Glo'cester
To preach the word of God.
When he got there,
He sat on a chair,
And gave all the people a nod.
(Nursery rhyme.)
old fields
Fields that have been allowed to lie fallow, usually growing up in loblolly
pines.
old fogy
One who has got out of the mainstream of things or has old-fashioned ideas.
"Old Folks at Home"
Perhaps Stephen Foster's most beloved song. It is often called "Way Down
Upon the Swanee River," though the composer never saw this river. E. P.
Christy, "the minstrel king," paid Foster $15 for it and for years claimed
it as his own composition. Morrison Foster, Stephen's older brother, tells
the story of the song's composition. "One day in 1851," he recounts,
"Stephen came into my office on the bank of the Monongahela, Pittsburgh,
and said to me, 'What is a good name of two syllables for a Southern river?
I want to use it in this new song of "Old Folks at Home." I asked him how
Yazoo would do. 'Oh,' said he, 'that has been used before.' I then suggested
Pedee. 'Oh, pshaw,' he replied, 'I won't have that.' I then took down an
atlas from the top of my desk and opened the map of the United States.
We both looked over it and my finger stopped at the 'Swanee,' a little river
in Florida emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. 'That's it, that's it exactly,'
exclaimed he delighted, as he wrote the name down; and the song was
finished, commencing, "Way Down Upon de Swanee Ribber." He left the
office, as was his custom, abruptly, without saying another word, and I
resumed my work."
Foster's original lyric of' 'Old Folks at Home'' shows that his first title,
as he entered it in his notebook, was "Way down upon de old plantation."
The first verse was:
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"Way down upon de Pedee ribber
Far, far away
Dere's where my heart is turning ebber
Dere's wha my brudders play."
"Pedee" was crossed out, and "Swanee" written just above it:
Swanee
"Way down upon de Pedee ribber
Far, far away
Dere's where my heart is turning ebber
Dere's where de old folks stay."
Many music historians agree that save for one or two national anthems,
such as' 'The Marseillaise,'' "Old Folks at Home'' is the most popular and
widely loved song ever written. It has been translated into every European
language and into many Asian and African tongues. Millions of people the
world over, including Communist countries, have sung it and continue to
sing it.
old hand
An experienced person, an expert.
old hat
Old stuff, a worn-out matter.
Old Horny
The devil.
old hoss
An intimate and jocular form of address, usually from man to man.
"Old Hundred"
See "Doxology."
how old is Anne?
A question that can't be answered.
"Old Joe Clark"
A play-party piece and almost as popular as "Old Dan Tucker" for both
fiddling and dancing.
"I went down to old Joe Clark's.
He was sick in bed,
Run my finger down his throat
And pulled out a chicken head.
"Round and round old Joe Clark,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
805
Round and round I say—
Round and round old Joe Clark,
I ain't got long to stay.
"Old Joe Clark killed a man,
Buried him in the sand.
Old Joe Clark's gonna be hung,
Ain't no other man.
"Round and round, old Joe Clark," etc.
"Old Joe Clark's dead and gone—
I hope he's doing well,
Wearing stripes and the ball and chain,
Way down there in hell."
"Round and round," etc.
Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he.
He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl
And he called for his fiddlers three.
And every fiddler, he had a fine fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle had he, etc.
(A nursery rhyme.)
"O Little Town of Bethlehem"
Another favorite Valley Christmas carol and popular especially on our
Christmas serenadings. The melody was composed by one Lewis H. Redner.
I've tried to trace him but failed. The words were written by that brilliant
young Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, Phillips Brooks, whose promising
church career ended in his too-early death at 3 8.1 can still recall the wonderful
snug feeling some of the words of this beautiful carol gave me at Christmas
when I was young. And if one of our rare snows had fallen at the time, the
feeling was almost heavenly—
"O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight."
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"Old MacDonald Had A Farm"
One of those tantalizing memory-testing nonsense songs. It was always
popular at our play-parties, picnics, and hayrides. The imitated noises used
to throw us into stitches and sometimes the roll call of animals and fowl
with their imitated sounds grew so hilarious we had to stop and change to
another song or game.
Old MacDonald had a farm,
E-I-E-I-O,
And on that farm he had some ducks,
E-I-E-I-O,
With a quack, quack (imitate) here
And a quack, quack there,
Here a quack and there a quack
And everywhere a quack, quack—
Old MacDonald had a farm,
E-I-E-I-O!
Then other animals and fowl would be added, but each time the singers had
to start at the beginning and include them all in succession. I always fell
out after three or four were named — chicks, pigs, turkeys ("with a gobble,
gobble here"), cows, mules (' 'with a bray, bray here"), sheep ("with a baa—
baa here"), dogs, and so on — as many as could be remembered.
old man
The boss, husband or father, and an affectionate form of address even to
a young man. Also reference to the penis.
Old Man Hypocrite
We used to play this with a leader protecting the children. One player, the
old man, would come along hopping by the help of his stick and crying out
a pitiful cry, "Old Man Hypocrite." And we would ask, "What's the
matter?'' He would repeat''Old Man Hypocrite.'' And he would go pitifully
by us and then all of a sudden turn and try to catch one of us. Much the
same as Hawk and Chickens.
old man's beard
The flowering ash, also called fringe tree. The white beard or fringe of this
beautiful tree — perhaps rather a shrub since it rarely grows higher than
twenty feet — appears in early spring even before the leaves of the other
trees have thickened. Its white beard can be seen here and there in the woods,
and its heavenly smell fills the air. It is a showy tree and is often planted
by Valley people for ornamentation. Its time of flowering is early April to
early May. It grows best in damp land and along stream banks, the botanists
say. But the many I have planted around our house thrive mightily, though
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
807
we live on a hill.
In the old days the settlers chewed the roots and swallowed the juice,
saying it added to their sexual powers. The high birthrate in the Valley —
up to recent years — might give credence to this superstition. But I doubt
there has ever been any need here for such help. It was also used for bronchial
infections. See "Spanish moss" also.
Old Molly Hare, whatcha doing there?
Running through the cotton patch hard as I can tear.
Rabbit in the cornfield eating all the peas.
Milk cow, bell cow a-kicking up her heels.
Oh, Mr. Rabbit, your ears are mighty longYes, by God, for they put 'em on wrong.
Oh, Mr Rabbit, your tail's mighty white.
Say so, 'tis so, and I'm getting out of sight.
(Animal jingle.)
Old Master
God.
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone,
When she got there,
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog got none.
(A nursery rhyme.)
Old Mother Twitchett has but one eye
And a long tail which she can let fly,
And every time she goes through a gap
She leaves a bit of her tail in a trap.
(Riddle. - A threaded needle.)
Old Ned
The devil or a high temper.
Old Nick
The devil.
"Old Ninety-seven"
The wreck of this Southern Railway train became the subject of one of our
most popular ballads.The accident described in the song-ballad occurred
on September 27, 1903. The mail train Number 97 was running from
Washington, D.C. to Atlanta, Georgia, and was some forty minutes late.
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It picked up speed and in rounding a curve jumped the tracks just north
of Danville, Virginia. It fell into a ravine and the engineer and crew were
killed. Being a mail train only, there were no passengers aboard. Before long,
ballads were out and the one written to the tune of "The Ship That Never
Returned" caught on best. My brother and I used to sing it over and over
as we grubbed up roots in the newground or chopped out the grassy cotton.
"On a bright Sunday morning in Washington City
Just at the rising of the sun
Steve Brodie kissed his wife, saying, 'Children, God bless you,
Your daddy's got to go on his run.'
"They give him his orders in Monroe, Virginia,
Saying, 'Steve, you're way behind time.
This is not Thirty-eight but it's old Ninety-seven,
And you've got to put her into Danville on time.'
"It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville
And a line on a three-mile grade.
It was on this grade that he lost his airbrake—
Just see what a run he made.
"He was coming down the hill making ninety miles an hour
When his whistle broke into a scream.
He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle—
He was scalded to death in the steam."
"The Old Oaken Bucket"
This was another favorite song with our male quartet in the old days, and
it was likewise popular at picnics and on hayrides. The description in the
song of the old oaken bucket that hung in the well didn't quite fit our well
bucket. Ours was too much in use providing water for the family and for
the mules, hogs and cows ever to get any moss on it. But we loved the song
anyway — words and melody — for its honoring this humble and yet most
necessary farm utensil.
"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood,
And ev'ry loved spot which my infancy knew.
"The wide-spreading pond and the mill that stood by it,
The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell,
The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it,
And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
809
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket that hung in the well."
An old person's funeral brings rain.
old rail
Syphilis.
Old Reliable
A term applied to The News and Observer. This Raleigh paper founded by
Josephus Daniels nearly a hundred years ago is a solid supporter of the
Democratic party. It covers the Valley like a blanket, says Lonnie Cofield,
and thousands of subscribers there speak pridefully of it as "The Old
Reliable,'' and it is that, being delivered to its subscribers daily and without
fail, come hell or high water, freeze or flood, and, like Sears and Roebuck
catalog, having in addition to its reading other practical uses. My father
subscribed to the paper as long as I can remember, and I can still hear him
saying to a neighbor, "I see in the paper where—" the statement to follow
having the ring of authority because it had appeared in print. Sometimes
the introductory phrase was shorter, being simply "I see where—", this
meaning the same. I have followed in the footsteps of my father and am
a constant subscriber to "The Old Reliable." I have always had a special
affection for this paper and for its later editor, Jonathan Daniels, son of
the founder, and I look back with joyous memory to the first little piece
of writing I ever published — a small corn field yearning lyric which was
printed in it. Way back, Lord, Lord, how many years!
And it is especially close to me also because through it a dear friend
of mine was rescued from a drunkard's grave.
This friend was a rising young merchant in my hometown, happily
married and with three fine children. Everybody prophesied a successful
career for him. But somehow in the midst of all his stable and successful
doings, he took to drink. As time passed he drank more and more, and finally
became a sot drunkard, and his business went to pieces. It got so that he
would lie up soused in bed all day long, and then late at night would
lonesomely wander the streets of the town. Many a time he would be poking
around as the dawn came up, and then as the sun began to show its spangled
glory in the east, he would make his way home to his bottle and to bed again,
as if ashamed to meet any of his neighbors abroad or feel the sun in his face.
It happened in some of his late wanderings he ran into the early morning
"Old Reliable" delivery man. They struck up acquaintance and my friend
often would get into the pick-up truck with him and ride about delivering
the paper from door to door.
Once or twice to help out, when he was in shape to, he would drive
the pick-up while the delivery man on rainy mornings would be wrapping
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up each individual paper in a protective covering.
Well, to make a long story short, he got more and more interested in
helping to deliver' 'The Old Reliable'' and once when the delivery man was
ill he took over delivering the paper that day himself. Some of his friends
helped him get a pick-up truck of his own, and he finally became "The Old
Reliable" delivery man in that region.
As he became more dependable, he drank less and less and finally
stopped altogether. Once he said to me, "Paul, I reckon what really saved
me was a sort of selfish prideful feeling that came to me when I would be
driving around delivering the paper, thinking of all the people snoozing away
in their houses, many of them lazy and lying there and me out serving them,
fixing it so that they could have their paper with their morning coffee and
maybe thankful to the fellow that delivered it. And then too what helped
was the fact that The News and Observer folks in Raleigh trusted me."
Before too long my friend was back in the church, back as a member
in good standing in the Chamber of Commerce, a good member of Rotary,
and admired and respected as once he was.
Now when you go through the town you will see his big and thriving
department store there in the middle of the main block with his name spread
in big letters across it. His children are all being educated, the son is a student
at the University at Chapel Hill, and the eldest girl is entering St. Mary's
next year.
Yes, a lot of us are mighty thankful to "The Old Reliable," sometimes
jocularly referred to as "The Nuisance and Disturber."
The term also refers to the penis.
old salt
An experienced sailor, an old follower of the sea.
Old Scratch
The devil.
old shoe
A common thing or person, something very plain, same as old hat.
old so-and-so
A term of opprobrium, usually equal to old son of a bitch.
old soldier
An experienced military man, also an empty bottle or cigar stub.
old son (old squirt, old thing)
A jocular and affectionate form of greeting between men.
old sore
An ancient grudge.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
811
Old Split Foot
The devil.
old stick-in-the-mud
A very dull or staid person.
old stuff
Out-of-date news or argument.
old timer
A j ocular and intimate form of address, also refers to an old settler or pioneer.
"Old Time Religion"
A rousing camp-meeting hymn that stands against smart-alecky new
preachers and sings out the old, old solid stuff. The original title was " 'Tis
the Old Time Religion," but we children always sang it as "Gimme that
old time religion." It is found in many of the old hymn books but rarely
in the new ones. Its authorship is unknown. The famous Fisk Jubilee Singers
used it in their tours at home and abroad.
"Gimme that old time religion (repeat two times more)
It's good enough for me.
It was good for our mothers (repeat two times)
It's good enough for me."
In subsequent stanzas we substituted for the third line any — and sometimes
all — of the following—
"Makes me love everybody —"
"It has saved our father —"
"It was good for the prophet Daniel —"
"It was good for the Hebrew children —"
"It was tried in the fiery furnace —"
"It was good for Paul and Silas —"
"It will do when I am dying —"
"It will take me home to heaven."
The list can continue if one wishes but heaven seems a good stopping place.
"Old Ship of Zion"
This is a typical representation of old hymns and spirituals. It was first
published, so far as I can find out, as early as 1830. It often goes under the
title, "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain." We sang it and sang it.
"The old ship of Zion, when she comes, when she comes,"
This is repeated four times, thus constituting the full first stanza, then
it takes off with—
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Paul Green's Wordbook
"She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes," and
so on, and continuing with—
"She'll be driving six white horses when she comes,"
"We'll kill the old red rooster when she comes."
The list of actions can be as long as one wishes to make it.
old timey curative procedures
Many a good strong man died in the old days from too much bleeding
prescribed by the doctors. (Cf. George Washington.) As a child I remember
seeing Dr. Joe McKay, our long-suffering family doctor, bleed my father.
He made a little cut in his back, applied a suction cup to the cut and drew
out half a cupful of blood. "You'll feel better now, Billy," he said. "I already
feel better, Joe," my father said.
There were four main methods of treatment in the early days — by
induced puking, by purging, bleeding and sweating. Some of the doctors
were hardboiled. Their attitude was expressed in the old acrimonious rhyme
which was once current in the Valley as to their patients—
"Puke 'em, purge 'em,
Bleed 'em, sweat 'em,
If they die,
Then damnit let "em!"
"Old Uncle Ned"
Another of Stephen Foster's heart-warming darky minstrel pieces. Mrs.
Evelyn Foster Monneweck in her Chronicles of Stephen Foster's Family
quotes Stephen Foster's older brother Morrison as to Foster's creation of
"Old Uncle Ned."
"In 1845, a club of young men, friends of his, met twice a week at our
house to practice songs in harmony under his leadership. They were J. Cust
Blair, Andrew L. Robinson, J. Harvey Davis, Robert P. McDowell and
myself. At that time, negro melodies were very popular. After we had sung
over and over again all the songs then in favor, he proposed that he would
try and make some for us himself. His first effort was called 'The Louisiana
Belle.' A week after this, he produced the famous song of 'Old Uncle Ned.'
'Uncle Ned' immediately became known and popular everywhere. Both the
words and melody are remarkable. At the time he wrote 'His fingers were
long like de cane in de brake,' he had never seen a cane brake, nor ever been
below the mouth of the Ohio river, but the appropriateness of the simile
instantly strikes everyone who has traveled down the Mississippi."
"Dere was an old darky, dey called him Uncle Ned,
He's dead long ago, long ago.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
813
He had no wool on de top of his head,
De place whar de wool ought to grow.
Den lay down de shubble and de hoe,
Hang up de fiddle and de bow.
No more work for poor old Ned,
He's gone whar de good darkies go."
old wife's tongue
The quivering (quaking) aspen.
old woman
The midwife. In the old days the old woman or midwife did most of the
baby delivering. And of course there were many infections and deaths from
childbed fever.
old woman picking her geese
Snow falling.
olive branch
Rainbow, a token of peace.
'oman
Woman.
'omi Wise
The murder of Noami Wise has long been a ballad subject in North Carolina.
Our quartet used to sing it, having learned it from the Valley historian, Mr.
Mac. The first copy of the ballad, music and words, I ever saw I got from
a street hawker in Chapel Hill. I was a freshman at the University and was
the happy recipient of a five-dollar gold piece won in a short story contest.
At a meeting in old Hill Hall, John Washburn, who was from my hometown
of Lillington and was president of the senior class, made the award. Walking
along Franklin Street shortly after this I met up with the hawker who was
calling out his song books and ballads. He announced to the air he had the
pitiful song of poor 'Omi Wise with him, "Twenty-five cents!" I didn't have
twenty-five cents, but I had a five-dollar gold piece. Right off I bought the
ballad. He changed the gold piece, and we both parted happy. The ballad
tells 'Omi's story clearly enough and there's no need here for a different
stating.
"Come all good people, I'd have you draw near,
A sorrowful story you quickly shall hear;
A story I'll tell you of poor 'Omi Wise,
How she was deluded by Lewis's lies.
"He promised to marry and use her quite well;
But conduct contrary I sadly must tell,
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Paul Green's Wordbook
He promised to meet her at Adam's spring;
He promised her marriage and many a fine thing.
"Still nothing he gave her but flattered the case.
He says 'We'll be married and have no disgrace,
Come get up behind me, we'll go in to town.
And there we'll be married, in union be bound.'
"She got up behind him and straight he did go
To the bank of Deep River where the water did flow;
He says 'Now, poor 'Omi, I'll tell you my mind,
I intend here to drown you and leave you behind.'
" 'O pity your infant and spare me my life
Let me go rejected, and not be your wife.'
'No pity, no pity,' this monster did cry,
'In Deep River's bottom your body shall lie!'
"The wretch then did choke her, as we understand,
And threw her in the river below the milldam;
Be it murder or treason, O! What a great crime,
To drown poor 'Omi and leave her behind.
"Poor 'Omi was missing, they all did well know,
And hunting for her to the river did go,
And there found her floating in the water so deep,
Which caused all the people to moan and to weep.
"The neighbors were sent for to see the great sight,
While she lay floating all that long night;
So early next morning the inquest was held;
The jury correctly the murder did tell."
Jonathan Lewis was arrested and lodged in jail. But he escaped and
fled to the midwest. Years passed. It was finally rumored that he was living
at the Falls of the Ohio. Officers were sent and he was arrested, brought
back and tried. The verdict was "not guilty." Too much time had passed.
On his deathbed, however, he confessed to having slain 'Omi and, according
to a folklore account, he repeated her pleas for help. With his face drawn
in contortions and' 'the death rattle in his throat,'' he described her actions
as she learned that she was going to her Maker instead of to her husband.
There is a spot marked on a stone just below the old milldam and also
near the old Naomi Ford that is said to be where the footprint of the young
woman was found the morning after her drowning. More than one Negro
reports seeing her ghost hovering around the place.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
on
815
Indefinite time. "She'll stay on, I hear."
About, concerning. "The preacher preached on the forgiveness of sin."
on a high horse
To be excited, unduly angry.
on and off
Now and then. "He's sober on and off."
on a string
To have control of. "That girl's got old P. J. on a string and he a married
man at that."
on cloud nine
Highly exhilarated, happy.
on edge
Nervous, irritable.
once
This time, one time. "For the once I'll let you go," said the judge.
once and occasionally
Sometime, now and then. "I once and occasionally catches a rabbit in my
gum."
Once bitten, twice shy.
once in a blue moon
Very rarely, nardly ever.
once over
A quick glance or quick, half-finished job.
one
Used for emphasis. "I'll be there Monday or Tuesday one." "The law will
get that boy or I will one."
One or the other, either. "The brush have got to be hauled off, so take the
truck or pick-up one."
One at a time, they last longer.
One bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
One half the world knows not how the other half lives.
One man's meat is another man's poison.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
One may say too much even upon the best subject.
One of these days is none of these days.
on edge
Nervous, irritable.
"OneFishball"
One of those silly popular songs, and popular because they are silly — and
of course one must always allow for a good singable tune to go with them.
The "Fishball" song is still popular with my wife and was much sung by
her father and all the Lay children. It also tells a story.
' 'There was a man went up and down
To seek a dinner on the town.
"He feels his cash to know his pence.
And finds he has but just six cents.
"He finds at last a right cheap place
And enters in with modest face.
"The bill of fare he searches through
To see what his six cents will do.
"The cheapest serving of them all
Is twelve and a half cents for two fishball.
"Then to the waiter he doth call,
And gently whispers — 'One fishball.'
"The waiter roars it through the hall,
The guests they start at 'One fishball!'
"The guest then says, quite ill at ease,
'A piece of bread, sir, if you please.'
"The waiter roars it through the hall,
'We don't give bread with one fishball!' "
one foot in the grave and the other edging up
To be very old, senile.
one foot in the stirrup
On the verge of, ready to spring into action.
one for the birds
A foolish comment, a mistrusted promise, a statement of derision.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
817
One for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to make ready,
And four to go.
(A game rhyme.)
We boys used to recite this as we stood with extended pointed hands ready
to jump into the old swimming place in Middle Prong Creek, and at the
word "go," in we would dive.
one gallus
Poor, ignorant.
one-horse
Small, feeble, unimportant. "Joshua Jones has got just that little ol' onehorse farm and he and his wife and children are 'bout to starve to death."
One hour's sleep before midnight is worth two hours after.
One I Love
A divination rhyme. Sometimes we used appleseeds or orange seeds or
anything that would suit. And sometimes we would take holly leaves and
touch the points of the leaf or pull daisy petals as we would recite the rhyme:
One, I love,
Two, I love,
Three, I love I say.
Four, I love with all my heart,
And five, I cast away.
Six, he loves,
Seven, she loves,
Eight, they both love.
Nine, he comes,
Ten, he tarries,
Eleven, he courts,
Twelve, he marries.
Thirteen wishes.
Fourteen kisses,
And all the rest are little witches.
And sometimes we would say the last line, "And all the rest are little
switches," or "great long switches."
one more man
A man of powerful frame or muscular strength.' 'That Jim Jones, I tell you,
is one more man."
�818
Paul Green's Wordbook
one of the boys
A crony, a hail-fellow-well-met.
one of these (those) days
An indefinite time.
A hectic time. "I'm exhausted — it's been one of those days."
one on him
A fact or point charged against a person.
one potato
A counting out rhyme.
one's cup of tea
Preference, choice, satisfying. "That parade was my cup of tea."
by oneself
Alone.
one-sided
Unfair.
one storey and a jump
A house with one and a half stories.
I tell you one thing
A preparatory phrase for an emphatic statement to follow.
One thing at a time
And that done well
Is a very good rule
As many can tell.
One today is worth two tomorrows.
One, two, buckle my shoe,
Three, four, shut the door,
Five, six, pick up sticks,
Seven, eight, lay them straight,
Nine, ten, a good fat hen,
Eleven, twelve, roast her well,
Thirteen, fourteen, girls a-courting,
Fifteen, sixteen, girls a-fixing,
Seventeen, eighteen, girls a-waiting,
Nineteen, twenty, brides a-plenty.
(A game rhyme.)
There are other variations of this rhyme especially in the last few lines. For
instance:
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
819
Seventeen, eighteen, girls a-waiting,
Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty.
Or, again:
Seventeen, eighteen, ladies a-waiting,
Nineteen, twenty, goodies a-plenty.
Still another variation of this I have heard:
One, two, three, four,
Five, six, seven,
All good children go to heaven.
All the bad ones go below
To keep company with Old Black Joe.
one up
A point or score ahead.
One white foot, buy him,
Two white feet, try him,
Three white feet, look well about him,
Four white feet, do without him.
(A wisdom rhyme in reference to horses or mules.)
on hand
To have in one's possession or near by. "Heck Green's always got money
on hand."
onion
The ordinary and common garden vegetable, and there are many folk beliefs
concerning it. For instance, it used to be believed that an onion kept in the
room of a typhoid patient would prevent the nurse from catching the disease.
One person reported that she had found a plate of onions under the bed
and cabbage leaves tied around the wrists and ankles and bound to the head
of the patient who was sick of typhoid fever. Also onions chewed and taken
internally or sliced up and tied around the afflicted limb were thought to
be good for rheumatism. Another belief was that one could keep off
contagious diseases of any sort by wearing an onion tied around his neck
or kept in his pocket. Some have told me that the best onion for this is a
red onion, that the white onion lacks the power. And of course all of us
have heard that eating onions is one of the best cures for a cold. There is
the common rhyme:
An apple a day keeps the doctor away,
An onion a day keeps everybody away.
�820
Paul Green's Wordbook
Also the head. "He's got a good onion on his shoulders."
onion juice
A good remedy for earache.
onions
Business, prospects, plans. "He knows his onions all right." And recently
I heard a neighbor say, "You know, Terry Sanford certainly knew his onions
when he was Governor."
feel one's onions
To be in high spirits, full of pep.
onless
Unless.
onliest
Only. "This is the onliest dollar I've got left."
on needles and pins
To be nervous, have the fidgets, to be full of apprehension, uncertainty.
on one's ear
In disgrace, knocked for a loop.
on one's feet
To be in good physical or financial shape. "Joe's back on his feet again
after getting busted by the stock market."
on one's last legs
The last support, defense, weakening.
on one's neck
A burden. "He's a sorry character to have on your neck."
on one's own
Individual responsibility.
on one's own hook
On one's own responsibility.
'on't
Won't.
on the ball
Up to scratch, watchful, wary, authoritative, full of know-how.
on the beam
To the point, no lost motion.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
821
on the blink
Broken, out of repair.
on the dodge
Hiding away from the law, playing hide and seek with a subpoena server.
on the dot
Prompt.
on the drift
Idling, wasting one's time, misspending one's life.
on the fence
Undecided, unable to choose.
on the go
To be busy, traveling about, moving in a hurry, energetically working. "She's
on the go from morning to night."
on the hip
In an advantageous position or to have the advantage over one's opponent.
on the hook
To be in a dilemma, in a precarious and unhappy situation.
on the left foot
Non-conforming, out of line.
on the level
Honest, frank.
on the loose
Free, libidinous.
on the mend
Convalescing.
on the money
On the mark, accurate.
on the nose
On target, exactly.
on the q. t.
Confidentially, secretly.
on the rag
Menstruating.
�822
Paul Green's Wordbook
on the ragged edge
On the point of disaster, in a precarious situation.
on the stick
Stuck.
on the up and up
Honest, fair, also to be progressing.
on the warpath
To be angry, ready to fight.
on tick
On credit.
ontie
Untie.
"On Top of Old Smoky"
A popular love ballad.
on top of the world
In first-rate shape, feeling fine or very happy.
"Onward, Christian Soldiers"
This militant marching hymn in the cause of Christ is popular throughout
the western evangelical world. For a hundred years and more it has been
a standby in the Valley. The words are by The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould
and the original music was composed by Henry Gauntlet. In 1871 Arthur
Sullivan composed the present melody which everybody sings. The old one
is forgot.
"Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.
Christ the royal Master
Leads against the foe,
Forward into battle,
See His banners go."
Refrain
"Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
823
Francis Archer Jones in his book, Famous Hymns and Their Authors,
gives an interesting account of the origin of this hymn. It was originally
written for children. The author, Rev. Baring-Gould, wrote it for his mission
at Horbury Bridge. "Here the children," says Jones, "had to march many
a long mile to take part in what is dear to the heart of every true child —
a school feast. Owing to the distance from the church to the scene of the
festivities, an early start was necessary, and marching in procession with
banners waving, colours flying, and a cross preceding them, the little ones
sang lustily all the way. It was for these processions that' 'Onward, Christian
Soldiers" was written, and though it is many a year since Mr. Baring-Gould
led those enthusiastic little pilgrims of Horbury Bridge, it is not improbable
that the hymn is as great a favourite among the newer generation there as
it was thirty-five years ago. It was then sung to Gauntlet's tune, for Sullivan
had not then composed that stirring march which would have made his name
popular had he never written another note. In connection with Sullivan's
setting, which he christened 'St. Gertrude,' it is interesting to learn that after
writing it the composer remarked that he was afraid that it would be too
'brassy' and martial for church singing. He was more than surprised at its
popularity.
' 'Rather a good story is told in connection with this hymn, which may
or may not be true," Jones continues. "It is related that a certain rather
low church vicar, though he liked processions, particularly when he headed
them, stoutly objected to the cross being carried. The organist and the
choirmaster both did their best to persuade him that there was nothing wrong
in carrying a cross, but they might just as well have addressed their remarks
to his pulpit. The vicar was adamant. At last, losing all patience, the
choirmaster altered the first verse, and the procession began their march
round the church to the words —
'Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Left behind the door.' "
on you
In one's possession, ready. "You haven't got a pencil on you, have you?"
oodles
A great deal, a vast number.
oodles and gads
Murgins, a bountiful supply.
oops-a-daisy
A joyous exclamation, usually when one is playing with a child, tossing the
�824
Paul Green's Wordbook
little fellow and saying as he goes up, "Oops-a-daisy." Sometimes it is
Ups-a-daisy.
ooze (out)
Ease. "God oozed old Beelzebub out of heaven."
oozlings
Oozings.
open
To place the first bet as in a poker game.
open and aboveboard
To be honest and fair in one's dealings, to be truthful, frank.
openhearted
Generous, kind, affectionate.
open heifer
A loose young woman.
open one's mouth too wide
To promise more than one can fulfill.
open up the big blade
Do things in a big way, splurge.
open sow
A sow left unspayed and kept for breeding.
Open the Gates
A tug of war game. Two children raise their hands up and form a sort of
arch and then the others march under it, singing. At the signal point in the
song the two drop their hands over and catch a marching player, who then
is allowed to choose either' 'the sun'' or' 'the moon,'' which are the names
of the two holding up their arms. The one who chooses gets behind that
leader, and when the players are all lined up, a tug of war follows. It is
somewhat like London Bridge. There are various versions of the song they
sing as they march.
"Open the gates as high as the sky
And let King George's man pass by.
Give him a lamp to light him to bed
Give him a hatchet to chop off his head."
On the word "chop" the two lower their hands to catch the player. Of course,
when the two wish, they may delay the song and catch whom they wish.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
825
open weather
Fine weather.
open winter
A warm winter without much snow.
Open your mouth and shut your eyes,
I'll give you something to make you wise.
Shut your eyes and open your mouth,
I'll give you something comes from the south.
Shut your eyes and open your hand,
I'll give you something make you feel grand.
(A catch rhyme.)
opium poppy
A decorative plant grown in a number of housewives' gardens but I have
never heard of opium being used by any Valley housewife.
opodeldocs
Spirits of fun, sometimes spelled opidildocs.
Opportunity knocks but once.
Opportunity makes the thief.
Opportunity never knocks twice.
Seize the handle of opportunity.
opossum
Of course, we always pronounced it 'possum.
orange blossoms
A favorite good luck flower for the bride.
orate
To hold forth garrulously.
Order is heaven's first law.
Set thine house in order.
be in order
Said of tobacco when it is moist and flexible enough for tying, the damp
earth of the dugout providing moisture.
to keep order
To behave or cause others to behave, to act circumspectly.
�826
Paul Green's Wordbook
ordering pit
A sort of dugout sunk into the ground where tobacco hung on sticks can
be put in order after it is cured, that is, soft enough for tying.
ornery
Mean, cantankerous.
orphelin
Orphan.
orter
Ought to.
Orton
A famous plantation built by King Roger Moore below Wilmington and
still a showplace with its azalea gardens.
Osage orange
A tough small tree used in some places for fencing.
Oswego tea
See "bee balm."
other world
The hereafter.
hadn 't ought
Ought not.
ought to be bored for the hollow horn (for the simples)
A feeble-minded person, an addlepate.
ought to be playing with a string of spools and sent to catch bears
with a switch
A mouth-filling phrase applicable to a foolish person, a lightheaded one,
an addlepate.
Ouija board
A small board on which people used to place their hands to get spiritual
messages from the beyond, a sort of tribal fetish for a while.
An ounce o' mither-wit is worth a pound of clergy.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
ourn
out
Ours.
At the end of the row. We used to have a phrase that we used in the cotton
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
827
patch. "I'll beat you out," meaning I'll finish picking my row to the end
before you will.
The final result, tally or reward. "He tried to preach but he made a poor
out of it."
Finished, exhausted supply.' 'The meal is out and I've got to go to the mill.''
Outside. "Your shirt tail is out."
out at the elbows
Poverty-stricken.
outdacious
Audacious, outrageous.
outen
Extinguish. "It took us two days to outen that forest fire."
outface
To win over the opposition, to outdo and outdare.
outfox
Outsmart.
outhouse
Privy.
out in left field
Out of line, silly, in poor judgment.
out in the cold
Defenseless, tricked, left behind.
outlandish
Foolish, wild-looking.
outlaw
A wild horse or run-mad dog.
out like a light
To faint suddenly.
out-loud
Aloud.
out'n
Out of.
out'n flannel
Outing flannel.
�828
Paul Green's Wordbook
Out of debt, out of danger.
out of gas
Out of breath, exhausted.
out of heart
Disheartened, discouraged.
out of line
Non-conforming.
out of order
Not working properly.
as out of place as a flower in the hair of a corpse
Out of reach is out of harm.
Out of sight, out of mind.
out of soap
Depleted supplies, power, out of grease.
out of sorts
Irritable.
out of the cards
Not needed, not required.
out of the frying pan into the fire
In escaping from one trouble to land in a worse one.
out of the woods
Free of ill-health or financial difficulty.
out of this world
Beyond compare, rarest of the rare.
out of whack
Broken, out of order, out of line.
outside looking in
Beggarly, in a forlorn condition.
outside of
With the exception of, except for, and so on. "Outside of getting stuck in
the ditch three or four times, we got along all right."
outsider
A bastard, a woods colt.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
829
outsides
The bark strips of a log which were sawed off in the old days to get to the
clean lumber — before mechanical peelers were invented. These outsides
were used to fire the mill boiler and often given away to anyone who would
take them.
oven
The womb, also a woman's pudendum.
over
More than. "I've been here over two hours."
Finished, ended. "The jonquils are about over for this year."
wooden overcoat
A coffin. "A wooden overcoat has no pockets."
over fool's hill
Grown-up, the age of common sense. "Thank goodness, my boy's finally
got over fool's hill."
overhalls
A common pronunciation of overalls.
overly
Too much, too large.
overrun
Run over, spill over, or be over-full.
over the hill
Old age, on the way out. Also AWOL and an escapee from a chaingang
or prison.
over the hill to the poorhouse
"With her spending, my old woman will send me over the hill to the
poorhouse."
over the hump
Safe, past the crisis.
over the top
To reach a goal as in a bond or charity drive. Also to go over the top of
one's trenches to attack the enemy in war.
Owe no man anything.
An owl hooting at one's window is a sign of death or misfortune.
�830
Paul Green's Wordbook
owl head
A type of pistol.
He came unto his own and his own received him not.
own man
Individualism, free and self-responsible. "Jefferson believed in a man being
his own man and believing like a man and acting like a man, too."
to own the world and have the moon for a 'later patch
To be rich, sitting in clover.
own up
To confess, admit to the truth.
OX
A dull fellow, an impotent man, a eunuch.
oxbow
The curved bow which is used to encircle the ox's neck and go up through
a yoke and fasten with a pin. The ox, against the yoke, would pull the vehicle
and the bow would keep the yoke from sliding up over his shoulders.
oxeye daisy
A popular flower in the housewife's garden. There is a belief that a bed of
oxeye daisies planted near the front door will drive away fleas, ticks and
other pestiferous insects.
Oysters are said to be good for eating only in the months in which there is an
"r" in the name.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
831
P
packed like sardines
Crowded in a limited space.
pack off on
To put the blame unjustly on someone else. "He tried to pack off that
automobile stealing on me."
paddle
To chastise on the buttocks, to spank. "I paddle my young'uns now and
then to build up their character."
paddle-footed
Said of a horse that wings his front feet out as he trots or gallops.
paddle one's own canoe
To mind one's own business, to be self-reliant.
H.F. Page
A Cape Fear Valley poet who was my old teacher at Buie's Creek Academy
and a very good one. He was caught like myself in the spell of John Charles
McNeill and most of his poetry didn't quite make the grade. Like McNeill
he published two volumes — Songs of the Cape Fear and More Songs of
the Cape Fear.
Walter Mines Page
One of the best-known men ever to come out of the Valley. He early began
to find fault with the lethargy of the South and wrote numerous articles
attacking its peckerwood civilization. He later became editor of the Atlantic
Monthly and, under Woodrow Wilson, Ambassador to England. He lies
buried near his home place in Old Bethesda churchyard, there in the sandhills.
�832
Paul Green's Wordbook
pain in the ass
An irritating person or thing, a difficult and unpalatable duty.
No pains, no gains.
Paint the lily and gild the rose.
paint the town red
To go on a spree, to cut up, raise a ruckus.
pair off
To marry or become engaged.
pair of minutes
Immediately, soon.
pair of stairs
A stairway (steps). "In this old McNeill house there used to be the finest
pair of stairs I ever saw."
pale as a ghost
pale as chalk
pale as death
pale as flour
"The Pale White Rose"
A favorite song sung by many a lovelorn youth or maid in the Valley. This
beautiful late 19th century love-lament has haunted me ever since I first heard
it sung. The lyric by an unknown author is sentimental but true and hearttugging and, though lacking in the perfection of Ben Johnson's "Drink to
Me Only With Thine Eyes'' and Mozart's immortal setting, it is real enough.
The melody is by one R. W. Adams. After long searching I found a version
in The Franklin Square Song Collection, published by Harper and Brothers,
1888.
"Oh hope, delusive dream of bliss,
Where are thy visions now?
Canst thou befriend an hour like this
Or soothe my aching brow?
Thine emblem is this lovely flower.
Thy charms alike disclose.
Thou'rt but the creature of an hour
And like this pale white rose,
Thou'rt but the creature of an hour
And like this pale white rose."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
833
pallet
A spread-down bed on the floor. We children used to on the hot summer
nights always spread a quilt or two down on the floor and sleep where it
would be cooler than in the hot feather bed.
palmistry
The telling of one's fortune through analysis of the shape and lines of a
person's hand. This quackery is very popular in the Valley and as one drives
along, either a small house or in most places a trailer will be set close to the
highway with a sign of an uplifted hand and usually a billboard reading,
"Madam so-and-so, Palmistry. Know the future from the present," and
so on.
palm-reading
Palmistry.
"Palms of Victory"
Another old-time hymn of comfort. Mrs. Atlee Neville, who worked for
and with my family for some forty years, told me sometime ago that it used
to be one of her mother's favorites. She sang it for me — as much as she
could. "Most of it's long gone from me, Mr. Green," she said.
"I saw a wayworn trav'ler
In ragged garments clad,
He struggled up the mountains,
It seemed that he was sad.
But he shouted as he journeyed,
'Deliverance will come!
Palms of victory, crown of glory,
Palms of victory I shall wear.' "
pan
Face. "He faced the judge with the most innocent pan you ever saw."
pancake
Cow dung.
pan fish
Fish that are the right size for frying in a pan, medium-sized.
push the panic button
To grow hysterical, to fly off the handle and behave irrationally.
pansy
To my mind one of the most beautiful garden flowers in the world. My wife
grows them profusely, and I never get tired of looking at their beautiful
blooming.
�834
Paul Green's Wordbook
pansy party
A gathering of homosexuals.
caught with one's pants down
To be discovered in an embarrassing situation, to be called on to act when
one is unprepared.
panty raids
Prankish actions of some of the university and college students in surrounding girls' dormitories and demanding their panties. There hasn't been any
panty raid at Chapel Hill or Raleigh or any of the colleges now for quite
some time. No doubt the reason is the appearance of the high-raised and
bobtailed miniskirts or abbreviated britches which make the panties no longer
an unseen and desirable mystery.
panty--waist
A prissy, girlish fellow, a homosexual.
pap
Cheap talk, twaddle.
Papa loved whiskey,
Momma loved men.
Momma's in the graveyard,
Papa's in the pen.
(A moralistic rhyme.)
old papa
An elderly lecher.
paper heart
There is belief that if one would cure a witch spell or voodoo spell which
has been suffered, he should cut out a paper heart, nail it to a tree and hit
it with a hammer for nine mornings running, and on the ninth morning the
person who had done the witching or cast the spell would die.
"/ Give You a Paper of Pins"
A very popular children's song which is no doubt very old. The first stanza
runs as follows:
"I give to you a paper of pins
And that's the way my love begins
If you will marry me, me, me,
If you will marry me."
The reply is:
"I don't accept your paper of pins
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
835
If that's the way your love begins,
For I won't marry you, you, you,
For I won't marry you."
And the song goes on with the offer of an easy chair in which the girl may
sit and comb her golden hair, a silver spoon, a dress of green, then the key
to the speaker's heart. But all of these are refused. Finally the offer is the
key to the chest where the money is kept, and then the offer is accepted.
Ironically his reply is:
"Ha, ha, ha, money is all
And I won't marry you at all.
For I won't marry you, you, you, .
For I won't marry you."
parable
A story that carries a hidden truth or a moral admonition.
paradiddle
Foolish, much the same as fumadiddle.
parapsych ology
The folk belief in certain academic and pseudo-scientific circles that
knowledge of the external world can come through mystical and non-physical
means. It is the old telepathy theory back again with a new dog tag.
par for the course
Average.
paring iron
An iron for paring horse and mule hooves.
parlor
The best room in the house. Usually kept for company entertaining, it was
without a bed if the family could afford it. Here the piano or organ was
kept and here courting was done — and that most discreetly.
parlor house
Bawdy house.
to parrot
To imitate.
We know in part and we prophesy in part.
particular hell
Extra loud behavior. "He raised particular hell at the party, and we had
to take him out."
�836
Paul Green's Wordbook
partridgeberry
A shy little green ground creeper which grows in the moist deep woods. It
has delicate fragrant flowers which develop into single red berries that look
like little drops of coral among the greenery. The deer especially like these
berries and sometimes it is called deer-berry. Also it is known as love-inwinter, pipsissewa, wintergreen, etc. The berries are good for all kinds of
diseases, especially for diarrhea and rheumatism, so say the herb doctors.
parts
The neighborhood, region. "I hear John Turlington caught a 'possum
weighed 22 pounds — the biggest ever heard of in these parts."
party politics
A tough game in which the party is set ahead of any principle by office
seekers. In our neighborhood my folks were all Democrats. I remember how
we used to look down on a neighbor, Frank Harmon, because he was a
Republican.
pasnip
Parsnip.
make a pass at
An act of flirtation. Also a pretense of working or doing. "He made a pass
at pulling fodder, nothing more."
Heaven and earth shall pass away.
passed out
Drunken insensibility, or fainting spell which women in the earlier days
seemed to succumb to, whether from their clothing, overwork, pregnancy
or whatever.
passel
A great many, a horde, a large crowd. "I hear tell that Mr. Ed Deal has
nineteen children — a whole passel of them — and when he goes to town
to get sugar, he buys a five-pound sack, brings it home, lines them up at
the table and, since they all drink coffee, he rips a hole in the bag and walks
around, dumping some in each cup. When he gets to his own cup, the last,
he shakes the bag and throws it out through the open door into the yard."
pass in one's checks
Same as to cash in one's checks—to die.
pass in one's chips
Also to die.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
837
passionflower
The lowly maypop. The purple bloom of this flower is one of the most
beautiful imaginable, and it has taken on a certain sort of symbolism in which
the center of the big purple bloom represents the Trinity surrounded by the
Twelve Apostles. The fruit in the late summer is very sweet and tastes much
like the ripened pawpaw. We boys used to have great fun playing maypop
war. See "maypop" and "maypop war."
pass like ships in the night
Fail to cross paths.
pass the buck
To put the blame and the responsibility on another person to evade one's
duty.
pass the time of day
To meet for a short visit and talk.
pass water
To urinate.
pasteboard
A ticket, say, to a football game. Also a playing card. "Deal them
pasteboards, boy."
pasting
A whipping or drubbing, a bad defeat.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters.
Pat and Mike
The two proverbial Irish funny men. Most of the jokes in the Valley having
something to do with the Irish paired these two off.
patch
A cultivated area, even a large one. "Soon as this meetin's over I got to
get out in my corn patch."
patch up
To heal, to become friends after a quarrel.
patent medicine
Liquids, pills, compounds and curative materials offered for sale to the public
under a patented trademark and without a doctor's prescription.
Among the popular patent medicines for which we Valley people have spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars and continue to spend are — Adlerika
for gas, Angostura Bitters for nerves, Anti-Karnnia for headaches,
Astyptodine, Ayers' Cherry Pectoral for coughs, etc., Ayers' Compound
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Extract of Sarsaparilla, Ayers' Ague Cure, Ayers' Hair Vigor, Ayers'
Sarsaparilla for the King's Evil (Scrofula), B.C. for headaches, Barnes and
Park's Dental Snuff for the gums and teeth, Beckwith's Anti-Dyspeptic Pills,
Dr. Benson's Skin Cure,' 'The Blood Food" for consumption, Bisodol for
acid stomach, Dr. Blosser's Catarrh Cigarettes, Blue Mass for nits and lice,
Bromo-Quinine, Bronkaid tablets for sticky phlegm, Brownatone for gray
hair, Brown's Iron Bitters, Buffalo Springs Water,
Dr. CaldwelPs Syrup Pepsin, California Fig Syrup, Calomel, Candy
Cathartic Cascarets to cure constipation, Capudine for headache, Carter's
Little Liver Pills, Chalybeate Springs water, Cheney's Expectorant for
coughs, Cherokee Remedy for gonorrhea and all diseases of the urinary
organs,
Chichester Pills for Ladies, Rev. Child's Catarrh Cure, Dr. Christie's
Galvanic Belt and Magnetic Fluid (bracelets, necklaces), Cleveland Springs
Water, Coffey-Humber Cancer Cure, Collum Dropsy Remedy, Cook
County Blood Poison Remedy, Costar's Vermin Exterminator, Crazy Water
Crystals, Dr. Grain's Abdominal Supporter, Creomulsion for colds,
Danderine for falling hair, Davis' Vegetable Pain Killer, Digel for stomach
acid, Dixie Lax-u-ton Liver Tonic, Doan's Pills for backache, Dodson's
Livertone, Dr. Dull's Cough Syrup, Dr. Dye's Electro-Voltaic Belt for
debility, Earles Hypo-cod, Dr. Eaton's Blood Food, Dr. Eaton's Infantile
Cordial, Electro-Medicated pads for general diseases, aches and pains,
Entoral,
Ferro-Phosphorated Elixir of Calisaya — a good tonic, Fitch's Dandruff
Remover, Fixodent Elastic Membrane for false teeth tightening, Fletcher's
Castoria (children cry for it), Foley's Honey and Tar for La Grippe, Foley's
Kidney Cure for Bright's Disease, Forhan's Toothpaste for Pyorrhea,
Fowle's Peruvian Syrup and Iron Tonic, Fresh Congress Water, Fuquay
Springs water, Fruit-a-tives, Gardiner's Rheumatic and Neuralgia
Compound, Geritol, Golden Nugget Laxative Goose Grease, Graefenberg
Vegetable Pills, Gray's Invaluable Ointment, Groves Tasteless Chill Tonic,
Haarlem Oil Capsules for aches and pains, Dr. Hand's Teething Lotion,
Harris Springs water, Dr. Harter's Iron Tonic Blood Purifier, Hasting's
Compound Syrup of Naphtha, Dr. Hathaway's Stricture Cure, Heimstreet's
Inimitable Hair Restorer, Herb Juice for Constipation, Herpicide for
dandruff, Hindipo Great French Remedy for restoring lost youth, Hood's
Liver Pills, Hood's Sarsaparilla, Hostetter's Celebrated Stomach Bitters
for general complaints and disabilities to which the feeble are so subject,
Hutchin's Dyspepsia Bitters,
The Indian Panacea (Hiram Robinson, M.D., Agent), Infallible Pile
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
839
Remedy, Ironized Yeast, Iron Malt, Jackson's Springs Water, Jad Salts for
kidneys, Japanese Pile Ointment, Johnson's Anodyne Liniment, Dr.
Johnson's Indian Blood Syrup, Joint Ease Salve for aches, Jordan's Cold
Tablets, Jurubeba for decay of vital forces, Kidney Wort, Kodd Dyspepsia
cure, Kodol for sour stomach, Latoila for growing hair, Lemon Springs
water, Listerine, McAlister's All-Healing Ointment, The Magic Comb
(changes color of hair to color of comb, be sure to state color wanted),
Magnolia Balm for bad skin, Dr. Martin's Catamenial Corrector for
suffering women, Dr. Martin's Compound Syrup of Wild Cherry Measurin
for colds, Mexican Mustang Liniment, Montague's Balm (Indian remedy
for toothache), Morehead's Magnetic Plaster for rheumatism, lameness,
etc., Dr. Moses' (of Virginia) Cancer Cure, Dr. Moses' (of Virginia)
Stammering Cure, Mother's Friend, Mother's Joy, Mount Vernon Springs
water, Musterol for lumbago, Nature's Oil Liniment, Nature's Remedy for
Dyspepsia, Number Nine, Oil of Salt for ladies' pimples,
Pape's Diapepsin, Parker's Ginger Tonic, Parker's Hair Balsam, Parson's
Purgative Pills, Paw Paw Tonic, Mrs. Joe Person's Remedy, Pertussin
Cough Cure, Peruna, Peter's Vegetable Pills, Peterson's Ointment for
eczema, Dr. O. Phelps Brown's Permanent Cure for consumption,
bronchitis, asthma, coughs, colds, general debility,
Phillips' Milk of Magnesia, Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery, Pinex
for coughs, Mrs. Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, Pond's Extract,
Folk's Diphtheria Cure, Pomeroy's Elastic Truss, Dr. Porter's Antiseptic
Healing Oil, Psychomancy or Soul Charming, Quercus' Cod Liver Oil Jelly,
Resinol for itching and burning, Rheumacide, Rheumaid, Ripan's tablets
for the liver, Rowan's Tonic Mixture, Rydale's Tonic, S.S.S. Blood Remedy,
St. Jacob's Oil for Rheumatism, St. Joseph's G.F.P. for women, Salicylica
for rheumatism, Samaritan Nervine, Sand's Sarsaparilla, Sanford's Liver
Invigorater and Compound Cathartic Pills, Saratoga Waters, Scott's
Emulsion, Dr. Sharp's Dyspepsia Cure, Shiloh's Catarrh Remedy,
Simmons' Liver Regulator, 666 Chill and Fever Tonic, Sominex for
insomnia, Sloan's Liniment, Spalding's Cephalic Pills for headache,
Stanback Headache Powders, Dr. Stinson's Asthma Remedy, Stuart's
Dyspepsia Tablets, Swamp Root, Dr. Swayne's Compound Syrup of Wild
Cherry, Syrup of Figs,
Tanlac for indigestion, Tarrant's Effervescent Seltzer Aperient, Taylor's
Blood Medicine, Teethina for better babies, Terry's Infallible Destroyer,
Thedford's Black Draught, Tiz for aching feet, Trippe's Sarsaparilla (cure
for scrofula and syphilis), Dr. Turner's Pills for the cure of ague and fever
and chill and fever,
Tutt's Hair Dye, Tutt's Pills for Torpid Liver, Dr. Tutt's Vegetable Liver
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Pills, Vick's Vaporub, Vinolt, Wells' Carbolic Tablets for all throat diseases,
Wendell's Pills, Wild's Iceland Moss and Flaxseed Candy (world-renowned
for the cure of the blue cough and colds), Dr. Wilson's Family Pills, Mrs.
Winslow's Soothing Syrup, Wright's Indian Vegetable Pills, Wythe's Sage
and Sulphur Compound for the hair, Yeager's Liniment, Zemo for pimples
and itchy eczema.
These are only a few. There are hundreds of others.
paternoster pea
When its leaves incline downward, cloudy weather is coming; if upward,
fair weather.
pater-roll
Patrol, the home guard during the Civil War. The Negroes called the patrol
the pater-roller or patty rollers, and there was a common saying that went
about, "You better be in your house by dark or the patty-rollers will get you."
as patient as death
as patient as Job
patridge
Partridge. In Harnett County when I was a boy nearly all the old people
used this pronunciation, with a short a.
patsy
An effeminate male.
patter
Idle and foolish chatter.
Patty-cake, patty-cake,
Baker's man.
Roll him, roll him,
Stick him in the pan.
(A baby tickling rhyme.)
(On the word "stick" the baby or child would usually be given
a tickling finger punch in the tummy.)
We had another version of this:
"Patty-cake, patty-cake
Baker's man.
Roll him, roll him,
Throw him in the pan.
Roll him up and cross him with a T.
Throw him in the oven for baby and me."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
841
And still another version:
"Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker's man,
Bake me a cake as fast as you can.
Pat it and pick it and mark it with B
And put it in the oven for baby and me."
patty-roller
Patrollers. See "pater-roll."
"Paul and Silas"
An old song we used to sing while working in the fields.
"Paul and Silas
Bound in jail.
One sang all night
While the other one prayed.
Do, Lord, deliver me.
"Never seen the like
Since I been born,
The people keep a-coming
And the train done gone.
Do, Lord, deliver me.
"Ain't but one train
On this track,
Straight up to heaven
And then straight back.
Do, Lord, deliver me."
Paul pry
An eavesdropper, a peeping torn, a meddler.
paume
Palm.
paunch guts
A person with a large stomach.
pauper's oath
An oath of destitution through which legal counsel may be secured by defendant in court. This counsel is appointed by the judge and often consists of
talent that is unemployed or otherwise and therefore second-rate. Thus it
happens that often a poor defendant who is also something of a taxpayer
and is helping to support the solicitor who is trying to send him, say, to the
electric chair, is dependent upon a second-rate legal counsel to save his life
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Paul Green's Wordbook
or to temper his sentence. This is being limited in North Carolina. I remember
some years ago when I was traveling in Russia that some of the young smart
alec Komsomol people, that is, members of the Lenin Youth Party, pointed
out this injustice to me saying that in many ways our courts with their trial
by jury were inferior injustice to theirs. I had never thought of this particular
item in this way, and I am glad to find that we are remedying this lack though
of course the Russian criticism had nothing to do with it, but a democratic
sense of long delayed justice.
paw
To fondle amorously and roughly.' 'Coming from Greenville with that old
man I got myself pawed near 'bout to death and necked down to a nub,"
said the pretty girl at the party the other night.
pawpaw
A charming little shrub which has now pretty much disappeared from the
Valley. It just happens that I am lucky in having one growing wild at my
back door. It was there when I moved out in the country and is still
flourishing. Sometimes it is called "the custard apple." Some people are
allergic to the fruit and after eating it have been known to break out in a
rash. Why the little plant is disappearing I don't know.
It is hard to pay for bread that is already eaten.
pay an arm and a leg
Meet an exceedingly high price.
pay-dirt
Success.
pay mind to
To notice, to give attention to.
pay on the barrel head
Pay cash on delivery or pay up honestly and squarely and out in the open.
pay sign to
Give attention to.
He v/hopays the piper calls the tune.
pay the fiddler
To suffer the consequences, to pay one's way as one goes, to pay for the
value received. Also same as "The laborer is worthy of his hire."
pay through the nose
To pay an overcharge or, with difficulty, an outlandish price.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
843
PDQ
Pretty damn quick. "You better send some money PDQ."
pea
A sliding weight used on the old timey steelyards, or "still-yards," as we
pronounced it in the Valley.
Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.
the peace of God that passeth all understanding
Let him speak now or else forever hold his peace.
In time of peace prepare for war.
Live in peace with all men.
peach
The common fruit in the Valley and especially in the sandhills where the
fruit is grown commercially. A tincture of the leaves mixed with tobacco
juice used to make a flavoring for children's medicine, and the mixture was
even better if mixed with snuff. Mother used to put peach leaves in her jelly
jars to add to the flavor. Also the leaves were used in the old days for tanning
leather as well as for making poultices. Sometimes these leaves were warmed
and worn as a bandage for headache and other pains.
Also an attractive girl, a honey.
Peach and Honey
A brand of chewing tobacco.
peacherino
A stunning girl, intensification of peach.
Peaches in the summertime,
Pumpkins in the fall.
Christmas comes but once a year
And my gal (wife) wants a shawl.
(A recitation rhyme.)
peach kernels
Pounded and made into a sort of oil, these were good for earache. Also
a drop of the oil, made by burning a branch of the peach tree with a pine
knot or lightwood splinter, on a sore tooth gave help. A dose of this was
also good for worms in children.
peacock
A show-off, a dandy.
�844
Paul Green's Wordbook
The call of the peacock means rain.
pea hull saddles
The long hulls of peas worked into a pattern to represent a saddle. My cousin
Laura Green was especially clever at making these saddles.
peaked
Sick looking, thin, anemic.
peanuts
Unimportant matters, trifling things or sums, cheap stuff.
Don't cast your pearls before swine.
"Pearl of the Fountain"
A popular lyric or something of a ballad which Scotch settlers in the Valley
brought over from the old country.
"The pearl of the fountain, the rose of the valley,
Are sparkling and lovely, are stainless and mild;
The pearl sheds its ray 'neath the dark water gaily,
The rose opes its blossoms to bloom on the wild.
"The pearl and the rose are the emblems of Mary,
The maid of Glenconnel, once lovely and gay;
A false lover woo'd her, ye damsels be wary,
Now scath'd is the blossom, now dimm'd is the ray.
"You have seen her when morn brightly dawn'd on the mountain,
Trip blythely along, singing sweet to the gale;
At noon with her lambs, by the side of yon fountain;
Or wending, at eve, to her home in the vale.
"With the flowers of the willow-tree blent are her tresses,
Now woe-worn and pale, in the glen she is seen
Bewailing the cause of her rueful distresses—
How fondly he vow'd — and how false he has been."
pearly everlasting
See "rabbit tobacco."
pearly gates
The entrance to the heavenly home in the hereafter. According to Revelation
21:21, there are twelve gates which are twelve great pearls. "Every several
gate was of one pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were
transparent glass."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
845
Peas Porridge Hot
A hand-clapping or rope-jumping rhyme.
"Peas porridge hot,
Peas porridge cold,
Peas porridge in the pot
Nine days old."
Sometimes we children called it "Peas pudding hot."
"Peas pudding hot,
Peas pudding cold,
Peas pudding in the pot
Nine days old.
Some like it hot,
Some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot
Nine days old."
the last of pea time and the first of squash
A barren spell, an empty period of time.
pea turkey
A lack of notice or attention.' 'I gave him a five-dollar bill as a contribution,
and he never said pea turkey." Much the same as boo turkey.
A pebble carried in the mouth will ease thirst.
not the only pebble on the beach
Not the only desirable or important person available or present.
pecans
A flourishing fruit tree in the Valley. The pecan trees are becoming more
and more numerous and before long I expect that the exporting of pecans
will become a real agricultural item.
pecker
Penis.
keep one's pecker up
To keep one's spirits up, to remain optimistic.
peckerwood
A woodpecker. Also a term applied to a poor white Southern tenant farmer.
I got well acquainted with this word when I wrote my first picture in
Hollywood entitled "Cabin in the Cotton." This was the dramatization of
a novel of that name by Henry Harrison Kroll. I remember I had something
to do with choosing the cast in this picture. During the tryouts a young
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Paul Green's Wordbook
freckle-faced attractive blond girl showed up and she obviously had great
talent. I suggested to Mike Curtiz we should cast this girl in the part of the
landlord's daughter, and so we did. She sort of ran away with the picture.
Her name was Bette Davis.
peckish
Irritable, fiery.
peculiar
Retarded. "Ez Bradley's youngest boy is peculiar."
pedab
A small clay marble in the game of marbles, usually same as a dinah.
pee
To urinate.
peelings
Shavings.
peel one's eye
To keep a sharp lookout.
pee pee
A baby term for urination. Piss.
peepies
Tiny baby chickens.
peeve
To irritate.
pee-wee
Any small person or bird, also a small marble.
peg
Penis.
peg away
To work doggedly, steadily, at a task.
pegged out
Exhausted, tired out.
peg leg
A one-legged person, one with a wooden leg.
peg out
To fail, to die.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
847
pelican flower
See "Virginia snakeroot."
The pen is mighter than the sword.
pen-fattened
It was the custom among the Valley farmers to pen up their "fattening hogs''
in the fall and feed them heavily on corn and slops and bran and get them
fat before the slaughtering, when the cold weather came on.
Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.
penny for your thoughts
Penny makes trouble a dollar can't cure.
A penny saved is a penny earned.
penny-wise and pound-foolish
to turn up like a bad penny
The bad penny always comes back (or comes round).
in for a penny, in for a pound
A bad penny is hard to get rid of.
If you find a penny with its head up, it is a sign of good luck.
penny dreadful
A cheap, sentimental novel or hair-raising story.
pennyroyal (penny ock, pennr'ile)
A common aromatic little plant which we children often used to keep away
chiggers and fleas. We would smear or crush the tiny leaves in our hands
and rub our bare legs and feet. Also pennyroyal tea was used as a sure cure
for making the measles break out. According to my old friend Mr. Mac,
many of the pregnant women in the Valley used the pennyroyal tea as a good
preventative against morning nausea. I remember that my own mother often
put some of the plants in the room on the floor and in the corners to keep
out ticks and fleas.
pennywinkle
Periwinkle.
pen pusher
A clerk.
Pentecostal Holiness
An especially fervent religious sect that seems to be growing even more
�848
Paul Green's Wordbook
numerous in the Valley, now that all sorts of scientific and technological
gadgets and diagnoses and cures are coming on. This sect claims to have
taken its inspiration from Acts 2 which says: "And when the day of Pentecost
was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly
there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled
all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven
tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit
gave them utterance."
I have had a lot of experience with the Pentecostal Holiness. I used
to go to Falcon every August where these people would gather for their camp
meeting, and what orgies I have witnessed there! I can still see my Uncle
Albert and Uncle Alfred sitting up behind the pulpit with their palm-leaf
fans going and their faces wreathed in seraphic smiles as the people down
below stumbled and shouted, jumped up and down, and cut up most
shamefully. I've seen young men and women fall in trances and then be
carried out and laid on the sawdust floor in a sort of stable-like building
and left lying there until they came back to their senses. Even as a young
boy I found this scandalous and, in remembrance, even more scandalous.
And still more scandalous is the fact that this sort of emotional debauchery
continues to this day. As I say, it seems to be increasing, especially now that
these people can do their stuff by way of the radio and TV.
People don't change and nothing don't change them, but they change things.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some
of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
pepper
High spirits.
Paper. "Bring me two rolls of toilet pepper from the store."
To hit a target with small shot, to direct rapid-fire questions.
pepper and salt
Speckled.
peppergrass
A native annual in the Valley, it can be seen widely spread in the fields and
along the roadsides from May to November. Our bare ankles used to get
a tingle as we would tramp through this in the summertime.
hot pepper
The swift pace in the game of jumping the rope.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
849
peppermint
A widely spreading plant in the Valley, highly aromatic, sometimes also called
spearmint. Many a young man has chewed it as he was on his way to see
his sweetheart, thus making his breath sweet, and for a purpose.
pep up
To enliven.
perc
Percolate.
perch
A high place. "The votes came in and he was knocked off his perch."
off one's perch
To be addled, to be non compos mentis.
perfectly good
Undoubtedly good, of prime value. "The first lick he hit he ruined my
perfectly good axe."
perform
To have an orgasm. "They say Jean Jacques Rousseau couldn't perform
and that was the one reason he wrote so much about men and women and
their education."
perish
To be thirsty, to hunger after. "I'm perished for water."
persimmon (usually pronounced 'simmon)
A popular wild fruit in the Valley. One of our best drinks used to be' simmon
beer, a good tonic for both children and grown-ups. I remember when I
was a boy we used to make up a big keg or small barrel of it at our house.
We'd mash up, say, a bushel of ripe persimmons after the first frost had
struck them, mix that well with one-half bushel of wheat bran, and sometimes
we would mash up sweet potatoes. Then we'd add some twelve gallons of
fresh spring water and three or four ounces of hops. Next we'd take a clean
barrel, cover the bottom with broom straw up to a few inches above the
spigot level and lay a few dozen ripe honey locusts on the straw. Then we
would pour the new mixture into the barrel and let it stand three or four
weeks in a warm place. If we wanted to, we'd draw the beer off, put it in
jugs or bottles and store it in a cool place. From then on we were supposed
to have a fine beverage for our table and for our friends on any occasion.
Man never could drink enough to get drunk on it, and now that legitimate
beer has come in, making of persimmon beer has just about passed out.
�850
Paul Green's Wordbook
persimmon bark
A liquid concoction from the inner bark of the persimmon tree is supposed
to be one of the best gargles for ulcerated or sore throats. According to Uncle
Beverly Lassiter, he has stopped many a coming bad cold by use of this gargle.
persuader
Any kind of whip, firearms, club, blackjack, policeman's billy and so on.
"He started fighting at me and said he wouldn't go, and then I laid my
persuader alongside of his noggin and he ca'med right down."
Persuasion is better than force.
pert as a cricket
Peruvian daisy
A common garden weed pest that appears in late summer. It turns into a
mush at the first frost.
perzactly
Exactly.
pestle-gut
A mule.
pestle-tail
An old worn-out horse or mule.
pet
Anger, high temper. "She got into a pet and bawled him out."
petch
Pitch. "That Gordon Overby petched a' almost perfect game and struck
out twenty-one of the Black River Cats."
pete man
A safe cracker.
Don't rob Peter to pay Paul.
peter
The penis.
peter out
To cease gradually, to give up on the job, fade out, weaken.
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her,
Put her in a pumpkin shell.
There he kept her very well.
(A recitation line.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
851
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where is the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
(A tongue twister.)
peth
Pith.
pet snake
I've seen a few pet snakes in my time, harmless things — little grass snakes
or black snakes which some of the school boys would keep for a while and
then let go. And I've heard different stories of people who have had pet
snakes, but other than the two mentioned above I've never seen them.
But one day old Uncle Bayliss Purefoy and I were sitting on the bank
of Morgan's Creek, fishing. The fish weren't biting and Uncle Bayliss got
to reminiscing a bit.
"Yessuh," he said, "I been fishing up and down these banks and
traipsing in these woods for more than sixty years."
"And I'll bet you've seen alot of things, haven't you, Uncle Bayliss!"
I was hoping he'd tell me a story as he had in times past.
"A-plenty of things — varmints and snakes — and one snake I mean
especially. Yessuh. Well, that snake still uses in these woods. Now and then
I can see the place where he's been dragging along in the sand. It's April
time now and warm weather come and it's time for him to be on the move
again. You know where he goes every April?"
"No, I don't, Uncle Bayliss."
''He goes 'way over there beyond Carrboro to visit a friend of his'n."
"What sort of friend?"
"A dead man." And Uncle Bayliss chuckled, then took out a piece of
Apple tobacco with trembling bony hands and worked off a bit and put
it into his toothless mouth.
"Way back yonder you might know,'' he said, "there was a man named
Taylor lived there beyond Carrboro. He had some slaves too, they tell, and
he was a mighty working man and he made everybody else work around
him. Well, when he come down to die, he left it agreed upon that he'd be
buried standing up. Yessuh — standing up. And that's the way they done
him — buried him standing up in his grave on his two feet. Course they had
to dig the grave much deeper. Most like a well it was." And the old man
chuckled again.
"Why did they want to bury him standing up?" I queried.
"So as he could watch his slaves working, they said." And he whickered
and bent joyously about him from side to side. Then he went on."Well,
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Paul Green's Wordbook
they do tell that not long after he was buried, when the spring come on,
one day some folks come along there and they seen a thing about the size
of a big hamper basket all quiled up on the ground, and it was that snake.
A big bull snake he was. The biggest ever seen in this country — about as
thick as your thigh. Well, the folks got 'em a pitchfork and a fence-rail and
they made at this snake. But he squiggled away in the bushes and was gone.
And then it came to be that every spring they'd find that snake hanging
around that grave."
"Well, how do you know he used to live in these woods if they found
him over there at Carrboro which is two or three miles away?"
" 'Cause," said Uncle Bayliss, "I once come'pon him lying side a log
down the creek there.'' And he gestured off.''Yessuh, he was big as a whole
hamper basket quiled round and round. And his head was big as a saucer
and black and flat and his eye was bright. Blue black bright like a ripe
pokeberry before the frost has struck it. I got me a brush pole to make at
him, but he slid off through the pizen ivy and wild strawberry vines, and
he made a scratch filing sound agin the dead leaves as he went. There was
a good patch of sand close by the creek bank and he made a track through
it like dragging a watermelon or something. And plenty of times after that
I could see where he'd drug in the sand on his way over beyond Carrboro
to visit that grave where old Taylor was buried in the ground standing up.
Yessuh, there was some kind of friendship betwixt 'em. What it was, I don't
know, but animals and snakes have plenty of quare things go on in their
heads, and you and me will never know what it is. So the dead man that
few folks liked when he was alive had a snake that liked him, a pet snake,
when dead."
His whicker of laughter was cut off suddenly as he made a dive for his
fishing pole, for the cork had gone quick and jooked under, and the end
of his pole was jerking up and down in the water. With a shout of triumph,
he swished a big yellow-bellied catfish out and onto the bank. "I never
knowed it to fail," he went on as he held his pole aloft and the line straight
to keep it from getting tangled by the flopping fish. "Get to thinking about
something, and then the fish will bite."
petticoat fever
A male yearning for a female.
petting party
A gathering of indiscriminate lovemaking young people.
phantom pregnancy
A pathological condition into which some married women fall due to their
desire to have children when they are unable to have them. A doctor friend
of mine told me of a recent case of a young wife who actually swelled up
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
853
and had all the symptoms of pregnancy. After examination he told her she
was not pregnant, and slowly the swelling of her stomach subsided.
Pharaoh's wind
An east wind that helps hold a drought over the land. Rain will come only
when this evil wind changes to the south and southwest. My father used
to say, "Uh-uh, that's Pharaoh's wind and no rain til it changes!" Why
it is not called "Moses' wind,'' I don't know. See Exodus 10:13' 'And Moses
stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an
east wind upon the land all that day and all that night, and when it was
morning, the east wind brought the locusts."
Pharisee
A hypocrite, one who adheres to the letter of the law and forgets the spirit.
Philadelphia lawyer
A specially smart person. "It takes a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out this
income tax business."
phleem
Phlegm.
phlegm-cutter
An early morning drink of hard liquor, same as an eye-opener.
physic
To treat medically, to give medicine to. "I swole up terrible till that root
doctor physicked me and then I got well right quick."
Physician, heal thyself.
The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman.
piano-legs
Big heavy legs.
picayune
A small worthless coin, also meaning sorriness, worthlessness and so on.
"That Jessie Marks ain't worth a picayune."
picayunish
Testy, querulous, a stickler for unimportant details.
piccolo house
A dance hall equipped with a juke box. Also a Negro bawdy house.
pick a bone
To quarrel.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
pickaninny
An old Southern term for a little Negro child.
pick at
To pester, irritate, quarrel with.
pickerelweed
An attractive perennial that grows in watery places in the swamps, usually
reaching from one to four feet in height with showy spikes of blue flowers.
A tea made from the root is supposed to be a good cathartic. The plant is
becoming very popular for garden pools. My wife and I planted several of
them near a spring below the house.
picking daisies
Acting crazy.
picking geese
Plucking of the feathers from the goose's breast to make feather pillows
or feathered beds. "March had come and it was time to be picking my geese.''
As a boy I used to earn a quarter now and then helping a neighbor catch
her geese for plucking.
picking sage
To be out looking for a husband. "Oh, I was out Sunday picking sage."
picking the ear
A pantomime of insult or blackguarding when directed at a person, often
resulting in a fight. A quarreling fellow would thrum a forefinger along the
lobe of his ear while glaring at his opponent and calling out belligerently,
"Black-gyard! Black-gyard!" Fisticuffs usually followed. Compare the
opening of Romeo and Juliet where biting the thumb at a person was an
insult. A Capulet man says in reference to the Montague, "I will bite my
thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it." A fight follows.
pickle
An embarrassing situation, a predicament. Also an awkward or unpopular
person, male or female.
in a pickle
In a bind, a difficult situation.
pickled
Drunk.
pickle-weaned
A sour-faced person. See "weaned on a pickle."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
855
a pick-me-up
An early morning dram or invigorating drink of whiskey.
pick one's nose at
To make fun of, to jeer at. "He picked his nose at me and so I fou't him."
He who gambles picks his own pocket.
pick up
To convalesce, to get better.''After that last spell he seems to be picking up."
To gather one's baggage, to prepare to leave. "Just pick up and come down
any old time."
Picnic Twist
A brand of chewing tobacco.
If a picture falls from the wall, bad luck is coming.
in the picture
Included, counted in.
piddle
To trifle around, to waste time, much the same as fiddle around. Also to
urinate. "Every piddle makes a puddle."
piddler
A procrastinator, a trifler.
pie
Dung. "He scared the living pie out of me when he busted that hog bladder
in my face."
pie in the sky
A false dream, welfare payments, easy pickings.
humble pie
Shame, disgrace. To eat humble pie is the same as to eat crow.
piece
Sexual intercourse. "The first time I was with that woman I got me a piece.''
A section of land or acreage. "He's got a fine piece of cotton."
A distance. "He lives over there across the valley a piece."
To sew together, to join together. "Yesterday we pieced the quilt, and
tomorrow we start quilting in earnest."
A contemptible woman or girl.
�856
Paul Green's Wordbook
A recitation. "Go on, son, say your piece."
piece of calico
A girl.
piece out
To make a thing last or serve, to mend. "He pieced the thing out with a
lot of strings."
all to pieces (go to pieces)
Completely undone, distraught. "When he heard the news, he went all to
pieces."
pieded
Spotted, pied.
pie-eyed
Soused drunk.
pifflicated
Drunk.
Piffling
Foolish, trifling.
Pig
Unlucky score in the roley-holey ball-throwing game.
A game in which the first player chooses a letter and each successive player
adds a letter to it, endeavoring not to have a word end with him, which makes
him a "pig." Usually the player who gets three "pigs" is out.
A bun or cake—
"Tom, Tom, the piper's son,
Stole a pig and away he run."
It means he stole a bun. The modern nursery rhyme books that
show Tom running with an actual live pig under his arm are all
wrong.
A greedy gut.
"This little pig went to market.
This little pig stayed home.
This little pig had roast beef.
This little pig had none.
This little pig cried, 'Wee, wee, wee'
All the way home."
(A tickling rhyme with baby's five toes.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
857
pigeonberries
Same as pokeweed berries.
pigeon-wing
A capered step in a folk dance.
piggin
A small wooden vessel, usually holding half a peck or more.
Also an iron pot with two handled ears.
piggyback
A person being carried on the back of another, his legs under the bearer's
arms and arms around his neck.
pig in a parlor
An awkward or obstreperous person.
pig in a poke
A blind trade or bargain. "Don't buy a pig in a poke."
like a pig in shit
Completely satisfied, happy.
in a pig's ass (eye)
A term of derogation, derision or denial.
Pigs can see the wind.
pig sticker
A butcher knife, sometimes called a frog sticker.
pig's vest and buttons
Sowbelly, bacon.
pigweed
Garden curse. There are several species of this plant which spread mat-like
over the ground. It is easy to destroy if one gets at it early with his hoe.
piker
A cheap skate, a complainer, a belly-acher, an unreliable person.
pile
Great deal, much. "He has done a pile of work."
pilewort
The fireweed. This plant springs up plentifully in newground after it has
been burnt over. Sometimes if left alone it will grow to a height of eight
or ten feet and then spread its silky white blossoms to the air. It is easy to
kill. The name derives from its use in treating piles (hemorrhoids).
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Paul Green's Wordbook
pilgrim's staff
The penis.
piling full
Heaped full, overflowing. "I want you boys to tote in wood and fill the
box piling full."
a bitter pill to swallow
To accept shame, disgrace, to eat one's words, same as to eat crow.
pillar to post
Harum-scarum. "You say you were born between pillar and post. Goahead,
Johnny, and tell us about it."
pilled
Peeled.
pill pusher
A pharmacist.
pill roller
The same as pill pusher. Also a term for a medical doctor.
In a calm sea every man is a pilot.
pime blank
Point blank.
See a pin and pick it up
All the day you'll have good luck.
See a pin and let it lie
All the day good luck will fly.
Find a pin and let it lie
You'll need the pin before you die.
See a pin and pick it up,
It will bring to you good luck.
pin
Pen. In the Valley old days the e became a short i in all such words— ten
(tin), Ben (Bin), den (din), Len (Lin), etc.
pinch
A crisis, a precarious situation. "He let me have $50 in a pinch and that
got me started."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
859
pincher
A lecherously inclined man, especially an oldish one. "There was one of
them Civil War pinchers at the party, and I come away black and blue,"
said Essie Mclntosh.
pinchpenny
A stingy person.
pindling
Spindling.
pine
A common lumber and pulpwood tree in North Carolina. There are many
species of pine: longleaf pine, shortleaf, loblolly, rosemary and so on. In
the old days Eastern North Carolina was a great stretch of longleaf pine
forests, and when I was a boy, in driving from home down to Dunn, we
would often pass turpentine stills here and there with the smoke rising from
them like a fog. Not only was the pine once the source of tar pitch, turpentine
and lumber — in these later days of pulpwood — but it was also the source
of many folk cures. A cure, for instance, for influenza was to take several
doses of warm water in which the inner skin of the pine bark had been soaked.
Some old people would say the cure was no good unless the tree was skinned
on the north side. Also thrash doctors would use the pinetops for some of
their hocus-pocus cures, and I've known of cases where the quack doctors
would put pine bows under the sick person's bed to help towards
convalescence. Turpentine, tar oil, and tar salve were also used for every
sort of ailment. It would take pages to describe the ways and uses of the
pine trees. Books have already been written on the subject.
pineapple weed
A sweet smelling little shrub sometimes called May weed. The tea from this
weed was used as a tonic.
pine knot
The resinous knot of the longleaf pine especially good for starting fires on
the cold winter mornings. Same as lightwood knot.
piner
A person who carries a pine torch at night to assist in gigging or landing fish.
pine rosin chewing gum
We children often pinched off brown or yellow bits of hardened turpentine
exuding from scarred spots on longleaf pine trees and used them for our
gum. We did the same with sweet gum oozings.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
pine straw
The dead pine needles. In rainy weather we used to get the dreadful news
from our father who would come out and announce, "Well, boys, while
it is wet, we better rake pine straw." So into the woods we'd go and rake
and rake and haul the straw to put into the mule stables and into the cow
stables for bedding. And in the spring these stables would be cleaned out
and the manure taken into the fields. Another use for pine straw was for
hilling our potatoes. When the first frost came, we would go into the potato
patch and cut away the vines and then with a turn-plough, plough up the
potatoes and sort them out and then hill them. These hills usually contained
some fifteen to twenty-five bushels piled cone-like, covered with pine straw
and then covered with dirt with an opening at the top like an Indian's teepee.
Sometimes we would put a shelter over these hills. We were always aghast
when we opened these hills to see how many of our potatoes had rotted.
pineweed
A curse to many a Valley pasture. In the late summer the orange tops of
these little tough weeds show yellow across the landscape. Cattle will not
eat them and, unless they are kept mowed down, they will take over a farmer's
pasture.
Piney Bottom Massacre
During the Revolutionary War the Valley Scotchmen and Englishmen were
divided into Tories and Whigs, or Loyalists and Patriots. Much local clan
fighting and killing took place up and down the land. One of the most brutal
of these massacres occurred at Piney Bottom where a number of Tories
murdered several of Colonel Wade's men and a little boy. See "Massacre
of Piney Bottom."
piney woods rooter
A poor kind of hog, one that fends for itself, eating pine mast, roots, etc.,
usually a razor-back hog, scrawny, sharp-backed.
pinfeather chick
A very young and unusually sassy girl.
pinhooker
A cheat, a sharp trader, one who bids in an inferior product. He might buy
poor tobacco at a warehouse auction, mix in some good tobacco and put
it on the sales floor again.
pink elephants
Hallucinatory visions often seen by drunkards afflicted with delirium
tremens.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
861
pinkiest
The prettiest. "She's the pinkiest in the bunch."
pinking in
Growing pink, as the sky often does in the late afternoon. The pinking in
of the day is usually just before dusk.
pink of the evening
Near sunset.
pinnacle
The top, the highest point, a tiny mound made by squeezing damp dirt in
the butt of one's hand as in the game of marbles. Sometimes a player's marble
might be in a declivity and if he cried out "pinnacle!" before anyone said
' 'venture pinnacle,'' he was allowed to make a tiny mound and put the dinah,
or pee-wee, on top of it and shoot at it with his taw.
to pin one's ears back
To thrash, to defeat, win dramatically over one's opponent.
pins and needles
A tingling sensation. "Every time I see her I get pins and needles up and
down my back."
on pins and needles
To be excitedly anxious, apprehensive.
p'int
Point.
pip
Syphilis. Also disease among poultry.
An obstreperous or boring person.' 'There we were stuck all afternoon with
them three pips."
pipe down
To cease talking, to grow quiet.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Make the best of a thing if one can, take a matter under consideration.
pipes
Respiratory tract. "I can't even talk — my pipes are all clogged up."
piping hot
Cooking hot, very hot.
�862
Paul Green's Wordbook
pip-jenny
A small eruption or boil, usually on the face, a pimple.
pipkin
A small tangy pippin apple. Also a type of prolific small-boiled cotton.
pippin
A darling, a cute girl.
pipsissewa
A delicious and fragrant little flower that grows in the deep woods. With
its shiny evergreen foliage and its dainty summer blossoms, it is one of the
most beautiful woodflowers in the Valley. Pipsissewa is evidently an Indian
name and, according to some, it refers to the strengthening properties which
the red men ascribed to it. It goes by many names such as ground holly,
love-in-winter, rheumatism weed, and so on. A tea made from its leaves
is supposed to be a very healthful tonic.
pipsqueak
A weak, unimportant person.
piss ants
Multitudinous little insects whose bite is stinging. "Charlie Biggs with his
big feet has murdered more piss ants than any man alive."
piss away
To fritter away, to neglect one's opportunities. "He pissed away his chances
when he was young, and now that he is old he's on the welfare."
piss blood
To work to exhaustion, to strain at a tough job, to overdo it.
pissing post
A gathering place for local politicians.
piss off
To leave in a hurry, to forego. "When he said that, he pissed off his chances.''
piss pot
The chamber pot.
pistol
The penis.
A fiery person. "That Jeff Slocum is a plumb pistol."
a hot pistol
An eager beaver, a hard worker, a good performer. "Old Lefty Wilson was
a hot pistol out on that mound today."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
863
pit-a-pat
An onomatopoetic term simulating the scurrying footfall of a person or the
distant galloping of a horse—pitter-patter.
pitch
To plant. "I pitched my crop last week."
Sales talk. "He made his pitch but I wouldn't buy."
A pitcher that goes too often to the well is broken at last.
pitcher
Picture.
pitcher plant
A strange and striking plant that grows in the deep wet swamps of the Valley.
The leaves are various colors from green to striped yellow or even deep red,
and the blossoms are most unusual, usually of a dead dull red rose color,
although I have found some completely yellow ones. We used to go down
into the swamp about a half a mile northwest of our house and gather great
handfuls of these strange flowers in June. The inside of the flower exudes
a sweet secretion and many an insect in search of this sweetness finds himself
a helpless prisoner unable to escape up the inside of the blossom because
of the opposing bristles. The Indians used this pitcher plant, sometimes called
' 'side-saddle plant,'' to make a tea for the smallpox, and the Scotch settlers
in the Valley fed a tincture of it to their children as an internal remedy.
According to an old prescription, one ounce of pitcher plant root to one
quart of water; one tablespoon given to the sick child every four or five hours
would result in a cure.
Little pitchers have big ears.
pitch in
To begin, to set to work energetically.
He that pities another blesses himself.
pit saw
In the old pioneer days before the appearance of the cross-cut saw, the
straight-bladed saw was used. It had a handle at each end. One man standing in a pit and one up above on a log, which had been put on a frame, would
pull the saw up and down and thus turn out one slow flat board after another.
The man at the bottom was called a pit sawyer and the one at the top the
top sawyer. Usually a black man was in the pit and the white man on top,
if a white man actually was working.
�864
pity
Paul Green's Wordbook
A matter for regret. "It was a pity to burn his fiddle, but after he got
sanctified, there was nothing else to do. Later, though, when he fell from
grace, he cussed himself for being a fool and bought another from Sears
and Roebuck."
Pity is akin to love.
pizen
Poison. Rotgut whiskey.
pizen one's spring (pasture)
To retaliate, to get revenge, to deliberately infect with venereal disease.
A place for everything and everything in its place.
Keep your place and your place will keep you.
placket
The opening slit in a woman's skirt. Also her pudendum.
plague take it!
A mild expletive.
plaguey
Indeed, truly, very. "Coysin knows plaguey well I won't be able to pay that
note when it comes due and he expects to take my mule."
as plain as ABC
as plain as an old shoe
as plain as day
as plain as homespun
as plain as print
plank
To put down, to deposit vigorously, usually plank down.
plank roads
Roads with a plank-covered surface.
Some years before the Civil War and while longleaf pine forests were
thick and plentiful, the plank road craze struck our state. The then thriving
Valley town of Fayetteville was the center of it. The best known of these
roads were the Fayetteville and Western and the Fayetteville and Albemarle.
The state invested some $180,000 in them and, according to Lefler and
Newsome in their History of North Carolina, received a total of $37,450
in dividends. Some eighty-four companies were chartered in North Carolina
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
865
in the 1840's and 1850's, but only about a dozen roads were built, they report.
The most important one stretched 129 miles from Fayetteville through High
Point and Salem to Bethania in Forsyth County. This was the longest ever
built anywhere. These roads cost about $1500 a mile — about one-tenth
as expensive as railroads.
At that time the supply of longleaf pine timber seemed inexhaustible,
and the sawmills in the Valley were kept busy supplying the road needs. Heavy
timbers were laid down and the planks — some eight to ten inches wide and
two inches thick — were placed across them and close together with big nails.
"Turnouts" were provided at proper intervals for vehicle-passing. Tolls
were collected at tollgates at the rate of half a cent a mile for a man on
horseback, one cent for a one-horse team and two cents for a two-horse team.
The roads prospered for a few years but, as the builders must have
known, the planks soon rotted and had to be replaced. It was a losing
proposition, and by 1860mostof the roads wereout of use. The Honorable
John A. Gates in his voluminous The Story of Fayetteville quotes from an
overseer's letter of the times as to labor costs. "Two-horse teams were paid
$1.50 per day for hauling and laborers 50$ per day or less. Numbers had
to be sent away that came to hunt for work."
The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.
Plans on Sunday
Fail on Monday.
(A moralistic rhyme.)
plant a crop before fencing it in
To conceive a child before marriage.
plantations along the Cape Fear
Hilton Head
Point Pleasant
Sans Souci
Sedgeley Abbey
Springfield
Spring Garden
Plant corn when the dogwood leaves are the size of squirrel ears.
planting signs
The superstitions relative to the planting and harvesting of crops and the
killing and curing of meat in connection with the zodiac are almost
numberless. Any farmer's almanac will furnish the reader with an overflow
of instructions.
plashy
Wet, full of puddles.
plaster
To splatter, shatter, to beat unmercifully as in a prize fight. "He plastered
�866
Paul Green's Wordbook
that young fellow's behind with bird shot."
plastered
Drunk. "Evander Dewar came home plastered, and his wife rapped on his
ding-dongs with the brush brooms."
plaster saint
A hypocrite, one who pretends to be a holy person and is in fact a two-timer.
plat-eye
A fabled and hideous hobgoblin, supposed to inhabit the Cape Fear River
swamps. Tales about it are used often to frighten children or make them
behave.
Play out the play.
play a lone hand
To be independent, to go as a loner.
play cat and mouse
To tease selfishly.
play-children together
Child comrades.
played out
Exhausted, finished.
play for a sucker
To treat as a gull, to entice into a bad deal.
as playful as a kitten
as playful as a puppy
play havoc
To tear to pieces, to ruin.
play hob with
To make a mess of.
play it by ear
To take things as they come without any prearranged plan.
play party
An evening of games and dancing, usually with more singing than
instrumental music. Many of the old play party favorites are still popular
today such as "Skip to My Lou," "Old Dan Tucker," "Sweet Betsy from
Pike," and so on.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
867
play possum
To pretend to sleep, to dissemble, feign death.
play-pretty
A toy.
(purty)
play the fool
To act foolishly, to make a disastrous and silly financial deal, same as
crapping out.
Durward Shaw was a well-to-do farmer in Averasboro Township. He
had three daughters and a foolish wife and, like many a poor man before
him, tried to do everything he could "to please his women folks." He sent
his girls off to Greensboro to the Normal School and there they got
highfalutin ideas. When they came home in the summer, they were above
working in the fields and there they'd sit on the porch and swing, all dressed
up in their bright frocks and their mother Virginia lally-gagging with them.
And poor Durward was out in the fields hoeing away alone or ploughing
his grassy cotton and corn. So it was that they would talk precise and look
down their noses at any of the unlucky — or lucky, depending on how you
looked at it — former beaus who for a while tried to continue their courting.
Finally their empty-pated mother Virginia and the girls all persuaded
Durward to sell out his farm and move with them to Greensboro where
customs and manners were more in keeping with their now delicate manners
and tastes.
So he did, and his neighbors in the Valley heard no more of him for
several years. In town, matters went from bad to worse. The girls in time
married off to town clerks or grocery boys as empty-headed as they were
and worked as best they could in the ten-cent or department stores. Then
the mother Virginia died, and a saddened and pretty much penniless Durward
returned to the haunts of his younger and happier days. He had no land
now, so he tried to make a go as a tenant farmer. But having no "force,"
as the term went in those days, applicable to children and most often an
energetic tough-bodied wife, he had to give that up. He managed to borrow
a little money from a local skinflint at 12 or 15 percent interest, got himself
a gasoline engine, moved into the edge of Lillington and started grinding
corn. He patched up an old single room Negro shack to live in and got himself
a raw-boney old milk cow to stake out 'round and about to give him some
milk.
Now as you go along the highway in the night you can see his smoky
lamplight showing through the window where he'll be reading his county
paper perhaps. And sometimes as he reads, his gasoline engine is sounding
away grinding corn.
Durward is now getting old but he still remains the quiet and kindly
�868
Paul Green's Wordbook
fellow as always. He is well thought of by his neighbors who sympathize
with him for the time — as both he and they put it — when he "went and
played the fool."
play the game
To measure up to one's responsibility, to act honorably.
play thunder
To make a bad blunder, to err badly, much the same as playing the fool.
"Now ain't you just played thunder getting that pore gal in the family way!"
play up to
To humor another, to court goodwill, praise obsequiously.
play with one's self
Masturbate.
as pleased as a dog with two tails
as pleased as punch
pleasure
To please. "I've got artheritis (sic) so bad that it don't pleasure me none
to try to pick my banjo."
To have or give sexual satisfaction. "Every week I pleasured my man —
more than once, I'm here to tell you."
Pleasure comes but not to stay.
Fly pleasure and it will follow you.
plenty
Excessive, much. "He was plenty good, that doctor."
pleurisy root
See "butterfly weed."
plinkety-plink
A sound made in imitation of a banjo's plinking.
plonk
Past tense of plank.
plough
To screw, copulate.
ploughed
Drunk.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
869
plough into
To rush headlong into.
plough lines
The woven lines used as reins in guiding a mule or horse. We always had
two plough lines fastened to the bit on either side of the mule's bridle and
held them against the plough handles as we worked.
plough point
The iron or steel point on the front of the plough shank.
Burying rusty plough points in the ground around a barren fruit tree will
cause it to bear.
He that by the plow would thrive
Himself must either hold or drive.
Plow deep while sluggards sleep
And you shall have corn to sell and keep.
Let him who puts his hand to the plow look not back.
ploy
plug
A ruse, a maneuver, an intended move, a design. It is in heavy use now
especially by newscasters.
A worn-out horse or mule.
To cut a small segment from a melon to tell if it is ripe.
plug along
To push doggedly or slowly on.
plugged nickel
A phony, worthless thing.
plug-hole
A hole in the bottom of a boat to let water out when the stopper is pulled.
plug-ugly
A very ugly person.
Plum
A brand of chewing tobacco.
plum
The prize, the choice, an easy reward.
�870
Paul Green's Wordbook
plumb
Completely, absolutely, used for emphasis or to add to a superlative. "I
plumb forgot it."
plumb sight
A spectacle, an ugly scene. "The way that boy cut up at the picnic was a
plumb sight!"
plume up
To praise.
plump
The sound of a heavy fall or plunge, also to enter suddenly or to take part
suddenly in a scene. "Tom plumped himself into the middle of the room
and the rest of us hushed while he took over."
as plump as a partridge
plunder
Odds and ends, trash, unimportant belongings.
To wander about, to poke about noisily. "I could hear him plundering about
upstairs after I went to bed."
plunder room
A storeroom for odds and ends, broken-down furniture and miscellaneous
extras.
plunk
A dollar. "I got a hundred plunks for that speech at Iowa."
pluperfect hell
A complete disaster or trouble. " Yessir, brother, the United States has played
pluperfect hell by getting into that Vietnam mess."
plush
Flush, level with. "Get the door there plush with the frame."
Plymouth Rock
A heavy type of chicken popular in the Valley for its succulent fatness. It
is usually a poor layer as compared to the white leghorns.
pneumonia
Sometimes referred to in desperate cases as "walking pneumonia." See
"galloping pneumonia."
sitting on one'spocketbook
Wasting time on somebody else's money.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
871
pocket handkerchief
In the old days in the Valley the handkerchief was always referred to as a
pocket handkerchief.
pocosin
A jungle-like swamp, usually with much water and creepers in it. In the lower
part of the Valley, the pocosins were marked with cypress knees and are
the haunt of snakes, coons, 'possums and many a bird.
podgy
Pudgy, short, squabby, fat.
podunk
Reference to any trifling or obscure settlement or village.
Clarence Poe
One of the leaders of the Valley, a man who did more than any other to
introduce modern farming methods in place of the one-gallus worker, the
Boy Dixie plow and the mule. He was long editor of the Progressive Farmer
and his work still lives after him.
The poet is born not made.
point
The nipple, the female breast. "That girl in the tight sweater shows her points
all right."
point of death
Near death.
Point Pleasure
A famous old plantation house on the Cape Fear River, the home of Colonel
James Innis under whom Washington served. Like nearly all the old
mansions in the Valley, it has long disappeared.
poison
Bad news, a disliked person.
poison ivy
A woody nature shrub as well as a climbing vine. It grows anywhere and
everywhere it is allowed to grow and is a source of serious skin poison to
most people. When my wife and I built our house near Chapel Hill years
ago, we found the woods infested with it. The tall white oaks around the
spring we walled up were overrun with the stuff, and it took the work of
several men two weeks to cut the vines away and burn them. Some of the
"vines" I measured were four to six inches in diameter. So far as I know,
time is about the best cure for the infection, though many Valley people
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say that a tomato cut in two and rubbed on the infected part will bring relief.
Poison Stick
A children's tugging game.
A stick is stuck upright in the ground. The children join hands in a circle
around it and try hard to pull a player against the stick and knock it over
or cause it to tilt by touching it. This player grabs up the stick and chases
the others. When one is caught, he must help catch the others — and so
on until all are caught and the game begins again. The last one caught is
the winner.
poison sumac
A prolific shrub that grows in the Valley anywhere from six to eighteen feet
tall. It is most commonly found along the edges of damp swamps and it
blooms in June. The fruit of the poison sumac is whitish or dun-colored
and the harmless sumac fruit is red. It is said to be a stimulant and a narcotic
in rheumatism and herpes.
Never buy a pig in a poke.
poke along
To move slowly, to dawdle.
poke around
To laze about, to move aimlessly.
pokeberry weed
It is found almost everywhere from Canada and the Dakotas down toward
Florida. The young shoots are often used for salad or a substitute for
asparagus. The leaves and the berries and the roots are purgative and
narcotic. A tincture of the ripe berries has been used as a popular remedy
for chronic rheumatism, and the juice has been used for tumors, cancer,
hemorrhoids and for all kinds of trouble.
My friend Mr. Mac, the miller, tells me that the pokeweed root is the
best cure there is for itch.
"Yessir," he said to me one day, "it will cure the seven-year itch and
that's the toughest skin disease there is. Old Prentice Thornwell had the worst
case of it anybody ever heard of in the Valley country. He tried everything
from worm grease to 'possum-gut salve. His skin got so tender with his
everlasting scratching that he could hardly lie between the sheets. One day
Miss Hettie Crews, the maiden schoolteacher, come over to Thornwell's
house to confer with him about one of his children that had misbehaved
in school. She found him in a pitiful condition, setting by the fire warming
himself in the cold weather and scratching away. Out of her sympathy she
told him about her own mother — how once she had had a terrible skin
disease and a pokeroot mixture had cured her. She told him that her mother
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
873
had some of the root beat up into a pulp and mixed with hot water, and
she bathed in it, and it cured her absolutely.
' 'Well, Prentice was ready to try anything, so no sooner said than done.
He sent his wife and some of the children out and they dug up a supply of
root, beat it up with a maul and put it in a barrel, the way Miss Crews told
him, and filled it with warm water. Prentice had it filled in the barn and
he went out there, took off his clothes, and crawled in the barrel to give
himself a good soaking. Meanwhile Miss Hettie and the women folk sat
around on the porch talking and fixing things about the young boy's
misbehavior. All of a sudden a loud scream sounded from the barn, the
stable door burst open and there came Prentice, naked as the day he was
born, jumping and squealing and fighting at himself like a million hornets
were popping their stingers in him. Mrs. Thorn well rushed out in the yard
all aghast, same like the sky was about to fall in on her and, as Prentice
tore by her, he shrieked out, 'I'm in the flames of hell, woman. Fan me,
fan me!' And around the house he went and his wife after him, waving her
apron in the air like shooing chickens into the coop. Miss Hettie fled indoors
and shut herself away from the sight and the children hopped up and down
in the yard laughing. Finally, Prentice could stand it no more and leaving
his circling around the house, he made a beeline for the creek and he dived
into the old tanning hole, cold as it was, and there he sat in the icy water
up to his ears like a frog. The children later carried him some clothes down
there and left him. About daydown he came back across the field dressed
and in his right mind. He was so ashamed though that for weeks he wouldn't
go to church. But it cured him all right. Yessir, the itch never bothered him
the rest of his three score years and ten. In fact, his hide was so tough that
he could run through a briar patch and never get scratched. Yessir, pokeroot
mixture will sure cure skin disease, whether it's the two-weeks kind or the
seven-year itch. You try it sometime, Mr. Green, and if you want some good
eating, take the tender leaves when the pokeroot is coming up early in the
spring and eat it. I've eaten many a mess of it myself and I'm sure it's good
for the health.
' 'Take the case of old Mclntyre Prewett who lived down near Linden.
He lived to be so old that in his later years he walked like he was squatting
down, and when he couldn't walk anymore, he lay up in his little house there,
nothing but a bedful of bones, and dreened as dry of life as a basket of chips.
After he quit moving and breathing any at all the neighbors waited a week
to be sure he was dead and then they buried him. You ask me how old he
was? I don't know. Some say he was a hundred, some say he was a hundred
and twenty-five. Anyhow, I remember his telling me once when I was a
shirttailed boy about the time George Washington drove through the country
there to the east and all the people in Tarboro went wild and fired off their
one-pound cannon in celebration — yes, he said he was a grown young man
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hisself at the time. And you know what made him live so long? I asked him
that once, and he looked at me out of his little squeezed, squinched-up eyes
and he said, 'Why, poke salat, poke salat.' They say he used to eat it by
the peck. Then in the wintertime he lay up like a bear and drank cornmeal
gruel made with water. Yessir, I recommend poke salat and meal gruel for
these vitamin folks. Dang sight more sense in it I fully do believe and they're
cheaper too, much cheaper."
poke bonnet
Often called polk bonnet. See "slat bonnet."
looks like he had swallowed a poker
Poker
The well-known card game which is the gambler's delight. The two kinds
of poker are stud and draw.
Also a practical joke game. The players are seated in a circle. The leader
takes a poker in one hand, pokes the floor with it, clears his throat and says,
"You can do little who can't do this, this, this." He then gives the poker
to his neighbor who is supposed to do exactly the same thing. Some of the
players will forget to clear their throats as the leader had done. And so on.
Cow Poker
A game played by children usually riding in the car. We used to play this
often when driving across country from Hollywood. Two children will
choose each a side of the road, and they will count the number of cattle on
the chosen side. The one who gets the largest number will win. If a graveyard
is sighted and the opponent sees it, he can call out, "Graveyard!" and that
cancels the number of cattle already counted by his opponent.
Penny Poker
Poker in which the betting limit is one penny. Also cheap doings.
pokeroot tea
Especially good for hog cholera.
pokeweed
One of the best folk remedy plants in the Valley. One ounce of dried root
mixed with a pint of water and two tablespoons given as a dose was supposed
to be a good treatment for chronic syphilis. An ointment made from the
root was good for all kinds of skin diseases, and if the ointment was mixed
with lard and the children's heads rubbed with it at night, every nit and louse
would soon disappear. Indian runners on long journeys used to chew the
leaves to quench the thirst, so it was said. See "pokeberry weed."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
875
pokey
Jail, hoosegow. "I put him in the pokey and that'll sober him up."
pole beans
Running beans that are usually trained up poles. Some of the farmers in
the Valley have a regular skein with strings running from pole to pole, up
which the beans are trained.
polecat
A skunk, also a derogatory term applied to a low-down sorry person.
Police, police, don't get me.
Get that nigger behind that tree.
He stole money, I stole none.
Put him in the guardhouse just for fun.
(A recitation rhyme.)
as polite as a dancing master
Politeness is to do and say
The kindest thing in the kindest way.
politician
A convict who through pull gets an easy job.
poll-parrot
An over-talkative person.
poll tax
A head tax.
When I was growing up, the poll tax in North Carolina was a dollar
a head, and I remember once hearing my Uncle Bob Green tell about the
time he had to collect the poll tax.
"It wasn't long after the State passed the poll tax law," he said, "that
the niggers all up and down the Cape Fear Valley were past due on their
payments. The high sheriff—he was my brother, your Uncle John Green,
you remember—well, he said to me, he said, 'Bob, git out your horse and
serve papers on them niggers.' So I did. I rode from house to house serving
papers for the back taxes and collecting the defendants at the same time.
It wasn't long till I had a whole drove of them following behind me and
my horse on our way to Lillington. It began to snow like five hundred, and
the whole string of them that I had collected did their level best trying to
keep up with me and my horse, and I favored them some. When we got to
the old McKay place, I said, 'Boys, it's a long way to Lillington over the
river and I don't want to make you suffer too much. Will you folks promise
to meet me there Monday morning at the courthouse?'
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" 'Yeh, yessir, cap'n,' they said sticking up their hands all quick like
and then taking them down just as quick for they were all shivering and
shaking from the cold.
" 'All right then,' I said, Til let you go. Meet me there Monday morning
and we'll dispose of your cases. Have your word be your bond.'
" 'Yessir, bond, our word be our bond, your honor, yessir.'
"Well, the next Monday morning every one of them was there and their
cases were disposed of—except one. And he was lying at home near death's
door from the pneumonia he caught from following me that day. In fact
he died soon after that. I didn't hear about it till he was already buried. Yeh,
yeh, I know it was bad for him to catch pneumonia like that, having no shoes
to his feet hardly, but I didn't know the bottoms of his shoes were out and
his feet were freezin' off when he was following behind me and my horse.
He didn't complain none. Anyhow, I don't worry about it now. He ought
to have paid his poll tax in the first place. That's what he ought've done,
Paul. Poor fellow."
polly-pouts
The sulks.
Polly, put the kettle on (three times)
For we'll all have tea.
Sukie, take if off again (three times)
They've all gone away.
(A child's song.)
pollywog
A tadpole.
"Polly-wolly-doodle"
Another popular nonsense song. We never failed to sing it at picnics,
cornshuckings and young folks' gatherings. Its author and composer are
unknown to me.
"I went down South for to see my Sal—
Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.
My Sal she am a spunky gal.
Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.
"Fare thee well, fare thee well
Fare thee well, my fairy fay,
For I'm going to Louisiana
For to see my Susyanna—
Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.
"A grasshopper sitting on a railroad track—
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
877
Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.
A-picking his teeth with a carpet tack.
Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.
"Went to the henhouse on my knees—
Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.
Thought I heard a chicken sneeze.
Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.
"He sneezed so hard with the whooping cough—
Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day.
He sneezed his head and his tail right off.
Sing Polly-wolly-doodle all the day."
polyphemus
Another name for the penis.
pone
Swelling, a lump. "I've got a pone in my side," said Mr. Martin, "and the
doctor says I've got to have it cut out."
pony
An interlinear translation, same as a crib.
pony up to
To sidle up to, to pay up.
pooh
An interjection of disbelief or derision.
pooh-pooh
To shrug off, to take lightly, to deride. "Nixon kept pooh-poohing Congress
and now look at him."
poontang
A woman's sexual giving.
poop
To defecate. "Look, that baby's pooped in his pants."
pooped
To be exhausted, worn out.
The poor always ye have with ye.
as poor as a church mouse
as poor as a grasshopper
as poor as a rake
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as poor as a skeleton
as poor as a snake
as poor as a whippoorwill
as poor as a winter crow
as poor as Job's turkey
as poor as owl shit
as poor as quilting frames
Gaunt.
Go sell what thou hast and give to the poor.
He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.
It's a poor religion that makes a man a worse neighbor.
He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his maker.
He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack.
poorhouse
The almshouse. The threat of the poorhouse was always hanging over the
people in my neighborhood when I was a boy. It was a common expression
round and about, "If we don't look out, we'll all land in the poorhouse."
I've heard my father say that a thousand times.
"Poor Little Turtledove"
A love lament. The turtledove has for generations been a symbol of love,
most often unrequited love, and nearly always the lyric includes the following
lines—
"Poor little turtledove
A-setting on a pine
Grieving for his own true love,
Just like I grieve for mine."
poor man's clock
The sun.
poor man's weatherglass
The common pimpernel, growing from eastern Canada down eastern United
States to Mexico. It is poisonous to dogs and horses but is supposed to be
sexually stimulating to humans. Its red flowers appear in mid-summer and
are open only in bright sunshine. They close up at the approach of a storm,
hence, the name for the plant.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
879
poor mouth
Beggary,poverty. "Heputthepoormouthonmeandlpartedwithadollar."
poor outs
Poor means, sorry methods, also sorry results.
Poor Pussy Cat
A game. See "Pussy Wants a Corner."
poose-back
To ride on a person's back like a papoose.
poot
To break wind, to fart.
poots
The nervous jerks, the whammy-diddles, the hicumstrikes. The "highgalloping poots" is an intensification of the poots.
poo turkey
Same as boo turkey.
poozie
Same as pussy.
pop
To burst into bloom. "If this warm weather keeps up a few more days,
everything's gonna pop."
pop-call
A very short visit, one made without prior announcement.
pope
Boss, the head man.
sewed up tighter than the pope's drawers
"Pop Goes the Weasel"
A nursery rhyme and song.
popgun
Ahomemadetoy "gun" made usually by cutting a joint of hollow reed and
reaming it out. Then a berry or chewed wad of paper is inserted in it and,
with a rammer slightly shorter than the joint, pushed on to near the end.
Then with another pellet part way in, the rammer in reinserted. With a smart
blow of the palm the pellet will be ejected with a pop.
pop in
To make a hurried call. "I'll just pop in and see how she's doing."
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Pop off
To hurry away, to lose one's temper, to shout loudly.
popover
A hollow quick bread shaped like a muffin.
popping timbers
There's a superstition that if the timbers of a house are heard popping in
the dead of night, someone close by is soon going to die.
poppy
A favorite and colorful garden flower even though its bright red and showy
petals last hardly more than one day. Since World War I it has had special
significance for me, mainly because of the poem, "In Flanders Fields the
Poppies Blow," by Colonel John McCrae. This poem became popular with
the American and English troops, and many a time I recited it comfortingly
to myself as I shivered in my dugout, expecting the falling German shells
to cave in the dirt roof on me at any moment. The last stanza was especially
sustaining.
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
"We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
"Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch—be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
Young Colonel McCrae was later killed in battle.
popskull whiskey
Especially strong corn whiskey.
popsquirt
A fresh, sassy-talking person.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
881
popsy
A fast woman.
popsy-wopsy
A term of endearment.
pop the question
Propose marriage.
Pop the Whip
A popular outdoor game. We used to play this at the old Pleasant Union
School and have lots of fun. With a leader at the head of the line, the children,
taking hands, would string out behind him. At the word "go" he would
start running, pulling the line of young people after him. He would begin
to coil the line, going faster and faster until those at the end sometimes went
around so fast that they were flung off and turned somersaulting. The end
girls, when they were flung off, would be embarrassed by their windblown
petticoats.
Populism
A political movement in the South in the 1890's and early 1900's which
advocated the rights and power of the people, the populace. The Southern
Populists cooperated with the Republicans and Negro minority, and their
platform denounced lynching and called for justice and fair dealing with
all people, including the blacks. In some instances Negroes were given
positions in the councils and local governing boards.
I remember that in my Valley neighborhood old Uncle Jerry McLean,
a Negro with one of the greatest bass voices I ever heard, was put on the
local school board. He could neither read nor write. I was a little boy but
I remember my older half-sister appearing before him to get a certificate
to teach school. He said to her — she reported later — ' ' Bless yo' soul, Miss
Allie, you wants to teach school, don't you? Well, honey, that's just what
you'sgwinedo. Us passes you in dezamination. Youjes' fill out yo' papers
and mark 'em whatsomever they needs and go to it."
She got a little school some nine miles from our home at a salary of
twenty dollars a month. She boarded at a neighbor's house for six dollars
a month.
The Populist movement received a setback to its liberalism with the rise of
the Red Shirts (q.v.).
Possession is nine-tenths of the law.
possum apple
Persimmon.
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possum haws
This slender shrub, rarely becoming large enough to be called a tree, grows
plentifully in swamps and along streams. We boys used to love to eat the
blue-ripened berries. We still have a plentiful supply of these haws around
our spring below the house. Sometimes called possum grapes.
possum hunting
Along with coon-hunting a very popular sport in the Valley until recent days.
Since possums, like coons, do their feeding at night, a good possum or coon
dog was always a valuable item. But now that the land has become a network
of criss-cross hard-surfaced highways, illumined with automobile lights at
night, both the hunting and the dogs have pretty much gone out of style.
It was always a fact — and maybe there's some parable significance in it
— that little possums climbed big trees and big possums climbed little trees.
On our hunts, if the dogs treed a possum up a big tree, the decision usually
was to leave the tree alone and not try to cut it down. Why so hard labor
for so little result.
possum over my persimmon
One thing topping another, or one thing too deep for solving.
possum piss
Silly talk, twaddle.
Fat possums prowl late.
possum's peter
There is a common belief that the possum's penis is forked.
'Possum up de 'simmon tree,
Coonies on de ground.
Coonie say to de 'possum,
"Shake dem 'simmons down."
(Animal rhyme.)
posted
Informed, authoritative.
Protected by the law. "Since I've posted my land there's more hunting on
it than ever."
postes
Posts.
'postle
The penis. "They say that movie sheik, for all his big talk, ain't got much
of a 'postle on him."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
883
Post Office
A children's game.
My niece Buie Long recalls for me just how it is played, for I had forgot
some of the details.
One player is blindfolded and stands in the center of the room as
postman. Another is postmaster and has a list of cities, saying "I have a
letter from
to
." Immediately the players having the
names of those two cities must rise and change seats, the blind postman trying
to catch one of them or sit in one of the seats vacated. The player who is
caught or whose chair is taken becomes the postman. Players may crawl,
run, walk, dodge, or dive to get by the postman, but are not allowed to step
outside the circle of chairs. An announcement that the "General Delivery''
window is open causes a mad scramble, all the players changing chairs.
Another version of Post Office was a boys' and girls' courting game. All
the boys are sent out of the room and a corner is curtained or screened off
to represent the post office. A girl takes her place in the "post office" and
another goes to the door and calls out the name of one of the boys waiting
outside. She tells him there is a letter waiting for him in the post office. He
goes into the "office" and the "postmistress" kisses him. Then the
"mistress" can be changed and another boy is called in. And so on.
Sometimes the girls are all sent from the room and a boy becomes
"postmaster."
Jhepot calls the kettle black.
The pot which goes to the well will come home broken at last.
A little pot is soon hot.
An empty pot never boils over.
go to pot
To degenerate, to go to pieces, to have a breakdown.
put on the big pot
To cut a splurge or furnish an overflow of hospitality. "We'll put on the
big pot when you come."
upset the pot
To make a mess of things, to ruin one's chances.
A grated Inshpotato made into a poultice and put over a boil will draw it to a head.
A potato carried in the pocket is good protection against arthritis. Some people
say a buckeye or an onion is better.
What has many eyes but can't see?
(Riddle. A potato.)
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dropped like a hot potato
One potato, two potato, three potato, fourFive potato, six potato, seven potato, more—
and on and on.
(A counting-out rhyme.)
long potatoes
These are sweet potatoes as contrasted with short, round (Irish) potatoes.
round potatoes
Irish potatoes as contrasted with long, or sweet, potatoes.
small potatoes
Unimportant matters, a person or thing of no importance.
His family is like potatoes, all that is good of them is underground.
Plant potatoes and other underground crops on dark nights.
Never bet on potatoes before grabbling time.
potato hill
The conical-shaped hill in which the sweet potatoes are stored in the winter.
The method of preparing these hills was to take pine straw and place it on
a bit of elevated land well-drained, pile the potatoes carefully on the straw,
cover these potatoes with more straw and then cover them with dirt to shed
the rain. Sometimes a shelter was put over the hill and the hill was always
left open at the top for air. Most of the potatoes rotted in these hills, but
the power of the folk custom continued until recently.
Potato Race
See "Sack Race."
wild potato vine
A tough ground-running vine, usually prolific in poor sandy land and hard
to eradicate. The roots go very deep, almost as deep as the trumpet vine.
pot-gutted
Big-bellied.
pot hanger
A metal hook used in the old days to hang pots over the fire in the chimney
for cooking.
pothooks
Illiterate scrawls, poor handwriting.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
885
pothooks and hen scratches
The same.
pot licker
The liquid from boiling ham meat and greens together. It was counted a
delicacy in the Valley and good for giving muscular strength.
potluck
Ordinary fare. "Stay and have dinner with us if you don't mind taking
potluck."
pot of gold
A superstition that you can find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
pot-rack
Imitation of the call of the guinea chicken. "During the funeral the guineas
were pot-racking all round the house, the fools."
potty
A chamber pot for children.
Spoiled, rotting, decayed or decaying.
Dead drunk. "John Oxendine come home Sat'day night all potty and beat
up his wife to a fare-you-well."
pounce
A loud explosion or noise. " Soon as I heard that loud pounce to the east
I knowed that big boiler at Duke had busted."
When the pound speaks, the penny hushes.
pound cake
A cake made of pound measurements of ingredients, for instance, a pound
of sugar, a pound of butter, a pound of flour and a pound of eggs, etc.
pounding
The bringing of alms or gifts to a destitute person and most often to the
local preacher.
There was a mighty Negro preacher in the Valley once, so the folk tale
goes, who delighted in being pounded by his congregation. He was a great
glutton, this fellow was, and he would be profuse in his thanks and blessings
for the pound of coffee or pound of sugar or whatever was brought to him.
And sometimes his thankful congregation would bring him a bushel of meal
or bag of flour. On one occasion a recently repentant sinner, one who had
felt the power of the preacher's great exhorting, gave him a sheep. The great
preacher was duly thankful and told his little wife to put that sheep in the
pen and fatten it up because when Association Time came in the fall he would
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bring some of his brethren home and they would have a big feast. And, bless
the Lord, he would give her some good little loving on the side. Now this
little woman was a meek creature and was terribly afraid of this big preacher.
They had two little boys named Paul and Silas and they were, like their
mammy, very meek and patient little fellows. So it was that the little woman,
with the help of the boys, got some nails from around the washpot where
naily boards had been burned and rigged up a little old pen and put the sheep
in it. And they'd go out in the fields and pull crab grass and crop some of
the wilted collard leaves and feed this sheep up mighty good. All the while
the big preacher was working in the Lord's vineyard here and yon.
Now it happened that these little boys had something they loved better
than life itself and that was an old traipsy dog that had taken up at their
house. This old dog was a pitiful scraggly looking creature with thin frizzly
hair, and so they named her Frizzle.
When the fall came on, the sheep was fattened up, and one morning
just before the big preacher got ready to drive off in his little old buggy and
bedslat mule, he told his little woman that he wanted the sheep cooked and
ready for him that night. Sure and certain to the Lord there would be three
big preachers to eat with them at suppertime. And so he drove off, flailing
his little mule with the hard plough line as he went.
The little woman sharpened up the butcher knife and went out to the
pen to kill the sheep. The little boys, Paul and Silas, were right with her.
And right with them was the old dog Frizzle, wagging her tail and ready
to help out. Well, the little woman went into the pen and got the old sheep
by the burr of the ear, and then, wham, slashed across the old sheep's throat
with the knife. The old sheep gave a squeal and a buck and tore out through
the little old rotten pen and got away. The little woman went tearing down
the hill after her, calling, "Co-sheepy, co-sheepy," with the boys right after
and Frizzle barking along and trying to help out as best she could. On into
the woods the little woman went, calling co-sheepy. But no sheep. And the
little boys following along called, "Co-sheepy." And Frizzle, following after
the sheep, kept on barking. They tried to call her back but she wouldn't
come back because she was anxious to help out. And in the running about,
little Paul stubbed his toe against a rock and he sat down and little Silas
stayed and doctored him. The little woman went on into the woods after
the sheep. But she couldn't find that sheep and she sat down on a log with
the butcher knife in her hand and cried, for she knew what would happen
to her if the big preacher came home that night and there was no sheep and
no mutton on the table for him and the visiting brethren in the Lord. And
old Frizzle come out of the woods and looked up in her face, trying to
sympathize with her no doubt. Then the idea struck the little woman.
Well, sometime later up the hill she came and she was carrying the
skinned sheep in her big apron. The little boys called out, "You ketched
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
887
him, you ketched him, Mammy.'' So she went on to the house, and the little
boys helped her get chips and splinters from the woodpile and build up a
good fire in the old stove. So they cooked away on the sheep.
That evening the preacher came home with three other preachers and
they went hallelujahing around the house and talking holy talk and blessing
the little woman for the good cooking she had ready for them. And the house
was full of the good smell of the mutton that had been cooked. So it was
served up and the preachers et mighty hearty.
While they were eating, little Paul and Silas stood around waiting, their
mouths just watering, waiting to get their share. But they must eat second
after the big preachers had had their fill.
While the eating was going on, suddenly there came a sound — the pitiful
bleating of a sheep. And all the while the little woman sat by the fireplace
sucking on her teeth. When she heard the sheep, she shivered and shook.
And the big preacher said to her, "Quit sucking on them teeth." Then he
explained to the brethren that she had mighty bad risings in her jaws and
that's the way she was. The sheep bleated again, and the preacher looked
up and said, "What's that?" The little woman shivered and shook worse
now. And Paul and Silas hurried to the door and opened it.
And there stood the old sheep with his head hanging down and the slit
in his throat showing. Then the preacher jumped up and said, "Lord-amercy, what's happened!'' And the boys, looking at the mutton on the table,
saw what had happened, and little Silas or Paul, makes no difference which,
called out and said, "Mammy done cooked our dog!" So she had, and the
preachers had eaten heartily of Frizzle. They ran out into the night and called
to the dog. And the big preacher called, "Come on, come up, dog. I want
you to come up." And pretty soon the dog did come up, and in the way
you might think.
The visiting preachers were so mad when they found out what had
happened that they didn't jump on the little woman, they jumped on the
big preacher and beat him nearly half to death. And that preacher fled from
the neighborhood and was gone from there. Sometime later he sent and got
the little woman and the boys, and the last that was heard from him he had
a new congregation somewhere 'way down below Rocky Mount and was
doing well.
But the house he had lived in was allowed to grow up in weeds and briars.
Anyone passing on the road today can see it out in the field, all shrouded
away now with sumac bushes and 'simmon sprouts. Some do say that the
devil in the shape of a big dog stays in that house at night and goes abroad
seeking what and which he may devour.
no bigger than a pound of soap after a week's washing
Very small indeed, pitiful, weak.
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Poverty and laziness go hand in hand.
Poverty is a hard bedfellow.
Poverty is no sin but it's mighty inconvenient.
When poverty conies in at the door, love flies out through the window.
Give me neither poverty nor riches.
poverty weeds
Weeds that are native to poor soil such as the sandhills soil — milkweed,
joint weed, sandhill spurge, indigo, and so on.
Keep your powder dry.
powder one's nose
A woman's polite term for going to the privy or bathroom, answering the
call of nature.
to sit on a powder keg
To be in a highly dangerous or precarious situation or condition.
to take a powder
To run off, to flee from a subpoena, to vamoose. "John was to be there,
but somewhere on the way he took a powder."
power
Much, many, a great plenty. "There was a power of people at the big
meeting."
powerful
Very. "He's a powerful rich man."
"Power in the Blood"
Another popular and consoling big-meeting hymn beloved by the Valley
believers.
"Would you be free from your burden of sin?
There's pow'r in the blood, pow'r in the blood.
Would you o'er evil a victory win?
There's wonderful pow'r in the blood."
Then in the chorus we are told that the blood referred to is "the blood of
the Lamb,'' the Lamb being Jesus. Moreover the song declares that the power
of this blood can make you "whiter, much whiter than snow." My childish
head used to puzzle as to how this could be. My old gray head bothers about
it no longer, though now and then I like to hum the prancing tune to myself
as I work about the house doing odd jobs of mending or painting.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
889
powwow
A discussion, a caucus.
Practice makes perfect.
Practice what you preach.
Self-praise is half scandal.
"Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow"
The well-known Doxology or Old Hundred. I remember how relieved I used
to be at old Pleasant Union Church when Preacher Wicker would ask Mr.
Joe Long to lead the Doxology, for that meant the end of the service.
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host—
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost."
prank
To tease, to play tricks upon. Also to grease the end of a shovel.
prat
pray
One's buttocks, behind, ass (arse). "The best part of his show were his
pratfalls."
Please. Used for emphasis. "Do pray tell me what it's all about."
Pray devoutly and hammer stoutly.
Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.
prayer
One of the dictionary definitions for prayer is "the offering of adoration,
confession, supplication, thanksgiving, etc. addressed to God or to a god."
The prayers that I grew up with and hear now and then are usually short
on thanks and long on beseechings for help, guidance and protection. One
of the most common prayers in the Valley has to do with sickness or the
weather, especially in drought times. I remember more than once that the
folks assembled at Pleasant Union Church and prayed for rain. In speaking
of the matter, Barney Cofield, the Valley wit, once said, "I see you all folks
are here praying for rain and I see none of you have brought your umbrellas.''
I remember too when I first got under fire in World War I with the
British army in Flanders Field, I thought that I certainly would pray when
the going got tough. But I was so scared and so busy taking care of myself
that I never once thought of prayer or praying. The UNC football team used
to pray before each game. The opposing team usually did the same, and
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so the Almighty didn't have to bother.
prayer book
The ritual or scripture book used in some churches, especially in the Episcopal
Service.
Prayers come from the same mouths as oaths.
Preach in your own pulpit.
preach a funeral
To bawl out, to berate, to scold.' 'After I broke that plate that woman surely
preached my funeral."
preacher
A carpenter's handmade guide stick used in setting and spacing
weatherboarding, brick and so on.
"Preacher and the Bear"
Another of our favorite field songs. And, as in all our work and aroundthe-house singing, we were not always true to the original words.
"A preacher went out a-hunting
Early one Sunday morn
And though 'twas against his religion
He'd taken his gun along.
He shot hisself some mighty fine quail
And a measly old Molly hare
And on his way returning home
He met with a grizzly bear.
The bear marched out in the middle of the road,
And when him the coon did see,
The coon got so excited
He clamb up a 'simmon tree.
The bear set down upon the ground,
The coon clamb out on a limb.
He raised his eyes to the Lord in the skies
And this is what he said to him.
'Oh, Lordy, you delivered Daniel from the lion's den
And Jonah from the belly of the whale and then
The Hebrew chillun from the fiery furnace, so the Good
Book do declare,
Now, Lord, if you can't help me, don't you help that grizzly
bear!' "
The original words and music for this coon song are by Joe Arzonia.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
891
Preachers' children are the meanest children of all.
A preacher's son tends to turn out bad.
Gray mules never die, they turn into Baptist preachers.
When the preachers come, the chickens cry.
preachify
To talk and act piously.
preachy
Moralistic. "The trouble with so many of these labor dramas is they get
preachy."
precious
Used for emphasis. "There are precious few people that live up to their
preachings."
Precious things usually come in small packages.
precious little
Few, very small amount.
precious plenty
An overflow of supply.
predestination
The theory that whatever happens has to happen and actually man has no
free will. Even Bertrand Russell, the noted English mathematician and
philosopher, says that the theory cannot be disproved — or proved.
Since my Harnett County days I have believed that even if I had no
free will, no freedom of choice, and it was all an illusive belief with me,
still my responsibility for action would remain as part of that illusion and
therefore I couldn't escape my duty of service to myself and the world around
me.
It is easy to see how the doctrine of predestination has its place in
Presbyterian belief — or in any religious doctrine, for that matter. A belief
in God, the omniscient one, the all-knowing one, would allow for, nay, would
require it. For by definition he is not only all-powerful but all-knowing and
therefore knows what is to be. If he sees what is to be, then what is to be
will be — so predestination or pre-determination. Then where does man's
action, his behavior, come in? It must come in with his effort to live according
to God's will. But suppose, says my corkscrew mind, God has already seen
that I am to be lost, what avail is my effort? Or if he sees that I am to be
saved, again what is my effort worth?
Well, as St. Thomas Aquinas said in his Summa, man must believe the
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unbelievable if he is to have true religious faith.
Again I hear the loud shout of dialectical materialsim — but not the
Russian voice — declaring its opposition.
A pregnant woman needn't try to make good pickles.
prehaps
Perhaps.
prenatal influence
A widely held superstition that certain happenings affect the unborn child.
There are hundreds and hundreds of beliefs and folk practices connected
with this in the Valley as elsewhere. See "birthmark." The first reference
I know of occurs in the Bible where Jacob in working for old Laban wished
to add to his spotted number of goats and sheep. He took some cuttings
from the woods, peeled them in stripes, set them in front of the animals
as they were breeding and, lo and behold, according to the Scripture — and
who can deny the truth of that — his spotted flock increased tremendously.
Smart boy, Jacob.
all present and/or accounted for
A military report by sergeant or officer to his superior as to the disposition
of his men.
preserves
Fruit cooked in sugar or some syrup thinner and made into jams or jellies
and stored in jars or glass containers. These were choice exhibits of many
a housewife.
presperation
Perspiration.
press the flesh
To shake hands. "L.B.J. believes in pressing the flesh to get votes, and,
man, he gets 'em."
pretties
Toys, trinkets, little playthings. Also a woman's breasts and sex organs.
A pretty baby makes an ugly girl.
Pretty is as pretty does.
as pretty as a peach
as pretty as a picture
as pretty as a pink
as pretty as a poppet
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
893
pretty as a rosebud trimmed in dew
a pretty
A bet or an ante. "I bet you a pretty I can run faster than you can." In the
Valley the word "pretty" was almost always pronounced "purty."
Pretty Bird in My Cup
See "Put a Bird in My Cup."
not to do pretty
To act immorally. A softened assertion involving the immoral behavior of
a woman.
Pretty Girl's Station
A guessing and chasing game. Two sides are chosen and they walk away
from each other after each leader has chosen his or her station. Then one
group marches back toward the other. The second group then calls out,
"Where you from?" First Group—"Pretty girl's town." "What's your
trade?" "Lemonade." Second Group—"Goto work." And then they go
through the pantomime of making lemonade and, while they are making
the pantomime, the other group tries to chase them before they can get back
to their station. Sometimes one group marches toward the other making
a pantomime of their work but not naming it. And when the work is guessed
correctly the chase is on. All who are tapped must join the other group and
this continues until all the players of one group have been captured or they
decide to quit and do something else. This game is sometimes called
"Lemonade."
Prevention is better than cure.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
prevision of death
A foreseeing of one's fate. Many people in the Valley believe that the future
can be seen, especially the tragic future in reference to one's own death date.
See "death prophecy." They say that Myatt Northington had this gift.
Myatt was a merry light-hearted man and he prophesied even to the
day and the hour when he would die. In fact he was made more famous
in the Valley by dying than he was by living. He said the news of his taking
off had come to him in a dream, a voice that said to him as plain as day
that he was to die at such and such a time next year—or as he put it, "called
home to heaven"—and he better get ready to go. During that one year of
grace he made a good crop, paid up all his debts and got his life in order.
He picked out his pallbearers and preacher and had his tombstone cut with
the epitaph—"Walk about Zion and go around about her, tell the towers
thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces that ye may tell
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it to the generation following. Psalms 48: 12-13." Myatt liked his rolling
words as well as precision.
Of course most everybody laughed and made no little fun of him, for
they felt about him the way most of us do about these ignorant sanctified
people who are always prophesying the end of the world on a certain day.
Also they remembered Gaster French and his prophecy a few years before.
Gaster got his Holy Roller religion down at Falcon camp meeting and soon
after that he heard a voice, he said, telling him to get ready for the end of
the world which would come on the second Sunday in April. So he sold out
his farm and team and sat down to wait for Gabriel to blow on his horn.
Gaster was a notorious lazy fellow and the sitting and waiting came easy
for him. The fateful day came and passed and nothing happened, and of
course he had to get up from there where he was sitting and go to work to
keep from starving, for the sun rose just the same. Later he died in the county
poorhouse.
But Myatt was a better prophet. On the day before he was to die he
went around to see all the neighbors and say goodbye, asking them for any
messages they might want to send to loved ones in yonder world. A lot of
the wags, including Barney Cofield, sent messages to folks in hell, including
Bull Broadhuss, telling him to take it easy there and not to whip the devil
too often. But old Myatt laughed and said he wasn't going to hell.
When the next day came he dressed himself in his burying clothes, put
out the two big English pennies he had saved to place on his eyelids and
lay down in his bed. As the clock struck three, as the voice had said, he turned
his face to the wall and quietly breathed his last. At his funeral a great
concourse of people gathered and many of them got converted to God
because of Myatt, believing that there must be some kind of spirit or spirits
that could speak to men and tell them the future if they only knew how to
listen and watch. And Ollie Marshall, the Linneyville windowshade and
perpetual motion inventor, was so convinced of it, he tried to make a
contraption with a big ear on it to listen to spirits talking. Ollie was a
determined fellow and he worked and worked at it. And he worked so hard
at it and got so wound up in it that he finally lost his mind and had to be
shut up in the asylum in Raleigh. They say Ollie hears spirits there all the
time and does a lot of preaching behind his restraining bars to an unhearing
and lost world.
The price of wisdom is above rubies.
Every man has his price.
prick
Penis.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
895
a big prick
A show-off, a braggart.
all prick and no pence
All show and braggadocio, all front and no back.
A standing prick has no conscience.
It is hard to kick against the pricks.
Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
prides
A man's testicles or a woman's breasts.
primed
Liquored up and ready for a good time.
prime the pump
To use water from another source to get a dead pump started. Also to create
federal or welfare jobs in order to stimulate the economy.
prime tobacco
To crop the leaves as they ripen, beginning at the bottom and moving upward.
It is back-breaking work at first but becomes easier as the leaves are cropped
higher and higher toward the top.
Primitive Baptists
Known also as "Hardshell Baptists," this sect, formed in North Carolina
about 1830, was more Calvinistic in its belief as contrasted with the Freewill
Baptists. The Primitives were opposed to Sunday schools and to any "fuss
and fancy doings." A strict interpretation of the Bible as the inspired word
of God, every jot and tittle of it, was the heart of their doctrine.
Prince of Darkness
One of various names for Satan or Beelzebub.
"Prince ofParthia"
A romantic tragedy written by Thomas Godfrey (1736-1763), a poet and
playwright living in Wilmington, N.C., at the time. The drama was produced
in Philadelphia on April 24, 1767, four years after his death, and has the
distinction of being the first play written by an American to be professionally
produced. Godfrey died near Wilmington on April 3, 1763. He is buried
in the old St. James churchyard there. Years and years ago I went to visit
his grave and made a snapshot of his simple headstone that bore, as I
remember, only his name and the date of his birth and death. Not long ago
I visited the churchyard again and could find no trace of his grave. Nor could
any local person, including the sexton and minister, help me. As for the
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photograph I made, that is lost too. But the play remains in a volume entitled
"Prince of Parthia,'' with a 74-page Introduction by Archibald Henderson,
who served also as editor of the publication by Little, Brown and Company,
Boston, 1917. See "Thomas Godfrey."
princess tree
The paulownia tree.
The principle is the thing.
prink
To primp, to make a fastidious toilette, to unduly adorn oneself.
I was in prison and ye came unto me.
Stone walls do not a. prison make, nor iron bars a cage.
Prison Base
A very popular children's school game of chase in the Valley. Two leaders
are chosen and then these choose their followers alternately. Each group
leader selects a place some fifty yards or so from that of his opponent, usually
using a tree or drawing a ring around on the ground. And each dares the
other. The chase is on and anyone who is caught must enter the opponent's
prison and his comrades seek a chance to free him. But if, in the seeking,
he himself is touched, then he also becomes a prisoner. Most often the fleeter
side wins by getting all the opponents in prison and then the game ends.
prissy
Effeminate.
Institute of Private Affairs
A very vulgar and low-down society founded at the University of North
Carolina by some of the professors, with meetings every two weeks. At these
meetings the whole purpose was to tell as low-down and dirty stories and
experiences as possible. Anything decent was forbidden.
I was telling Carl Sandburg about our Institute once when he was visiting
us and this prompted him, I guess, into misbehaving before some ladies who
had come down from the University at Greensboro to sit around and admire
Carl. We were having dinner when they arrived. They gooed and gooed over
him until he was offended enough, I guess, to start telling stories. "Did you
ever hear," he asked, smiling around him, "about the two men who had
a bet as to which could eat the dirtiest?" The ladies smiled sweetly and said
they hadn't, would he please tell them. So then he let forth into one of the
roughest anecdotes I ever heard. I looked at my wife, who was terribly
ashamed. But the ladies from Greensboro didn't blink an eye. They smiled
and applauded when Carl finished telling about the two guys who got some
big tablespoons and went out to see what dirty things they could find to
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
897
eat in the cow pasture and around. And one of the men said, "I can't eat
mine, it's got a hair in it."
privateers
Freebooters and half-pirate seamen who used to prey upon the commerce
at the mouth of the Valley. Spruntinhis Tales of the Lower Cape Fear tells
much about this.
private eye
A detective.
privates
A man's or woman's genitals.
pro and con
For and against. "Consider all the pros and cons and then you'll know how
to vote."
Procrastination is the thief of time.
profane language
There was a belief that it was a dangerous thing to indulge in blasphemous
language in a storm at sea or in a thunderstorm on land. I remember when
I was a boy hearing the dreadful story of a man who, hurrying across the
fields to his house, lost his hat in the wind or a thunderstorm. He let out
an oath and the lightning struck him and killed him. How the people ever
knew that he let out an oath before he was killed I don't know.
What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
progue
To forage, to wander around.
project
A device, a matter of concern. Also as a verb, to fool with, pick at.
promenade
To walk with one's partner in a folk dance.
promenade all
A square dance call in which partners join crossed hands, right hands above
the left, and march around the room.
A. promise should be given with caution and kept with care.
Promised Land
Land to which the Jews went after they left Egypt. Canaan land. Also it
refers to the heaven and the hereafter. I remember how old Mr. Tom Long
used to line out the song, "On Jordan's stormy banks I stand," and then
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go on to the chorus when he would ring out sonorously,
"Oh, who will rise and go with me?
I am bound for the Promised Land."
prong
A branch of a divided stream.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
proon
To brood or worry. "He sits and proons over his troubles. No wonder he
won't get better."
Also sighing, murmuring. "I love to hear the wind prooning in the trees."
prophesy
Foretelling the future. There are machines now along all of our streets into
which you can put a penny and get the prophecy of the future. Prophecy
is an act of divination, of seeing into the future, similar to clairvoyance.
There are multitudes of signs and omens as well as machines which help
one to prophesy. For instance, an autumn with many acorns or nuts or berries
foretells or prophesies a hard winter. And the newspapers carry daily
horoscopes.
A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country.
Beware of false prophets.
There shall arise false prophets.
Man proposes but God disposes.
proposition
A difficulty, a hard task, a tough undertaking.' 'Getting water up that hill,
gentlemen, is a proposition."
props
Properties, as in a theatrical production.
Prospect Hall
One of the famous old homes along the Cape Fear, now perished.
protection
Chaperonage. "Oh, yes, on all the hayrides of the young people some older
person would go along for protection."
protection against witches
James Webster, an old Negro in Wake County, says that a silver dollar is
the best protection against witches there is, and not only that, he adds,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
899
protection against sickness. "Yes sir, Mr. Green, ever since I was sixteen
years old I've had a silver dollar with me except for two days and then I
had fifty cents." Most of the time James carries his dollar in his mouth.
Some of his neighbors, because of his talk about witches, believe he is a
witch doctor and is endowed with a power to tell fortunes. A lot of young
people come to him to get their fortunes told. In recent days he's been making
some extra money that way. The dollar in his mouth, he says, gives him
power not only to keep the witches off and to keep good health but maybe
give the young folks good advice. One reason that it has such power, he
says, is that on it is inscribed, "In God We Trust." And no ha'nt, he says,
can stay around where God is. He goes on to say that he has carried this
dollar or one like it in his mouth most of the fifty-eight years. "Yes sir, I
even sleeps with it," he says,' 'and when' In God We Trust' gets to be worn
off, I gets me a new dollar. 'Cause you got to have the words right there
spang and bright to have the right power and protection."
proud
To be in heat. "My bitch is prouding and I've got to shut her up."
Swollen. "There's a lot of proud flesh around that boil."
as proud as a king
as proud as a peacock
as proud as punch
do oneself proud
To take especial pride in an action one has done. I remember long ago reading
a letter written by my mother when she was a young girl which said, " I went
to Cokesbury Saturday and bought myself proud." Evidently she'd bought
some gay dresses or trimmings.
Proverbs are the wisdom of the ages.
He who will not provide for his own house is worse than an infidel.
providentially hindered
Hindered by an accidental happening or unforeseen circumstance, usually
attributed to divine interference.
A good provider is never without a mate.
prune
A sissy, a square, a prig, an unlikable person.
full of prunes
One who is unreliable as to truth or reporting of fact.
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p's and q's
Good manners. "You better watch your p's and q's when you eat at Aunt
Emma's house."
psychiatry
A pseudo-science now sweeping the world, making great inroads on the
healing power of religion. But the Catholic confessional still stands as some
of the best psychiatric therapy.
psychoanalysis
Originated or at least made popular mainly by Sigmund Freud who used
dream analysis, even automatic writing, to recover forgotten events.
Suppressed desires and other disturbing subconscious items are part and
parcel of his "science." Here the psychic disturbance, according to him,
is affected by bringing the suppressed items into the full consciousness of
the patient.
"Yes sir, I went to the head shrinker for six months," said Miss Gallic
Timberlake, "three times a week at forty-five dollars a clap. And finally
I told him I was broke and didn't have any more money. This didn't bother
him at all for he said he was on the verge of telling me the week before that
he considered me cured. So he let me go. My advice to people hunting
psychiatric help is to go ahead and try it and then when they find out it's
not helping much, let the doctor know that the money is running out, and
the first thing you know you'll be cured."
My young cousin, a very bright girl at the university, got into a
depression and she got started going to the psychiatrists. She went from one
to another, and I guess Aunt Sally, the Negro washerwoman, helped her
as much as anybody. Talking to her one day, Aunt Sally said, "I don't see,
honey, how you're ever going to get rid of that desperation if two or three
times a week you go and lie down on a cot and just keep talking about it
to the doctor. I know you say the doctor says you've got to get it out of
you, give voice to it. But seems to me that the thing to do would be to try
to forget it and get on with your work, put your mind on other things. That's
the way my mammy taught me. If things were bothering me and I couldn't
do nothing about 'em, then forget 'em, start doing something else and
gradually get your mind off it, and as you work at something else, get to
thinking about something else, the first thing you'll know, you're in better
shape than ever. Yes ma'am, that's what I say. Honey, you do it."
See "Crazy is as crazy does" and "off one's chest."
A public office is a public trust.
pucker up
To crinkle one's face as a child preparatory to crying.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
pud
901
Easy, a crip. "Collier Cobb's Geology I is a pud — take that."
puddin'
A term of endearment.
What's your name?
Pudding and tame.
Look up the black dog's ass
And you'll see the same.
(A vulgar rhyme.)
puddin '-headed
A stupid person.
puddle
To urinate.
puddle-jumper
A sorry secondhand car, or a worn-out horse.
puff like a steam engine
To breathe heavily after activity.
puff adder
A harmless snake. We boys used to kill them after we had stirred them up
and got them to puff out their throats in frightful distension.
puffball
Devil's snuff box.
puff guts
A fat person.
puke 'em
A jocular but somewhat cynical rhyme relative to medicinal practices in the
saddlebag days when the doctors had little or no medicines to cure anything:
Puke 'em, purge 'em,
Bleed 'em, sweat 'em.
If they die, then
Damnit, let 'em.
puke weed
Vomitweed, Indian tobacco.
pull
To serve time in jail, the penitentiary or on the chain gang. "He's got to
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Paul Green's Wordbook
pull two years on the road."
If pull won't work, try shove.
pull a face
To grimace.
pull a long bow
To exaggerate, to cut a splurge.
pull a plug on
To deflate, to contradict, scuttle.
pull coattails
Influence by gifts or bribery, or by flattery or servile obedience.
pull down
To weaken by sickness. Also win in a handspike lifting contest by pulling
the other fellow down.
pull down on
To shoot, as at an escaping prisoner.
pulled
Referring to being stopped for some highway lawbreaking.
pullet
A teen-age girl.
pulley-bone
The chicken wishbone. We used to always do our little folk act at the table
when one found a wishbone. Two people grasped the prongs of the wishbone,
each made a silent wish and then they pulled till the prongs broke. The one
who got the longer piece of bone was the winner. Also we played that he
could hang this longer piece over the door, and the next person to enter would
be the one he or she would marry.
pullikins
Forceps. When I was a little boy once I had a sore tooth, and my father
told me to go across the creek to see John Allen Matthews and get him to
use his pullikins on it. So I walked over to Mr. Matthews' house, about two
miles away. He was a blacksmith, a great big portly man with huge dirty
hands. He told me to open my mouth. He felt the tooth. Then he got out
a pair of rusty pliers, which he called pullikins. He took hold of the tooth
and yanked it out. "That'll cost you a quarter," he said. I had happened
to bring some money because, as everybody knew, Mr. John Allen was very
stingy. He was a moneylender and nearly every year my father would borrow
fifty dollars from him in the spring, get forty and pay the fifty back at six
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
903
percent interest in the fall.
Another man who used the pullikins a great deal was one Duncan Deer.
He was a Valley strong man and lies buried there in the Little Bethel
churchyard with a stone over him, inscribed to his virtues as a good Christian
and provider for his family. Nothing was said about Duncan Deer's high
temper and his proclivity for fighting. He was a cantankerous fellow and,
like bully Major Walker who lived farther down the Valley near Wilmington,
he was always in a row at any public meeting. For instance, he rarely went
to a shooting match or election or a sociable that he didn't whip at least
two or three people. No man was a match for him. It was said that once
when his prize bull attacked him in the pasture, he grabbed the animal up
in his arms, squeezed him till he bellowed, then threw him over the fence
into the woods, saying to the bull that if he ever came back there he'd catch
him by the nose and horns and twist his damned head off. Whether the bull
understood him or not, the animal struck the ground running and raised
the dust going away from there. Nor was he ever seen around Duncan's place
anymore. Duncan repented of his act and finally advertised in the county
paper for the bull but in vain. Duncan had a quaint custom connected with
his fighting. He always carried a pair of pullikins in his pocket and when
he'd get his opponent down on the ground, he'd extract one of his teeth
and let him up. If he happened to have a second fight with the same man,
he'd pull two teeth and a third time three. Folks were afraid of Duncan Deer
all right and few were sorry when his turbulence ended in death, a quiet death
in his sleep, from a heart attack, the doctors said. Yes, death was one strong
man he couldn't whip.
pull in
To arrest.
like pulling eyeteeth
A difficult job, a tough task.
Roger Bethune and Corliss Neal got into a fight down near Linden,
and Corliss broke out one of Roger's teeth, root and all, so it was said. Being
a blacksmith and a toothpuller too, Corliss made Roger a new tooth out
of a piece of hickory wood and then drove it in and said, "Now, Roger,
you're fixed good as new." They both were drunk and, of course, Roger
was as addled as Corliss was. Well, next day when he sobered up, his new
eyetooth gave him a fit. The dampness in his mouth had caused it to swell
as if he'd been stung by a swarm of hornets. He was a looking sight, as they
say in the Valley. His wife drove him fast to Dunn and Doctor Bain, the
dentist, nearly tore off his jaw, so Roger reported later, getting that wood
tooth separated from him. Corliss had certainly done a good job. Dr. Bain
looked at him and said, "I've always known how hard it is to pull an eyetooth,
Roger, but, my, my, this is the worst job I've ever had." And so he let him
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Paul Green's Wordbook
loose, and Roger went straight to the hardware store, bought himself a pistol
and went looking for Corliss. But some of their friends stopped him and
persuaded him to give up the gun. From that day till he died, he and Corliss
had no dealing with each other.
pulling fodder
See "fodder bundle."
pull in one's horns
To back down from a fight, or to renege on one's too-forward bet or
statement.
pull in the collar
To work energetically, faithfully. "That's a good mule, he's always ready
to pull in the collar."
pull off
To commit, to perform, to get done. "If he can pull off that scheme, he
might become president."
pull one's freight
To leave, to hurry away.
pull one's leg
To fool, to trick.
pull one's load
Do one's part.
pull-ons
A pair of women's drawers.
pull out
To quit, resign.' 'He gets mad in every game, and look for him to pull out.''
pull over
To move to one side, to stop. "Pull over, buddy, you're going too fast."
pull strings
To use influence, to get one's way.
pull the chain on
To repudiate, to betray. " I had that job all staked out till the boss pulled
the chain on me."
pull the rug out from under
To let down, to remove support.
pull the wool over one's eyes
To fool, to outwit.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
905
pull through
To live through a serious illness. "Have you heard? Cleveland Matthews
is down mighty low with the fever — and he's not expected to pull through.''
pull up
Toarrive, stop. "When I pulled up here yesterday, I saw my first magnolia
in bloom."
pull up stakes
Leave, sell out and go to another place to do business.
pulp magazine
A cheap publication.
pumped
Interrogated.
pumpkin
A facetious term of praise. "He's some pumpkin."
Before pumpkins are suitable for eating, frost must fall upon them.
pump one's peter (prick)
To masturbate.
pumps
Low-cut ladies' shoes.
beat to the punch
To get there first, to strike first.
to lose one's punch
To lose heart, interest or desire. To become melancholic.
Punch Board
A guessing game. One person stands with his back toward the others. Then
someone punches him once in the back. He turns around quickly and tries
to guess who it was. If he is successful, the player who is guessed must take
his place and be punched.
Punctuality is the soul of business.
to puncture one's balloon
To deflate one's self-esteem, ego.
punish
To suffer, to endure. "I got arthuritis mighty bad and at night I can't sleep.
I just lie there and punish and punish."
The punishment fits the crime.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
punk
Rotten wood, usually the wood of a pine stump.
A worthless, degenerate person, a gangster hanger-on.
To feel sick, down-spirited, melancholic.
punkin
Pumpkin. Also a term of affection.
punying or on the puny list
To be ailing, to be under the weather.
puppy
A young fellow, an adolescent boy.
puppy love
Adolescent infatuation.
pure
Complete, absolute, entire. "That's the pure truth I'm telling you."
as pure as an angel
as pure as driven snow
as pure as gold
as pure as snow
as pure as the lilies of May
Unto the pure all things are pure,
pure gold
Of irreproachable character.
purellia
A Valley flower, the twin bluebell.
purely more
Really, certainly. Used for emphasis.' 'He purely more laid the hickory on."
purging
The death froth on the lips of a corpse.
purp
Pup.
purple
Royal.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
907
A full purse has many friends.
You can't make a silkpurse out of a sow's ear.
purslane
"Pussly," a garden curse. My father used to have us children pull it from
the garden to feed to the hogs.
purty
Pretty.
Purty is as purty does.
Same as Handsome is as handsome does.
purty fix
Used satirically of a bad situation or a bind.
purty-looking sight
A satirical term.
Purvis
The last man hanged in my native county of Harnett. I remember hearing
about the hanging when I was a boy, and my older half-brother John once
pointed out to me some of the pieces of the timber of the scaffolding down
just below the old courthouse in Lillington. I was so impressed by the story
of Purvis and his fate that I used his name more than once in different
folkplays and stories. Recently Malcolm Fowler, the Cape Fear Valley
historian, and I were meeting in Lillington and we took a walk down below
the courthouse and stood there where Purvis was hanged and talked some
about that occasion. Then Malcolm told me something that I'd never heard
connected with the hanging. He said that it had been handed on down in
the neighborhood that there was a folk belief that a man when he was hanged
usually had a sexual orgasm. And Malcolm said that some of the
Lillingtonians or Harnett County roughnecks laid bets that this would
happen in the case of Purvis. So Malcolm said the story goes that immediately
after Purvis was hanged and his body was swinging there in the air several
of these bettors ringed around him to hide him from view, took down his
trousers and sure enough, according to the story, he had ejaculated.
push
Ambition, drive, energy.
A push is equal to a pull.
When push comes to shove, things have got to move.
A critical situation, a time that calls for action.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
pushed for
In lack of, short of. "I'm pushed for time right now and I can't come over
there."
pushing up daisies
To be dead, buried.
push in the collar
To work very hard.
pushover
A gullible person. "He's always been a pushover where women are
concerned."
push the stop button
To put an end to.
puss
Face, a countenance.' 'After his girl kicked him he went around with a sour
puss for a whole year."
pussly
Purslane.
pussy
Cunt. The female pudendum, also the act of copulation." He was determined
on a piece of pussy from that woman and finally he got it, and he got more
than that — Amen. Dr. Jones is treating him."
pussy bandit
A rapist.
"Pussy Cat, pussy cat, where have you been?"
"I've been up to London to look at the queen."
"Pussy Cat, pussy cat, what did you there?"
"I frightened a little mouse under a chair."
(A jingle.)
pussy-gutted
The same as pustle-gutted.
Pussy Wants a Corner
A game, also known as Poor Pussy Cat. Each child gets into a corner of
a room, and one child stays out, wandering from one to another. He calls
out, "Pussy wants a corner," and puts on quite a show of "Poor pussy,
poor pussy!" making a meow the while. As pussy goes around asking for
a corner, the answer always is "Go to the next neighbor." As she moves
from one neighbor to another, the last two players try to change corners
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
909
and pussy tries to slip into one of them before the new occupant reaches
it. If she is successful, that player becomes the homeless "poorpussy," and
the game goes on.
pustle-gutted or pustle-gut
Pot-bellied. A term used in reference to a mule. "You can't make a good
crop with that old pustle-gut."
Put a Bird in My Cup
A popular game with young people. It was sometimes called "Pretty (Purty)
Bird in My Cup.'' A group would be assembled in a room. The first player,
often chosen by a counting-out rhyme or simply agreed upon, would stand
facing the players, holding a cup with water in it in one hand and a balledup rag in the other. He would dip the rag in the water now and then to keep
it sopping wet. In his mind he would choose a bird and give slight hints as
to what it was, as to color, song, habits, etc. The players in turn would try
to guess the bird. The lucky (or unlucky) one who guessed correctly would
receive the wet rag full in his face if the aim was good. Then he would become
"It" and the game would continue.
put a bug in one's ear
To tell a secret or give a warning.
put across
To settle a deal, to achieve a victory or win out in a contest.
to put a nail in one's coffin
To shorten one's life by some ill behavior or act.
put a saddle on backwards
To get things all mixed up or the unimportant things first.
put a spoke in one's wheel
To hinder, to stop, to confine.
put away
To eat, to drink excessively. "I saw Damon Runyon put away two pots of
coffee one day at lunch in Hollywood."
To bury. "I can't come Monday. I've got to go help put away Miss Minty
Gaskins."
put 'em up
A hold-up command to raise one's arms.
put heads together
To take counsel one with the other.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
put it past one
To fool or try to deceive. "You say you wouldn't leave your cash register
unlocked? — Well, I wouldn't put it past that fellow about stealing."
put my mouth on him
To scold.
put off on
To disparage unduly, to belittle.
Never put off till tomorrow what should be done today.
put off the big blanket
To return to simplicity, to relax.
put-on
Pretense, proud behavior. "Such a put-on as she was I never saw before."
"She said she was sick but it was all a put-on."
to be put on (upon)
To be abused, mistreated, having to do more than one's share.
put one on
To fool or deceive one. "I don't mean to put you on but that's the way it is."
put one's cards on the table
To come clean, to be frank and honest.
put one's feet under the table
Make oneself at home in another's house, accept hospitality, make a visit.
put one's foot down
To act emphatically, give a stern command.
put one's foot in his mouth
To make a faux pas, to speak out of turn or to act or speak awkwardly.
put on the dog
To act vainly, behave over-showily, assume a false grandeur.
to put on the shelf
To retire a person from action, to exclude. "Yes, Paul, they've put me on
the shelf now that I'm so old."
put out
To disappoint, to embarrass. "John will be terribly put out if you don't
wait for him."
To hurry off. "He got mad and put out for home."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
911
To work hard, be energetic, also used sexually. "She's a woman that puts
out, yessir."
To set, to start. "He put out a fire in the woods and the county slam nearly
'bout burnt up."
Irritated. "I was so put out about his telling that lie on me I couldn't shake
hands with him at church."
put out the light
To kill.
put over
To close a deal, to accomplish a purpose.
put pepper in his nose
To irritate, to bother.
putt
Put. "Putt your hand in your pocket just one more time, hoss cake, and
next time you go to buy gloves you won't need but one."
putter-on
A pretender, a hypocrite, a phony-acting person.
put that in one's pipe and smoke it
To consider thoroughly, to deliberate. To accept without argument.
put the bee on
To point out, to accuse, put responsibility on. Also to ask for a loan. "The
very first day we got acquainted he put the bee on me for twenty-five dollars.''
put the big pot in the little pot
Overflowing hospitality.
put the finger on
To identify, to point out.
put the mouth on
To curse, to damn.
put the saddle on the wrong horse
To come to the .vrong conclusion, to trust in the wrong person.
put the wind up
Create fear.
put the wood to
To put the hickory to, to trash, whip, punish.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
put through the mill
To be given a hard time, a hard course of sprouts, a tough titty to suck.
put to bed with a pick and shovel
Buried.
put (out) to grass
Retired, put on one's own responsibility.
hard put to it
In difficult circumstances.
putty
A weak-willed person. "Poor Luther, he's just putty in that woman's
hands."
put up
To preserve foods by canning. "I put up forty quarts of snap beans this
summer."
put up at
To stop over, to have quarters. "The preacher's putting up at our house."
put-up job
A prearranged agreement, usually a planned deception.
put up or shut up
Act or quit talking about it.
put your money where your mouth is
Be willing to back up loud opinion with work or contribution.
pyeart
Pert, well, lively.
pyeart as a cricket
pyearten up
To be reinvigorated.' 'Take a dram of this liquor, it will pyearten you up."
Pyramid
A children's game in which they stand on top of one another til the last one
is unable to mount higher.
pyxie plant (moss)
A rare and shy little flower that is rarely found anywhere except in scattered
places in the Carolina sandhills.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
913
Q
on the Q. T.
On the quiet, secretly.
quack
A phony, an impostor.
quack doctor
A pseudo-medical impostor, sometimes called a root doctor, dust doctor,
voodoo doctor, or whatnot, a hypocritical doctor cure-all.
One of the most flamboyant I ever met up with was named Dr.
Nanzooka, or such was his name, he said. He was a big, heavy-set, swarthy
man with fat hanging jowls and wore his grayish dank black hair down in
a roll on his shoulders. He used to pay periodical visits to the different villages
and towns in the Valley, usually using a local drugstore as his headquarters
and filling the glass showcase windows with all sorts of flamboyant and highly
advertised bottles and salves and different cures. He always took out good
blazing advertisements in the local papers and usually went away with a good
harvest of the farmers' dollars. I once wrote a one-act play about him, he
impressed me so. One of his advertisement handbills which I have before
me runs as follows:
"Dr. Nanzooka's extraordinary miraculous remedies. Money will be
returned if cures are not effected according to contract. Dr. Nanzooka
intends to remain in the city only a few days longer before he moves on to
Fayetteville and Wilmington where his medicines are in great demand. So
STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN, all who now suffer with incurable diseases
for you can be cured. Dr. Nanzooka stands by his affidavit and honorable
word to give immediate relief for cancers, boils, tetters, rheumatism, scurvy,
scrofula, dropsy, piles, fistula, female obstructures, gravel, nervous
dyspepsia, skin and blood disease, bone swelling, aches and pains generally,
nightmares, neuralgia, kidney trouble and stricture. Also he is the sole agent
�914
Paul Green's Wordbook
for Monsieur Lafacteur's true robanti syphilitique, an invaluable remedy
for that dreaded disease or continental mal d'amour. Don't hesitate nor
be ashamed—tell Dr. Nanzooka everything, MAN, WOMAN, and CHILD,
for his life and science are dedicated to helping you. Buy today Dr.
Nanzooka's Blenorragia Composition Salve, derived from a laboratory
mixture of the balsam of Copivia, Tolu, Peru, Styrax, and Canada, and
especially prepared for those disorders which are driven in to the blood stream
and which unless stopped at once will convert the loveliest person into a
mass of corruption. One dollar the full box. COME ONE, COME ALL,
as was said by the Great Healer himself."
I asked Dr. McKeithan why in the world he and the North Carolina
Medical Association didn't indict the quack and run him out of the country,
for he and his kind were doing a world of damage. The doctor said they
already had indicted him several times and in vain for no jury in the whole
Valley was ever willing to find a true bill against him. Too many of them
believed they had been helped by Dr. Nanzooka and "no doubt," said Dr.
McKeithan, "they had. That is, they were helped as long as they believed
in his cures and most of them believed."
While I was a student at Chapel Hill I visited Dr. Nanzooka one day
in Durham, and there was a line of people in front of the drugstore waiting
to go in, and each one would come out with a bottle of Nanzooka's remedy
which he'd bought. Finally, I got on in and met the doctor in the back room.
I told him about my arm, took off my coat, rolled up my sleeve and showed
him the great scar that the Johns Hopkins doctors had left when they cut
out the diseased bone, me being sorely beset years before by osteomyelitis.
I told him my arm still pained me which was no lie — at the moment it wasn't.
And then he said he had a cure for that. This was a common enough disease
and he could assure me that if I would take this bottle of tonic I would
immediately get relief. The price was $1.50, and he brought out some salve
too that, as I remember, was fifty cents for each little tin box. Then I told
him that really what I wanted was to talk to him a bit. I asked him if he
remembered ever getting a letter from a fellow named Green. Earlier I had
got his address in New Jersey somewhere and had written him asking for
an interview. He said that maybe his secretary had got it, but he had never
got it. Then he grew suspicious.
"What do you want, young fellow, really, what are you after?"
"Just that," I said, "I want to talk with you. You really believe that
this medicine is good?"
"Of course I believe it or I wouldn't be selling it. Are you trying to
accuse me of being a crook?"
"No sir."
"Well, get out of here!" he shouted.
And his eyes gleamed at me so that I was glad to get out of there without
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
915
being attacked for my foolish question. So I went off and wrote my play.
I didn't make as much money out of that play as he made out of his
medicine, of course, for I couldn't reach as big an audience. Later I heard
he had built himself a fine estate out of his profits there in New Jersey. And
later too I heard he had committed suicide.
quagmar
Quagmire.
as quair (queer) as Dick's hatband which went around nine times and wouldn't tie
a quaker bargain
An honest agreement or reliable arrangement.
quaker-ladies
The spring bluets. This modest and demure little flower is one of the earliest
to appear in the spring. We children, when warm spring came in March,
were always on the lookout for these quaker-ladies. Their arrival meant that
winter was passed and we could go barefoot again. Another of its fitting
names is innocence. Unlike most flowers in the Valley, it seems to have no
medicinal virtues.
Quakers
The Religious Society of Friends founded in England about 1652 by George
Fox. The term "Quaker" was originally disparaging in that the believers
were said to tremble or quake violently with religious emotion. Fox preached
that they should "tremble at the word of the Lord." The Quakers believe
in peace and brotherhood and are strongly opposed to war. The sect was
always small in the Valley, and their main following and congregations were
in its upper reaches. With the coming of the Civil War their opposition to
both it and slavery caused them much trouble and persecution and finally
the removal of the maj ority of them to the middle west. Like the Moravians,
the Quakers' influence in world affairs has always been strong though their
numbers remain small — small by comparison, say, with the Catholics or
Baptists. At the present (1981) there are less than 300,000 Quakers in the
whole world, and becoming fewer every year.
For me the Quakers have one weakness. They do not care for music in their
services.
quality
Aristocratic, high-class, blue-blooded. "You might know quality lives in
a house as big as that."
quality before quantity
The quality of mercy is not strained.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
qualmish
Nauseated.
quanch
Quench.
quare (quair)
Queer.
It takes two to make a quarrel.
quart size
Small. "He's easy to whup — he's only quart size."
quartering time
The time halfway between noon and 6 o'clock quitting time, usually around
3:00 p.m.
quarter-session
The old-timey custom of holding court every three months.
queasy
Uneasy, sickish.
queen
A pretty girl, often a spoiled one.
live like a queen
She is the queen of the hive.
Queen Anne's lace
Sometimes called bird's nest, wild carrot or devil's plague. A tremendously
prolific wild plant that colors the hedges and whole fields white with its lacy,
delicate blossoms in spring and summer. The root of the plant has been
recommended as a poultice for ulcers and even for dropsy.
queen bee
A spoiled, egocentric female.
Queenie
A common name for a female dog.
Queen of Scotland
See "mail-order marriage."
a queer
A misfit, a homosexual.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
917
queer fish
A misfit, same as a square.
queer place
The asylum.
on queer street
A condition of mental disturbance. "He can't talk sense, he's on queer
street."
There are two sides to every question.
Ask me no questions
I'll tell you no lies.
Give me no peaches,
I'll bake you no pies.
quick
Quicksand.' 'My heifer got tangled up down in the quick, and I had a devil
of a time getting her out of there."
Raw nerve, the heart, the most sensitive part. "When that tooth dentist's
drill hit the quick, seemed like a sledge hammer had struck me 'side the head.''
as quick as a cat
as quick as a flash
as quick as a shot
as quick as a squirrel
as quick as batting an eye
as quick as lightning
as quick as the devil
as quick as thought
quicker than a rabbit to his hole
quicker than you could say Jack Robinson
quicker than you could say scat
quickmar
Quagmire.
quick one
A quick drink of liquor, taken usually as a small drink, preparatory to
hurrying off.
�918
Paul Green's Wordbook
quick on the trigger
Unstable, fiery.
a quicky (quickie)
Same as a quick one.
A quiet tongue shows a wise head.
as quiet as a graveyard
as quiet as a mole
as quiet as a mouse
as quiet as an eel swimming in oil
as quiet as death
as quiet as the grave
as quiet as the inside of a coffin
as quiet as the inside of a grave
as quiet as the tomb
on the quiet
Secretly, hush-hush.
so quiet you could hear a pin drop
quietus
Death. "When I had that Yankee blinded with the tobacco juice I spet in
his eye, then I give him the quietus with my musket butt."
quile
Coil.
quile up
Coil up, to get sullen, to become angry. "Don't set there all quiled up."
quilting party
A get together of neighborhood women for quilt-making. Although blankets
are available in stores everywhere for bed covering, quilts are still used in
the Valley, not only as such covering but often as show pieces of folk art.
Quillings would often last three or four days, and in that time as the women
sewed they enjoyed every possible item of gossip and local news. When the
quilting was done, the woman of the house would invite other neighbors,
both men and women, in for a party.
One of my earliest remembrances is of my mother's quilting frames
resting on four chairs and four or five women gathered around them with
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
919
their needles going and the patterned quilt gradually growing into its final
and many-colored completion.
My sister Mary (Mrs. Alton Johnson of Lillington, N.C.) is an expert
on quilts and has made and helped make many a one. I asked her to comment
on the matter, and she writes me most enthusiastically as follows:
"No woman with an eye for color, a love of beauty, the familiar feel
of a threaded needle in her hand, with a firm fitting thimble on her middle
finger and a box or bag of multicolored scraps left over from the making
of the family clothing should ever deny herself the satisfying joy of making
a quilt! Quilt-making is as much a part of the beginning of America as cabin
building and was an important means of fulfilling most women's creative
urge.
"Busy hands help ease the anxious spirit, they help long hours pass
swiftly, and they add joy to the dreams and longings that perhaps may never
come true. As the stalwart men raised the snug, windproof cabins, the equally
stalwart wives and mothers wove the cloth that made the garments that kept
the family clothed, and made the coverlets that kept them warm through
the cold nights of winter. In quiltmaking, the cast-off, worn pieces of clothing
that no longer served their purposes were often used, for material was not
plentiful or even available to the early pioneers. Actually the story of the
quilt is a record of the human family.
"The rich and the poor, the high and the lowly, the learned and
unlearned, at some time in the development of our country did some form
of putting a quilt together, maybe not for warmth always, sometimes for
peace of mind and the need to be busy.
' 'Today in England at Hardwick Hall beautiful examples of quiltmaking
can be seen, the work of Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scots, made while she
was imprisoned there for so long a time. No accurate record, so far, has
been found to tell us when and where the first quilt was assembled.
"We do have examples from some of the early civilizations, showing
that spinning and weaving brought forth the first fabrics which evolved into
covers out of necessity to meet a basic human need. The art of making stitches
through three layers of material may have had its origin in India, Persia
or Egypt. This, too, came about because of man's need for warm covering
in cold weather. Today quilt-making has become one of the arts, and the
most intricate, lovely quilts never cover man, woman or child for the purpose
of warmth; rather, they become wall hangings, bedspreads, draperies,
museum pieces, real treasures to cherish and keep and to hand down to some
lucky child, grandchild or even great-grandchild.
" F d like to comment on some of the older patterns I remember seeing
when I was a child growing up in a rural community where our home was:
"North Carolina Lily: This pattern has become a favorite of quiltmakers and is included in many of the quilt books being published today.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
When we were children, we had a quilt in our home made by our mother
when she was sixteen years old, using this pattern. The colors were faded,
the material worn and ragged, but our Aunt copied it for us and today in
our family this lovely quilt is treasured.
"Dark green, wine red and deep orange were the colors used, and
months of searching for these true colors was necessary before we were ever
able to assemble them. The result is a most exquisite example of fine
needlework; the tiny stitches taken to put the design together, joining the
blocks, the border, then the final three layers —top, filling and lining —
and then quilting tiny stitches in a most intricate design. This is a treasure
to be cherished, and I hope some day it will hang in a very special historical
place.
"Also as a child I remember another quilt in our home, The Double
Irish Chain: Made in an all-over pattern of 1 Vi -inch rectangles of green and
white, the design made a pattern of chains across the entire surface of the
quilt and was very effective. This too has been copied and is owned by a
member of our family.
"Below are listed other old and popular patterns. Any quilt book
published today on this old art will have these, and many of the books will
illustrate the pattern and one can make a tracing of it, true and accurate
— Monkey Wrench, Fox and the Geese, Grandmother's Flower Garden,
Dresden Plate, Log Cabin, Le Moyne Star, Star of Bethlehem, Road to
California, and Turkey Tracks.
"Any or all of these, made up in colors of one's choosing (if the
workmanship is good), could someday become a collector's item, eagerly
sought by young couples who want to go back to the land to make their
home and want to furnish this home in early American items. Even the very
rich sometimes use quilts to decorate with.
"Several years ago in a well-known woman's magazine a very wealthy
American woman's bedroom was pictured and quilts were the items used
for emphasis. Bedspread, draperies, dressing table and a small round table
were decorated with quilts. It was lovely too. Such a display of early
American art was heartwarming.
"The word quilt reminds us that some of you dear readers may not
know how one comes into being. A quilt is composed first of a top — pieced,
appliqued, embroidered, even stenciled — and then a layer of cotton batting
for filling and a lining — material, mostly cream colored. These three layers
are placed in a frame, and small, even stitches go in and out to hold them
together. Sometimes in the border, which is mostly solid color, a very fancy
and lovely design is quilted. Often an original design by the maker of the
quilt is used. Sometimes what is known as "quilting by the piece" is
employed. This includes going around the individual patchwork.
"We have come a long way from early quilt-making. In this busy,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
921
modernized age in which a lot of homemakers hold jobs outside the home,
they simply do not have time to cut the pieces, put together all these pieces,
and quilt what they have created. So the fabric manufacturers are copying
old quilt patterns in all-over designs. With a machine quilting and binding
a filler to the top, a homemaker can buy two widths in the desired length,
seam them together, bind the edges and, lo and behold, she has a good
reproduction of the motifs of the design to give her the feeling that she has
had a part in 'quilting her quilt.' I've seen some very colorful and lovely
designs in some of the fabric centers.
"Another method is to choose the pattern you want, select the colors
that go with your decor, then order your quilt that has been cut out for you
— every piece. What joy to start and never have to stop to cut more pieces!
This, I think, is the next best method to doing it all 'from scratch.' "
Thanks, Mary!
One of our favorite Valley picnic songs was "Aunt Dinah's Quilting
Party,'' written and composed nearly a hundred years ago by Joseph Fletcher
and Francis Kyle.
"In the sky the bright stars glittered,
On the bank the pale moon shone—
And 'twas from Aunt Dinah's quilting party
I was seeing Nellie home."
Refrain
"I was seeing Nellie home,
I was seeing Nellie home,
And 'twas from Aunt Dinah's quilting party
I was seeing Nellie home.
"On my arm a soft hand rested,
Rested light as ocean foam,
And 'twas from Aunt Dinah's quilting party
I was seeing Nellie home.
"On my lips a whisper trembled
Trembled 'till it dared to come,
And 'twas from Aunt Dinah's quilting party
I was seeing Nellie home."
quinine
The reliable medicine for malaria.
When I was a boy, malaria was widespread every summer in the Valley.
I remember Dr. Joe McKay prescribed so much quinine for me that my head
roared with the sound of a great wind much like the sound, I imagined,
suffering Job heard when God spoke to him out of the whirlwind. But it
�922
Paul Green's Wordbook
cured me. Malaria is now a thing of the past there.
quirk
An irrational strain or flaw, a deceitful trick.
quirl
Coil, curl.
quits
To stop, and, also, to make peace. "You're both bloody as hogs now and
you better call it quits."
quitter
A failure, a coward.
quitting time
Sunset.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
923
R
rabbit
A timid person, a simpleton.
Rabbit up a gum stump,
Possum in the hollow,
Daddy spanks my ding-dong,
Listen to me holler.
Rabbit up a gum stump,
Possum in the hollow,
Big gal down at Pappy's house,
Fat as she can wallow.
(Recitation rhymes.)
rabbit ears
The two adjustable antennae on an indoor TV set.
rabbit eggs
There's a child's superstition that the rabbit brings eggs at Easter.
rabbit foot
A good luck fetish, especially if it's the left hind leg of the graveyard rabbit.
I remember hearing Will Rogers raise comment much to the point when a
good luck rabbit's foot was shown him on one of his films. "That rabbit
had four feet and look what happened to him."
rabbit tobacco
The pearly everlasting. We boys used to gather it in the early fall and chew
it and smoke it and walk about in braggadocio. Little big men. It was also
used as a tea in the treatment of colds.
The raccoon has a ring tail,
The possum's tail is bare.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
The rabbit has no tail at all
But a little bunch of hair.
(A recitation rhyme.)
The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.
race prejudice
A narrow and parochial attitude of one person or group toward another,
especially that of the white toward the Negro and the Negro toward the white.
racer
The common blacksnake, usually spoken of as the black racer.
rack
Small summer clouds that usually form in the hot weather to the west,
sometimes coagulating and building up to a great thunderstorm.
To walk in a hurry, or as the pacing of a horse is sometimes called.
raddled
Wrinkled, weather-worn.
radish
One of the earliest garden vegetables. Also a cheap timepiece. "What time
does your radish say?"
raft
rag
A great many, a multitude, as a raft of children.
A flag, a handkerchief.
To tease, to backbite, to harrass.
That takes the rag off the bush.
I lit a rag going up the road.
Go in a hurry.
rag bag
A motley collection of odds and ends.
A ragged colt may make a good horse.
ragtag
The rabble, the poor whites, the peckerwoods.
ragtag and bobtail
Trifling people, same as poor whites.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
925
ragweed
A prolific weed throughout the Valley and the curse to hay fever victims
through the summer. The old people used to think that ragweed would cure
warts. Maybe it would.
rail fence
The zigzag fence, often called snake fence or worm fence, made from split
rails and in the old days common throughout the Valley. The farms, when
I was a child, were fenced in and the hogs and cattle ran loose to eat acorns
and graze in the reeds in the swamps. These rails were split usually from
ten-foot lengths of longleaf pine logs, and the fence was from nine to ten
rails high, up about as high as a man's shoulders. Bottom fence rails were
chosen for their solid heart and long lasting against rot. Men used to measure
their strength by bragging about how many rails they could split in a day.
I remember hearing Clinton McNeill, a hard-working Negro, say once that
he split a thousand rails on one day in his life.
Railroad Mills
A popular strong snuff.
railroad time
The correct time, especially reliable time, absolute truth.' 'Boy, I'm running
on railroad time."
Evening red and morning gray
Sets the traveler on his way.
Evening gray and morning red
Brings down rain upon his head.
Rain before seven, fair by eleven.
Rain, come wet me.
Sun, come dry me.
Stand back, white man,
Don't come nigh me.
(A recitation rhyme.)
Rain falling while the sun shines forecasts rain again the next day. It also means
the devil is beating his wife.
Rain, rain, go away.
Little Tommie wants to play.
Wait and come another day.
Rain, rain, go away.
(A wish rhyme. We children used to substitute our own names the
while, with noses against the windowpanes, we chanted our rhyme.)
�926
Paul Green's Wordbook
The rain doesn't know broadcloth from jeans.
If distant sounds are heard very clearly, it means rain is coming.
More rain, more rest,
All fair weather's not the best.
He sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
He receives as rain that which he gives back as mist.
A small rain will lay a great dust.
rainbow
A sign of God's friendship to man, also a weather sign.
Rainbow in the morning
Sailors take warning.
Rainbow at night
Sailors' delight.
At the end of the rainbow you will find a pot of gold.
rain cats and dogs
A heavy downpour.
rain check
A temporarily delayed invitation. "I can't come over tonight to see what
you've done in redecorating the library, but may I have a rain check?"
rain crow (the yellow-billed cuckoo)
The calling of the rain crow foretells the coming of rain.
One raindrop
Can't make a crop.
(Weather prophecy.)
The calling of the rain frog means rain.
rain or shine
Without fail, certain. "I'll be there Monday morning, rain or shine."
It never rains but it pours.
rain seeds
Mottled clouds. Little racks in the sky, usually dark ones that denote the
coming of thickening clouds loaded with rain.
rainy day
A time of need, hard times, that far-off time that haunts people with
apprehension. "Be sure to save up something for a rainy day."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
927
A rainy today means a sunny tomorow.
A rainy wedding day is a sign that the marriage will be unhappy.
"But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My Lord shall raise me up, I trust."
(This is often quoted from Sir Walter Raleigh's poem to
give hope.)
raise Cain
To stir up trouble.
raised
Reared. "I raised my boys right and that's why they are all such a success
today."
raised on prunes and proverbs
Said of a fastidious, prissy or pious person.
raise one's bristles
To be irritated or to respond angrily.
raise sand
Create a fuss, a disturbance.
raise the roof
To cut up, raise a disturbance, complain loudly.
raising
Training, upbringing.' 'The trouble with that fellow is he had no raising.''
rake
Poor, scrawny person.
rake and scrape
To be extremely saving, to work hard, to watch the pennies. "I rake and
scrape to make a living and there you go wasting every dollar you got."
Many bring rakes but few bring shovels.
to rake straw
To rake up pine needles, to do a distasteful job, waste one's time.
rake up
To gather gossip, to search for scandal or past errors. "She's always raking
up that old story about Linda and the peddler."
ram
An over-sexed male.
�928
Paul Green's Wordbook
a rambler
A wandering, irresponsible fellow with sexual intent.
rambunctious
Unruly, high-spirited. "She was a rambunctious widow, raring to go."
ramps
Wild onions.
rampageous
High-spirited, a cutup.
ramrod
To drive a thing through roughshod, to force one to action.' 'He ramrodded
the motion through."
like he had a ramrod down his back
ramption
A mess, also a large crowd. "There was a ramption of people at the funeral.''
ramsack
Ransack.
randy
A boisterous party, a shindig.
running range
Gonorrhea.
rank
Of a high odor, especially of a rutting boar or ram.' 'That was the rankest
billygoat I've ever been around."
rank and file
The common people, the ordinary folks.
rap
rape
To scold, to spank. "Carter is rapping all of us now."
The great Southern bugaboo for which many an innocent Negro has been
lynched or died in the electric chair or gas chamber. Just recently a Negro,
due to the hysterical testimony of the rapee, was condemned to death and
later, commuted to life imprisonment, was found to be absolutely innocent.
But North Carolina, so far as I know, has done nothing more than to pardon
the Negro and say, as Jesse Oxendine said to the girl he had made pregnant,
"Excuse me."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
929
Also a vegetable.
rape artist
A term applied by fellow criminals to one in the penitentiary serving time
for this crime.
rapid
Fast growing, bounteous. Also angry, fiercely antagonistic, ill-humored.
"That sow's mighty rapid since she had pigs — better watch out."
rap jacket
Sometimes spelled "wrap." A contest in physical endurance indulged in
by boys. I remember how at school we used to tear off and see who could
take the worst beating. The opponents would take hands and then with a
heavy switch or even short stick start belaboring each other. No beating in
the face or on the head was allowed, but the rest of the body was fair game.
I have been beaten almost black and blue before I called quits, especially
if a certain yellow-haired little girl was looking on. I would almost die before
I would surrender and call "Calf rope!"
rap on one's ding-dong
To be beaten or to beat on the rear, spank.
rare (or rair) and pitch
To cut up, to give way to anger, to quarrel violently.
r'aring drunk
Very drunk indeed.
rash
Thrash.
raspberry
A derisive sound made by protruding the tongue between the lips and
exploding a sudden rush of air.
ra't
Right.
to rat
To betray, to be a stool pigeon, a traitor.
rat
The stuffing or pad used by women in the early part of the century to roach
up their hair a la Madame Pompadour, and for a few years the height of
fashion.
�930
Paul Green's Wordbook
ratchere
Right here.
I'd rather be a dog and bay at the moon.
I'd rather be right than president.
Rats!
A mild exclamation.
Rats desert a sinking ship.
rat-tailed
Bedraggled, down and out, said of an animal with little hair on its tail.
rattle
To confuse, to embarrass. "I could've spelled that word if I hadn't got
rattled."
rattlebox weed
The common wild pea. It is supposed to be poisonous to horses. We children
used to pluck the dry pods and shake them close to our ears and listen with
delight at the little seeds rattling within.
An empty cart body rattles most.
rattlesnake plantain
This pretty tufted, white, vein-leaved plant appears in all parts of the Valley.
It has been reputed to be a cure for hydrophobia and snakebite. Legend
tells that the Indians had such faith in its virtues that they were not afraid
of snakebites at all and, when bitten, would apply these leaves to the wound
and soon go on as if nothing had happened.
rattlesnake root
A perennial leafy composite plant. It provided a bitter tonic good for
dysentery. Also, it was reputed to be an antidote for insect and snake bites.
rattletrap
A rickety buggy or wagon. "'Take your rattletrap and clear out,' said
the professor to the Negro with his hat in his hand."
rattleweed
Same as wild pea or rattlebox weed. Tea made from this and fed to a sick
cow was supposed to restore her appetite.
ratty
Tattered, moth-eaten, bedraggled.
Don't wait to be fed by the ravens.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
931
in the raw
Naked, in the nude.
Rawhead-and-bloody-bones
A fabled monster, stories of which were and still are used in the Valley to
frighten children. A common warning was and is — "Rawhead-and-bloodybones will get you if you don't behave."
rawhide
A whip, also to whip. "If that old devil keeps fooling with me, I'm going
to rawhide him good." To haze, to ride, to ridicule.
the razoo
The bird, the raspberry, a term of derision.
razorback
A bony sharp-backed hog, usually "forest fattened."
razz
To mock.
razzle-dazzle
Fancy and astonishing doings.
A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for.
Out of reach, out of harm.
read after
To read. "I've been reading after Joe Daniels for fifty years, and I still like
him."
Reading maketh a full man, conversation a ready man and writing an exact man.
read out of the meeting
To dismiss, to turn away from the church, to deny.
read the riot act
To lay down the law.
Ready money is ready medicine.
for real
For sure, certain.
realize
To recognize. "Come closer, chile, see kin I realize you."
real McCoy
A trustworthy matter, a tried and true thing.
�932
Paul Green's Wordbook
ream
To clean out, to completely outdo, to cheat. "I got in that card game, and,
man, did they ream me!"
They have sown the wind and shall reap the whirlwind.
He who would reap well must sow well.
You will reap what you sow.
There's neither rhyme nor reason in it.
in reason
Reasonable.
He rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm.
reckon
To suppose, to believe. "I reckon I know how to act."
red as a beet
red as a cherry
red as a gander's foot
red as a lobster
red as a rose
red as a ruby
red as fire
in the red
To be operating at a loss.
red birch
The birch common in the Valley as contrasted with the white birch which
is better suited to cold climates. The red birch grows along the river banks
and creek banks and used to be used widely in making furniture, outdoor
seats and tables. I remember as a boy how I admired this sort of furniture,
and several times my brother and I went down to the old overgrown Sexton
millpond place and cut red birch saplings and built some of this furniture
for outdoor seats. Later it all rotted away and we lost interest in it.
redbud tree
Also called the Judas tree. It seems there are many kinds of trees on which
poor Judas hanged himself, but this particular one is the only one I know
that has his name. It is a beautiful decorative tree and in the early spring
it is one of the first to put out its shower of rosy blooms. A tea made from
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
933
the bark of this tree is supposed to be good for kidney trouble, especially
kidney trouble in children. Also it is recommended for grownups'
obstructions in the liver and the spleen.
red bug
A devilish and almost infinitesimal pest known as the "chigger." Anyone
wandering in the Southern woods in the hot July and August days had better
anoint himself well beforehand with some sort of protection. Otherwise he
will for the next several days be scratching himself and uttering ungodly
oaths and damnation on this little curse.
a red cent
A term of emphasis. "It didn't cost me one red cent."
Red Coon
A brand of chewing tobacco.
reddish
Radish.
red dog
The ganging up on a single person or player by the opposition.
red ear of corn
A red ear of corn found in a cornshucking entitles the finder to an extra
dram of liquor in moonshining sections and a kiss from a girl there and
elsewhere. See "cornshucking."
red-eye
Especially fiery corn liquor which gets its name from the fact that it turns
the eyes of the drinker red.
redeye gravy
Gravy that results from the frying of country ham meat, especially meat
that is well-cured. How we children used to love to soak our biscuits in it!
red-handed
In the overt act of committing a crime. "He was caught red-handed."
redheaded
High-tempered.
redheaded stepchild
The obstreperous one, the difficult one of the family, an unpopular person.
red-hot
Over-sexed. "He got in with one of these red-hot mommas one night, and
he didn't walk straight for a month."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
red-hot poker
A flamboyant garden flower.
red-letter day
A memorable or lucky day. For hundreds of years the church had the custom
of printing in red letters the holy days or church days, and so any red-letter
day is a day to be remembered.
red-light district
Bawdy house district.
red-neck
Peckerwood, an ignorant farmer class in the South.
red oak
A common tree in the Valley. The bark from this tree is good for all sorts
of troubles and diseases. We used to put the bark in the watering troughs
for the chickens. If they drank the water, it was supposed to make them
lay more eggs. I myself have worn poultices made from meal and red oak
bark water on an aching osteomyelitis arm. My father also used to keep
red oak bark strips in his hog troughs to help keep off the cholera.
red pepper
Any fiery person or doings. Also there was a belief that by blowing red pepper
into a pregnant woman's nostrils the baby would be helped toward coming.
like a red rag to a bull
Infuriating, insulting.
Red Shirts
A rowdy political organization.
In the last years of the 1890's there was an organization known as the
Red Shirts. They were not of the Ku Klux Klan, though their insistence on
white supremacy was the same as the Klan's. They wore red shirts and rode
horseback. Their purpose was mainly "to put the Negro back in his place.''
They were especially strong in the lower part of the Valley, their main
headquarters being in Wilmington. In doing research on racial injustice many
years ago I came across an account of a Negro member of the Populist Party
who started a newspaper in Wilmington. The Red Shirts raided his''plant,''
took his printing press and, as I remember, threw it into the Cape Fear River
and drove him out of town. I was so touched by the account that it was one
of the reasons I started writing a long play on the subject. I changed the
editor to a schoolteacher. The play was later produced in New York and
was awarded a prize by the sympathetic Northerners. See also'' Populism.''
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
935
red shoes
Tan shoes. It used to be the custom when a boy wanted to buy a pair of
tan shoes, he would say to the storekeeper, "I want to get me a pair of red
shoes."
reel
A lively folk dance, such as Virginia Reel. Also a bobbin or part of a spinning
wheel.
I regret I have but one life to give for my country.
regular
A fine character, a good companion, socially approved. "He's a regular
guy, that fellow."
as regular as a clock
as regular as clockwork
Keep a tight rein if you'd drive straight.
reincarnation
The reappearance of the soul of the dead in another human or animal form
and sparingly believed in here and there in the Valley, along with its
concomitant doctrine of Karma. If one lives a moral life in this world, he
is likely to be reborn in a high stage, so the theory holds. If he lives a sinful
life, he will be reborn in a lower stage.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven.
For this relief much thanks.
religion
The relation of man to the infinite, his consciousness of some outside power,
usually absolute, omnipotent and beneficent which has control of him and
to which he owes obedience and worship. This religious feeling or attitude,
of course, is of all kinds, qualities, shapes and sizes, ranging from the most
orgiastic and sexual to the highest type of attitude such as Albert Einstein's
cosmic religion. One of the curses in the Valley for generations had been
the narrow-minded, adamant, irrational and condemnatory orthodoxy —
the belief in the Bible as holy "word for word and from led to led."
religious jerks
Same as holy dance. An orgiastic emotional condition often brought on and
indulged in by excessive preachings and hollerings and wild word visions
spilling hot and precipitately from the preachers' mouths.
The remedy is as bad as the disease.
�936
Paul Green's Wordbook
as well to die with the disease as with the remedy
There is no remedy for ruined character.
There is no remedy in death.
Remember Lot's wife.
Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth.
Remember the ant and the grasshopper.
Remember the sabbath to keep it holy.
remind
To resemble. "You remind me of your dad."
Three removes (moves) are as bad as a fire.
rench
Rinse, to put through a final washing. "Rench the clothes and then hang
them on the line."
rend
Process, render. "I can't get off Saturday, I've got to rend my lard."
Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
It's never too late to repent.
Except ye repent, ye shall likewise perish.
Deathbed repentance is no repentance.
I've not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
reputation
Of good character, good repute.
Better to go hungry than to be without a reputation.
One who loses his reputation has lost his most precious possession.
"Rescue the Perishing"
Another Valley standby hymn. Many a scaly and case-hardened sinner has
been brought to repentance through its marching melody and mellow
barbershop harmony, along with its message of sympathy and love.
"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o'er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
937
Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save."
Refrain
"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying;
Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.
"Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness,
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.
"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save."
resk
rest
Risk.
The remainder, the last. "Eat the rest of your mush, son."
The rest is silence.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
There the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.
I am the resurrection and the life.
"Reuben and Rachel"
A comic domestic song, a sort of dialogue between husband and wife which
was once very popular in the Valley. As I remember it, it began like this
— the man doing the speaking first—
"Rachel, Rachel, I've been thinking
What a fine world this would be
If the women were transported
Far beyond the western sea."
And then Rachel comes back at him and answers—
"Reuben, Reuben," et cetera.
Revenge is sweet.
revved up
Keyed up.
Reynolds Sun-Cured
A brand of chewing tobacco.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
rheumatism
In the old days all aches and pains were ascribed to rheumatism, and there
were hundreds and hundreds of cures offered for it. I remember one of the
most popular in the patent medicine brands was St. Jacob's Oil. And then,
of course, there were multitudinous herb, weed, flower, shrub, and tree cures.
X-ray made it possible to discover other causes and treatments. Arthritis
has now become a more popular term.
rheumatism cure
Lie for a good while on a grave.
rheumatism weed
Same as Indian hemp.
rhubarb
An egregious error, a hassle, a hot useless argument.
Neither rhyme nor reason in it.
rib
A wife. "Ask my old rib there." Also to tease.
Rice thrown on a bride and groom brings the good luck of fertility.
ricebird
The cedar waxwing. In the Valley they were never called waxwings, but
always ricebirds. They often were a curse in eating the early spring grains.
as rich as a king
as rich as Croesus
as rich as dirt
as rich as mud
The rich have many friends.
It's better to be born lucky than rich.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter the kingdom of heaven.
rich as sin
Exceedingly rich. "I made my garden rich as sin with chicken manure."
Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,
Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief.
(A divination rhyme.)
We used to have fun counting the buttons on a person's coat or dress, calling
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
939
them off one by one to fit the words. If the count came out' 'beggar man''
or "thief," gales of laughter resulted.
rick (rack)
To pile up, usually crosswise, as rick (rack) up lumber.
rid
To clean. "Old Miss Kate and Mag Howington could rid the chitlins fast
as we could get 'em to 'em." A little switch was inserted in the long length
of the hog entrails, and then the entrail was turned wrong side out, washed
off and then was ready for cooking. Later they were taken from the pot,
cut up in small pieces and served as a Southern delicacy known as chitlins.
riddle
A sieve, a sifter.
Riddle me no riddles.
ride
To copulate.' 'Casey said just before he died, 'They's two more women that
I want to ride.' "
To tease, to berate, to scold.
Ride a cock horse
To Banbury Cross
To see a fine lady
Upon a white horse.
Rings on her fingers
And bells on her toes,
She shall have music
Wherever she goes.
(A baby foot-riding rhyme.)
This is the way the ladies ride— (three times)—
Pace, pace, pace.
This is the way the gentlemen ride—
Trot, trot, trot.
This is the way the farmers ride
Hobbledehoy, hobbledehoy,
Hobbledehoy and a bump!
(Here the baby or child is let down with a bump.)
(A baby foot-riding rhyme.)
ride herd on
To take care of, to control, look after, to baby-sit.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
ride high
To show off, to be on the pinnacle of success.
ride on a rail
To disgrace one, to drum one out of town.
to take for a ride
To carry a person off to kill him. Also to deceive or cheat.
rides easy as a rocking chair
ride the bushes
To flee, to run away fast. "When them yellow jackets zoomed up out of
the ground, I rid the bushes going away from there."
ride the rail
To move in a hurry, same as burn the wind, or ride the bushes.
riding
Having success, to be getting along well. "That fellow's riding, yea, man,
riding." Same as riding high.
riding academy
A whorehouse. There used to be a riding academy on the right, just north
of Morrisville where a lot of the UNC students would go for "rides," so
I was told. It has been torn down.
riffle
Ripple.
riffraff
Tom, Dick and Harry, the mob, the common people.
rigamaragus
All topsy-turvy, helter-skelter.
right
Very. "I'm right mad at you."
Absolutely, singly, used for emphasis. "I was right by myself when he hit
me."
right as rain
right as trivet
I'd rather be right than be president.
Be sure you are right, then go ahead.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
941
right down
Used for emphasis. " It made me right down mad to hear him talk like that.''
Righteous are thy ways.
The righteous shall flourish.
The righteous shall inherit the land.
Judgments are righteous.
In the house of the righteous is much treasure.
Be not righteous over much.
The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom.
Righteousness exalteth a nation.
right-hand man
A dependable person, a trusted one.
right much
Very much, used for emphasis.' 'Aunt Sarah is right much better, I hear.''
right off the bat
Quickly, at once, unthoughtedly.
right smart
Much, a considerable amount. "We had a right smart turnout at the Legion
meeting last night."
riled (roiled)
Stirred up, made angry, rubbed the wrong way.
rinctum-do
A breakdown, a loud party, a celebration.
Ring out the old, ring in the new.
ring-around
A tetter, a breaking out. There are all sorts of cures for this. One I remember
was to rub the ring-around with the juice of a green walnut hull.
ring around the moon
A weather omen. This means that rain is coming soon. We children used
to be told that if there were any stars in the ring, the number of stars would
denote the number of days before the rain or changed weather would come.
Ring Around the Rosie
A children's game. The players form a circle holding one another's hands
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Paul Green's Wordbook
as they march around a child, or "It," in the center, singing—
"Ring around the Rosie,
Pocket full of posies,
One, two, three - squat!"
The last child to squat or stoop then takes the place of "Rosie" or "It"
in the circle. We used to sometimes sing it —
"Ring around the Rosies,
Pocket full of posies,
Green grass, yellow grass,
All fall down."
ringer
A horseshoe that rings or hugs around the pin in the game of horseshoes,
also an athletic spy.
ring leader
The principal leader, the boss, usually used derogatively.
ring-tailed
An outlandish person or thing, often as a "ring-tailed snorter." A term of
disparagement.
ring-tailed roarer
A brawler, a loud-mouthed braggart.
ring the bell
Hit the mark, succeed well, bring one's purpose to a conclusion.
ringworm
Same as ring-around.
rinky-dinky
Puerile, childish, dull. "My freshman English course at Duke is rinky-dinky,
and I'm bored to death."
riot
rip
A whale of a gathering, a turmoiling happy time. "Mrs. Johnson's party
was a riot."
A reprobate, usually as "old rip."
a rip
A whore.
rip and tear
To act boisterously. Also a fighting fracas.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
943
Soon ripe, soon rotten.
The ripest fruit falls first.
rip-off
A cheating procedure. "A lot of this burial insurance sold to Negroes is
just a rip-off."
rip-tail snorter
A terrific happening, person or thing. "Zack Broadhuss was a rip-tail
snorter." "That storm was a rip-tail snorter."
rise
A flood or freshet. "There's such a rise in the river the flat won't run."
Rise, take up thy bed and walk.
Men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
The higher the rise the greater the fall.
rise and shine
To get up in a hurry and move energetically to begin the day's work.
He is not here for He is risen.
a rising
A boil, a carbuncle.
ritzy
Highfalutin, fashionable, putting on airs.
Do as they do over on the river.
A sort of living up to the Joneses.
Let us pass over the river and rest under the shade of the tree.
A noisy river never drowned nobody.
All the rivers run into the sea and yet the sea is not full.
riz
Rose, past tense of rise.
roach
To mound up, as to roach up a grave.
roaches of the liver
Cirrhosis of the liver, a drying-up and hardening of that organ, usually
attributed to continued overuse of alcohol.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Nello, who shined shoes in the local barbershop and was a long-time
friend of mine, was afflicted with this trouble. One day when I went to the
shop, he was absent, as he often was. To my inquiry the barber gave quite
a voluble and answering discourse.
"What'll it be, Doc?" he first asked, as I stopped by the clothes rack.
He gave his barber cloth a few wide popping flaps in the air and held it
waiting. I took off my coat, loosened my tie and shirt collar and sat down
in the waiting, restful chair.
"A shave and a face massage," I said.
"Right, right as rain," he said. "Make you feel better."
He lowered the chair flat back and spread the cloth over me and began
tucking it in and around my neck. I lay looking up at the heavy fluorescent
light fixture hanging directly and threateningly above. Heavy, yes! He began
stropping his razor.
"A shine too," I said.
"Hey, boy! A shine over here!" he called. He snapped on the lather
mixer. I lay relaxed. It whirred. I closed my eyes. Already I felt better. Now
he slip-slopped creamy soap foam on my cheeks and chin. He began to rub
pressingly.
Outside on the sidewalk the tapping of women's heels went along. I
heard it, visualized a bit, and caught the passing mixture of young people's
voices — Easter shoppers, elated, expectant, generous. Christ is risen —
the fish are biting!
Now came hot towels and more soap foam. This was good. A bit of
more razor-stropping. And then the shaving began. Suddenly a strong hand
lifted my foot and put it up on the shine last. I looked out on the incline
to speak to Nello as usual, but there sat a stranger, an intense square-cut
wide-nostriled young mulatto face, not Nello at all with his wild razor scars
and his shifting restless yellow-balled eyes — Nello, friend to me and my
shoes these long times gone.
"You've got a new man," I finally said to the barber.
"Yeah, yeah, Doc, we have."
"How's Nello getting along?" I asked.
He shaved on a while and the strong new hands applied polish on my
shoes. I was being well looked after, top and bottom. Good.
"Yes," the barber said presently, and I felt him wipe the razor across
the swatch of paper-roll across my breast. "His name's Early. Say, Early,
fix 'fessor's shoes up right, boy. Fix 'em up." He spoke with good and soulbreezy authority.
He concentrated on his j ob. The left side of the face now that the right
was done, and then the upper lip, carefully —tiny, furtive scrapings and
on into the corners of the mouth. Next under the jowls and the chin, and
then slip and up under the lower lip. Again the razor was wiped.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
945
"How's Nello getting on now?" I asked, breathing a bit more freely.
No answer. "Turn Doctor's pants up, boy, or you'll get that blacking
on 'em," the barber said to Early.
"Yessuh," said Early quickly. I felt him fumble about my ankle. Next
he was finishing with the paste on this shoe and was polishing away, now
and then trying to make his shine cloth pop, but without success. Not the
way Nello could do it. Nello could make the train sound of old Ninety-seven
coming around the bend — whoo-whoo, he could really play his railroad
tune with that cloth.
Then a dampening soft palm-smearing with warm water on my face
and a quick second going-over with the razor. Next, three hot towels in
succession and the massaging cream — long squeezing palm strokes, halfbrutal, half-caressing.
"You been working hard, Doc?" the barber said.
"Oh, so-so."
"Writing more plays?" And again his laugh shattered the air. I
wondered some — but not much.
"Well, trying, I guess," I mumbled.
"Soon be time to open up your outdoor dramas again, won't it?"
"Yeah. Time goes by in a hurry."
"Don't it? The older you get the faster it goes. Getting so now seem
like I can hear the Sunday papers falling in front of my gate one 'pon top
of the other." Again he laughed and I could feel him looking about the
barbershop to his fellows with his merry bright blue eyes.
"Yes, and don't the birthdays come fast?"
Rub, rub, rub. "They do." Silence — rub, rub. "Yeh, Nello won't
be with us any more," he finally spoke up, quietly, coldly even, without
interest, a simple reply to a question remembered.
' 'Too bad,'' I said, thinking of the long absences in the past when Nello
was away on the chaingang serving time for drunkenness, for fighting. Poor
Nello!
"I guess you finally got wore out with him." I said.
The barber pushed down and roiled up the drying cream, cleaning out
the dirty and oily pores.
"This is a new kind of cream — really does the work," he said.
"Up—oom—no doubt," I mumbled.
"He was good at shining shoes what time he was sober — Nello, I mean.
That's why we kept him on," he said.
"Yeah, he was a good sort of fellow all the same."
"He was and he wasn't. Never could tell what was on his mind. Never
talked much."
"Not much," I said. "I noticed that."
And I lay remembering the hard crisp calls of the different barbers in
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Paul Green's Wordbook
the shop — "Hey, boy, shine 'em up here. Brush here, boy. Make it snappy.
Can't wait all day" — these calls and orders of times past. And I could see
Nello's flying hands, his quick movements, his extended palm for the coin,
the whiskbroom under his arm, his bows, his mask-like scarred face, the
yellow-balled eyes — the deep brown pupils that looked at you and didn't
look at you — the deep brown pupils smoky and, yes, sightless in their seeing
— or what did they see?
"He was mean when he got full of that old wine,'' said the barber, now
brushing away the dirty crumbs of cream from my face.
"Is he back on the roads again?"
"He may be for all I know,'' and he laughed his shattering laugh once
more. "Yeh, if they've got a chaingang in yonder world."
A tremor went through me. "Why? What's happened to Nello?"
The easing hot towel again now and then another.
"Too hot?"
"Noo-unh."
"Just right?"
"Uhm —yes."
The towel was lifted now, and next began the slow, long, seductive
rubbing, not rough now, not at all, but soothing, sweet, almost like a
woman's tender loving. But something — a worry. Nello — my bruised and
lost and wordless friend. Nello.
"You ain't been in lately," the barber queried and announced
half-accusingly.
"No, I've been staying in sort of close at home."
"Working at your plays?"
"Some."
"You hadn't heard 'bout Nello? He conked out — croaked, I mean."
"What?"
"Yeh, up and died last week."
"Good gracious!" I half sat up as if that would help, then lay back
again.
"Had it coming to him, I reckon," the barber said.
"How you mean?"
"That old wine and stuff. Runs 'em crazy, burns up their liver. Want
some witch hazel, 'Fessor?"
"Yes, oh yes. Anything."
"Mighty good for the tender face. And you're sort of tender down
around your Adam's apple."
Next the stinging cool and scented lotion.' 'Been scraping yourself kind
of close down there, ain't you?"
"Yeah, but Nello—"
"Gone."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
947
"Goodness! He was a young fellow."
"Brush here, boy,'' called another barber down the line. Early laid my
foot up finished and sprang away. Now came the cool dry final towel,
smelling of the heat of the laundry, like the sheets my mother used to dry
on chairs before the wood fire on rainy days long ago.
"It was roaches of the liver got him," said my barber. "He was plumb
et up with it. Didn't know it either. Worked right up to the last. He come
in here to work a-Wednesday morning and he was dead Thursday, the next
day. Some of the fellows said to him, 'Nello, you're moving mighty slow
today' — that was Wednesday — 'Nello, make it snappy,' we would tell
him. And old Nello would mumble something 'bout not feeling so good.
'Reckon I ort to see a doctor,' he said long about quitting time."
"That old wine," said Joe, the barber at the right.
' 'Roaches of the liver — yeh. My granddaddy went like that. The doctor
said his liver was about the size of a trabball and hard as a hickory nut."
"Yeh," said my barber, "it'll kill you —booze will. Powder, Tessor?"
"No — yes, powder, a little."
Then the dab, dab, pat, pat of the end-folded towel. Sweet stuff.
Mennen's.
The barber slammed his foot on the chair pedal and swung me up sitting.
His hands wriggled and dug into my scalp. "Your hair's mighty dry, Doc.
Some lanolin? Make you feel better."
"All right."
"Good for the scalp. Seems Nello got home and went to bed
Wednesday. Then the doctor come — Doctor Abernathy it was. He examined
him and saw he was already half-dead. 'I got to get you to Memorial
Hospital,' he said. And he left him. Sure puts a shine on your hair, this sheep's
grease does."
"Did they get him to the hospital?"
"Well, yes — the next day — Thursday."
And all night Nello lying in his ragged bed, looking at what, thinking
of what? He never would talk much. Now the barbers are stropping their
razors, winking and jibing—Been with that old wine again, eh, Nello? Ninety
days again. Now the bark of the convict boss, — Lift up that pick — heigh
you — swing on it — roll that Georgia buggy, boy — tell the news — make
your time — make it sweet and low.
"The next day Doc come, as I say," said the barber. "Thursday
morning. They go in to wake Nello and no waking." Again I felt the brush,
brush, the comb, comb, and brush, brush again. "Your hair is standing
up in a sort of cowlick here, 'Fessor, where you been sleeping on it. I'll get
it down in a minute. He was already in a coma — lying there, his sister said,
scarcely breathing at all. They started with him in the ambulance. Yeah,
in a stooper he was and he was dead when they got to the ambulance entrance
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Paul Green's Wordbook
at the hospital. Well, there you are, Doc."
The cloth was unpinned, a bit of air-hosing inside my collar followed,
and I stepped from the chair. I tied my tie, and Early helped me on with
my coat and brushed me industriously off. I paid my barber and I gave Early
a little extra.
' 'Feel better, Doc?'' said the barber as he crashed the cash register open.
"Yeah, better!" — I almost shouted the words, then I softened them
down as I saw his eyes flare. "You've fixed me up fine."
"Come again, Tessor."
"Yeah. How long did Nello work here for you folks?" I asked.
"Oh, ten, fifteen years maybe — off and on," said the barber. "And
all the time that old wine, that old booze business. We were mighty patient
with Nello."
"I see," I said.
And going out, I let the door slam hard, I didn't mean to let it slam
maybe. It just did.
And as I walked on I could hear my barber saying to his fellows, in
my mind I could hear it. "What's the matter with 'Fessor? Seem like he
went off kinder mad or sump'n — let the door slam like that."
"Can't tell about these writing fellows," said Joe the nearby barber.
"Next!" my barber called.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
You won't travel no good road if you cross a crooked stile to get to it.
It is a long road that has no turning.
The shortest road to the penny, longest road to the dime.
road cart
A two-wheeled light gig.
road hog
A driver who hogs the road and has no care for others' rights.
road itch
Wanderlust.
Roanoke
Indian wampum or shells used for money, therefore the name "Roanoke
Island."
roars like a lion
roasting ears (roas'n ears)
The milky ears of corn just before they harden into ripeness, a special garden
delicacy.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
949
Robbers
A game. One or two children (robbers) hide along the path where the other
children (travelers) have to pass. After the robber or robbers have hidden,
the travelers come walking along saying—
"No robbers out today,
No robbers out today.
We are singing on our way
For there's no robbers out today."
Suddenly the robber or robbers rush out and try to catch the rest. Those
who are caught become robbers in their turn and try to catch others.
all around Robin Hood's barn
This saying means to go a long ways around to get to the main point, like
going around the elbow to get to your thumb.
A robin's song is not pretty to the worm.
rock
A solid, reliable person.
To cover with rocks or crushed stone. "We've got one more mile of road
to rock, and then we're finished."
St. Peter's Rock
The Catholic church.
Rockabye baby in the treetop.
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down comes cradle and baby and all.
(A lullaby rhyme and song.)
rock bottom
The basic essential, the lowest price or place, the limit.
rocker
Common sense, sanity. "He's off his rocker."
Rocking an empty cradle will bring a new baby to fill it.
It is bad luck to rock an empty rocking chair.
rocking chair man
An easy-going person, an indolent person.
rocking chair woman
A spoiled, lazy, good-for-nothing female.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
"Rock of Ages"
A favorite old hymn that has comforted countless thousands in the Valley
with its enduring symbol of strength.
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
Let the water and the blood
From Thy wounded side which flowed
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure."
"While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyestrings break in death,
When I rise to worlds unknown
And behold thee on Thy throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee."
rocks
Money, coins.
rock-skimming
A rock-throwing-on-water contest. We boys also called this rock-skeeting.
We'd take flat stones and throw them one at a time with all our might along
the surface of the creek or pond. Sometimes one would be able to make
his rock go skimming with four or five bounces and be declared the winner.
rocky
Rough, hard going. "How is it with you, Joe?" "Rocky, son, rocky."
Rocky Mountain canary
A jackass.
rod
Gun, a pistol, also the penis.
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
roguish
Wandering, obstreperous, undomesticated. "I've got a roguish cow, and
no matter how high the lot fence is, she can sail over it, so I'll just have to
put a yoke and tongue on her."
roke
Past tense of rake.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
951
Roley Holey
A game. A number of players dig a sequence of little saucer-like holes in
the ground in a row and the first player rolls a ball along and over these
holes. The owner of that hole in which the ball stops grabs the ball and tries
to hit one of the players as they run away. If he misses, he is charged with
what is called "a pig." When a player gets three' 'pigs,'' he is stood up against
a wall, such as the house, facing it, and each of the other players has a throw
at him. This is called "nailing to the cross." After this the game resumes.
The ball we used was about the size of a small orange and made of thread
from old raveled stockings wound and sewed tightly. It was punishing enough
when it hit the captive "nailed to the cross," depending on the strength of
the thrower.
roll
To tumble a woman, to copulate with her.
rolled
Robbed. "Last night I got rolled of fifty dollars."
rolling
To have plenty of, especially of money or property. "From the way that
man gets a new Cadillac every year, he must be rolling."
"Roll, Jordan, Roll"
We children sang this old song a lot as we chopped in the fields. The rhythm
and verses were very satisfactory for emphasizing our too-often lethargic
strokes. We pronounced it "Jurdan."
"Roll, Jordan, roll,
Roll, Jordan, roll,
Wanter go to heaven when I die
Just to hear old Jordan roll.
"Somebody's dead in the graveyard,
Somebody's drowned in the sea,
Wanter wake up in the morning
And shout that jubilee!
"Roll, Jordan, roll," etc.
rolling stock folks
Migrant workers.
A rolling Stone gathers no moss.
roll your own
To be on one's own, also descriptive of a handmade cigarette.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
roly-poly
Fat.
romancing around
Loafing.
Rome was not built in a day.
When in Rome, do as Rome does.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
He that owns Rome must feed Rome.
romp
A wild, exuberant party.
ront
Ruined or ruint.
roof cave in
Disaster overtaking one.
rook
To cheat or fool. "I waited two hours, but my man rooked me."
There's plenty of room at the top.
in room of
In place of, instead of. "Let John work in room of Frank today."
no room to cuss a cat
No space at all.
rooster
A pert young lad, a cocky person.
A good rooster crows in any hen house.
rooster fight
A rough-and-tumble set-to between two boys.
There's a belief that the roosters crow at midnight on Christmas.
rooster's egg
An undersized or misshapen hen's egg.
root
The penis.
root hog or die
Work or starve.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
953
Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself.
rope in
To gather in, to trick.
rope of sand
A worthless argument or reason.
ropes
Ways, means of business. "He knows the ropes all right."
Every rose has its thorn.
looks like the last rose of summer
A rose to the living is more than sumptuous wreaths to the dead.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
rose-colored
Romantic, over-idealistic.
rosemary
Also called garden rosemary, a popular and aromatic flower-garden plant.
Tea from its leaves was often used as a stimulant and tonic. Housewives
put sprays of it in closets and trunks to make the clothes sweet-scented. And
who does not recall the piteous Ophelia in the play "Hamlet" where she
comes in mad and handing out her flowers — saying —
"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember, and there is pansies, that's for
thoughts."
Roses in youth, thorns in old age.
Roses on my shoulders,
Slippers on my feet,
I'm my mother's darling,
Don't you think I'm sweet.
(A little child's recitation rhyme.)
Lie on roses when young and you'll lie on thorns when old.
rot gut
A sorry sort of moonshine liquor.
rotten
A sick or enfeebled condition.
as rotten as dirt
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Paul Green's Wordbook
There is small choice in rotten apples.
Something's rotten in Denmark.
Rotten Eggs
A game. In playing this game each child locks his arms under his knees.
Then two players try to lift him by his arms and try to shake them loose.
If his arms give 'way, he is then "Rotten Eggs," their shouts proclaiming
him so.
rotten Saturday
The day after Good Friday. This is supposed to be the worst of all days for
planting a garden crop or any crop for that matter.
rotten shame
Great shame, same as a crying shame.
rough-and-ready
Unhewn, stalwart, unpolished. "He was a rough-and-ready man but honest
to the core."
rough-dry
Clothes dried and awaiting ironing.
rough feed
Roughage, as opposed to hard grain feed, such as fodder, hay, wheat, straw
and so on.
roughhouse
A noisy disturbance.
roughneck
A bully. A noisy, misbehaving person, one with no manners.
rough on rats
Any violent thing or rough action, harsh treatment, a difficult undertaking.
rough row of stumps
Difficult situation, etc.
as round as a dollar
as round as a drum
as round as a marble
as round as an orange
as round as the moon
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
955
rounder
A sort of bully, a rough good time Charlie.
round-faced like the moon
round potatoes
Irish potatoes as contrasted with long (sweet) potatoes.
round robin
Condemnation proceedings, a circle of gossipers busy tearing someone's
character to tatters.
roust
To stir up, to wake, to arouse. "Better not roust up them hornets, boy."
Hoe your own row.
Let a man hoe his own row and keep it clean, too.
It's in the long row that a man's test comes.
It's a long row that has no turning.
row of pins
A phrase of comparison signifying something of no importance or value.
"All that talk about behaving himself wasn't worth a row of pins."
Row, row, row your boat
Merrily down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
(A popular old round.)
royal fern
A widely diffused fern found on almost any damp place in the Valley. It
is easy to transplant and many flower gardens now show it flourishing. Tea
made from its root was supposed to be good for coughs and rheumatism.
There is no royal road to learning.
Who can find a virtuous woman, for her price is far above rubies.
rub out
To erase.
rub the wrong way
To irritate, to cross, to exacerbate.
ruck
Past tense of rake.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Rut.
rucking
Rocking, rattling. "My old wagon was rucking along."
ruckus
A fuss, a fight. There's a popular old Tin Pan Alley song that we used to
sing in the Valley titled "Raise a Ruckus Tonight." Our male quartet used
to go on many a moonlight foray, singing away and raising a ruckus with
our preferred pieces, one of which was always—
"My old mistis promised me—
Raise a ruckus tonight—
When she died she'd set me free—
Raise a ruckus tonight."
Chorus
"Come along, oh children, come along,
While the moon shines bright.
We'll take a boat
And down the river float,
Gonna raise a ruckus tonight.
"If I could I surely would—
Raise a ruckus tonight—
Stand on the rock where Moses stood—
Raise a ruckus tonight."
Chorus repeat
ructious
Unruly.
rue (also called herb of grace)
An aromatic plant of popular medicinal use also by the Valley people in
the old days. Rue tea was especially good for rheumatism and aching joints.
Again we think of poor mad Ophelia's flower chant in the play' 'Hamlet"—
"There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's
some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays."
Rue and thyme grow in the same garden.
rue anemone
A beautiful shy little flower of the early spring. Like most of its sisters, it
too had its medicinal uses in the old days. It was both a purgative and a
diuretic.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
957
ruellia
The twin bluebell common in the dry woods throughout the Valley. So far
as I know, it is an exception in that it has no medicinal value.
ruff
Roof. "Look up in the ruff of my mouth and you'll see that sore, Doctor.''
ruffled feathers
A condition of angry irritation. "Son, you'd better much your sweetheart
up — she's got her feathers all ruffled."
"Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown"
This was another popular song we young folks sang, especially as we worked
in the fields and also sometimes on picnics. The melody was written by Harry
Von Tilzer (1872-1946), who also wrote' 'A Bird in a Gilded Cage,''' 'Wait
Till the Sun Shines, Nelly," and other popular songs. Andrew B. Sterling
wrote the words to Rufus. This old-time favorite, like others, is rarely sung
in the Valley any more, but I still like to hum it to myself and remember
its association with more youthful days, though no less hopeful and aspiring
ones than now.
"Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown,
What you gonna do when the rent rolls round?
What you gonna say, what you gonna pay?
You'll never have a bit of sense till judgment day.
"You know, I know, rent means dough,
The landlord's going to put us out in the snow.
Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown,
What you gonna do when the rent rolls round?"
And so on.
rug-riders
Arabs, especially Iranians.
ruinate
To ruin, used somewhat jocularly.
ruination
Ruin.
ruined
Said of a woman who has borne a bastard baby. I don't know what term
would fit those who have had half a dozen or more and are all on the
government payrolls.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
mint
Ruined, often bankrupt.
Rule or ruin.
There's no rule without an exception.
He that will not be ruled by the rudder will be wrecked on the rock.
rule the roost
To boss or be head man.
rum hound
A confirmed drunkard.
rump
Posterior, buttocks.
The rump thrives faster than the forehead.
run
Supply, to be sufficient. "He's got enough corn this year to run him."
Go. "While you're in Lillington, run by Tugwell's and get me a bottle of
liniment."
A flaw or the breaking of a stitch in any knitted apparel such as hose. "I've
got to go back and change, I've got a run in my stocking."
The main part of a stream, the channel.
A small brook or branch of a stream.
A distilling of bootleg liquor.
One thing to run for your dinner and another for your life.
A good run is better than a bad stand.
run-around
A festered condition of the fingernail.
to get the run-around
To be trifled with, deceived, kept waiting on the anxious seat.
run down
To berate, malign, to spread scandal about a person. "He runs down his
wife the worst in the world."
run-down
A list, a layout, an itemized account. "Give me the run-down on that and
I'll tell you what I'll do."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
959
Puny, sick, feeble. "I'm all run-down lately, and I've got to go to the store
and get me some Peruna."
run dry
To quit giving milk, or to be dried up as a stream, or to cease creative work.
"I'm afraid Wilbur's run dry — we don't get any more stories from him."
to run into
To meet. "I'm glad I run into you. I've got a mess to tell."
run into money
Expensive, high priced. "That wide flooring runs into money."
run into the ground
To wear out, to overdo, to beat an old bag of bones. "He's run his
sanctification story plumb into the ground."
run like a turkey
To run fast.
running
In succession. "I've had the toothache three nights running."
What's the use of running if you're on the wrong road.
running cedar
A crawling cedar found in the deep rich damp woods and used plenteously
for decoration at Christmastime.
running fits
A condition of sick dogs and sometimes applied jocularly to people who
spout a great deal of nonsense talk.
running mouth disease
Over-loquacity.
running range
Gonorrhea.
run off at the mouth
To be garrulous, over-talkative.
run of the house
Freedom of the house, to have the free use of a place.
run-of-the-mill
Average, ordinary. "Well, I reckon he's pretty smart, but I would say he's
just run-of-the-mill."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
run on
To continue voluble talk. "She run on and on and you couldn't stop her."
run one's mouth
To be over-garrulous, to talk nonsense.
run out of
To use up, exhaust. "I'd let you have some gas but I've run out."
run ragged
Overloaded with work, fretted with too many duties, persecuted.
He that fights and runs away
Will live to fight another day.
A dog runs for his character and a hog runs for his life.
He that runs may read.
He runs with the hounds and holds with the hare.
run scared
To be apprehensive of failure. "Yes, I plan to announce for sheriff, but
I'm pretty sure I'll have to run scared."
runs like a rabbit
runs like the devil
runs out
To end, to be finished, stopped. "Yessir, I've been working at the sawmill
green end, but my job run out last week and I'm on the loose hunting for
work."
run to death
Overworked.
to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds
Straddle both sides.
run up and butt
To be frustrated in an action. "All he could do was run up and butt, then
back off and try it again!"
'ruption (eruption)
A fuss, a fight.
ruptured
Broken down, no 'count.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
961
ruptured duck
A failure, a misfit, a weak and ineffectual person.
Russellborough
The perished home of Governor Tryon where the first armed resistance to
the Stamp Act occurred in 1765. See an account of this in Sprunt's Tales.
rust
High activity, gaiety. Just the opposite of degeneration from lack of activity.
"I'm going to cut a rust at that gal's house on Saturday night."
rustle up
To prepare, to find, to get ready in a hurry.''Rustle up some grub, will you?''
rusty
Out of practice, awkward, muscle-bound. "No, I can't play the fiddle. I'm
just plumb rusty on it."
rusty hairpin
An item of good luck. If you find one, be sure to keep it. Some of the members
of the U.N.C. baseball team a few years ago looked around to find rusty
hairpins. They kept them in their pockets while playing and they won a lot
of games, so they said.
rusty nails
Used for cures as well as fruit-bearing. Old Mis' Mclntosh used to cure her
children of malaria and thin blood by feeding them a tea concoction made
from rusty nails, vinegar and spring water. She said it was good for the colic,
too. There must have been something in it for she raised twelve brawny Scotch
sons and daughters and most of them are still living. Then just recently when
Arthur Caldwell and I were out hoeing around one of my tender fig bushes,
I deplored the fact that they got killed down nearly every winter and I rarely
got any figs from them. Up spoke Arthur and said,' 'Mr. Green, you'd have
plenty figs if you'd do like my daddy did." "How did he do, Arthur?''' 'Well,
sir, he would get a lot of old rusty nails and plough points and stuff like
that and put them around the roots of his figs and he got figs and I mean
figs. I remember one year he got fifty bushels of figs." "Fifty bushels?"
"Yessir, and he hauled most of them to Durham. He had a whole row of
figs and every time he found any old rusty nails or plough points or broken
iron he'd put 'em at the root of his fig trees and they done good. Yessir,
you do that and you'll have plenty of figs, Mr. Green."
in a rut
To be in a bind or in a psychological block or in a dull repetition of work.
�962
Paul Green's Wordbook
rutabaga
A common garden vegetable. Juice from the boiled root was supposed to
be good for fever.
ruthers
Rathers, preferences, same as druthers, but not drathers. "Why does he
always get his ruthers and we don't?"
rutty
Sexually aroused.
rye grass
A popular grass for winter lawns. When I was a boy, I don't recall any single
yard or lawn in the whole of our neighborhood that had any green grass
in the winter. Most of the premises were kept swept clean. Now drive up
and down the Valley and the farmers' yards are green with rye grass in the
winter. Beauty and caring come more and more to the people.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
963
S
The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath.
Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.
sack
To fire, to dismiss. "My boss sacked me yesterday and you can know how
I feel."
An old sack needs much patching.
It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.
Sack Race
A contest game in which the contestants insert themselves into sacks up to
the waist and then try to run, hobbled as they are. A prize of sorts is usually
given to the winner.
sad
Deflated, flat, unleavened. "This is a sad cake, it did not rise at all."
Sad'dy
Saturday.
saddle
To load down, to overload. "His wife died and left him saddled with six
young'uns."
sadiron
A flat iron, pointed at one end and with an iron handle used for ironing
the laundered items. My mother had to have a heavy cloth wrapped around
the handle to protect her hands from burning. These irons were usually
heated by being set upright on the hearth with the face toward the fire, and,
thus, iron handles rather than wood were used in the old days.
�964
Paul Green's Wordbook
sad sack
A dull person, lacking in energy or interest.
Be on the safe side.
Better safe than sorry.
safe and sound
Completely safe, hale, well.
In the multitude of counselors there is safety.
sagashiate
To consider, to think about, to investigate.
sage
A popular old garden plant. The leaves, when dried and ground up, were
used for seasoning sausage and the like. Also a tea made from the dried
leaves was good to relieve indigestion and insomnia. Young mothers were
advised to take the tea, too, to cut down their overflow of milk if they should
have such.
'sage
Assuage.
to gather sage
To be out courting, to be looking for a mate. "I was out Sunday gathering
sage all day, so no wonder I missed seeing you."
Set your sail according to the wind.
Set the sail as the wind blows.
Take in your sail in the time of storm.
Little said is soon mended.
Least said, soonest mended.
sailing close to the wind
Economizing.
sainted aunt!
A mild expletive.
St.-John's-wort
A prolific little plant rarely growing beyond two feet in height. Its bright
yellow flowers are noticeable in waste fields and along the roadsides nearly
all the summer. It was named, I am told, because it was common to gather
it on St. John's Eve and to hang it at doors and windows against thunder
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
965
and evil spirits. There was a belief that on St. John's night the soul had power
to leave the body and visit the spot where it would finally be summoned from
its earthly habitation. The medicinal properties of St.-John's-wort have been
extolled. It was said that an ointment made from its blossoms was good
for cuts and wounds of any kind, also a tea made from it was designated
fuga daemonun, a purgative for demons. It was once supposed to be a good
remedy for melancholia, too.
St. Phillip's Church
A famous old ruined church near Wilmington, down the Valley. It was built
in 1740 and there it stands in the woods, a melancholy wreck and a reminder
not only of man's faith but of man's destructiveness, for it was pretty much
wrecked by bombardment during the Civil War.
They are not all saints that use holy water.
Saints alive!
An exclamation.
Bakes alive!
A mild interjection.
salad days
Days of greatest success, and days of youth and inexperience.
salivate
A salivary condition brought on by the use of too much calomel and followed
by exposure to cold or wet weather. See "calomel."
To liquidate, to shoot full of holes.'' Boy, you reach in that hip pocket once
more like that and I'm going to salivate you."
sallet
Salad. See "creasy sallet."
The best side of a saloon is the outside.
salt
There are all sorts of superstitions connected with salt. Of course, the
common one known by everybody is that if salt is spilled, the only way to
keep off bad luck is to take some of the spilled salt and throw it over one's
left shoulder. Then any possible evil spell to come will be dissipated and
stopped.
Salt was also good to help trees to bear. I remember we had a pear tree
out near the woodpile at our home and it was barren. An old man told me
if I would bore a hole in it and put salt in that hole and stop it up, the tree
would begin to bear. I did as he commanded and, sure enough, the tree did
start to bear.
�966
Paul Green's Wordbook
Also in the old days Valley people used to put a saucer of salt mixed
with earth under the cooling board of a corpse. The salt was supposed to
be an emblem of the immortal spirit and the earth a symbol of the mortal
flesh. This custom was supposed to keep the corpse from swelling.
Take it with a grain of salt.
Help me to salt,
Help me to sorrow,
Brew me my malt
And die on the morrow.
(A recitation rhyme.)
If the salt hath lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted.
Ye are the salt of the earth.
Put salt on a bird's tail and you can catch him.
Not worth the salt that goes in your bread.
salt bag
A little cloth bag of heated salt was one of the most common ways of easing
aches and pains. When any of us children had the toothache, my mother
would heat some salt, put it in a little bag (sometimes a sugar bag) and have
us lie with it against our cheek. It always helped.
salted down (away)
Laid aside, saved up for a rainy day.
salt mines
A place of hard and grinding work, any sort of grueling job. "Well, it's
good sitting out here and having a smoke, but now I got to get back to the
salt mines."
salt of the earth
A term of high praise. "That John is the salt of the earth."
as salty as the ocean
There's a salve for every sore.
Sambo
An old Southern term for a Negro male.
It will be all the same a hundred years from now.
in the same boat
In the same situation, condition.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
967
same looking
To be similar to, to resemble. "He wore the same looking hat as his brother.''
what the Sam Hill!
A mild interjection.
sanctified
In a constant state of holiness, to be living without sin. There is a religious
sect popular in the Valley known as the Sanctified Holiness People. In fact,
our cook says she is sanctified, and I guess she is, because she has labored
for us for some thirty years in the most patient and cooperative way, and
she must be sanctified to be able to have done that. I had an aunt who was
sanctified. She said it was no trouble at all to be so, for didn't the Bible say,
" 'Be ye therefore perfect.' It's mighty easy, Paul, to obey the Bible. And
you better start doing that, son, or else — " "Or else what, Aunt Sudie?"
"Else your soul will burn in torment forever and ever. Hearme, son?" "Yes,
Aunt Sudie."
sanctified handkerchief (cloth)
Many of the sanctified and especially devout people in the Valley subscribe
to healing by laying on of hands and by tokens and all sorts of hocus-pocus,
as I would call it. See "faith healing."
sand
Strength, determination, stamina, courage. "She's got a lot of sand in her
craw, that girl, and though she's left with five little children, somehow she'll
make a go of it."
Ropes of sand make mighty poor anchoring.
sand-bed
The much-travelled dirt road. In Eastern North Carolina the land being so
sandy, the roads in which the wagons travelled, usually in single ruts beat
out in the middle by single hitched animals, or double, were referred to as
sand-beds.
sand spur
A mean and vicious little cactus-like plant found along the Valley seashore.
sang
Ginseng.
sap (saphead)
A fool, a fuddy-duddy, a dunce.
Sapona Indians
The early inhabitants of the Cape Fear Valley.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Sapona River
The early Indian name for the Cape Fear River.
sappy
Poor grade of lumber. "He sent me over a whole load of sappy old fieldpine scantlings and they're warped and bent up like a gang of snakes in the
sun."
sap rising
Sexual urgings. "Yeh, every time you feel that sap rising you come back
and want to sleep with me and leave another baby sproutin' inside me. But
I can tell you right now I'll cut out your heart with this butcher knife before
I get in that bed with you."
sarsaparilla
One of the favorite Valley patent medicines.
sartain
Certain.
sarvice
Service.
sashay
To cut a step in a folk dance. Also to act in a show-off manner.
sashlight
A windowpane.
sass
Back talk, impolite or vulgar repartee.
Any kind of garden greens.
sassafrack
Sassafras.
sassafras
A common small tree found throughout the Valley. The sassafras has an
ancient and honorable history. It was especially fancied in late Elizabethan
England because of Sir Walter Raleigh's colonists on Roanoke Island sending
back sassafras bark and roots to be used medicinally. In the Valley we used
to make tea out of the roots and it was supposed to be a very healthful drink.
Sometimes it was good to thin the blood of children who were too bouncing
and cherry-faced. The doctors would prescribe sassafras tea in the old days
rather than prescribing bleeding since it was supposed to thin the blood.
The Negroes would often drink it in the spring of the year for bad blood.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
969
sasser
Saucer.
Satan
One of the many names for the devil.
Get thee behind me, Satan.
satchel on to
To grip or grab or fasten on to. "He satcheled on to me and wouldn't turn
loose until he had got a dollar."
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
saucer
It used to be the custom in the Valley for people to pour their hot coffee
from the cup into the saucer, let it cool and then drink it from the saucer.
To cool. "Let your temper saucer a while."
saucer-eyed
Big-eyed in surprise.
save
To harvest. "Now that the dry weather's come on, I got to get busy and
save my crop."
Save today what you'll need tomorrow.
Better save a man from dying than save him when he's dead.
He that will save his life shall lose it.
save-all
A small bowl or receptacle for all sorts of odds and ends, hairpins, pennies,
finger rings, and so on.
saved
Converted, repented of sins, forgiven of sins, ready for death.
Who then can be saved!
Others he saved, himself he cannot save.
save face
To keep one's dignity, prestige, etc., a phrase mightily and ludicrously used
by the presidents of the U.S. and politicians during the Vietnam tragic waste.
to save my neck
A phrase used for emphasis. "I couldn't call his name to save my neck."
�970
Paul Green's Wordbook
to save you
A term of emphasis or intensification. "Do you ever notice maybe you got
a noise in your motor and you take your car to the mechanic and it won't
make a noise to save you, and then when you're home, it starts up the same
old trouble again."
savigous
Rough, brutal, full of fire and brimstone. "He was a savigous old devil and
wild about young women, and he says that now, though he's eighty years
old, at night in his dreams his bed is full of them."
savvy
Common sense, knowledge, understanding.
saw
Symbol of special danger. "He would fight a circular saw."
sawbones
Surgeon, a doctor.
sawder
Flattery, obsequious praise. "Don't give me none of that soft sawder. I'm
on to you, hosscake."
sawhorse
A wooden rack with crossed uprights into which small logs or timber for
handsawing were laid. In the old days every Valley farmer had his sawhorse.
As a boy I heard an amusing anecdote told about Abraham Lincoln
and his sawhorse. A neighbor had a sorry horse and came to Lincoln and
urged a trade. Lincoln asked would he trade sight unseen and no questions
asked. The reply was an emphatic yessir — no matter what kind or condition
of a horse. They shook hands and the deal was made. Lincoln brought forth
his sawhorse. Even then the neighbor might have got the best end of the
deal. The real horse might have been fit only for the buzzards.
sawing gourds
Snoring.
sawing sawdust
Doing or redoing worthless work.
sawtooth briar
A mean low-running briar that infests the fields and the hedges. We children
used to get our bare feet entangled in them and so we learned to say fierce
cusswords very early.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
971
sawyers
Katydids. Sometimes referred to as "night sawyers" — from the sounds
the males make on hot summer nights. "I couldn't sleep a wink because
of them pesky sawyers."
saxifrage
A little tough-growing plant, which from its name implies it is supposed
to be so powerful that its roots can break rocks apart. Tea from its roots
was used for stomachache.
saxifras
Sassafras.
say
A mild exclamation, usually calling attention to what follows. "Say! You
better watch what you're doing, fellow."
Pronounce or recite. "Go ahead, son, and say your piece."
say grace over
To be in charge of, to be able to handle.
too many things to say grace over
Too many irons in the fire, too many jobs.
saying
A maxim, a proverb. "It is a saying that you can't get blood out of a turnip,
but you sure can get the turnip."
Saying is one thing, doing another.
say-so
Agreement, authority, yea-saying.' 'He cut that tree down without my sayso."
Say-SO is not say-true.
Say well is good, but do well is better.
Says which?
A query, asking for an explanation of what has just been said.
scab
The new skin growing over an old sore. Also a strikebreaker or one who
hires in to do a job of another one on strike.
sca'ce (pronounced skace)
Scarce.
�972
Paul Green's Wordbook
scads
Oodles, a great deal.' 'They say John Allen Matthews left scads of money
when he died and his grandchildren are all quarrelling over it."
scalding barrel
A large wooden barrel usually tilted and partly inserted in the ground and
filled with scalding water where the newly slaughtered hogs are immersed
and twisted around until the hair is pulled off and they are cleaned and
scraped with a butcher knife. Then they are hung up on the scaffold or
gallows to be gutted. See "hog killing."
scallywampus
A humorous good-for-nothing fellow.
have one's scalp
Get the best of, win an easy victory over.
scandalize
To disgrace.
as scarce as frogs' hair
as scarce as hens' teeth
make yourself scarce (sca'ce)
To leave, to go away in a hurry, get out of sight.
scarecrow
An extremely thin and emaciated person.
scared as a rabbit
scared shitless
To be terror-stricken, horrified.
scarlet sage
A very decorative plant, becoming more and more popular in Valley flower
gardens.
scat
A command to a cat to flee, to get out of the way, to vamoose. It was the
custom in all the farmers' houses to have a little square cut out of the corner
of a door called "the cat hole," and this was left open so the cat could go
in and out at night. There used to be a little folk tale in the Valley about
a man who had seven holes cut in the bottom of his door. When somebody
asked him why he had seven holes, he said because he had seven cats.' 'And,
brother, when I say scat, I mean scat!"
To run fast, to go in a hurry. "When Willie Gregory fired off his double-
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
973
barreled gun through the open window, them serenaders scatted away from
there."
He that scatters thorns best not go barefoot.
Janet Schaw
A lady of quality who visited the Valley in the middle 18th century and kept
a journal of her experiences there. A vivid picture is given of the customs
and people of the place and time.
schnozzle
The nose.
school-breaking
The ending of school, the commencement time. We always spoke of the
ending of school in the Valley country as the school-breaking.
As a child I attended old Pleasant Union School located about halfway
between the little towns of Lillington and Angier and a mile or so from our
home. It was a one-room log building and was heated by a huge fireplace
to which we boys playing horsey used to bring from the woods eight-foot
lengths of dead pine logs, dragging them in at the front door and across
the floor and rolling them into the cavernous fireplace. I don't remember
that we ever had any school-breaking exercises in this one-room building.
But later my father, along with the neighbors, tore down the old one-room
hut and put up a nice, frame two-room building. We always referred to these
rooms as the big room and the little room, the one for the upper grades and
the other for the lower. A sliding partition was put up between these rooms
and I remember that some of us boys working low down near the floor cut
a hole through the partition with our pocket knives and used to pass notes
into the little room to some of the girls we were in love with, or thought
we were.
After we got this two-room building we began to have school-breaking
exercises in the spring on the day school ended. These exercises usually
consisted of little bits of poetry, recitations, and even sometimes a bit of
a play scene. I remember one playlet we put on having to do with a stupid
Negro boy who takes some of the white folks' clothes off to be laundered
with the understanding that he was to "mangle" them. I played the Negro
boy, Rastus, and when I brought the clothes back all mangled (a bundle
of substituted rags), I got a big hand from the audience. Maybe this little
playlet had something to do with my later writing so many Negro dramas.
One of the exercises I always loved at the school-breaking time was the liars'
contest. Two boys would come out on the little rough, planked stage and
engage each other in as wild imagery of contesting as possible. Most of these
liars' contests were made up by the contestants.
I remember my last school-breaking day at Pleasant Union. The next
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Paul Green's Wordbook
year I went to school at Buie's Creek Academy. Baxter Upchurch and I
contested in lying. We came out before the audience, simulating two
neighbors meeting on a road and started off with some of the old' 'Arkansas
Traveler" dialogue (q.v.). I said to Baxter, "Hello, stranger." And he
replied, "Hell-o yourself—if you want to go to hell, why go there yourself.''
PAUL:
(Looking about him): Why don't you cover your house here?
(He gestures toward the unseen house.)
BAXTER: Can't cover it when it's raining and when it's dry, it don't leak
a drop.
PAUL:
(Gazing around again): What makes your corn look so yellow?
BAXTER: Fool, I planted the yellow kind.
PAUL:
Um-um. How did your 'taters turn out?
BAXTER: Didn't turn out, fool, I dug 'em out.
PAUL:
Say, tell me how far is it to where the road forks.
BAXTER: Been living here fifty years and it ain't forked yet.
PAUL:
Reckon I can ford the river?
BAXTER: Reckon so, any goose can ford it.
PAUL:
Say, yonder comes a steer. You better head him.
BAXTER: I gad, looks like he's got a head on him.
PAUL:
I mean stop him.
BAXTER: Ain't got no stopper.
PAUL:
I mean turn him.
BAXTER: Don't need no turnin', he's already got the hairy side out.
PAUL:
Well, well, well. Say, have you lived here all your life?
BAXTER: Not all of it, fool, for I ain't dead yet.
PAUL:
Goodness alive, you sure are ignorant — you don't know
nothing!
BAXTER: I know I ain't lost like you. Ha ha ha!
And then we would change the subject and get on with our whoppers.
PAUL:
I haven't seen much of you lately, Baxter.
BAXTER: No, I've been mighty busy.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
PAUL:
975
What you been doing?
BAXTER: Clearing my newground.
PAUL:
How do you clear your newground, Baxter? Must take a lot of
cutting with axes.
BAXTER: No, no — no axes, Paul. I go into the middle of the woods, find
a big tree, get plenty of sticks of dynamite, fasten them in a belt
around the tree, and set 'em off. The explosion clears me several
acres all to once.
PAUL:
And what happens to you?
BAXTER: Why, I just grab a tree top and ride out. Ha ha!
PAUL:
Well, I've been pretty busy myself.
BAXTER: What have you been doing?
PAUL:
Looking after my watermelons. Lord, lord, and how they do
grow!
BAXTER: They do?
PAUL:
Yeh, do. I've been busy making little flat platforms with wheels
to 'em so I can take care of 'em.
BAXTER: What in the name of Old Scratch were you doing that for?
PAUL:
Because my land is so rich and the watermelon vines grow so
fast that they drag the watermelons along the ground and wear
them out. So I put these little wagons under the melons so they
won't be dragged to death. Now the vines drag the little wagons
along with the melons on them and they're growing bigger and
bigger all the time.
BAXTER: How big do they grow, Paul?
PAUL:
Oh, a certain size. Sometimes the wagons run into the fence and
stop and the watermelons grow right there bigger and bigger,
and you can look out and see the tops of them, the tops of the
rinds over the fence. Sometimes the wagons mire up and the same
thing happens.
BAXTER: Um-um — your melons are almost big as my cabbages.
PAUL:
And how big are they, Baxter?
BAXTER: Oh, of right good size. I lost my sow and pigs the other day and
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Paul Green's Wordbook
hunted and hunted them, and finally I found them. The old sow
had et a hole way back in one of my cabbages and there she was
as snug as you please, her and the twelve pigs.
PAUL:
Well, well, well.
BAXTER: And I been raising some chickens lately too. I got a rooster can
eat two of them cabbages in one bait.
PAUL:
Ah-hah, that rooster's a little bitty thing compared to my turkey.
I got a gobbler that is a gobbler.
BAXTER: How big is your gobbler?
PAUL:
Well, he's so big he can set straddle the Pacific Ocean and pick
stars out of the elements for grains of corn. Ha ha ha!
BAXTER: Ha ha ha! Well, that is a purty big gobbler, a little bigger maybe
than the catfish my Uncle Zacharias caught in the Mississippi
River last year. He was so big that they had to get four teams
of mules and a log wagon to drag him up the bank and when
they cut him open, you know what they found, Paul?
PAUL:
No, I don't, Baxter.
BAXTER: Why they found six cords of wood in him and over in the corner
was a Jew peddler with his merchandise all spread out. And the
peddler looked up and said, "Sale today, piple, ladies' shoes
at half price, men's brogans $1.99."
And so we two liars would carry on our contest as long as we could make
up lies or until the audience got tired of us, and the audience seldom did.
scintilla
A tiniest bit, equal to a jot or tittle or iota. "That woman ain't got a scintilla
of sense. Just listen to her talk."
scoffle
To ridicule, to jeer at.
scoot
To dart, to run quickly. "Scoot up to Mr. John Parrish's and get me some
number 50 white thread."
scope
A large extent, usually of land. "Joe Allan Layton's got a scope of land
down there along the Cape Fear River."
scorcher
An especially hot day, also a fiercely hit ground ball in baseball.
Don't rake up old scores.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
977
scorp
A scraper.
Scotch
High temper, fiery emotion. "Better walk soft around that woman — she's
got a lot of Scotch in her."
Stinginess. "You needn't ask old Ed Mclntyre for any money to buy the
baseball suits, he's got too much Scotch in him."
to scotch
To prop, to wedge open or set in a fast position.
Scotch-Irish
A term applied to the people who came into the Valley from Ireland and
had previously migrated to that island from Scotland. Their place in the
American system is recorded in many a book. The last eloquent defender
of the Scotch-Irish philosophy was President Woodrow Wilson.
Scotch Snuff
An especially strong snuff and very popular among the dippers in the Valley
as contrasted with Sweet Snuff.
Scotch stinginess
Scotch stinginess is proverbial. There was an anecdote to illustrate this which
I have heard many times. An American, a Scotchman and a Jew had a very
dear friend who died and they decided they would put some token of their
appreciation in the coffin with the dead man to be buried with him. So the
Jew put in a ten dollar bill, the American put in a twenty dollar bill, and
the Scotchman wrote a check for fifty dollars, and put it in and took out
the bills for change.
Scotch stubbornness
An especially stubborn quality.
Scotch temper
Scotch temper is just as tough and stubborn in its way as Scotch stubbornness
itself, and they both became one somewhat in the case of Julgar McWhorter
and his wife Coziah Ann McWhorter, for soon after they were married these
two got into a terrible quarrel. In the height of their Scotch tempers and
anger they took out their Bible, put their hands on the Holy Book and swore
never to speak to each other again. They lived over in the western part of
the Valley, and people who knew them said that, so far as they could ever
find out, the two never did speak to each other again, though they lived
as man and wife for many, many years. There they lived in their two-room
house, each in a separate room. And, believe it or not, they raised a family
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Paul Green's Wordbook
of six children but still they kept their oath. The oldest boy Darrach told
Mr. Mac that his pa and ma used to communicate with each other through
the children. For instance, his pa would say, "Tell your ma I see the chickens
out there scratching up her young collards and she better do something to
stop 'em." And he'd say that, even though Coziah Ann might be there within
three feet of him. And she would say, "Tell your pa I'll fix that other shirt
for him tomorrow." At the same time she might be handing her husband
the one shirt she had just finished. As one of the Hockaday boys said one
day when we were talking about the McWhorters, "Love may be blind but
in their case, if you consider the passel of children they brought into the
world, they had something just as good as seeing."
scot-free
Free of responsibility. (Scot was an ancient tax.)
"Scotland's Burning"
A round. We children used to sing this with great glee.
"Scotland's a-burning, Scotland's a-burning,
Look out! Look out!
Fire! Fire! Cast on water. Cast on water.
Scotland's a-burning." and so on.
scouring mop
See "shuck mop."
scours
A cattle disease of a diarrhetic nature.
scrabbly
Rough,ragged, torn.
scrag
To betray, to kill.
scram
To leave in a hurry.
scrap
To quarrel. A fight.
scrape by
To barely get by, survive with difficulty.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel makes mighty poor music.
scratch
Money. "If that millionaire and his wife don't come forward with the scratch,
then them kidnappers say they're going to kill the boy."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
979
A tiny bit of writing, a brief note. "She's been gone six months and me,
her mother, ain't had a scratch from her, no sir."
The beginning, from poor beginnings. "Nathan Johnson started from
scratch without a cent and now look at him — rich as mud."
Scratch where it itches.
Old Scratch
Another of the many names for the devil.
up to scratch
Up to normal health, to good feeling.
scratches
A disease affecting the fetlock joint of horses or mules.
scratchings
The remnants, the remainders of fat after it has been melted down into lard
ready for mixing in as cracklings.
scratch lettuce
Money.
scratch off
To tear off in a hurry, to cancel.
scraunch
To chew noisily as a horse scraunches corn.
scream
Outlandish, excessively funny. "His costume was a scream."
screaming heebie-jeebies
Delirium tremens, wild hysterics.
screw
To have sexual intercourse, to copulate.
A prison guard.
To cheat, to extort from. "I trusted him like a brother and in that land deal
he screwed me to a fare-ye-well."
to have a screw loose
Somewhat loony, irresponsible.
screwball
A misfit, an oddly behaved person.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
sere-wed up
Messed up, tangled up, topsy-turvy.
screwy
Nutty, crazy.
scribble-scrabble
Messy, undecipherable handwriting.
scribe
A carpenter's handmade tool which serves as a guide in sawing or attaching
weatherboard.
scrimption
A small amount.
scringe
Cringe. "Every time I see that Kennedy fellow on TV I scringe, thinking
of that poor girl he drowned."
scripture
The absolute truth, the final authority, a holy and sacred text.
It is always assumed to be bad luck to step on or handle roughly any part
of the Bible. There used to be an old Negro in Chapel Hill named Tank
Hunter, and I've noticed him going about the street or the campus. Now
and then he would stop, pick up a piece of paper and look at it, and when
asked why he did that, he said, "Yessir boss, I always watch out and not
step on a piece of paper 'cause I'm afraid it might be the name of Jesus would
be printed on it, and I wouldn't want to step on the name of Jesus."
The devil can cite Scripture for his own purpose.
This is done that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.
scritch
A high-pitched shriek.
scrooched up, scrooged up
Drawn up, huddled up, squatted.
scrooge
Squeeze. "Let him scrooge in here beside me. There's room."
scrouge
To cheat.
scrub
A midget. Also shrub.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
981
scrubbling
Small, stunted. Jennie Ban McNeill's husband Archibald was called
"Scrubblin' Archie," according to tradition. See "Scrubblin' Archie
McNeill."
scruff
The nape of the neck. "And then that big schoolteacher ketched that boy
by the scruff of the neck and flang him out through the door, and he hit
the ground running and hollering for his mammy."
scrumptious
Fine, luxurious.
scrunch
To crush. "I had a little rabbit, but Mamie rocked on it and scrunched it
to death."
scuffledines
Scuppernong grapes. Every year members of our community over the hill
come when the grapes are odorous. "Mr. Green, could we pick a few
scuffledines?"
scuff some chuck
To eat.
scuppernong
A popular grape in the Valley. The original scuppernong or mother vineyard
is reported to be growing on Roanoke Island. The early explorers in the Valley
spoke in great praise of the scuppernong. It is a whitish grape as contrasted
with the muscadine or black grape.
SCUt
A woman's pudendum, the tail, also a woman's buttocks.
scutter
A disparaging term for a person, usually a man.' 'Well, you tell that scutter
I won't be there."
scuttlebutt
Rumor, gossip, hearsay.
The sea cannot be measured in a quart pot.
The sea shall give up its dead.
May there be no moaning at the bar
When I put out to sea.
He goes to sea in a sieve.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.
seagull
A specially protected bird. It is said to be bad luck to kill one.
sealed, sanctified and made whole
An alliterative phrase descriptive of those who have been saved from nature
to grace and are sanctified and are marked on the forehead with the seal
of the Holy Ghost.
seance
A group-sitting of spiritualists, usually gathered together to get messages
from the other world. It is surprising how so many otherwise sensible people
have gone haywire over this belief.
Search others for virtues, yourself for vices.
search me
A phrase meaning I don't know. "Where do you think he lost it?" "Search
me."
season
A rain, especially good weather for growing crops. "Last night we had a
good season and this morning you can see the crops just shaking with joy.''
For everything there is a season and a time.
seat warmer
An indolent person.
sec
seek
Abbreviation for second. "Wait a sec, won't you, till I can get my britches
on."
Such.
Second thoughts are best.
Second Coming
The Second Coming of Christ.
Most Christian sects believe in this. It will take place, so they say, when
time shall be no more — when Gabriel blows his horn on judgment day and
' 'the graves shall open'' and all souls will rise up to meet the Lord and move
on to be judged by the Almighty — the "sheep" to rest and be happy in
heaven, the "goats" to burn and broil in hell.
second fiddle
Second-rate, an inferior role.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
983
"It needs more skill than I can tell
To play the second fiddle well."
seconds
A second helping of food. "Hey, Cap'n, ain't there no seconds for a good
boy?"
A bran-like flour second to the first milling.
second sight
Clairvoyance, powers of prevision, divination.
There are innumerable instances recounted of second sight. One day
when a group of us local historians visited old Longstreet Church, now on
the Fort Bragg Military Reservation, Mr. Shaw, one of the members, told
us about a Negro man who had this gift of second sight.
"Over across the creek there," said Mr. Shaw, "a family lived,
consisting of a mother and daughter, two sons and the father. Well, in the
Civil War the father and sons went away to fight, and they were all three
killed. But before the news came that they were all three killed, Nicholas
had a vision that they were dead. This Nicholas was a runaway slave just
passing through the neighborhood, and he came to the house over there and
asked the good lady if she could feed him and give him a place to sleep in
the barn. He looked like an honest fellow and she being lonesome with her
husband and sons gone to war said he could. My daddy told me about this.
"Well, the next morning Nicholas came to the house, his hat in his hand,
and he said, 'Missus, the Lord's done come to me in a vision last night, and
the Lord said to me, "Nicholas," he said, "the good lady's husband and
two sons has been killed." And then the husband, your good man, he
appeared to me in a dream. I saw him in second sight clear as the pa'm of
my hand, and he said to me, he said, "Nicholas, me and my boys have all
been done killed and I want you to keep on staying there with my wife and
take care of things. I want you to do that, Nicholas," and I said to him,
"Cap'n," I said, "I'll sure do it.'"
"So it was that Nicholas stayed there the rest of his life and looked
after the mother and the daughter, for his second sight seeing was true. And
nobody ever came hunting for him as a runaway slave.
"Well, time went on, the years passed by, changes came. The mother
and the daughter died and only Nicholas was left alive. He was an old man
by this time and he stayed in the house that had belonged to the good lady,
for the daughter had left it to him. He lived there until the time the
government took over the reservation here in 1923.
"Some of you know what a hard time the government had in getting
folks to give up their land here at Fort Bragg. But finally after a lot of hard
trials everybody had been taken care of except Nicholas. He refused to budge.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
The authorities had to get the law of course and at last they put him out,
they evicted him. They moved him and his goods down the road there.
' 'What do you think—the very next day Nicholas was back in the same
house. They moved him out again. He came back again.
' 'Finally my daddy and General Bowley came out here to see Nicholas.
The General got interested in him. My daddy told him the story of Nicholas,
the way I'm telling it. I think the General was touched by it. Anyhow, he
said, 'Nicholas, you stay right here. You can stay on as long as you want
to. Of course, we've got an artillery range here but we'll take care of you
somehow.'
"So every time after that they'd start the artillery practice, they'd first
send a soldier or soldiers over to tell Nicholas that they were about ready
to fire and Nicholas would move out of there. And where do you think he'd
come? He'd come here to this old Longstreet Church and wait here till the
firing was over.
' 'Of course by that time the church was long deserted, the congregation
had passed on and there was no service held here at all. But Nicholas would
come here, sit down in the church, and wait until the thunder and fire of
the artillery was over just down there to the south of us.
"I reckon a lot of us wonder what the old colored man thought about
as he sat here in this church and heard the roar of the guns.
"Yes, he was the last worshiper in Longstreet Church," said Mr. Shaw,
' 'and now nothing ever comes here much except a lot of deer that take shelter
from the cold weather under the building."
Later I went out and looked under the church. The north end was some
five and half feet from the ground which sloped upward to a couple of feet
at the rear. The earth was covered with deer manure.' 'Enough,'' said Leon
MacDonald, one of the historians, "to make my garden rich as sin."
" Look up there in the gallery," Mr. Shaw went on." I remember when
I was a boy, I used to come here to service and there was one old Negro
slave left. Every preaching Sunday he'd be here. Look up on the wall there
and you can see a darkish spot. That's where he'd rest his head as he looked
down on the pulpit. I reckon the grease and sweat of his hair over the long
years made the wall dirty that-a-way. Maybe he was just sitting there snoozing
away anyhow and not listening to the sermon."
Sin in secret and it will show in the open.
Nothing is secret which shall not be made manifest.
Secretary of Defense
A United States Cabinet Member who is thought of by opposing countries
as, not Secretary of Defense, but "Secretary of Offense." According to
Bertrand Russell, when we consider that the United States has the earth
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
985
girdled with military bases — the word offense would seem the appropriate
one for the title. The same is now beginning to apply to the U.S.S.R.
secrets
A woman's private parts.
Tell her secrets at the crossroads.
see
To borrow, to take. "Let me see your pencil a minute. I'll hand it right back."
To look after, to accompany. "It's mighty dark down the road there and
you'd better see Mis' Nora home."
Can't see an inch before his nose.
"I see" said the blind man.
"So do I," said the dumb one.
(A facetious proverb.)
see after
To take care of. "See after the children while I'm gone, won't you?"
I've got to see a man.
Usually used as an excuse to get away from a tiresome person or a bothersome
subject or situation. Also to go to the restroom.
seed
Past tense of see.
In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening withhold not thy hand.
go to seed
To grow old, to lose influence, to become useless.
see double
To be blinded with anger, to be upset. "He made me so mad I saw double.''
seed ticks
A little tiny vicious tick.
Seeing is believing.
Seek and ye shall find.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all else shall be added unto you.
He that seeketh findeth.
Ye shall seek me and shall not find me and where I am thither ye cannot come.
Things are not always what they seem.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
a seem-so
A camouflage, a pretense.
seems to me
It appears. "Seems to me like I've seen you som'ers before."
seep
A miry place. "Better watch out down there, there's a bad seep in the road.''
See-Saw
The ever-popular game and activity in which children sit astride the ends
of a long plank balanced at the midpoint and several feet or more from the
ground.
See-saw, Margery Daw,
Jack shall have a new master.
He shall have but a penny a day,
Because he won't work any faster.
(A nursery rhyme.)
see to
To attend to, to look after. "I'll see to that balancing of the books right
away."
see where
Reference to a newspaper source, usually a newspaper account. "I see where
the President has ordered more troops to Vietnam."
segashiate
To move about, to stir around as among company.
segregation
A doctrine of racial separation, based on the belief that the white man was
by nature superior to the black. This doctrine was followed in the South
for more than three hundred years but is now being broken down.
For a generation or more after the Civil War Uncle Christopher Turner,
a Negro, built fires in the Linneyville Baptist Church and worked round
and about in the neighborhood for the white man. When he died, penniless
and alone, in his little shack on the ridge west of the town, a neighbor or
two buried him outside the churchyard wall and stuck up a little piece of
pine board at his head which soon rotted down. George Miller, one of the
Valley poets, wrote a piece about him which appeared in "The Linneyville
News."
"They buried me next the white folks' wall
So's I could take my rest
A little better being next
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
987
To them that's better blest.
'Twas me that used to drink the slops
And chew the white man's crumbs
And answer to his call and beck
Of fingers and of thumbs.
But dirt is dirt and worm's a worm,
And all men's bones are white
And grass grows green from where I sleep
As any towards the light.
"So let me lie lost in the earth
Of blackness given to all.
It makes no difference white or black
Who's buried by this wall."
According to my father, Uncle Chris was one of the humblest and sweetest
souls alive, and maybe George Miller gave thoughts to him he never had.
And maybe not.
See also "excursion."
seized
Bitten deeply. "That tick has seized and he's gone clean out of sight in the
flesh of my leg."
selah
God be with you.
selden
Seldom.
A man's self is his worst enemy.
To thine own self be true.
self-heal
An aromatic herb that grows plentifully in the Valley. It is an astringent
and also a vulnerary.
Self-praise is half scandal.
Self-praise is no honor.
Self-praise is no recommendation.
Self-praise is self-slander.
5e//"-preservation is the first law of nature.
�988
sell
Paul Green's Wordbook
A cheat, a deception. "The whole deal was a sell."
sell out
To run, to flee in terror, to hurry away. "When that wildcat whistle tore
loose, man, did that boy sell out!"
sells like hot cakes
send
To exhilarate, to inspire, to fill with elation. "Lord, that country music do
send me."
He hasn't sense enough to bell a buzzard,
no more sense than a snake has hips
sensitive plant
See "be-shame bush."
You look like you were sent for and couldn't come.
seplings
Saplings.
seraphim
Winged guardians of God's throne. They are the next order above cherubim.
the sere and yellow leaf
Old age.
Sermons in stones and good in everything.
Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
No man can serve two masters.
They also serve who only stand and wait.
served
Mated.' 'We ought to have fresh milk in the spring. I've just had my heifer
served by Joe Turner's beast."
serviceberry
Same as sarviceberry, which is also called the shadbush. It grows into smallsized trees in all parts of the Valley. The berries are edible and have been
used in stimulating beverages.
It serves him right.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
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989
Sit.
To harden as cement, concrete.
The number of couples in a square dance, also the number of dances. "I
danced six sets before I felt that blister on my foot."
To be ready. "I'm all set to travel, come on."
A number, a few, some.' 'Come a set of light nights in June and my tobacco's
gone up salt creek with the worms."
set a cap for
Deliberately plan to win a person's love, mainly refers to a woman's intent.
set across
To carry across. "Waitaminute, honey, andl'll set youacross the branch."
set a good table
To provide plenty of food.
set a spell
To pay a visit.
Set a thief to catch a thief.
Set-Back
Acardgame. Same as "High, Low, Jack and the Game." Sometimes called
"High, Low, Jack."
set in
To begin." It set in to raining about dark, and then we had a gully-washer.''
setter
The buttocks, the backside. "When that man hit me, I landed on my setter
so hard it loosened my back teeth."
set the hair
To misscald a slaughtered hog and thus make it harder to get the hair off.
My father was an expert at knowing how long to keep the hog turning
in the scalding barrel before jerking it out. When the hair set, it really was
hard to get off, and then we'd have to use sharp butcher knives to shave
it off, not being able to pull it off with our hands as usual. See' 'hog killing.''
setting down
A scolding, a dressing down.
A setting hen never grows fat.
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setting in
The occasion of a baby's delivery.
setting of eggs
Eggs that are chosen especially for hatching. The number suitable for a hen
should be an odd number if success is wanted — 9,11 or 13, depending on
the size of the hen. "Go up to your Uncle Tom's house and see if we can
borrow a setting of eggs."
setting stick
A stick used for setting tobacco or potato plants.
setting up
A wake or a night's vigil for a sick or a dead person.
settle
To pay or to pay back or to exact revenge. "Some of these days I'll settle
you for what you've done."
settlings
The dregs.
setup
An arrangement.
to set up
As the hardening of mortar or concrete adhering to stone or bricks.
set up to
To court.
set up with
To attend to a sick person especially through the night. "I am sure sleepy
today. I had to set up with Aunt Josie all last night."
Seven is a lucky number.
seven sleepers
Legendary heavy sleepers, persons hard to wake, sleepyheads.
seven stars
The Pleiades.
seventh heaven
A state of bliss, also the highest heaven where God and the most exalted
angels dwell.
seventh son
An especially gifted person, gifted for healing.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
991
Seven Up
A card game, also a popular soft drink.
seven-year itch
A very tough and hard to cure condition of the skin. See' 'pokeberry weed.''
If one keeps anything for seven years, he will find a use for it.
sewed up
See "in the bag."
sex kitten
An over-amorous girl.
shackly
Broken down, loose-jointed, rickety. "And there old Purdie Banks came
riding along in his shackly wagon hauling wood for the professors."
shack up
To sleep with, cohabiting of an unmarried man and woman. "Have you
heard about Walter and Julie — they're shacking up together now."
shadbush
Same as the serviceberry, and how beautiful this tree is in the early spring
when it adorns the woods with its foamy lacy blossoms.
shad days
The days of early March when the shad begin to run. At least they used to
run up the Cape Fear River before the locks were built across it. I can
remember vividly how we would all be on the lookout for the Negroes coming
up the road from the Cape Fear River direction with their newly-caught shad.
My mother used to always look forward to shad time, for we would get these
shad weighing several pounds each for fifteen cents apiece. I remember how
she complained when the price went up to twenty-five cents. I always hated
them because of the millions of bones in them. I still do.
shade
A resting place. "Naw, he ain't much of a worker, he's always looking for
the shade."
A bit, a small amount. "Yessir, Mr. Matthews is a shade better today."
Don't be afraid of your own shadow.
He could walk fifty miles and not stand a single time in his own shadow.
He has to stand up twice to make a shadow.
So thin she can't make a shadow.
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He parts with the substance for the shadow.
Don't lose your meat for a shadow.
shady
Vulgar, tricky, unreliable.
shag
Pipe tobacco.
shagbark hickory
A very fruitful hickory that grows especially in the upper reaches of the
Valley. Sometimes they reach enormous size. I have two on my farm that
must be sixty or seventy feet tall and two feet or more in diameter near the
base.
shake a leg
To move in a hurry, to dance, to run.
shake a stick at
A phrase of comparison. "I've got more work to do than I can shake a stick
at."
shake down
A bodily search, also a bribe.
fair shake
An equal chance, equitable and just treatment.
shake hands on
An act of confirmation and agreement.
shake hands with St. Peter
To die, to go to heaven.
shakes
The palsy, the shivers. "Aunt Edna's got the shakes so bad now she can't
even dip snuff anymore."
Speedily, almost instantly. "I'll be there in three shakes of a lamb's tail."
I'll do it in two shakes of a dog's tail.
I'll do it in three shakes of a sheep's tail.
no great shakes
Of little worth, unimportant.
shake up
To upset. "When we told him that his sweetheart had been ketched in the
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
993
woods with that new Holy Roller preacher, he said, 'That really shakes me
up.' "
To make a sudden change in a thing, or people or business.
shaking like a leaf
shallow
High-pitched. "He had a right shallow voice just like a girl and people
thought he was prissy till he knocked that bully down one day with a pair
of brass knucks."
a shame and a disgrace
A notorious action, vulgar behavior.
a shame and a scandal
Same as a shame and a disgrace.
shame child
An illegitimate child.
shamming
Pretending, feigning, playing the hypocrite.
Old Kelly Sullivan was another one of these stubborn and headstrong
Valley Scotchmen. He was a widower and had a darling daughter named
Thereba Jane, called' 'Therby." He was jealous of her as a lover might be,
and watchful of her every moment. Across the creek lived a young man by
the name of Alton Hood who was in love with her, and no wonder, for she
was a pretty, bouncing thing. Alton, in his way, was just as stubborn as
old Kelly and was determined to marry Therby. But the father, finding he
was up against it with Alton and that Therby was looking on the young man
with favor, decided to take to his bed as a sick man. And there he stayed
week after week and month after month, claiming he had some sort of
paralysis and was bedridden and helpless. Therby was a kindhearted girl
and could never get up courage to leave her father because she thought he
was really ill and needed her, and so she cooked for him, bathed him and
tended to his chamber pot.
Young Alton began to have suspicions and he argued with Therby that
he believed her daddy was shamming and was not paralyzed and that she
ought not to be tied to him the way she was. One day when he and she were
out in the yard, and he was arguing with her, a peddler came by. In the course
of his rigmarole about his goods and his display of clothing before Therby
and Alton, the peddler draped himself in a woman's dress to show it off
to the girl. Therby didn't have any money to buy anything, of course, because
her old dad didn't provide any, and she regretfully had to let the peddler
put the dress away, but Alton did buy her a pair of pretty side-combs.
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Young Alton was a smart fellow, and seeing the peddler dressed with
the woman's dress draped on him had given him an idea. After the peddler
left he had a long argument with Therby and finally persuaded her to his plan.
The next day when she was waiting on her daddy, bringing him his mush
and trying to comfort him and washing his face and fanning him, she told
him about the news of a new woman healer in the neighborhood. "I believe,
Pa, that if you let that woman healer come and treat you, you'd get better.''
The old man would hear nothing of it. Still she insisted and finally he
grudgingly gave in, knowing in his heart that he wasn't going to be healed
by anybody — certainly not as long as this Alton was after his heart's jewel.
The next day in came the woman healer. It actually was the peddler
dressed up like a woman. Alton had hired him for his purpose. The healer
went through all sorts of fumadiddles, examining Kelly and making a spiel
about this and that and the other. Therby went out of the room and left
them alone, and then the healer began to make love to Kelly and tried to
get into bed with him. Kelly was terrified and bounded out with the healer
in amorous pursuit, chasing him into the hall and he calling for Therby,
Therby, as loud as he could as he ran. Into the yard he fled and there stood
Alton and Therby hand in hand and they were laughing at him. Kelly was
ashamed down to the ground, and then his shame turned to anger, and he
went looking for the healer with his gun. But the peddler had disappeared.
After this Therby had a mind of her own and soon she and Alton were
married, and the father gave the bride away.
shanghai
To fool, to cheat, to lure into a trap.
shank
The early part of the evening, just before twilight comes. "The shank of
the evening is pinking in and it's about time to quit, fellows."
A leg. "Look how that girl shows her shanks — plumb disgraceful!"
shankers
Chancres.
shanks' mare
Feet. "To ride shanks' mare is to go a-foot."
shanks' pony
One's feet. "I come on shanks' pony, that's how I got here."
shape notes
The old time notation in the songbooks where the shape of each note denoted
its name. These were much easier to sing than the round notes of the present
day.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
995
Share and share alike.
shark
A greedy moneylender.
sharp
Clever, smart in a trade.
Stylish, well-dressed.
sharp as a briar
sharp as a knife
as a pin
as a tack
sharp as a two-edged sword
sharper
A swindler, an untrustworthy trader.
The sharper the blast the sooner 'tis past.
shave
A narrow miss, a close call.
shaves
Shafts.
s/zoveta//
A new second lieutenant, used in WWI especially.
sheaves
Repentant sinners or new converts, ready to be taken into the church, those
who are newly-changed from nature to grace.
The deacons in the Holiness Church of God in Jesus Name in Harnett
County had a get-together some two years ago to plan for their big annual
revival. After they had sung the old song with its loping refrain—
"Bringing in the sheaves, bringing
in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing
in the sheaves—"
they got down to business. The head deacon, Simon Bender, said the time
had come when they really must go after the sheaves to fill out their church
membership. The question before the house was how to do it. One suggested
that the deacons themselves should go from house to house where the
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unregenerated sinners lived and hold special prayers to bring them into
repentance and into the fold. They discussed this pro and con for a while
and finally Deacon Bender proposed that they offer some sort of prize for
family conversions and memberships in the church.
"We got to work in a family way," he said. At this some of the other
deacons snickered, for in the common folk parlance in the Valley "in the
family way" meant a woman's being pregnant.
Out of the discussion the decision was finally made to offer a prize of
a new deep-freeze refrigerator to the family which would provide the most
repentant sinners and conversions, to be taken into the church — all, of
course, from that same family. The news was published abroad, and the
new evangelist arrived to begin the revival or protracted meeting.
It happened that a couple of miles away on the banks of Little River
lived a notorious white woman by the name of Ludie Crane who was already
the mother of seven illegitimate children and was expecting another. She
was doing well in the business of producing children, for each new one meant
an increase in the welfare check that came to her from the Aid for Dependent
Mothers agency. She and Uncle Sam were thus in good cahoots, he helping
indirectly both to father and support her and her brood.
To add to her notoriety of recent months, a "roomer" had started
staying in her house, a dark visaged young man who she said was an Indian
and who all the scandalized neighbors believed was a Negro. No one knew
where he came from but he showed up at Ludie's house and was living there
with her, maybe as her common-law husband.
The revival in this Holiness Church of God in Jesus Name got going
with the usual clamor and singing and talking in tongues, holy dancing and
cuttings up. But even so, the repentant sinners were few and far between.
Then one day Ludie and her Indian and her passel of young'uns all showed
up at the church and took their seats near the rear. The family were pretty
decrepit looking, even though Ludie had tried to dress everyone up a bit.
The congregation was upset, but Ludie's family behaved circumspectly
enough. The next day they showed up again and this time they came early
enough to get a seat near the middle of the church. Again the congregation
buzzed and whispered and gritted its teeth. The third day Ludie and her
family were on the front row, and when the Reverend Seelie Bryant in his
hasseling and phlegmy great voice called on sinners to come to the mercy
seat of God and find salvation, Ludie and her family, including the Indian
"lover," all trooped forward and knelt at the mourners' bench and there
cried out loudly in dolorous and sobbing calls, the whole nine of them, even
to the youngest little boy, Roosevelt, for the Lord to have mercy on their
sinful souls.
The upshot of it was that all of them stood up and confessed and said
that they were saved from nature to grace and wanted to be baptized and
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
997
become members of the church. This pretty much broke up that day's
meeting. Reverend Seelie pronounced the benediction and the service ended.
After Ludie and her crew had gone away, the congregation gathered
in knots here and there about the church grounds and let loose a medley
of judgments and queries as to what to do. The deacons met inside the church
in a called session.
"What a come-off, what a come-off!" said Deacon Lester Currin.
"The whole thing is a swindle," said another.
"It must be so," said Deacon Bender. "She's just after that deep-freeze.
They're no more converted — that gang of low-down trash — no more
converted than my prize hog."
"But what can we do, what can we do? " another one asked anxiously.
They turned to Reverend Seelie Bryant, who was meeting with them,
for his advice.' 'They's only one more day of the revival,'' said the preacher,
"and they'll be back I'm sure and will stand up to receive the right hand
of fellowship."
"I ain't gonna shake hands with nary one of them,'' said Deacon Currin,
"no how!" But at the advice of the preacher they all decided they would
go through with giving them the hand and then defer the baptizing
indefinitely. This would take care of things for a while.
"If we ever let them folks inside our church as members,'' said Deacon
Bender, "it will destroy this house of God. People won't come here anymore.
They'll only be them nine as a congregation and no one to preach to them.''
So it was decided, and next day the congregation passed along in front of
the line of Ludie's family and gave them the limp hand of fellowship along
with a few other scattering sinners lined up with them, the latter of course
getting a good warm handshake.
I heard about the dilemma, and one day some months later I happened
to meet Deacon Bender at a store in Lillington and discreetly brought up
the subject and asked what had happened to Ludie and the family — had
she ever been awarded the deep-freeze, and so on?
"Ain't nothing happened to "em," said the deacon sharply, "except
that Ludie has another woods colt, and of course an increase in her pay from
Uncle Sam. Lord a-mercy, what's this country come to! And as for the deepfreeze, Mr. Green, she'll never get it, because we ain't never gonna baptize
her and the young'uns. We've just put off the baptizing, and now it's into
December and the water's too cold, so we'll wait till next summer." Then
he went on somewhat brightly, "We've got one hope, though."
"What's that, Mr. Bender?" I asked.
' 'Well, we've been to the man that owns the house they live in, Patrick
Hockaday, and he has promised to turn the family out."
"And then what will those children do, say, with winter coming on?"
"We're hoping they'll move away, that's what," he said, "move slam
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out of this neighborhood."
"But where will they go, you think?"
"I don't care where they go but they're going, and she has enough money
from Uncle Sam to pay their way som'ers anyhow."
And that was what happened. Ludie didn't get her deep-freeze, she and
her family moved away to another county, and no one has taken the trouble
to find out where she went. Maybe I will someday. And I imagine by this
time she is pregnant again by the Indian and is looking forward to an increase
in her monthly check.
sheba
A finery-dressed or attractive woman.
shebang
A project, a happening, also a crowd, a collection. "The whole shebang
ought to be indicted for raising that ruckus like that and if I were sheriff,
I'd put them behind bars."
she-cow
A cow as contrasted to the prudish "he-cow," the latter being used in the
place of bull.
shed of
To be free from, separate from. "Oh, I got shed of that dog long ago."
sheeny
A Jew.
One bad sheep spoils the flock.
It is a foolish sheep that confesses to the wolf.
sheep-burr
Cocklebur.
sheep-eyes
Languorous courting looks.
sheephead
A stupid person.
sheep laurel
This laurel grows in moist localities and in dry sandy acid soils and even
bogs in North Carolina. The leaves and twigs and flowers of the shrub are
narcotic and poisonous and have been used in the treatment of syphilis, scaldhead and other skin infections. According to the word handed down, the
Cree Indians used sheep laurel as a tonic and for bowel complaints.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
999
sheep shearing rain
Rain in May which usually comes about the time of the blackberry winter
when it is time for shearing the sheep.
sheep sorrel
The oxalis. Old Miss Zua Smith used to use this as an ingredient in her cancer
salve. See "cancer cure."
three sheets in the wind
Drunk.
sheik
A glamorous lover.
shekels
Money.' 'Shell out some of them shekels, brother, if you want to do business
with me."
on the shelf
To be taken out of circulation, laid aside, old and outworn. "Yep, I'm laid
on the shelf now and all I do is watch others work and draw my social
security."
shellacking
A whitewashing, a complete defeat, a contest in which the opposition fails
to score.' 'Duke sure give Carolina a shellacking Saturday—did you see it?''
shell out
Pay up, to contribute money.
shelve
To delay, put off, lay aside.
shelving
Lumber suitable for making shelves, book shelves, for instance.
she-male
A woman who "wears the britches," the female boss.
shenanigans
Hysterical behavior, fits of temper, funny, tricky doings. "You'd better
watch that fellow and his shenanigans."
shepherd
A preacher, the head of the congregation.
The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep,
as welcome as the sheriff
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Every man should be sheriff of his own heart.
Sherman's bummers
The raggle-taggle foragers of Sherman's army during its march through the
South in the Civil War, devourers of the leavings of the country and the
objects of many a citizen's curse and shaken fist of malediction.
My father used to tell how he as a boy of fifteen first met up with
Sherman's bummers. He was out ploughing in the field with a little pony.
He said that Grandpa's other few horses had been taken and hidden in the
juniper swamp half a mile away. While he was ploughing along, he heard
the jingling of swords and the tramping of horses' feet, and he looked out
and there came a swarm of Yankees along the road. Some of them jumped
right over the rail fence, hurried out where he was, grabbed the plough lines
away from him, unhitched the pony and led him off. They stood Papa up
against a tree and said they were going to shoot him if he didn't tell where
the other horses were.
We children used to listen to this rarely-told story with shivers of delight.
My father was a modest man and talked very little about himself. But he
said that even at the threat of death he didn't tell where the few horses were
hid, and the bummers finally went away.
Aunt Nancy Demming who was working at Grandpa's house at that
time said that she saw one of the bummers later sitting behind the barn "doing
his business," and he had a tail and his feet were forked like the devil's.
She also used to tell how they caught Grandpa Green, took him out and
hung him up by his thumbs in the orchard and tried to get him to tell where
the silverware and the horses were hid. I think old Miss Nancy made this
up, for my father didn't remember anything about such an incident. But
to this day Sherman's bummers are remembered in the Valley — from
Wilmington to Chapel Hill — with curses and an abusing of tongues.
Jesse Hargrave of Chapel Hill married Christopher Barbee's daughter
— the same Christopher who gave much of the land for building the
University — and settled with his bride on what came to be known as
Hargrave's Mountain a mile or so east of the town. Actually it was a little
low hill and overlooked Bowling Creek to the north.
When I was a student in Chapel Hill in 1916, some remains of the old
Hargrave house still stood, and just to the east was the Hargrave burying
ground where Jesse Hargrave and his wife and relatives were buried and
also some of the old Hargrave slaves, so I was told. There used to be an
iron fence around the grave which was pointed out to me as the resting place
of one of the Kenan family, too. Anyway, William Rand Kenan's mother
was the daughter of the Hargraves and the granddaughter of old Christopher
Barbee. Mr. William Rand Kenan told me that he used to visit the Hargrave
place when he was a little boy. The last time I saw Mr. Kenan alive in Florida,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1001
he also said to me, "Did you know that I was the man who put the first
electric light in the University? Yes sir, I was. I wired up some of the buildings
and that was the first electric light they had." Then he went on to ask me
if I had read the story of his life. I told him I had, and he said that that was
good.
Mr. A.W. Long wrote a book called Son of Carolina, and he tells in
it of his visits as a boy to the Hargrave place and how Sherman's bummers
came into the yard once — coming up the road from the spring below the
hill which is now owned by Dr. Maurice E. Newton and which I used to
own. The Hargraves, according to Long, had a cook named Betsy, and when
she heard that the bummers were coming, she put on all of her dresses, seven
of them, putting the best one nearest her skin and then in sequence of lesser
quality on out. When the bummers arrived, she fled upstairs and hid in a
feather bed. The sergeant of the group scoured around trying to find some
stray shellcorn, but all he found was some sweepings in the barn and an
old rooster. He wrung the rooster's neck because he had caught him, he
said, "crowing with a Confederate accent." Then he searched the house,
and presently he leaned out the window and called, "Come up here boys,
I've found the dying Confederacy!'' He had discovered Betsy hiding in the
feather bed.
Fred Hargrave, Jesse's son, who was supposed to be the handsomest
man in Orange County and had a beautiful tenor voice with which he amused
the faculty wives and ladies in town at parties — he, Fred, when the bummers
came, rushed out into the woods and tied his precious gold watch to a little
twig among some leaves to keep it hid. After the bummers left, he went out
to find the watch and he never could find it. He had lost the remembrance
of the place he had hid it.
I bought this Hargrave land in 1933 and built a house on the site of
the old Hargrave home. Later with the help of Collier Cobb, Clyde Hornaday
and the landscape people at Raleigh, I laid out roads and streets, and the
town spread in that direction. Later, too, I sold the Greenwood house to
young Watts Hill, and now Elizabeth and I sojourn in Chatham County
among the hopping rabbits. Yet every time I pass along Greenwood Road
and see the house on the hill, I am likely to think of Sherman's bummers
and the old days gone by when men with their senseless wars, even as now,
were marauding the earth. See "ghost" and "McGregor."
She sells seashells by the seashore.
Who sells seashells by the seashore?
She sells seashells by the seashore.
(A tongue twister.)
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shet
Shut.
sheth
Sheath, a shuck, a scabbard.
shet of
Shed of.
skew-bread
An accumulation of white matter under the skin of an unwashed penis head.
shift
A woman's undergarment.
shifty
Unreliable, of guilty appearance. "I don't like that fellow — he's got shifty
eyes."
shilling
A dime. When I was a boy in Harnett County, nearly all the old people spoke
of dimes as shillings. In fact my grandfather's account book listed the dimes
always as shillings, and my father used to say "a shilling" or "ten cents"
instead of a "dime."
shilly-shally
To vacillate, hesitate, waver, act foolishly and uncertainly.
shim
A small metal wedge or washer. "Put a shim in there and I think the wheels'll
be canted right."
shimmy
To shake, to vibrate excessively, to weave about. "When that colored sister
got to shimmying up and down, seemed her big old bubs would bounce out
of her dress."
A hip-wiggling type of dance.
Also a chemise.
Shin (Shinny)
An old-time game that was played in the Valley with a little wooden block
or pellet and a crooked-ended stick, akind of crude golf game. AuntFanny
McDade who used to live on Cameron Avenue in Chapel Hill told me about
how the Negro pupils, when she was a child, used to play Shinny there at
the Negro school.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1003
shinbone
The bone in the front part of the leg below the knee.
shindig
A party, a dance, a joyous loud celebration.
shindy
Same as shindig.
shine
Fancy, liking. "He took a shine to her the very first time he ever saw her,
and now they're getting married."
to cut a shine
To cut up boisterously.
shiner
A black eye. "When he called me a son-of-a-bitch, that's when I hung that
shiner on him."
shiners
Silver dollars or gold pieces, money.
shines like a new penny
shingle
To cut hair very close. "She went and got herself a shingle, and now she
looks like a picked chicken."
hang out one's shingle
To go into business on one's own, to put up one's sign as to a trade.
shingles
A disease of irritated skin. One cure that I used to hear about was to take
the blood drawn from a black cat's tail and spread it over the afflicted parts
and the shingles would disappear.
shinplaster
Greenback money.
shiny as a new dollar
A great ship needs deep water.
ship comes in
Good fortune, wealth. "I will pay you when my ship comes in."
ship stuff
Bran for hogs. My father used to always say that when he got his ship stuff,
his hogs would really fatten up.
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"The Ship That Never Returned"
Another tear-pulling, throat-choking song which was popular in our family.
My mother taught it to us at an early date.
"On a summer day, as the waves were rippling
by the soft and gentle breeze,
Did a ship set sail with her cargo laden
for a port beyond the seas."
Chorus
"Did she never return? No, she never returned,
and her fate was yet unlearned
Tho' for years and years there were fond
ones waiting for the ship that never returned.
"Said a feeble lad to his anxious mother,
'I must cross the wide wide sea,
For they say, perchance, in a foreign climate
There is health and strength for me!'
'Twas a gleam of hope in a maze of danger
And her heart for her youngest yearned;
Though she sent him forth with a smile and blessing
On the ship that never returned!
" 'Only one more trip,' said a gallant captain,
As he kissed his weeping wife.
'Only one more bag of the golden treasure,
And 'twill last us all through life!
Then we'll spend our days in a cozy cottage
And enjoy the rest I've earned!'
But, alas, poor man, who sailed commander
On the ship that never returned!"
shirt-button bush
Spirea.
shirt tail boy
A small boy prior to adolescence.
shirttail shower
A light rain.
don't give a shit
Don't care, makes no difference.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1005
shit-ass
A lowdown person.
up shit creek without a paddle
In a precarious situation.
shit-hole
The anus.
shit-house
The privy.
Shit, no!
An emphatic denial, a folksy expletive.
shit out of luck
Completely unlucky.
shit, piss and conception
A bilge of frothy talk, a coarse and untrustworthy person. "Yonder comes
old shit, piss and conception, let's leave."
shits
Diarrhea.
shivaree
A rough and rowdy party, often at the expense of two newlyweds.
shive
A knife.
shivering owl
Screech owl.
shivers
The shakes, chills.
shoe
To shoe, as "shoe a horse," or as the North Carolina ballad says, "Oh,
who will shoe my pretty little feet? Who will glove my hand?"
The shoe pinches.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
He knows where the shoe pinches.
He cares more for the shoe than the foot.
shoe comes untied
Shows that someone is thinking of you.
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"Shoe Darling"
A popular fiddling piece.
shoe-fitted
To become settled as in a new house.
to shoe goslings
To waste time, piddle about.
Shoemakers should stick to their lasts.
shoe on the other foot
A reversed condition, a turnabout situation.
I would hate to be in his shoes.
I set my shoes in the shape of a T
That tonight in my dreams my true love I'll see,
The shape of his body, the color of his hair,
The everyday clothes that he does wear.
(A divination rhyme.)
shoestring
A weak thing, slight margin. "He's opening that play on a shoestring and
I believe it'll fail."
shoestring leather
My father used to keep a roll of leather or of sheepskin from which now
and then he would cut shoestrings for the children's shoes. I would stand
and admire him as with his sharp knife he would peel off a long slender string.
Some of us children usually would hold the ends of the leather while he cut
and then how proud we were when we got our new shoestrings in our shoes
and walked away to school in the morning.
sho' nuff
Sure enough.
shoo
A command for driving away chickens or any fowl, but not applied to
animals.
shoofly
A fast passenger train on the Seaboard Airline Railroad.' 'Listen here, boy,
and I'll show you how to sound that shoofly on my harp."
shook
Shock, as a shook of wheat.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1007
all shook up
Disturbed, deeply troubled in mind. "When I heard about Elsie Denning
dying all of a sudden, I was all shook up."
shoot
To say forth, to speak out.' 'Go ahead and shoot — what's on your mind?"
A young plant, a sapling or a young child. "Henry's Polly is getting to be
a right good-sized shoot of a girl."
Shoot!
A mild interjection.
Shoot the works.
like shooting fish in a barrel
shooting iron
Pistol.
Shooting Match
A contest of skill in marksmanship. Most always in these days the matches
are termed "turkey shooting" because that is the prize. Away back they
had shootings for a cow or a bull or a hog.
Also shooting match means a crowd of people, a gathering.' 'And then blest
if he didn't stand up there and tear loose in his speech and insult the whole
shooting match."
Speaking of shooting matches, I remember when Percy McKaye was
visiting us in Chapel Hill many years ago, he told me of a shooting match
he saw once in the Appalachian Mountains. He was up among the
mountaineers gathering folklore and he came to a cabin and a very old man
was sitting on the front porch with a rifle and was banging away at some
mark up in a high pine tree. McKaye said the time of day with him and got
to talking, as was his way, hoping to collect some folklore. The old man
informed him he was practicing up for a shooting match and then he gave
McKaye a sample of his skill. He shot a small pine cone out of the top of
a high pine. Then reloading his rifle he fired at a small knot in the lot fence
and knocked it out. McKaye was deeply impressed, and then the old man
said that he wasn't much good at all, but he ought to see his daddy shoot.
"Your daddy?" said McKaye astounded. "You don't mean your
daddy's living."
"Yeh, he's living," said the old man. "I'm eighty-nine, and he's still
living. He's there in the house, and he can still shoot to beat the band. Let
me show you. Wait a minute," he said. He went inside and helped an
incredibly old man out on the porch and set him down in the chair. Then
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he put the rifle in the old man's hands and pointed to a knot in the fence
farther on than the one he'd shot, and according to McKaye he himself
couldn't see the knot. The old man got the rifle raised and fired off. Then
the son took McKaye out to the fence and showed him where the small knot
had been knocked out.
"Ain't he somethin'," said the son pridefully.
"He is that," said McKaye. "How old did you say he is?"
"He's going on 110," said the son.
Then the group of us who were listening to McKaye's tale guffawed
a bit and then added to it by saying,' 'No doubt the older man had a daddy
somewhere about 149 — or more."
"Yes, that's right," said McKaye. "I asked the fellow about other
members of the family, and the son laughed and said, 'Our folks don't ever
die. We hang them up behind the door and just keep them dried up. I could
show you some if you stay around a few days, stranger.' "
McKaye said he doubted he could stay long enough to see this sight.
shoot off
To have a sexual orgasm (male).
shoot off at the mouth
To talk profusely and foolishly.
shoot one's wad
To use one's best argument, to make a final effort, to gamble all of one's
money.
shoot the breeze
To gabble, to indulge in idle talk.
shoot the works
Risk, gamble all, an all-out effort.
shoot up
Drug taking.
Keep the shop and the shop will keep thee.
shore
Sure.
Short and sweet like an old woman's dance.
short as pie crust
A short horse is soon curried.
shortcake
Cornbread cake made short by extra grease and seasoning.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1009
to shortchange
Fail to fulfill, cheat.
To penalize, to oppress, to mistreat. "The poor boy was shortchanged by
his parents and that's why he joined the Ku Klux Klan."
shortchange artist
A swindler.
short end of the stick
An unfair deal, to come out with a bad bargain.' 'The folks around Jordan
Dam have been given the short end of the stick by Uncle Sam."
shortening (short'nin') bread
A special and delicious cornbread. We used to sing a Negro song about it—
"Two little niggers
A-lying in the bed,
Heels cracked open
Like shortening bread.
"Don't that looka like shortening, shortening.
Don't that looka like shortening bread.
"Put on the kettle
And put on the led (lid).
Mammy's gonna cook
Some shortening bread.
"Don't that looka like shortening, shortening.
Don't that looka like shortening bread."
short hair
Weakness in an unfortunate situation. "Iran has got Uncle Sam where the
hair is short."
shorthanded
To lack help, to be without assistants. "I was sort of shorthanded in housin'
my crop, and so I lost some of my late cotton in the black gusts."
short horn
Penis. "Roll out, all you buck privates, 'cause we're going to have short
horn inspection."
short rows
Near the end of a job. "We're getting in the short rows now, thank
goodness!"
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short talk
An impolite reply, a brusque or sassy answer.
shot
To be worn out, exhausted, ruined, bushed.' 'The motor in my car is shot."
Shut.
A dram, a quick drink. "Give me a shot of that red-eye."
The bad shot is a ready liar.
shotgun wedding
A marriage usually forced on the groom by the bride's relatives. Up until
recently shotguns were not allowed in Hollywood movies. They were
censorable in too many states. I remember in writing a movie for TwentiethCentury-Fox, with John Ford as director, at first I had a shotgun wedding
in it. The Breen Censorship Office after reading my script wrote back that
we could not show a shotgun wedding and suggested the use of baseball
bats on the part of the irate brothers of the bride. As foolish as this seems,
baseball bats were used in the movie.
shot in the arm
An encouraging happening.
shotten
Dislocated, as hip-shotten.
shoulder of land
A ridge of land, lengthy little hillock.
shouldn 't be surprised
A statement of agreement or confirmation. "I hear a big snow is coming.''
"I shouldn't be surprised."
shout
A religious cry.' 'And at that moment when Brother Roland was really going
to town in the pulpit, old Miss Howington let out a wild shout and broke
into a holy dance."
shove
To work hard. "You boys must shove today so we can finish this fodder
pulling."
shoved to death
Very busy.
shove it up your ass
A term of insult or low derision.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1011
He must have been fed with a shovel.
put to bed with a shovel
Buried.
shove off
To leave in a hurry, to move away quickly, to start.' 'All right, fellows, let's
shove off. We've got a long way to go."
show
Pregnant. "Miss Polly Branch is beginning to show, poor thing."
An entertaining, outlandish person, a bizarre character.
get the show on the road
To get things under way, to get a job started.
shower
Many, a lot. "Mr. Ed Deal lives over there and I hear he's got a shower
of children — nineteen, I think it is, and they say that when he goes to town
and buys a five-pound bag of sugar, he comes back, with all the children
lined up around the table with their coffee waiting. He opens up a corner
of the sack, goes around, dumps some sugar in each cup, and when he
finishes, he throws the empty bag out through the door."
shower down
To use extra strength or speed. "He showered down on his bike and left
everybody behind."
show the white feather
Act cowardly.
show up
To arrive. "If you wait long enough, Percy will show up."
shrimp
A small, picayunish or detestable fellow.
shrink
To lose by miscarriage as in the case of animals. "My sow has shrunk her
pigs."
There are no pockets in a shroud.
shrub
To cut sprouts or to dig up grubs and roots in making land ready for plowing.
"Paul, you and Hugh take your grubbing hoes and get to shrubbing down
there in that newground."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
shrunk-gutted
Emaciated.
shuck
The past tense of shake. "I shuck the bushes and out that hog come ahelling."
in the shuck
Corn pulled but unshucked, not yet born. "He's got five children and one
in the shuck."
shucking peg
A little sharp-ended peg some five or six inches long with a looped string
to go around a third or fourth finger to secure it. Held between the third
and fourth finger, it was used to open the end of the cornshuck. In my
neighborhood these pegs were usually made from a dogwood sprout and
the end hardened in the fire. See "cornshucking."
shuck mop
A homemade mop for floor-scouring. I can still hear my mother say, "Mary,
we've got to scour that kitchen floor Saturday. It's a shame and disgrace
for Sunday" — which it wasn't. "Paul (or Hugh), get me some new
cornshucks."
These mops were made from a sawed-section of a heavy pine planking
— say, two inches thick, eight inches wide and twelve inches long. A slanting
hole about an inch and a half in diameter was bored in the middle for the
insertion of the handle stick. Some eight or ten other holes of the same size
were bored through the piece of plank and a wad of shucks, after being wellwetted, was firmly twisted into them from the bottom side. Then with a
tub of water handy into which the mop could be dipped now and then for
cleansing, the scouring began. Back and forth, back and forth my mother
would push and pull the mop, the while she bore down heavily on it for better
cleaning, singing away the while,' 'Blessed Be the Name.'' Often she would
put one of us larger children to scouring. Dull, dull, dull, when it came my
turn. Back and forth and forth and back, the while I carried on a soliloquy
inside my head. "What's the matter with my mother? The dang floor looks
clean to me. It's them preachers, that's what. They'll be here Sunday and
she wants to show off what a good housekeeper she is." And then I'd relent
and start condemning myself as a sorry, unappreciative son.
I might mention that sometimes Mother would scatter a sprinkling of
sand on the floor to aid the mop in "cutting away the dirt."
shucks
A mild interjection. "Shucks, that's nothing."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1013
Thick shucks on a corn ear denote a hard winter to come.
to feed shucks to the geese
To act foolishly.
shug
A familiar term for sugar, a term of endearment.
shush
To hush, to put down a speaker or a noise.
shut-eye
Sleep.
shut of
Rid of, same as shed of.
shy
Short or lacking. "I counted the church funds, and he was shy $4.65."
A shy cat makes a brave mouse.
sich
Such.
sick as a buzzard
I was sick and ye visited me.
sick as a dog
Sick at the stomach.
sick stomach
A common old trouble in the Valley, usually with vomiting. How often I've
heard my mother speak of having the sick stomach and in pregnancy the
heartburn. She carried a piece of milk of magnesia in her apron pocket and
now and then took a bite of it.
to take sick
To become nauseated or ill.
the sickness
The monthlies.
side
Pride, airs, highfalutin manners. "Since she married that Justice of the Peace
she puts on a lot of side."
To plough dirt toward a plant. "I've got to side my cotton soon's it's dry
enough."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
He laughs on the wrong side of his face.
sideboards
The boards put on the side of a cart, a wagon or trailer to enlarge the load
carrying ability.
side-comb
The combs that girls used to wear in their hair and some still do.
sidekick
A pal, a comrade.
side meat
Bacon, fatback, middling.
There are two sides to every question.
sidesaddle
A lady's saddle. Up until a few years ago no lady who was a lady would
ride "straddle," as it was called.
sidesaddle plant
See "pitcher plant."
side table
The inferior place. "The Negro race has eaten at the side table long enough.''
sidewinder
A species of rattlesnake, a blow from sideways, also a dangerous sneaky guy.
side with
To agree with, to take the part of.
siding
The rough outside boards of a house, and the rough bark strips sawed from
a timber log. Also a piece of spur track branching from a railroad.
sidling
Steep, sloping. "The land's too sidling to be worth much for farming."
siff
(syphilis)
"The doctor says I've got that old siff, but I ain't paying no mind to it."
A sigh goes farther than a shout.
sight
Much, a lot, a great deal. "He's got a sight more sense than to do a thing
like that."
Out of sight is out of mind.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1015
sight for sore eyes
A welcome appearance of someone or something.
sight rather
To prefer strongly. "I'd a sight rather see you dead than to enter that infidel
university at Chapel Hill."
Their sights are set too high.
sights and dominicker owls
Everything. "I've seen sights and dominicker owls and they ain't nothing
left."
sight unseen
On trust without examining or testing. "He bought that mule sight unseen
and now he realizes how bad he got burnt."
signify around
To hint, to suggest.
sign on the dotted line
Confirm or make legal.
pay sign to
Pay attention to.
Signs don't produce money.
All signs fail in dry weather.
Silence gives consent.
Silence is golden.
There's no substitute for brains but silence does very well.
A man of silence is a man of sense.
as silent as a ghost
as silent as falling dew
as silent as night
as silent as the dead (or death)
as silent as the grave
as silent as your shadow
Watch out for a silent man.
A silent man is a wise man.
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"Silent Night" (Stille Nacht)
Another perfect Christmas carol. The melody is by the German composer,
Franz Gruber (1818), and the original words by Joseph Mohr (1818). The
English translation is by John Freeman Young (ca. 1863), and it too is perfect.
In our Christmas serenades and at the Christmas doings in the old Pleasant
Union Church we usually led off with "Silent Night," soon to be followed
with the pulsing "Joy to the World." The Valley rang with these carols at
Christmastime.
"Silent night,holy night,
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and Child,
Holy Infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace."
silk grass
Same as bear grass or Spanish bayonet. See "yucca."
silk tree
The mimosa tree.
as silly as a goose
silver bullet
Silver in any shape, form or fashion is supposed to be good protection against
all kinds of aches and pains, such as toothache, and especially powerful
against supernatural evils — voodoo spells, evil-eye or whatnot. And a silver
bullet is especially effective in combatting a mystic enemy or marauder
whatsoever.
Not long ago Malcolm Fowler, the Valley chronicler, and I were driving
through the country on one of our historical forays and visitings to old
churchyards when he told me about one Baldy Ryalls and his use of a silver
bullet. We were just passing along beyond Buie's Creek and Malcolm
gestured off to the left.
"There's a story connected with that place out there all right," he said,
"that little shack of a house out there."
"I don't see any shack," I said as I looked out across the rain-streaked
field.
"Well, there was a shack there. Guess it's all gone now, but the thicket
there by that hedgerow shows where it stood. Sarah McLean, an old Negro
woman, told me about a happening there. Baldy Ryalls, a Negro, used to
live there. One evening Baldy went down below the hill to feed his hogs,
and while they were eating the corn and the mash out of the trough, up came
a snow-white deer from the woods close by and began to eat the mash and
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1017
stuff away from the hogs. Baldy ran back to the house and got his old gun
and came down and banged away at the deer. He was a dead shot, Baldy
was, but he didn't hit that deer. She went on back into the woods like nothing
had bothered her at all.
' 'The next evening when he came down and fed his hogs, the same thing
happened. The white deer came up out of the woods, hopped over into the
pen and began to eat the mash and slops away from the hogs as brash as
you please. Baldy had brought his gun this time loaded with buckshot. So
he banged away pime-blank at the deer. But he couldn't hit her. She went
on back into the woods like nothing had happened.
"Well, Baldy was not to be outdone. He had heard handed down the
belief and stories about the mystic power of anything that had silver in it.
So that night he got out a silver dollar and melted it down and made himself
a silver bullet. The next evening he was all prepared.
"He went down and fed his hogs and stood waiting behind a tree with
his gun all loaded with the silver bullet. Sure enough, up came the deer snowwhite and beautiful as ever out of the woods. She hopped over in the pen
and began to eat the way she had done before. Then it was Baldy let her
have it full blast with his silver bullet.
"But bless your life, he hardly noticed whether he hit the deer or not.
For right after he fired off his gun at the deer and she had jooked crippled
back into the wood and out of sight, he heard the most outdacious yowling
and screeching going on up at the house behind him. The children came
running out on the porch hollering for him to hurry and see what happened
bad to Grandma.
"So he ran up to the house and into the room, and there lay Grandma
on the floor writhing and twisting and screeching with pain. She had been
shot clean through the leg and blood was pouring all out over the floor.
' 'Yes sir, Grandma was a hag, that's what she was — a witch woman,''
said Malcolm with finality, "and getting shot like that served her right."
"Then what happened to Grandma?" I asked.
"They say Baldy tended to her. After that she was a changed woman,
and finally got to be sanctified, so they said, and went about healing sick
people by the laying on of hands. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. I don't
know."
silver dime
A coin especially good for health. I've known many a Negro in the Valley
to take a dime, make a little hole in it, run a string through it and wear it
around his neck as a sort of necklace. "Yessir, Mr. Paul, there's nothing
better than a silver ten-cent piece to keep away all kinds of aches and pains.''
silver dollar charm
Old Webb Jones who lives down the road beyond Buie's Creek brags that
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Paul Green's Wordbook
he hasn't been broke in thirty years. "I always got me some money," he
burbles. And he has, for he carries a silver dollar in his mouth. He sleeps
with it and eats with it there. Anytime you want him to he'll run it out on
his tongue and show it to you. " 'Sides not being broke," he says, "I got
pertection too. Ain't no snake gonna bite me, no lightning strike me whilst
I got my dollar in my mouth, for it's got God's name on it and says trust
in him. And that's what I do, yassuh." See "protection against witches."
silverfish
A mite that thrives on paper or starched clothes.
born with a silver spoon in one's mouth
"Silver Threads Among the Gold"
This is another one of America's immortal songs. The words are by one
EbenE. Rexford, an editor of a Wisconsin farm newspaper who wrote verses
on the side. The music is by Hart Pease Banks, a composer of some ability
and note. One day in reading Rexford's farm journal, Danks came across
a poem that struck his fancy. He wrote to Rexford and bought it for three
dollars. "Silver Threads Among the Gold." He sat down to his little pedal
organ and soon had the melody completed. Danks was happily married and
this had much to do with the deep feeling he put into his song. Some of the
harsh critics called it over-sentimental, even saccharine, but the world didn't
agree. The song soon swept around the globe. Over the years millions sang
it and continue to sing it. It was always one of our choicest male quartet
pieces in the Valley, along with "Sweet Genevieve," "Carry Me Back to
Old Virginny," and "Sweet Adeline." It is not comforting to report that
for all the "soul" Danks put in it, speaking his love for his wife, within a
year he and she separated never to live together again. From then on for
thirty years he led a solitary life and, according to the record as reported
by Jack Burton in his Tin Pan Alley book, lived friendless and broke in a
dingy Philadelphia rooming house until he died in 1903. On the floor near
his body was a sheet of paper with the words scrawled on it — "It is hard
to die alone."
"Darling, I am growing old.
Silver threads among the gold
Shine upon my brow today.
Life is fading fast away.
But, my darling, you will be
Always young and fair to me.
Yes, my darling, you will be
Always young and fair to me.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1019
"When your hair is silver white
And your cheeks no longer bright,
With the roses of the May
I will kiss your lips and say,
'O my darling, mine alone, alone,
You have never older grown.
Yes, my darling, mine alone,
You have never older grown."'
simlin (cymling)
A squash, also a watch. "What time is it by your simlin?"
simmer down
To cool off, to calm down. "Hold on there, brother, you better simmer
down a bit before you get someone riled up."
'simmon
See "persimmon."
simoleon
A dollar, a coin.
simon pure
Very pure.
Simon Says
A game once popular in the Valley. Any number of players can participate.
The one selected as the leader sits in front of the others with his hands on
the table and his thumbs sticking up. He says, "Simon says 'Up,'" and all
the other players follow the action of the leader. When he says, "Simon
says 'Down,'" he and the other players turn their thumbs down, and then
when the leader says, "Simon says 'Wigwag,'" all rock their hands back
and forth on their thumbs. The game is played in different ways. When
"Simon says 'Wigwag,'" we children would wigwag our thumbs with a
comic effect and everybody would break out laughing. And if the leader
should give a command without first saying''Simon says,'' then the players
must not obey even though the leader performs the action he calls for. If
a player makes a motion at the wrong time, he must pay a forfeit, most often
going out of the game until only the single winner is left.
simp
A fool.
simple simon
A mentally retarded person.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Simple Simon met a pie man
Going to the fair.
Said Simple Simon to the pie man,
Let me taste your ware.'
(A nursery rhyme.)
simples
The mental feebles. A common saying is "He ought to be bored for the
simples." Same as being bored for the hollow horn.
Ann K. Simpson
The famous murderess in the Valley. Her trial created a sensation and a
book was published about it. It is very rare but in it one can read the amazingly
learned speeches of the lawyers back in the early 19th century.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is a handle that fits them all.
Let him without sin cast the first stone.
The wages of sin is death.
sin buster
An evangelical preacher.
since Adam was a pup
A long time.
since the Lord made me
A phrase used for emphasis — common in the Valley. "I've never been so
tired since the Lord made me."
since who laid the rail
From a long time back, much the same as a coon's age. "Lord, I haven't
seen you since who laid the rail!"
sinful seed
The offspring of good parents who seem to be by nature evil. "Poor Mr.
Nathan and Mis' Lucy. Who would have thought such good folks like them
could have produced such sinful seed."
sing
To confess. "Give him a little of the third degree and he'll sing."
Birds of prey never sing.
A bird that can sing and won't sing ought to be made to sing.
If you sing in the summer, you may dance in the winter.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1021
Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing.
Oh, wasn't that a purty dish to set before the king!
The king was in his counting house, counting out his money,
The queen was in her parlor, eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden, hanging out her clothes,
'Long came a blackbird and nipped off her nose.
(A nursery rhyme.)
sing a different tune
To recant, to talk differently. "Wait till his money runs out and he'll sing
a different tune."
Sing before breakfast, you will cry before supper.
a singing
A get-together of people especially for hymn singing.
every single day
Used for emphasis.' 'Every single day that passes brings me nearer to going
home."
singlings
A first run of moonshine liquor. After a double run the singlings become
salable liquor.
sings like a bird
sings like a lark
He who sings drives away sorrow.
Sink or swim.
There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.
If sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
The sins of the father shall be visited upon the children even unto the third
generation.
Though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Sister Superior
The keeper of a brothel.
sistern (or sistren)
Sisters.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Sit and take the load off your feet.
Visit awhile.
a-sit
Seated. "There he was a-sit on the fence."
sit in one's bones
To sit naked. "It's just so hot I'm gonna sit in my bones."
to sit on one's hands
To be idle, lazy.
to sit on one's tongue
To be tactful, restrained in one's remarks.
sitting duck
An easy target, one in a helpless situation.
sitting on the lid
To be hindering or preventing something from coming to fulfillment.
sitting pretty
In fine shape.
sit up and take notice
Listen, become aware, pay attention to.
sive
Scythe.
Six feet of earth makes all men equal.
six of one and half dozen of the other
at sixes and sevens
same old sixes and sevens
The usual thing, a tiresome repetition.
A nimble sixpence is better than a slow shilling.
sixth sense
See "extrasensory perception."
the size of it
The truth of it, an accurate account. "That's about the size of it," said the
lawyer as he summed up.
to size up
To appraise, to characterize.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1023
sizzle-sozzle
A good and slow-soaking rain. "Oh, Lord," saidRev. Willie Duke, "send
us some rain. We need it bad, but don't send a gully-washer, send us a good
sizzle-sozzle."
a good skate
A fine fellow.
to skate on thin ice
To act with much risk.
skedaddle
To run in a hurry, to flee.
sheer
Scare.
sheet
To skip or bounce or skate. "See if you can make your rock skeet across
the water in three bounces. I just did it."
To flee. "Man, did I skeet from there."
sheeter
Mosquito.
skeleton in the closet
A hid-away or secret guilt.
skelp
A mark, a cut, a surveyor's term. "If you find the old skelp on the tree,
you'll know that's where the line is."
skew around
Toadjust, change position. "Skew your chair around a bit, I'ma little deaf
in that ear."
skiddish
Skittish.
skid poles
Peeled horizontal poles at the green end of a sawmill for skidding the outside
bark strips off into a pile for hauling or burning.
put the skids under
To take away one's support, to get rid of a person.
Skill and patience will succeed where force fails.
�1024
skim
Paul Green's Wordbook
To chunk rocks on the top of a stretch of water. We boys used to try this
and test our skill, each one seeking out a thin, flat little stone with which
to try his skill. "See, can you skim that rock clean across the pond." Same
as skip or skeet.
skimp
To act stingy. "Don't skimp the children on that milk."
skimption
A little bit, a small amount. "He trimmed it a skimption more and then
it fitted."
skimpy
Stingy, small amount, lacking.
skin
To cheat, to rob, to leave one bankrupt.' 'In that land trade he really skinned
me."
To whip, to spank severely. "If you don't behave, boy, I'll skin you alive."
to skin a flea for his hide and tallow
A wrinkled skin conceals the scars,
by the skin of his teeth
skin and bones
A very emaciated person.
skinflint
One so stingy he'd skin a flint, a miser.
as skinny as a rail
no skin off one's nose
Not one's business, not one's responsibility.
skin one's eye
To look sharply about, to be on the alert.
skins
Greenback bills.
skip
To disregard, to run away, said of one who evades the law. "He skipped
bail and the NAACP had to pay it."
To miss, to overlook, to omit. "You skipped me, Miss Alice, when you called
the roll."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1025
skip it
Forget it, let it pass, don't notice it.
skippers
Bugs that infest meat, especially hog hams. "The dang skippers got into
my meat and nigh 'bout ruined it — I salted it and salted it."
Skipping the Rope (Jumping Rope)
This game can be played by one child with his own hooping-over rope under
his lifted feet or by two or three jumpers — with the rope (we children usually
used a bullace vine since ropes were not too available for such using) held
at each end by two players. These two would swing the "rope" over and
the others would skip (jump) as it swept under their feet. If one skipper's
feet were tardy, he or she could drop out and the game continue till the last
one's feet got caught. Then the swingers and jumpers would exchange places.
Some sort of chanted rhymes usually went with the game, the swingers doing
the reciting, such as—
"Down by the river, down by the sea
Johnny broke a bottle and blamed it on me.
"I told Ma and Ma told Pa,
And Johnny got a whipping — ha ha ha."
Another rhyme we recited as we played was—
"Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold,
Peas porridge in the pot nine days old,
Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot nine days old."
And then one of the swingers or players might call out,' 'Hot pepper!'' And
the rope would be speeded up till the jumpers fell out. The one who lasted
longest or reached one hundred skips first could be called a winner. One
thing I learned from this game and that was that girls always were better
jumpers than boys. I still wonder why.
skips one's mind
To forget.
"Skip to My Lou"
A play-party song and popular in the Valley as elsewhere. I have used it
to good effect in a scene in the play' 'Texas.'' Vance Randolph in his Ozark
Folksongs says it is the most popular of all play-party pieces. Maybe so.
Its nonsense verses and merry tune make frivolity and cutting up easier to
indulge in. No doubt of that.
�1026
Paul Green's Wordbook
"Flies in the buttermilk two by two,
Flies in the buttermilk two by two,
Flies in the buttermilk two by two,
Skip to my Lou my darling."
And then on and on with
"Chicken in the bread tray, scratching out dough,"
"Rabbit in the briarpatch, shoo, shoo, shoo,"
"Hair in the butter, six foot-two,"
"Can't get a fat girl, a skinny one'll do,"
and so on. In the ribald old careless days we often sang this verse as
"Can't get a white girl, a nigger'll do."
skirt
A girl or woman. "The soldiers would line up in front of the guardhouse
just to watch the skirts go by."
skitterbrained
Scatterbrained.
skittish as a colt
skoy duck
Decoy duck, same as 'coy duck. In all my boyhood days I never heard the
term decoy, only skoy or coy.
skum
Past tense of skim.
skun
Past tense of skin.
Let each man skin his own skunk.
skunk (skonk)
A low-down person.
To shut out, same as whitewash, to keep an opponent from scoring. "In
the ball game yesterday Lillington skunked Angier 6-0."
A skunk sat on a rotting stump.
The stump said the skunk stunk.
The skunk said the stump stunk.
Which stunk — the skunk or the stump?
(A tongue twister.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1027
skunk cabbage
Sometimes called swamp cabbage as well as polecat weed. This plant grows
in swamps and low wet grounds in the Valley. The roots and tubers are
supposed to be a narcotic and stimulant and, when dried or powdered, are
a good remedy for asthma, catarrh, chronic coughs, dropsy, rheumatism
and whatnot. Sometimes a salve made from the roots was used for ringworm
and inflammatory rheumatism.
When the sky falls, we shall all catch larks.
skylark
A boisterous party or escapade.
sky pilot
A preacher.
sky rocket
A kind of firecracker used at Christmastime in the Valley.
The sky's the limit.
slack off (up)
To become less, to ease up. "The rain is slacking off, and I reckon we can
go back to work."
keep up the slack
To keep close attention to one's work, to stay right on the job.
slack talk
Sassy talk or idle gossip.
slack water
A time of dull business, a low water time when millgrinding is curtailed.
slain in the spirit
One who passes out under the hypnotic influence of the healer. Child
preachers seem to be most effective in getting sinners "slain in the spirit."
slam
Entirely, completely, absolutely. "My fodder's burning up and I'm worked
slam to death."
to slam
To condemn, to berate.
slanchindicular
Sloping, slanting, diagonally, out of line.
�1028
slap
Paul Green's Wordbook
Exactly, directly at, in the main, completely.' 'And then Bonie hit that third
pitch slap over the right field fence."
slapdash
Careless, slovenly, topsy-turvy.
slap-happy
Goofy, punch-drunk.
Slapjack
A card game.
Slap Out
A young people's game. The players stand in a ring facing inward, and the
chosen one runs around and slaps another player on the back or on the
shoulder. This player turns and chases the first one. Usually it is a boy and
girl game, and the one that is caught gets a kiss.
slash
Woods, swamp where slash pines grow. "There's some mighty big trees down
in the slash."
slashing
Fine, handsome, high-stepping, strapping.' 'Lord, Hardy Gilchrist has got
him a slashing fine woman in that Rhoda girl."
slashings
Many, a great deal, a multitude.' 'There were slashings of people at the fair
in Raleigh Friday."
slat, slats
An extremely thin tall person.
slat-bonnet
Same as a sunbonnet. My sisters used to make their bonnets like everybody
else in the Valley — by inserting strips of pasteboard for a lining, and this
kept the bonnet stiff and in shape.
slaunchways
Diagonally, awry. Much the same as slanchindicular or slaunchwise.
slave driver
A hard boss or eager beaver.
slay
To tickle or amuse extravagantly. "Will Rogers just slays me."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1029
sleep
Sleepiness. "Get that sleep out'n them eyes, boy, for day's done broke and
it's time we was on our way to work."
A whitish discharge in the corner of the eye, usually in the morning.
Nature needs but five
Custom gives men seven.
Laziness takes nine,
And weakness takes eleven.
(Wisdom rhyme.)
Sleep on now and take your rest.
One hour's sleep before midnight is worth two after.
sleeper
A crossbeam, usually a timber to which the floor of a building is nailed.
An unnoticed person, a spy. Also an unexpected action or person.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
There will be sleeping enough in the grave.
The sleeping fox catches no poultry,
as sleepless as an owl
sleep-rocking woman
A woman especially adept at making love.
sleeps like a log
sleeps like a rock
to sleep with
To have sexual intercourse.
sleep with Missus Green
To sleep or camp at night in the open air.
sleeveholders
Elastic garter-like bands used around the upper part of the arms to hold
the sleeves up, to keep the cuffs from pushing out too far. This used to be
a must in men's Sunday dress.
sleigh riding
An activity that used to be joyous indeed during some of the rare snows
in the Valley. We never did have an actual sleigh and we would often make
a sled by using 2 x 4 scantlings for runners and then nailing planks across
�1030
Paul Green's Wordbook
them and hitching one or two mules to our sled and go riding down the road.
And how disappointed we were to see the snow melt so soon as it always did.
slew (slue)
To move or adjust one's position. "Slew your chair a bit, son, and give me
some room."
Many, a crowd, a whole lot. "There was a great slew of people at the turkey
shooting."
slews
A great amount, a great many. "He drinks slews of brandy every night."
A slice from a cut loaf is never missed.
slice of life
A piece of realism, realistic interpretation especially in literature.
slick
A muddy place, an oily spot in a highway or on the sea. "He must have
been running 100 miles an hour for when his car hit that slick, it whirled
around and went sailing through the air like a winding blade, killed both
him and the girl."
Clever, wily, usually in a derogatory sense.
A fine appearance. "My, you look slick and handsome in that new suit."
slick enough to catch a weasel asleep
as slick as a button
as slick as a duck's back
as slick as a greased log
as slick as a greased pig
as slick as an eel
as slick as an eel and twice as nasty
as slick as an otter slide
as slick as a peeled onion
as slick as a soapmaker's ass
as slick as a whistle
as slick as a wink
as slick as glass
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1031
as slick as ice
as slick as marble
as slick as snot
slickenslide
Slick and slide, steep, very sloping. Also descriptive of one's walking on
ice or a sleety pathway.
slick up
To dress up, to put on one's best clothes.
slide
A sled.
slide board
A short piece of plank we children used to use to slide on any steep hill we
could find. And the steep hills in the Valley were very rare. We used to walk
miles to one that lay along the creek bank toward Buie's Creek.
sliding hill
Any steep hillside where we children could ride on our slide board.
to slim
To take off weight, diet.
slim pickings
Poor profit.
sling the bat
To act irresponsibly, hurtfully, uncaringly of others.
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
a slink
A coward.
slinky
Sneaky, furtive, stealthy.
slip
A faux pas. Also a woman's underdress.
There's many a slip
Twixt the cup and the lip.
Every slip is not a fall.
to slip
To age, to grow discouraged, become less effective. "I saw John Oxendine
�1032
Paul Green's Wordbook
last week, and I'm sorry to say he's slipping."
To forget. "I meant to get some bacon, but it slipped my mind."
slip across
To hoodwink, to use cheating methods. "Yessir, I've known that Bennie
Oakley to trim the hog shoulders to look like hams and slip 'em across on
his customers for hams — yeh, many-a time."
slip baby
A baby begot by mistake.
slipgap
A gap in a worm fence made by lowering some of the rails from the top.
slip off
To steal away quietly.
slipper-slide
A shoehorn.
slippery
Unreliable, clever in an unsavory way. "He's a slippery character all right
and you'll have to watch him."
as slippery as an eel
as slippery as ice
slippery elm
The bark of the slippery elm tree which baseball pitchers used to chew for
throwing spit balls. Such balls are now outlawed in the game.
slip up
To make an error, bad judgment, or the mistake itself.
slit
The female pudendum.
Sloan's Liniment
A powerful stinging liniment, once popular in the Valley for treating
rheumatism, aches and pains.
slobber
Silly garrulous talk.
slobber chops
The jaws.
A thimbleful of water fed to a baby will stop its slobbering (dribbling saliva).
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1033
slob-gullet
A coarse, disgusting fellow.
slog
To punish, to hit hard, to thrash. Also to walk heavily as in snow or mud.
"He slogged on and on and then, thank the lord, he saw a house."
sloop (slurp)
A noise often made by a person with bad table manners when drinking soup
or coffee.
sloosh (slooshings)
A great many, much. "He's got a whole sloosh of children." Same as
murgins or a slew.
slop pail
A bucket or pail usually used with the washstand in houses not fitted with
plumbing. Often identified with the chamber pot or mug.
slouch
A sorry, raggle-taggle person.
Slow and steady wins the race.
as slow as a snail
as slow as Christmas
as slow as cold molasses
as slow as death
as slow as molasses in January
as slow as molasses running uphill in a freeze
as slow as pulling eyeteeth
as slow as the itch
slow-joe
A lazy, slow-working person, same as slowpoke.
slubber
To mess up, to half-do, to peck at. "You children quit slubbering your
cotton."
slud
Past tense of slide. "Like Dizzy Dean said, 'I quit playing baseball in the
cow pasture after one day when I slud into what I thought was third base.' ''
�1034
Paul Green's Wordbook
sludgehammer
Sledgehammer.
sluff
To shed, to get rid of. "See there — that snake sluffed his skin right in your
closet."
slug
A dram, a drink of whiskey, same as a shot. A slug of whiskey usually is
a large drink.
sluice
The big trough that carries water to or from a gristmill, waterwheel or
turbine.
slumgullion
Hash, mixture of odds and ends, stew.
slunch
To slant.
slush pot
The fund set up to reward politicoes for their efforts in the party cause or
in the cause of certain candidates.
as sly as a fox
smack
Exactly, right on the dot, plumb in the middle of, used for emphasis. "He
fired off the b-b gun and hit the other boy smack in the eye."
A kiss.
smack dab
Right on the target.
smacker
A piece of money. "He offered me five hundred smackers, but I still said no."
as small as a minute
as small as a redbug
as small as the head of a pin
There's nothing too small to use.
small fry
Children, little folks.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1035
small grain
Oats, rye, wheat as contrasted with corn, soybeans and so on.
small hours
The late hours before dawn. "It's in the small hours I can't sleep."
small potatoes
Small matters, unimportant things or people.
Small rain lays great dust.
smart
Of good behavior.' 'You boys be smart while you're visiting Uncle John.''
A smart boy makes a lazy man.
as smart as a cricket
as smart as a dollar
as smart as a pin
smart aleck
A know-it-all, an offensively smart individual.
smart aleck rhymes
What's your name?
Puddin' and tane (tame).
Ask me again
And I'll tell you the same.
What's your name?
Puddin' and tane.
Look up the black dog's ass
And you'll see the same.
smart cookie
A clever person. "You can say what you please, but Dr. Sam is a smart
cookie."
smartweed
Sometimes known as water pepper. It grows in the wet places throughout
the Valley and even thrives in water itself. It has medicinal uses, being good
for toothache, coughs, colds, milk sickness and even bowel complaints.
smash-baggage
Handler of freight or trunks and all sorts of baggage, used mainly as a noun.
"Then here come old smash-baggage with a suitcase spilling all over the
yard."
�1036
Paul Green's Wordbook
If smell were all, the goat would win.
smell a rat
To be suspicious, wary, watchful.
smellers
Cats' whiskers.
smells like a skunk
smidges
Smudges.
smidgin
A little bit, a crumb. "That fellow had just a smidgin of learnin' but it was
enough in the old days for him to be a schoolteacher."
If a baby smiles in his sleep, he is talking to the angels.
smithers
Fragments, pieces. "He got mad and broke her flowerpot all to smithers."
smokalotive
Locomotive.
smoke
To suffer, to receive rough treatment. "When them cops got hold of him,
they really made him smoke."
Speed. "Old Bob Feller could really smoke that ball by you."
smoke at one end and a fool at the other
Smoke from burning leaves was supposed to be good for asthma.
Smoke from burning newground timbers will bring rain.
Smoke going straight up presages rain.
It's better to smoke here than hereafter.
Where there's smoke there's bound to be fire.
No smoke without some fire.
smoke out
To ferret out.
smokestack
An excessive cigarette smoker. "We've got three smokestacks coming, so
you better have your water hose available for fire."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1037
smoking
A wound can be treated by burning a rag in a bucket and putting the wounded
foot or hand over it.
smoking stick
Indian term for a gun.
smole
Past tense of smile.
smooch
To kiss sloppily.
as smooth as a billiard ball
as smooth as a floor
as smooth as a millpond
as smooth as ice
as smooth as satin
as Smooth as silk
smooth out the humps
To drive so fast that the humps in the road seem smoothed out.
smooth sailing
Easy goings, out of difficulty.
Smooth waters run deep.
smother up
To hush up, to cover up.
smut
Dirty talk or print.
smutty
Obscene, vulgar.
snack
A small meal, a hurried meal.
Old Broadhuss told his little wife Polly he had to go to Fayetteville and
he wanted her to cook him up a "snack." So she cooked him up a bushel
of meal and eleven hogsheads, and when she dragged it out to him in a sack,
he roared out at her and said, "Lord, God, woman, is this what you call
a snack?!" So as the story went, he sat there, ate everything up, cleaned
off the bones and threw them at the house and broke a hole in the weather-
�1038
Paul Green's Wordbook
boarding and then drove off. See "Broadhuss."
snafu
Situation normal, all fucked up. In politer terms it is usually spoken of as
"Situation normal, all fouled up."
snag
To catch, to get hold of. "If I could only snag a good idea for my play,
I would be a lot happier."
snaggle-tooth
An old low-down woman or man.
snake
To drag or haul.''I want you boys to get up early and get down in the swamp
and start snaking them logs.'' When I was a boy, all of our logs were snaked
by great steers.
A low-down fellow.
Kill the snake and not scotch it.
Snake baked a hoecake
And set the frog to mindin'.
Frog went to sleep
And lizard come and found him.
(Recitation rhyme.)
no more than a snake can straddle a log
To hang a dead snake with its belly up in a tree helps to bring rain.
snakebite cure
At once drink a lot of tea made from the snakeroot plant. This never fails,
so the old folks used to tell me. But in all my travelings up and down the
Valley, I never met a person who had been snakebitten and so cured.
snake doctor
The dragonfly.
snake eyes
An unlucky throw of the dice in which a two results, that is, a single spot
on each die.
snake fence
The same as worm fence. See "rail fence."
snake grabs
Steel grabs which fasten to the end of a log for snaking it out.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1039
snake in the grass
A traitor, a disloyal person pretending loyalty, a malicious hypocrite.
Snake in the Grass (Gully)
This is the same game as Jack in the Bush except that the question asked
goes as follows:
"Snake in the grass
Bust his head.
How many licks?"
And the guess goes on as in Jack in the Bush.
snake poison
Strong whiskey.
snakeroot
Sometimes called Sampson's snakeroot. There's a common belief that the
Virginia variety, which also grows in the Valley, is especially good for
increasing man's sexual powers. I know of one case where the man and his
wife were married several years and snakeroot was recommended by an old
neighbor. The man ate great quantities of it. In fact, he said, "I've et so
much of that stuff I plumb foam at the mouth.'' Anyway, his wife had twins
born to her, and so they never get tired of recommending this to their friends.
Tea made from this snakeroot is supposed to dry poison out of the body
after a snakebite. Perhaps this is the reason it is called snakeroot. Some of
the old people still recommend dry powdered leaves mixed with tobacco
snuff and thickened into a paste with water as especially good for bee and
wasp stings. Old Candiss McLean used to make a powder out of the root
and snuff it up her nose to relieve her headache. She said it did her "a power
of good." Perhaps it did for it is supposed to have the drug reserpine in
it. It was also recommended not only for snakebites but for high blood
pressure and mental illness. It was supposed to have a tranquilizing effect.
The Liatris plant is also called button snakeweed but as to its powers, I
know not.
snakes
According to some common Valley beliefs, snakes are supposed to go into
barns and milk cows and when snakes are killed, their tails are supposed
to wriggle until sundown. It was also a common belief among us boys that
if a snake were thrown into the fire, the feet would show themselves as the
snake burned up. Although most people seem to have a horror of snakes,
this feeling does not always extend to the animal and bird kingdom.
Sometime ago I went down to the pond back of my house where I had an
overturned boat lying on the bank. I decided to go fishing and turned the
�1040
Paul Green's Wordbook
boat over, and there sat a duck on her nest and two large water moccasins
snug up close to her. She made no move but the snakes wiggled off in a hurry
into the pond. See "pet snake."
Delirium tremens.
Don't stir up more snakes than you can kill.
snakes' whiskers
Liriope, a popular border planting.
snaky
Mean, treacherous.
snap
A matter of little concern. "I don't give a snap what you think, I'm going
on and do it just the same."
A brief season of weather.' 'The Farmers' Almanac says there'll be a cold
snap about the first of the month."
An easy job, a sinecure. "He's got a snap down there at the powerhouse."
snap in her garter
A woman with strong sex appeal. "When you read that book Ulysses you'll
find that Mollie Bloom sure has a snap in her garter."
snap judgment
Hasty judgment, decision based on momentary concern.
snap of a finger
A minute, unimportant action. "I wouldn't give the snap of a finger for
his word."
If a snapping turtle bites, he will not let go till it thunders.
snaps
String beans that are broken in pieces for cooking.
snazzy
Foppish, of fine dress, appearance.
sneakers
Special kind of rubber-soled, pliable, often canvas shoes.
a sneeze blessing
A protection against bad luck is to say after a sneeze, "God bless you."
According to my friend Mr. Mac, the miller, this got started way back
when the first Mac of Barra far away in Scotland was alive. A great epidemic
of sneezing overran the world and folks found out finally that by praying
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1041
they could get relief, and their asking God's blessing was the most effectual
prayer of all. So the custom began, according to Mr. Mac.
Also in the act of sneezing one's mouth is open and if someone quickly
says, "God bless you," this will keep the devil from darting into the mouth
and taking possession of the unlucky soul.
sneezeweed
Sometimes called the swamp sunflower. It grows abundantly in the Valley
and according to some authorities the reason it is called "sneezeweed" is
that if the leaves are dried and beaten into a powder and snuffed, they cause
violent sneezing. It is believed that it's poisonous to cattle and sheep. The
Indians were reported to have used it for snuffing up their noses.
snide
Cutting, vicious, berating. "After that snide remark you don't expect me
to like you, do you?"
snifter
A dram of liquor. "Every morning he'd take a snifter before he went out
to work."
snipe hunt
A hoax. See "holding the bag."
snippy
Sharp-tongued, also proud. Cold or biting as applied to the weather.
snitch
To tattle-tale, to let out a secret, also to steal. "While Betsy and I were in
the theatre, someone snitched her camera from the cloakroom."
snits
Bursts, bits, pieces. "Now and then he had snits of rage."
snits and dumplings
A choice dish of dried fruit cooked with ham bones, then with dumplings
added.
snollygoster
A wild outpouring, a deluge of rain.
snort
A drink, same as snifter.
snorter
Anything fierce or furious as a storm.
snot
Obscene talk.
�1042
Paul Green's Wordbook
snot rag
Handkerchief.
snotty
Stuck-up, over-prideful, disdainful.
snotty-nosed
Dirty, low-down. "And then in come old snotty-nosed Archie with his cap
off for a handout."
snout
The nose.
snow
Happy dust, cocaine.
Snow is the poor man's fertilizer.
snowball
A shrub that is very popular with the housewives in the Valley, and in the
yards of more homes than not you can see the great white blooms in
midsummer. Putting old plough points at the root of the bush will produce
blue flowers, so I am told.
To increase rapidly, usually of its own strength. "The idea of a memorial
for Brenda Holland has snowballed through the state."
He's got about as much chance as a snowball in hell.
He won't last much longer than a snowball in hell.
snowbird
An addict to cocaine or happy dust, a drug addict.
snow under
To overwhelm, overload with duties. "Yesterday I saw Kermit and he said
he was just snowed under with these outdoor dramas."
snuck
Past tense of sneak.
snuff
A preparation of pulverized tobacco for inhaling or tucking against the gums.
Dental Mild Scotch Snuff, Tuberose Society Square, Rainbow Sweet Snuff,
Peach Star, Dixie, Naby, Society Square and Railroad Mills were some of
the popular brands.
up to snuff
Equal to the occasion, also in good health.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1043
snuff box
Declivity on top of one's hand between the forefinger and thumb where
gentlemen used to put snuff to sniff.
snuffles
Sniffles, a bad cold.
snuff mop
The chewed end of a black gum twig, usually for dipping snuff.
as snug as a bug in a rug
snurly
Gnarly. "That piece of plank is all snurly and we can't use it."
snuzzle
To cuddle.
So near and yet SO far.
soak
To cheat, to penalize, overcharge. "We traded cars and he sure did soak me."
A hard drinker.
soapmaking
In the old days the Valley housewife made her own soap.
I remember my mother used to make soap in the washpot. She would
put in a lot of the trimmings of the pork and boiled pieces of meat of all
sorts, have a fire built around the pot and, after cooking these for a good
long while, add lye and other ingredients. Then after it had boiled down
to a rather thick soupy mixture she would let it cool, and after several hours
the top part of the mixture would harden somewhat, sometimes to the
thickness of three or four inches. Underneath that would be the liquid
leavings. She would then cut the soap out with a knife much as you cut pieces
of pie, and we used it for all sorts of cleanings. How pleased we were when
we would get a piece of store-bought soap in place of old homemade stuff.
There are many beliefs connected with soapmaking, among them the
following: If homemade soap is to be solid, only one person must stir it and
always in the same direction. To reverse the stroke of the stirring stick is
to prevent the solution from congealing no matter how long it cooks or what
additional ingredients are put in it. A sassafras stick should be used for
stirring and always in one direction. Another belief is to stir as the sun turns.
Otherwise the ingredients will not mix and the soap will not do well. The
same was thought to be true of cake batter.
If you make soap while the moon is waning, the soap will dry up. So
make soap on the increase of the moon. Others say that the fat meat and
�1044
Paul Green's Wordbook
lye will come to the proper congealing in the full of the moon.
If a man calls on you while you are making soap, get him to stir the
soap ingredients and it will improve the quality. It is bad luck for a woman
to call on you while you are making soap. The same is not true of a man.
I found an old recipe for homemade soap as follows — a proper mixture
of hickory ashes, lye, grease, skins, pieces of fat sidemeat, hog ears, the
feet, and so on. Boil and keep boiling until they are completely dissolved,
and then let the mixture cool off and you will have good soap.
no soap
No result, action. "I kept calling for help but no soap."
so as
So that.
s.o.b.
Abbreviation for son of a bitch.
sobbing
Soggy, soaked. How often, when my father would come in from the rain,
have I heard my mother say, "I bet your feet are sobbing wet, Billy."
Sometimes she would say "sogging."
sobby
Soggy.
sob sister
A sentimental woman writer, especially a newspaper reporter who writes
tear-jerking sob stuff.
sock
To hit with one's fist.
sockdolager
An extraordinary thing or happening, something impressive, a knockout.
sock into
To fit into. "Let the j'ist sock into the corner there."
soda
Soda (sodium carbonate) is a good home remedy. Mixed with water it makes
a gargle for the sore throat, and also wet soda put on a burn will take the
hurt out.
sod-drunk
Completely drunk.
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1045
Soft words break no bones.
as soft as cush
as soft as dew
as soft as down
as soft as falling snow
as soft as mush
as soft as nightfall
as soft as putty
Mash on the soft pedal when you're dealing with folks.
soft berth
Easy street, an easy job.
soft sawder
Flattery.
soft shit
A disgustingly sentimental person, also flattery.
soft-soap
Unctuous flattery.
soft spot
A kind of feeling in one's heart. Also the spot on top of a baby's head before
the bones of the skull have grown together.
Be bare with the soil and the soil will be bare with you.
SOL
Shit out of luck.
to soldier
To loaf or to laze on the job.
sold on
To be in complete support of, backing a thing fully, or converted to a point
of view.
as solemn as an owl
solid
Used for emphasis, all, entire. "He was there a solid month."
Reliable, honest. "That Joe Matthews is a solid fellow."
�1046
Paul Green's Wordbook
as solid as a brick
as solid as a dollar
as solid as a rock
as solid as Gibraltar
Solid South
The old Confederacy.
Solomon's seal
A decorative little spring flower. The small blossoms which appear in April
and May grow in clusters or singly on a flower stalk. The root chewed and
swallowed was supposed to be a good cure for snakebites.
some account
Worth preserving. "That piece of lumber is some account and you orter
save it."
some kind of
Much, a great deal. "Man, that was some kind of rain last night."
something
An especial thing, or extraordinary person or happening. "He's something,
that fellow!"
Better something than nothing.
something for the birds
Nonsense, froth, piffle.
something on a person
To have a person in one's power or have some shameful secret which can
be used for bribery purposes.' 'You've got nothing on me and I'm not afraid
to oppose you."
something on a stick
A wonderful person, a fine thing.
sometime
Undependable, occasional, "a sometime friend."
sometimey
Fickle, unreliable. "She's a sometimey girl."
AwiseSWZ maketh a glad father, but a foolish S0AZ is the heaviness of his mother.
song and dance
A hard luck story. Also any wordy unconvincing explanation of whys and
wherefores.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1047
sonny
A familiar term for a boy.
son of a bitch
An excessively derogatory term, usually resulting in a fight.
son of a gun
A milder form of son of a bitch, often used affectionately.' 'Why, you old
son of a gun, you're a sight for sore eyes."
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man
hath nowhere to lay his head.
My son's my son till he's got him a wife.
My daughter's my daughter all the days of her life.
Sons of Liberty
A band of patriots in the lower part of the Valley who successfully but
peacefully opposed the British Stamp Act as the then Governor Tryon tried
to impose it.
Sons of Temperance
A secret order which began in the Valley about the middle of the 19th century
and spread to several parts of the State. In the State Archives is a little booklet
of some sixteen pages giving the constitution and bylaws of' 'Division No.
157" in Cumberland County. Many a man of the bottle received salvation
from this society. But interest waned and by 1900 the society was pretty much
dead.
sont
Sent.
sooey
A command used to drive hogs away.
sook
A call to hogs or cows to come for their food.
sooky
A name given a cow or a sow.
Soon gotten, soon spent.
Soon hot, soon cold.
Soon learned, SOOn forgotten.
Soon ripe, SOOn rotten.
Well enough is SOOn enough.
�1048
Paul Green's Wordbook
soon bug
June bug.
No sooner said than done.
soon start
An early start. "You better get to sleep, boy, because we've got to get a
soon start in the morning."
soople
Supple, limber.
soot
sop
It was pronounced "sut," and was especially good for stopping bleeding.
Gravy, also a bribe, a pacifier.
soption
Gravy, sauce.
sore as a boil
sore eyes
There are many old folk cures for sore eyes. One I remember when I was
a boy and that was rain water. Several washings of the eyes with rain water
was supposed to be a cure. Also one's urine was recommended.
sore on the tongue
This is supposed to be evidence that the person has been lying.
sores in the mouth
These were proof that one had been lying or else using profanity or dirty
words.
sore-tailed
Over-sensitive to insults, high-tempered.
sore-tailed cat
An ill-tempered person.
It is a sorry house in which the cock is silent and the hen crows.
sorter
Sort of.
sortered
Soldered.
sot
Sat.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1049
Who weds a sot
To get his cot
Will lose his cot
And keep the sot.
a sot drunkard
An excessively debauched drinker.
sot in his (her) ways
Habit-bound.
soul
A spiritual entity, supposed to be separate from and existing after the death
of the body. So goes the belief in the Cape Fear Valley and, for that part,
throughout much of the world.
The soul is not where it lives but where it loves.
What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul.
Of the soul the body form doth take.
soul Stuff
The spiritual essence of a person.
as sound as a dollar
Reliable.
as sound as a fiddle
as sound as a lightwood knot
sound off
To brag and to boast.
sound one's horn
Also to brag, boast.
soup
Fog.
Let every man blow his own soup.
as easy as drinking soup out of a sluice
in the soup
To be in difficulty or to be adrift in the sea.
souped up
Unnaturally energized.
�1050
Paul Green's Wordbook
soupy
Over-sentimental.
as sour as a crabapple
as sour as a green 'simmon
as sour as a pickle
sour as wig
Very sour indeed.
This was a common term of comparison in the Valley when I was a
child, and only in late years have I learned that wig was an old Scotch term
that referred to the soured milk substance that formed on the top of the
milk which had almost turned to whey.
sour grapes
An attitude, usually of feigned nonchalance, adopted after one has failed
in one's desire. "Sour grapes," as the fox said when he could not reach them.
sourpuss
A sour-visaged person.
sour stomach
A common affliction in the old days. There were multitudes of patent
medicine cures for it. One recently I have seen on television is Bisodol. It
is highly recommended by the sour looking person who peers out at night
from the television.
"Sourwood Mountain "
A popular play-party and dancing piece. It was a favorite of Tim Messer
and Sam Davis, one with his fiddle and the other with his banjo, with their
voices lifted in a two-part harmony now and then as they played. See' 'crying
shame."
"Roosters a-crowing on Sourwood Mountain,
Hi oh diddle dum dee ay,
Call up your dogs and le's go hunting,
Hi oh diddle dum dee ay.
"My little girl lives in the hollow—
She won't come and I won't follow—.
"Geese in the pond and ducks in the ocean—
Devil's in women when they take a notion—.
"My little girl's a blue-eyed daisy—
If I don't get her, I'll go crazy—."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1051
soused
Dead drunk.
souse meat
A concoction made from boiled pigs' feet, ears, noses and tails, and
seasoned with sage, pepper and salt. Put away in jars, this has for
generations been a popular dish in the Valley.
Southern cooking
A highly over-rated type of cooking.
Southern rape
A common accusation against Southern Negro criminals. Many an innocent
man has gone to the electric chair or the gas chamber accused by some
hysterical woman. Just recently a Negro in Raleigh was freed from a life
term sentence which he was thankful to get, so close was his brush with the
gas chamber. Recently another Negro confessed to the crime and the socalled rapee, who had identified the unfortunate man in the first place, came
forward, and, on comparing him with the other man, fainted away. Little
good did the fainting do the one who had started serving a life sentence,
but the State of North Carolina pardoned him and he walks the earth a free
man today. "I've got no hard feelings against anybody," he said.
Southern womanhood
According to one interpreter of Southern thinking, the Southern woman
was' 'the lily-pure maid of Astolat and the hunting goddess of the Boeotian
hill. There was hardly a sermon that did not begin and end with tributes
in her honor, hardly a brave speech that did not open and close with the
clashing of shields and the flourishing of swords for her glory." And one
of the fraternity toasts in a certain university ran:' To woman, lovely woman
of the Southland, as pure and chaste as this sparkling water, as cold as this
gleaming ice, we lift this cup, and we pledge our hearts and lives to the
protection of her virtue and chastity."
Ingraham Blue was a true Southerner in his feeling for his sister Irene.
They were from the proud family of Blues that lived near Elizabethtown.
Ingraham was a hot-tempered fellow like a lot of young Southerners.
Standing on the street corner in Elizabethtown one day, he saw his sister
Irene ride up sidesaddle on her big bay mare. She stopped at one of the
hitching posts and started to get off. Somehow her foot slipped in the stirrup
and she fell. Now it happened that one of Tavis Edwards' Negroes was
standing by — a big strapping mulatto he was — and when Irene started
falling, he instinctively sprang forward and caught her in his arms, to help
her. Old Gregg Hassell, who told me the story, said he was standing there
and saw it all. The Negro's hand, in the hurry of the moment, slid up Irene's
�1052
Paul Green's Wordbook
leg where maybe it oughtn't to, and what did Ingraham do? Standing where
he was across the street, he pulled out his pistol, leveled it on his arm and
shot the Negro dead. Of course, there was a lot of turmoil about it — not
because he killed a Negro, but because it was old man Edwards' Negro that
was killed. Tavis sued Ingraham and got a whopping price for damages, at
least he got the price of the Negro, and healthy Negroes in those days were
valued high. And so the matter ended, or you thought it might end. But a
man never knows what can go on in the mind of another man, or even in
his own, and so it was with Ingraham.
It is well known for a fact though that a Scotchman can get himself more
mixed up inside than any other nationality and everybody knows too that
when a Scotchman starts going to the bad he can go to the bad faster than
anybody else. Or when he takes to drink, he takes to it more whole hog than
anybody else.
Ingraham got to brooding on what he'd done. And then he began to
drink a little, and he brooded more than before. People noticed that soon
he began to stay off to himself and, when you would see him around in town,
he didn't have much to say, but had a sort of strange look on his face. During
one of the big meetings in the Methodist Church, when the spirit was working
among the brethren, he stood up in the congregation and confessed his sin,
said he had done wrong, had killed a Negro human being and wanted
everybody to pray for him. Hallelujah was the answer, and they said they
would. The parson waited on Ingraham, talked to him, and felt convinced
that his sin had been forgiven — and told him so. So for a while Ingraham
perked up and was his old self again. But before long he began to get morose
and silent, as before. He finally moved out of the Valley and went over to
the west there in the wild woods of the sandy barrens, built himself a little
shack and became a hermit. And so all his fair promising life was denied.
His father had sent him to the university where he had graduated, and he
had a big future in the law, they said. Now all that was passed.
So Ingraham lived over there for several years, until he was almost
forgotten. One day, somebody passing along the road noticed buzzards sitting
on the roof of his little cabin. They told some neighbors about it and they
all went over and found Ingraham dead on the floor. The same pistol he had
used to kill the Negro with he had used to shoot himself through the head.
Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
A popular 19th century sentimental novelist once much read in the Valley.
Sow a thought, reap an act.
Sow an act, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
And sow a character, reap a destiny.
(A proverb rhyme.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1053
As you SOW, so shall you reap.
Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
50 W
A woman of bad reputation. "Old sow" is the usual term.
Like the old SOW, you have to pull her ears off to get her to the mash and pull
her tail off to get her away.
sowbelly
Bacon.
Whatsoever a man SO weth that shall he also reap.
Call a spade a spade.
Never man spake like this man.
span
The length between the tips of the thumb and the little finger when the hand
is outspread. This was an old-time measurement, and I remember hearing
two old gentlemen sitting by a coal stove in a local store one winter day
arguing about little children that go to hell. One of them was maintaining
that according to the Scriptures these little creatures burning in everlasting
fire were only a span long. I don't know where he got his measurement.
span-fine new
Brand new.
spang
A term suggestive of force or quickness. "Spang, and that fellow was gone
from there."
Exactly, right there. "He hit him spang in the middle."
Spanish fly
A drug supposed to increase sexual desire and potency. It used to be a popular
quack medicine in the Valley. Perhaps it still is.
Spanish moss
A long moss that grows in damp semitropical regions somewhat as a parasite.
The lower part of the Valley is well-stocked with it. It is referred to as' 'Old
Graybeard." It especially seems to love pecan and live oak trees. I have seen
orchards of the former down near the coast literally choked to death by it.
Mrs. E.M. Backus gives a rather interesting legend about this moss as she
heard it from an old Negro man.
"Long time ago there was a powerful wicked fellow," said the old
Negro. "He was that sinful that Death he don't have the heart to cut him
�1054
Paul Green's Wordbook
off in his sins, 'ceptin' he give him a warning. So one day Death he appear
to the wicked man and tell him how that week he gwine come for him. The
wicked man be that upset and skeered he get down on his knees and beg
Death to let him live a little longer. The wicked man he take on and beg
'twell Death he promise he won't come for him 'twell he give him one more
warning.
"So the years go by, but the wicked man he grow more wicked, and
one day Death he appear to him again. And Death he tell the wicked man
how that day week he gwine come for him, but the wicked man he more
frightened than what he was before; and he get down on his knees, the wicked
man do, and beg Death to let him live a little longer, and he weep and mo'n
and carry on and Death he promise the wicked man how before he come
for him he gwine send him a token what he can see or what he can hear.
"Well, the mo' years go by, and the wicked man he get to be a powerful
old man — he deaf and blind, and he jest drag hisself about. One day Death
he done come for the wicked man once more, but the wicked man he say
how Death done promised him he won't come for him 'twell he send him
a token what he can see. Then the wicked man he say how he can't see no
token, 'cause he say how he done gone blind. Then Death he say how he
done send a token what he can hear. But the wicked man he say how he
can't hear no token 'cause he now plumb deef. And he beg Death that hard
to let him live, that Death he get plumb outdone with the wicked man, and
Death he jest go off and leave him to hisself.
"And the wicked man he jest wander about the woods, and his children
all die, and his friends all die. Still he jest wander about the woods. Heblind,
and he can't see, and he deef, and he can't hear. He that blind that he can't
see to find no food, and he that deef he never know when anybody try to
speak to him.
' 'And the wicked man he done perish away 'twell he jest a shadow with
long hair. His hair it grow longer and longer, and it blow in the wind and
still he can't die, 'cause Death he done pass him by. So he have to wander
and blow about the woods, and his body all perish away 'twell all you can
see is his powerful long hair blowing all 'bout the trees; and his hair is done
blow about the trees 'twell it done grow fast, and now you all folks done
call it Spanish moss."
Spanish needles
The yucca or Spanish bayonet. A strong tea made from it was always a good
gargle for the sore throat.
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
Spare well to spend well.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1055
spare bed
The guest bed.
spar-hawk
Sparrow hawk.
to spark
To court, also to inspire, to begin.
A little spark can kindle a great fire.
sparkler
A diamond ring. "After the poor simp gave her that sparkler she wanted
to play bridge ever' night to show it off on her hand."
as sparkling as the dew
sparrow grass
Asparagus. I remember John Charles McNeilFs poem which I memorized
as a boy.
"I once et too much sparrow grass.
They thought I was dead till I breathed on glass."
spatter-board (splatter-board)
The dashboard of a buggy or carriage which helped protect the driver or
passenger from being spattered with dirt or mud.
Speak when you are spoken to,
Come when you are called.
speak a parable
To speak an undeniable truth, an entirely appropriate remark. Same as speak
a mouthful.
to speak of
A little emphasis phrase, often denigratory. "He's got no money to speak
of."
Speak of the devil and soon you will see his tail.
Speak well of the dead.
spearmint
A popular herb for the housewife's garden.
speck
A bit, a little, hardly any at all. "He wasn't a speck of trouble, that baby
wasn't."
�1056
Paul Green's Wordbook
specked
Marked with tiny decayed spots. "All my horse apples are specked this year.''
Specks on the fingers, fortune lingers.
Specks on the thumbs, fortune comes.
(A divination rhyme.)
spectacle
An unhappy situation or condition. "Now ain't you a spectacle, standing
there wetting your britches."
Speech is silver, silence is golden.
All his speed is in his spurs.
spell
A length of time, an attack of illness. "Social Security will help you in your
first spell of sickness but don't try to ride on it all the time."
To relieve, to rest. "Spell me on this handspike a minute, Bo."
A season of weather.
An incantation, conjuration.
Spelling Match
A spelling contest. At Pleasant Union School Friday afternoon was a great
time. We had spelling matches to end the week. And how we loved to cut
each other down.
Great spenders are poor lenders.
spicebush
Attractive shrub that grows in the swamps and along the streams of the
Valley. It is also called the fever bush and allspice. Oil from the berries of
this bush is supposed to be good for bruises, white swelling, worms,
pneumonia, colds, coughs, and especially it was good for these illnesses when
mixed with sassafras tea. In the Civil War the soldiers who were camped
in the Valley used this generally. The shrub seems to be getting rarer every
year.
spider
There are many superstitions connected with the spider. We were always
taught in the Valley as children that killing a spider would bring rain. And
in dry weather we used to go looking for these little insects to squash them
with our heels. Also one of the weather superstitions is that when spiders
are numerous in the fall, a hard winter is ahead.
The low, three-legged cooking utensil, usually made of cast iron, which was
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1057
set on red hot coals for baking bread or biscuits. Sometimes the' 'led'' would
be put on and other hot coals piled on it for extra good hot cooking.
spider-shanked
Thin-legged, lanky.
spifflicate
To confuse, to mix up. "I never heard such a spifflicating sermon as that
fellow pulled off when he preached on 'God as the Very God.' "
Save the spigot and waste at the bung is a mighty poor way of doing.
spike
To mix liquor with, to put alcohol in an otherwise mild drink.' 'This orange
juice is spiked, oh, my Lord!"
spile
Spoil.
spiling
Piling. "You better watch out for that fo'by, I believe the spilings is about
to give way."
spill beans
To tell secrets, let out confidential information.
spinach
The ordinary vegetable, of course, and also money. "That man's got plenty
of spinach and he can afford a mansion like that."
A beard. "I've got to get my spinach shaved off."
spindling
Frail.
spinning one's wheels
Useless action.
spit in his eye
A term for an insult.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life.
Why should the spirit of man be proud.
spirits
Hard liquor. "I'm not a drinker but I always keep a bottle of spirits about
the house just in case."
�1058
Paul Green's Wordbook
Don't spit in the spring that waters you.
If one wishes to be lucky at fishing, he should spit on his bait before he puts it
in the water.
spit and polish
Fastidious housekeeping and tidying up. Also particular neatness in personal
grooming.
spitball
We boys in school used to chew up paper, wad the chewed stuff in little balls
and, with our beanshooters when the teacher wasn't looking, fire off a shot
at somebody we didn't like or at a girl at some distance across the room
we did like. The spitball also applies to the pitching method in baseball.
Pitchers used to chew slippery elm and with a bit of this on two fingers,
clasp the ball lightly and throw it overhand. It would dip suddenly toward
the ground to the anger and dismay of the batter. The spitball has been
outlawed now in baseball.
spitbox
A box filled with sand or sawdust into which tobacco chewers could spit.
This used to be a constant piece of the furnishings near the stove in the country
stores.
spit cotton
White spittle from thirst or nervousness, sometimes from heavy drinking
of whiskey. "What's the matter with you, fellow, you keep standing there
spitting cotton."
cut off your nose to spite your face
spitfire
A high-tempered person.
spit'n image
The very image, a close resemblance. "He's the spit'n image of old man
Bill Byrd."
spit out God's fire
To preach fervently.
He spits in his own face.
Who works against heaven Spits in his own face.
spizzerinctum
Energy, drive, pep, know-how.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1059
splatfooted
Splayfooted.
splatterdabs
Hot cakes.
splice
To marry, to be joined in wedlock.
split
Splint. A "split-bottomed chair."
split one's britches
To overdo, to overact.
to be in a split stick
To be in an embarrassing or difficult situation. Another form of this is "to
have one's tail in a split stick."
I remember long time ago when we would go possum hunting and were
lucky enough to catch a possum. We would cut down a little oak sapling,
drive the axe through it to split it and put the possum's tail in that split,
release the sides and let them close in on the tail. Then, with the little pole
over our shoulders, and the possum behind out of reach of biting us, we
would march proudly home.
split the quilt
Divorce.
splitting
Severe, intense. "Children, I've got a splitting headache today, so let me be."
split-tongue
A hypocrite, a liar.
splot
A spot or stain.
splotchy
Marked with splots or spots.
spludge
Splurge. "Lord a-mercy it's a sight to see that woman spludge when she
comes driving up to church in her Lincoln Continental."
splutter
A fuss, a confusion.
spoil
To over-pet, to mollycoddle. "No wonder he never turned out to be any
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Paul Green's Wordbook
good, his mother spoiled him to death as a baby."
spoiled rotten
Usually said of a child that's been spoiled by overindulging parents.
spondulicks
Money.
What's full of holes and still holds water? (Riddle— A Sponge.)
sponge
To cheat, to live off, to take advantage of, to beg. "That fellow's a sponger
if I ever saw one, so you better watch out."
Not too long ago every home bathroom had its sponge instead of the present
washcloth.
spools
We children used to have great fun with a spool which our mother would
let us have after she had used up the thread in her sewing. We used spools
for many things, especially for blowing soap bubbles and for making tops
we called "dancers." We would cut the spools half in two and then shape
them down to a point and put a little piece of what we called axle through
them and sharpen this. Then with the flattened end between thumb and
second finger we'd give it a snap and send the little thing dancing away on
its point. We used to compete as to which one's dancer could spin longest.
spoon
To court, to make love.
spoon-fed
Spoiled, pampered.
sport
To court, to run after the girls. "How can he pull fodder when he's out
sporting every night?"
old sport
An elderly lecher, also a term of friendly affection. "Golly, I'm glad to meet
up with you, old sport, here at the class reunion."
sporting house
A whorehouse.
s'pose
Suppose.
spot
To give one an advantage. "He spotted me three holes and then he beat me."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1061
in a spot (on the spot)
To be in a difficult or testing situation or position.
as spotted as a leopard
spotted spurge
An emetic weed that grows in sandy and gravelly soil and waste grounds
in the Valley. It flowers in July and has been used as a stimulant and a remedy
for dysentery.
spotter
An incognito informer, or spy.
spout off
To run off at the mouth, to talk garrulously and foolishly.
spraddle
Spread out, separate. "You boys spraddle out with that seine and you'll
catch more fish."
sprags
Small screws or nails.
sprained her ankle
To be made pregnant or bigged.
Jack Sprat could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean,
And so you see between them both
They licked the platter clean.
(A recitation rhyme.)
sprat-legged
Spraddle-legged, bowlegged.
spread
A sumptuous meal.' 'What a cornshucking that was and what a spread the
old man and the old woman put out!"
The putting on of weight. "She's getting her middle-age spread."
spreading adder
Also known as puff adder. We children used to find these harmless snakes
in old stumps or under rotted logs and have fun teasing them with switches
or long sticks. They would hiss and puff and distend their necks and yellow
bodies and twist and turn and jook their heads at us. After we'd had enough
fun we would get sticks or stones and kill them. I haven't seen or heard of
a spreading adder in the Valley for, lo, these many years.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
spread it thick (thin)
To live or act expensively (or meagerly).
spread oneself
To make every effort, to reach out widely, to widen one's business interests,
and so on.
spreckled
Speckled.
sprig
A young child, usually a pert and sassy one.
spriggle
To limb out or leaf out, to fork out. "After I had planted that fig, it all
spriggled out until dry weather hit it, and then it burnt slam up."
to spring
To sprain or wrench. "I sprung my wrist trying to lift that heavy rock."
spring beauty
A lovely wild flower that is popular among sweethearts in the Valley. I
remember how in the spring a certain girl and I would go out in search
especially of spring beauty. There was something so poetic in this little flower
that it fitted right in with our yearnings and our mood, and it was innocent
too. So that was good.
spring chicken
A young person, usually refers to girls, sometimes called pullets.
spring cleaning
The time for airing quilts, searching beds for bugs, putting up new curtains,
etc. A custom now pretty much passed away.
spring green and gold
A low attractive perennial. It is one of the earliest blooming plants in the
Valley. It grows especially in dry woodland and lasts on through the early
summer.
springhouse
The usual small house built over a spring to protect the water and in which
milk and butter were kept fresh in the old days long before refrigerators
were thought of.
spring lizard
The salamander.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1063
spring run
A small stream fed by a spring. On the old surveyors' maps the spring run
was a familiar term.
spring to it
Begin with great energy, start to work.
sprinkling
A few, a scattered gathering. "There was only a sprinkling of people at
church today."
The religious custom of sprinkling water on the head of the new convert
instead of immersing him in a baptismal pool or creek. The Baptists believe
in immersion, and the Methodists in sprinkling, and that's the only difference
I can see in the two dogmas.
sprinkly
Sprinkled.
sprout
A young person.
sprout wings
To become angelic.
spruce up
To dress up, to make one's toilette.
as spry as a cricket
as spry as a kitten
spunk
Partly decayed wood. Same as punk.
spunk water
Rain water usually collected in log-hollows and stumps. It is supposed to
be good for sore eyes. It is also a good cure for warts. If a person could
find a hollow stump with this spunk water in it and put his hand in it and
recite the following verse — he would get relief in a few days—
Barley-corn, barley-corn,
Injun-meal shorts,
Spunk water, spunk water,
Swaller these warts.
(Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.)
spurs
Honors, final attainment.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
I Spy
A most popular game among all the children in the Valley. It is so well-known
that it is needless to describe it here.
squaddie
A combination of a squat and a straddle.
Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
square
Honest, reliable. Same as a square shooter.
Straight, direct. "That road runs square up the mountain."
Completely, entirely. "The bullet went square through him."
A queer person.
square around
To make room, get settled as to seating.
squared away
Ready, all set, prepared.
squarehead
An awkward, slow-acting man.
square it
To make amends, to make right, to make fit, also to pay one's account.
Sometimes square up.
square meal
A full satisfactory meal.
square off
To get set, prepared for action.' 'They squared off for a fight, but the captain
arrived just in time."
squat
To answer the call of nature.
Squat Tag
See "Tag."
squatty
Fat, short and stocky, squabbly.
squaw
Woman, wife. Often used in derision.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1065
squaw man
A henpecked husband.
squeak
To turn informer, same as to squeal.
a squeaker
A close call. "Carolina finally beat Duke but, boy, it was a squeaker."
squeaks like a rusty hinge
All squeal and no wool as the devil said when he sheared his hogs.
squeals like a stuck pig
It's the wheel that squeals that gets the grease.
squeech (squench) owl
Screech Owl.
He squeezes the dollar till the eagle screams.
squelch
To silence, to tame down, to hush up. "Squelch them young'uns, will you,
they're running me crazy."
Same as to inform or squeal on.
squench (squinch)
Eye puckering, squint. "He had a habit of squenching up his eyes when
he talked."
squiggled
Wiggled.
squinch
Quench.
squinched up
Dried, shriveled.
Squirrels storing food is a sign there will be a hard winter.
squirt gun
A little water popgun made from an ordinary small length of bamboo cane
with a homemade plunger for squirting water at some unsuspecting person.
squirts
The diarrhea. "My little boy's got the squirts the worst of all."
squirts like a goose
Defecating with a rush, as in diarrhea.
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squoze
Past tense of squeeze.
sqush
Crush.
squshy
Marshy, miry, soft.
srink
Shrink.
have a stab at
To make a try at.
It's too late to shut the stable when the horse is gone.
stable manure
Manure, usually from horses and mules, that accumulates in the stable as
opposed to the barn lot or outdoor cow kind. It is ranked higher than either
cow or hog manure as a fertilizer but below chicken manure.
Stack
Temper. "When Ed Spaulding, a colored man, ordered a co'-cola right in
front of Avis Jones, why, Avis blew his stack and turned and knocked
Spaulding down."
stacked
Said of a woman of good figure — good breasts and shapely hips.
Stacks
Plenty, a large supply. "He's got stacks of money."
All the world's a Stage.
at this stage of the game
Under the present condition, at this reading or reporting.
stagger
To shock or surprise. "The news of his daughter's running away really
staggered old Otis."
staggerbush
A common shrub that grows in drier bogs and sand where the water table
is shallow. It is poisonous and when stock, especially sheep, happen to eat
of the leaves, they go staggering about. Therefore, the name.
staggers
Wobbly drunken movements. There was an old belief that a worm in the
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1067
brain caused the staggers in sheep.
stag party
An all male party.
It is unlucky to meet one on the Stairs.
Stall
A finger-shaped cloth protection for a hurt finger, usually tied around the
wrist to hold it. "Well, you better go get your mammy to make a stall for
that finger, boy, or you'll catch poison in it."
stamping ground (stomping ground)
A customary haunt or usual visiting place.
stand
A crop, a supply, a successful sprouting. "I've got a fine stand of corn this
year and I'm hoping the cold weather won't start the cutworm working in it."
To accept, to endure. "I don't see how she stands her husband — him aharking and a-spitting all the time."
A good Stand is better than a hard run.
standing on one's head
To be unduly excited.
stand in need
To be in pressing need.
standoff
An arm screw supporting wires, such as television cable, running along the
walls of the house. Also a tie or draw as in a game. "After we'd cleaned
up the shucks, Lloyd and Irving got to wrestlin' and boy did they go to it,
but it was a standoff."
standoffish
Cold, aloof.
stand up
To be fooled, to receive a rebuff, to fail to appear. "I don't trust making
a date with that fellow — he too often stands me up."
staple
Average, fair. "They're paying a good price now for staple cotton."
Star bright, Star light,
First Star I've seen tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might
See my true love tonight.
(A divination rhyme.)
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Sometimes the last line goes—
Have my wish I wish tonight.
starch
Courage, stamina.
starching
There's a folk saying that starching the tail of a man's shirt will make him
harsh and ill-tempered. I don't doubt it.
take the starch out
To deflate, to take one down a peg or two.
star grass
These little plants are found in the grassy woods in the deep summer. The
plant grows abundantly in the woods and the bogs throughout the Valley.
Tea made from the roots is supposed to be good for the colic, and therefore
it is often called "colic-root."
Star tight, star bright
Same as the rhyme beginning "Star bright." One is supposed to make a
wish on the first star that one sees at night and the wish will come true.
star-of-Bethlehem
A popular little garden flower.
stars
There's a superstition that if you count the stars in a fog circle around the
moon, the number of the stars will designate the number of days before
rain or snow comes.
eyes like stars
Counting the Stars won't pay the taxes.
stars and garters!
A common exclamation.
falling stars
There's a scattered belief that falling stars are souls coming to the earth to
be born in newborn babies. There is also the belief that a falling star denotes
someone's death. See "thunderstone."
start naked
Stark naked.
start the ball rolling
To begin a thing, to get business under way, or get a game going.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1069
stash
To cache, to stow, to hide, to put in a place for safekeeping.
as Stately as an oak
as Stately as a queen
state of grace
A purified and sometimes sanctified condition that a person gets into after
having his sins forgiven and "believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as his
personal savior.'' Billy Graham in all of his sermons has much to say about
the state of grace.
Statues
A children's game, especially popular with the younger ones.
The leader, "It," is usually chosen by a counting-out rhyme. He or
she then takes the hand of another player and whirls that player around.
The second player "freezes" in exactly the position he finds himself at the
end of the spin. The game continues until all the players are whirled and
have "frozen." The leader then selects the one judged to be in the most
ludicrous attitude and he becomes "It" and the game continues.
staub
To stub. "He staubed his toe on that rock and did he let out a cry. I'll say so!"
stay put
To be fixed, remain in one place.
steady
A loyal and exclusive sweetheart.
as steady as a rock
"Steal Away to Jesus"
Another beautiful Negro spiritual that eased many a long hour for the
workers in the turpentine woods and the cotton fields and filled them with
hope of an eternal rich reward in the afterlife for their deprivation in this.
"Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus.
Steal away, steal away home.
I ain't got long to stay here.
"My Lord, he calls me, he calls me by the thunder,
The trumpet sounds within-a my soul.
I ain't got long to stay here.
"Steal away," etc.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
"Green trees a-bending, po' sinners stand a-trembling,
The trumpet sounds within-a my soul.
I ain't got long to stay here,
Lord, I ain't got long to stay here."
Stealing Sticks
A popular school children's game. On Sunday afternoons we children used
to play this game until our legs ached and kept us sleepless at night.
A large playing space is divided across the middle by a marked-of f line,
and the players are chosen for two teams. Behind each team a circle is drawn
on the ground and a number of sticks put in it — say, six or seven. Then
each of the players tries to run around and across and steal a stick before
his opponent touches him. If he is touched, he has to stand as a prisoner
in the circle with the sticks, hoping that one of his pals on the other side
will be able to steal across and get him out without being touched. Only
one stick or one prisoner may be taken at a time. The game continues until
one side is completely defeated, or the sticks on one side are all stolen, or
the players are tired and decide to do something else.
steal one's thunder
To preempt one's authority.
to steal the show
To get in the limelight, to gather all the applause, to be the star.
steam
Speed, swiftness in throwing. "That pitcher really steamed the ball across.''
steep
Expensive, excessively priced. "Boy, the price is steep — steep, you heard
me!"
as steep as a ladder
The steeper the hill, the stouter the heart.
steeple
The male organ.
bum steer
False advice, false directions.
stem-winder
A go-getter, a hard worker.' 'That Cyclone Mac is a stem-winding preacher
and, man, he gets the sinners down lickin' sweat at the mourners' bench.''
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
step
1071
To go quickly, to move fast. "I've got to step home and get my shovel before
I can join the road gang."
To measure by walking in strides estimated to be a yard long.' 'He stepped
his field and found he had five acres in it." Sometimes "step off."
Step and git it.
to step aside a bit
To defecate, to urinate. "Excuse me, while I step aside a bit."
step on it
To go fast, speed up.
step on one's toes
To offend one, to hurt one's feelings, even to insult.
step on the gas
Move faster.
step out
To dress up and go calling or go to a party.
There's a belief that Stepping over a child, especially a small child, will stop
it from growing.
stepping stone
A means toward a beginning. The verse from Tennyson's "In Memoriam"
always sticks in my mind.
"I held it truth with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."
steps
There's a superstition if someone steps over you while you are lying down
you will have bad luck unless he immediately steps back over you.
stereoscope
A parlor entertainment item, and any half well-to-do family in the Valley
used to have one, along with an assortment of photographic views to look
at. Since the coming of the motion picture the stereoscope has disappeared.
I remember with what joy and astonishment we children would look through
the two lenses of our stereoscope at, say, the picture of a deer in a forest.
What was flat and two-dimensional before now appeared as threedimensional. There stood an actual deer before us. Sears, Roebuck and
�1072
Paul Green's Wordbook
Company used to carry a full line of these — as they did of almost everything
else under the sun. Prices were incredible. The instrument itself sold from
24$ each to $1.87 for the extra large size, made of "polished rosewood"
— "and set with nickelplated trimmings." A set of "36 genuine photographic
views" to go with the stereoscope was priced at thirty-six cents — one cent
each, and they were good for months and months of viewing.
A stereoscope is now produced as a child's toy, with the finer ones as museum
pieces.
Stetson hat
A man's hat, very stylish and popular in the Valley the latter part of the
19th century and the early decades of the 20th.
Old Drury Skerrit, who lived down near Carver's Creek Falls, had a
black Stetson hat he was very fond of, and he said that when he died he
wanted it buried with him. He got down near death's door and he told the
folks to bury him under an old tree out there in the field,' 'And I want you
to bury me with my John B. Stetson hat on and my Vici (Vi-sy) kid shoes,"
he said, "for I expect to come back and walk around some after I die and
I'll need 'em both."
There was a lot of argument after the old man breathed his last. Some
of the folks didn't want to do what Drury said, for as they put it, "Look
here, we don't want to get the neighborhood ha'nted on account of him."
But others said that the wishes of the dead were sacred as everybody knew
and Drury in his life had always been a harmless man, so if he did come
back he wouldn't hurt a living soul.
Finally they buried Drury as he requested, and sure enough he did come
back and walk around, Vici shoes or no shoes. And he still does, according
to what the people say around Carver's Creek. One night he will appear
on the road in the shape of a ball of fire, with the hat on it, and then maybe
again in the shape of a little girl or a black dog, with hat the same. And
folks say no matter what shape Drury's ghost takes they always know it's
him because of that Stetson hat. They never bother about the shoes.
stew
Confusion. "Everything was in such a stew at the church supper that I didn't
know whether I was coming or going."
like a stewed owl
The "morning-after" condition.
stewed to the gills
Excessively drunk.
stew in one's grease
To take one's own medicine, to have to grin and bear it.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
stick
1073
A dull person, same as a stick-in-the-mud.
Stick like a leech
more than you can shake a Stick at
stick and dirt chimney
Sometimes called stick and daub or stick and mud chimney. In the old days
nearly all the Valley farmhouses and tenant cabins were served with this
type of poorer chimney. The base of the chimney and firebox were of rock,
and then when the flue or throat began, crossed sticks were used to build
it up to reach above the roof of the house with an inner open throat space
of some twelve by fourteen inches for the smoke to escape. Mud or daub
was packed in between the sticks and the "throat" was thickly lined with
it to protect the sticks from the fire in the fireplace below.
stick broom
A store-bought broom with a handle as contrasted to a broomstraw or
homemade broom.
stick one's neck out
To take an undue risk.
stickpins
A once fashionable adornment for a man's necktie. When I was about
fourteen, I tried to sell stickpins in my neighborhood, but soon realized I
was no salesman and gave up the effort. Mine were from a mail-order house
sent on consignment and were priced at fifteen cents each, my commission
to be five cents each.
sticking plaster
In the old days sticking plasters were a common treatment for all sorts of
aches and pains, boils, pimples and eruptions. My mother used to buy these
sticking plasters at the drugstore. I can still remember them and feel them
tearing at my flesh. They were thin flesh-colored sheets, one side gummed
to stick on the afflicted place. Of course, now these old sticking plasters
are replaced by all sorts of bandaids. See also "Aunt Jemima's plaster."
stick-in-the-mud
A fuddy-duddy, a dull fellow, a failure. "He's an old stick-in-the-mud and
his eyes are in the back of his head."
sticks
A backward neighborhood or section of the country. "All the New York
people used to think North Carolina was full of pellagra, hookworm and
people who live in the sticks."
�1074
Paul Green's Wordbook
Sticks like glue
Sticks tighter than a brother
Sticks tighter than a tick
sticktight
A rather coarse annual or biennial and often called stickseed. The plant bears
little flat prickled fruits and hence the name. When these little flat fruits
ripen, they will stick to your clothes as if with a will of their own. We used
to call the species we knew best "beggar lice."
stick to one's guns
Hold to one's beliefs, one's convictions, one's attitude.
stick up a stick
To claim, to mark as one's own. "He's already stuck up his stick for that
Joe Turner gal."
stick up for
To support, defend. "I see where Bob Morgan says he'll stick up for any
senator who gets in trouble."
the wrong end of the stick
To be at a disadvantage. "When Joe went into partnership with old Horace,
he got hold of the wrong end of the stick."
sticky
A special kind of sweet bun or biscuit.
Sentimental.
stid
Bedstead.
a stiff
A corpse.
A penis erection,
as Stiff as a broom
as stiff as a plank
as Stiff as a poker
as Stiff as a ramrod
as Stiff as a stick
as Stiff as a wagon tongue
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1075
stiff upper Up
Courage, stamina.
as Still as death
Still waters run deep.
stillyard
A steelyard, weighing scales.
sting
To cheat. "He stung me in that horse trade."
stingaree (stinger)
A woman's diseased private organs.
stinging adder
A fabulous snake, supposed to inhabit the Valley.
stinging nettle
We boys used to have great fun going out in the sandy woods and digging
up stinging nettle roots. We could find them by their shiny white blossoms
here and there. Sometimes we would dig down two or three feet in the ground
to find the tuber. These tubers were very succulent, and we had great fun
eating them. They were usually about the size of a cigar and, much like a
cigar, tapering at each end. We would peel them and chew the white delicious
meat happily. The Indians were supposed to have counted these roots as
a special delicacy, and the ancient Romans used them as a help against sexual
impotency.
as Stingy as a Scotchman
as Stingy as sin
as Stingy as the bark on the tree
He's so Stingy he wouldn't give you air in a jug.
stink like a buzzard
Excessively bad smelling.
stinkabutt
A foul person. We boys used to sing a sort of low-down foolish song which
began, "When I make ten dollars a day — stinkabutt, fuckabutt, take it
away."
stinker
Hot. "Today is going to be another stinker."
A sorry fellow, an unreliable person, one held in contempt.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
stinking jim
A small speckled land terrapin.
stinking pussy
Dirty, foul-smelling woman.
stinking rich
Very rich indeed.
Stinks like a polecat
Stinks like a skunk
Stinks like ditch water
Stinks like hell
stink tree
Tree of heaven or Ailanthus. This tree used to be popular around plantations.
My grandfather planted several of them and some of them grew to be two
or three feet in diameter. One of them is still alive in front of the place where
the old Green log house once stood.
stir around
To make speed, be busy. "Stir around and get things going, will you?"
stirrup cup
A dram taken on horseback in the old days before riding off.
stir up tail feathers
Make one angry, to irritate excessively.
stitch
Clothing, dress. "There she stood in front of her window with not a stitch
on."
A sudden pain or catch in one's muscle.
A Stitch in time saves nine.
in stitches
Convulsed with hilarity.
stob
A small piece of scantling or post or stake.
To stab.
stobble
Stubble.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1077
take stock
To stop and consider.
One's own soiled Stocking tied around the neck would cure sore throat.
stocking feet
To walk about without shoes. "I got up and went out in my stocking feet,
and some Ku Kluxers had sowed carpet tacks on the front porch — wow!''
Stocks
A device formerly used to punish offenders.
Stolen fruits are always sweetest.
Stolen pleasures are always sweetest.
stomach
Liking, taste, core, interest. "Dick has no stomach for politics since that
bad beating in the primary."
to turn one's stomach
Response to abhorrent thing or act. "The way that peddler chewed his food
with his mouth open was enough to turn one's stomach."
stomp
To stamp.
stomp down
Used for emphasis. "He's a stomp down scoundrel." And sometimes I've
heard it as "He's a stomp down gentleman."
stomping
Also for emphasis. "He's a stomping fine man."
stomping ground
Home, familiar surroundings.
The Stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.
He kills two birds with one stone.
If a son shall ask bread of his father, shall he give him a stone?
A rolling stone gathers no moss.
Leave no Stone unturned.
There shall not be left one Stone upon the other.
stoned
Totally drunk.
�1078
Paul Green's Wordbook
stone mint
A fragrant perennial, very popular in the flower gardens in the Valley. A
tea made from it is good for headaches, fevers and colds.
stones
Testicles.
run one's head against a stone wall
Meet up with absolutely unyielding conditions or an unsolvable situation.
stool
Fecal discharge.
stool pigeon
An informer, a low-down betrayer.
Stop, Look and Listen
A warning at the railroad crossing and an admonition in other situations.
stopped up
To have a bad head cold. "I'm all stopped up this morning and got a headache
to a fare-ye-well."
stopper
An exaggerated lie or cock-and-bull story.
store-bought
As contrasted with a homemade article.
storm
To scold or rage.
After the Storm the calm comes.
story
A lie. "His mammy whipped him this morning for telling her a story."
stout
Strong.
Put a Stout heart to a steep hill.
stouten up
To grow, to fatten.
stove
Past tense of stave. "He stove that knife in Lemmie's back."
stove up
Muscle-bound, stiff, temporarily crippled from overwork or overexertion.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1079
"I split rails yestiddy and I'm all stove up."
a-straddle
Astride. "Mr. Turner's niece come down here from New York and went
riding about the neighborhood a-straddle like a man."
straddle bug
A tricky politician or subterfuger.
straddle the issue
To be on both sides, indecisive.
stradways (wise)
Astride.
straight
Honest, reliable.
as Straight as a die
as Straight as a line
as Straight as a martin to his gourd
as Straight as an arrow
as Straight as a pine
as Straight as a ramrod
as Straight as a stick
as Straight as a shingle
Honest, reliable. "He's straight as a shingle — you can count on his word.''
as Straight as a string
as Straight as the crow flies
straighten
To tidy up. "I've got to straighten up my room before I go."
Strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.
strainer
A sieve.
Strain every nerve.
Strait is the way and narrow the gate.
strak
Strike.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
I was a stranger and ye took me in.
Put the stranger
Near the danger.
The Stranger
A man nobody in the Valley knew.
One day Mr. Mac and I were poking around in old Summerville
Cemetery of Tirzah Church near Lillington, and he was identifying the graves
and recounting some of the deeds and events connected with various silent
sleepers there.
"Take that grave right over there by that cape jessamine bush,'' he said.
"That's the resting place of a man nobody knows. In the old days there
used to be a sort of town here. It's vanished now like Averasboro and many
another Valley town, except for one or two houses. As a boy I can remember
there were quite a number of dwellings here — an old jail, the remains of
a school once taught by a learned doctor from Yale whose wife is buried
in this churchyard, and a boardinghouse where the students used to live.
In them days too there was a big sawmill, a hotel inn, and several stores.
The Scotsmen built the town here above the river as a sort of summer resort.
In the hot weather they moved their families up to the highlands to escape
the mosquitoes and malaria in the flats. And so quite a settlement was built
here. They say there was plenty of high life and fun and doings among the
young sports and the purty girls. And of course there was, for there's always
a lot of fun where young people are gathered together.
"Well, one summer evening came a young fellow into this village and
got a room at the inn. People didn't have to register on the books then the
way they do now, so his name was not recorded. He stayed around for a
few days and was quite a favorite among the dandies and the ladies. They
said he could dance and sing ballads and talk of far places in the world where
he had been. He spoke with a sort of accent, and some said he was a German,
some said he was a Frenchman, and others said he must have been some
kind of lord in disguise that had fled out of Europe to save his life. Anyhow,
the purtiest girl among them all — sweet Belle Bethune — fell in love with
him — just wild in love from what they said. But even she never did get his
name. She, like the rest of the people, just called him Stranger. At home
I've got a copy of a love song they say she used to sing. Maybe she sang
it to him as they strolled about telling their love in the summer evening. I
don't know. Anyhow it was supposed to be a favorite of hers. Well, what
should happen to that stranger but that he was struck down with the fever
while he was here, and in a few days was dead. Cal Bethune and the rest
of them looked through his belongings but never a scratch of writing, never
a sign as to who he was could be found. So he was buried here in the
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1081
churchyard. And Belle herself had a tombstone put up over him, and on
it a brief verse which maybe she herself wrote to her dead love.
"Years ago I made a copy of that epitaph before the letters on the
tombstone shaled away, but that record too has disappeared. Maybe there's
something symbolic of woman's affection in that."
"What happened to Belle? Is she buried near him?"
"No, she's not, and that's what I mean. Time is the poultice that heals
all heartache and it healed hers finally. She married one of Colin Murchison's
sons and they moved away to Texas."
strapped
Broke, penniless.
straw
Pine needles. When rain came in the Valley and we had a release from
ploughing or working in the fields, we boys usually had to go to the woods
and "rake straw" which was used for bedding for the mules and the cows.
How we hated it! At least I did.
the straw that breaks the camel's back
don't care a Straw
That is the last Straw.
You can't make bricks without straw.
strawberry bush
The swamp euonymus, known in folk poetry as "hearts-a-busting-withlove." It grows in moist places in the Valley and along the margins of
watercourses. A decoction of the roots has been used for prolapsus uteri
and also as a blood purifier.
strawberry mark
A birthmark supposed to be caused by the pregnant mother wanting
strawberries before the baby was born and not being able to get them. See
"birthmark."
straw man
A bogey man, a fanciful creation for purposeful confusion, a weak person.
Straws
A children's game. A number of straws are dropped in a bunch. Players
in turn try to remove a straw without disturbing another straw. A player
continues as long as he is able to do so.
drawing straws
A decision by lot. Usually the one drawing the shortest straw was "It." I
�1082
Paul Green's Wordbook
used an army version of drawing straws in my play "Johnny Johnson,"
in which the captain burns the end of one match and then, with the opposite
ends of the matches showing, the soldiers choose. The one who drew the
burnt match had to go over the top to stop the sniper.
streak
A characteristic. "He's got a streak of meanness in him."
Where there's a Streak of fat there's usually a streak of lean.
streak off
To dart away, to run, move fast. "She streaked off across the field when
she saw the sheriff a-coming."
Better to swim with the Stream than against it.
strent
Strength.
stretcher
An exaggerated lie or narrative.
stretches
A baby's muscular action, much the same as the yawns. See "baby
stretches."
stretch one's blanket
To exaggerate, to tell a tall tale from nothing.' 'You can't believe half what
William Henry tells you, for he stretches his blanket every time."
Hatred stirreth up Strife.
strike
To reach a final stage. "You'll have to wait till these pickles strike."
To hit upon, to arrive at. "This is the coolest place I've struck."
Strike while the iron is hot.
make a strike
To be successful.
strike it rich
To come into riches, usually rather suddenly.
strike me dead (pink)
A mild interjection.
strike oil
To have a sudden success.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1083
strikes me
Seems to me, appears to be, impresses me. "There's just something about
old Ransome that strikes me wrong — I don't trust what he says." "That
young man strikes me as first-rate."
strike up a conversation
strike up with
(friendship)
To meet up with, often resulting in a beginning acquaintance.
string
To tease, fool, to blackguard. "All the time he was stringing me along —
he never meant to marry me."
He plays on one String.
Pull the String, the latch will raise.
have on a string
Have a claim on, to have control of, to be complete boss. "That girl's got
Joe on a string, yes, ma'am!"
string along with
To agree with, to go along with, to vote the same way. "I'm going to string
along with Clyde Hoey — there's nobody else to vote for."
strings attached
Conditions. "That place is for sale and no strings attached."
stringhalt
Lameness in a horse or mule, usually from a pulled muscle.
string up
To hang,to lynch.
stripper
A woman who loves to take off her clothes. A strip-tease does it for hire.
Strive not with a man without cause.
stroke
Past tense of strike.
Little Strokes fell great oaks.
strollop
A mixture of "stroll" and "trollop." A woman of doubtful manners.
as Strong as a bull
as Strong as a giant
�1084
Paul Green's Wordbook
as strong as a horse
as strong as a mule
as Strong as an ox
as Strong as death
as Strong as Gibraltar
as Strong as Hercules
as strong as Samson
as Strong as steel
as Strong as the rock of Gibraltar
strop
To throw down. "Strop him agin' the ground once more and you've got
him."
Strap.
struck-bushel
An exact bushel. This term comes from the custom of filling a bushel full
and then taking a measuring rod or yardstick and striking it rakingly across
the level top leaving an exact bushel measure.
strut
A brace. Also it means a dilemma, a difficulty or precarious situation. "I'm
in a strut, old timer, couldn't you lend me ten dollars?"
All Stuarts are not kinsmen of the king.
stub
A low small stump or nub. Also to strike against, "to stub one's toe."
stubby
Short, thick, muscular.
stubblefield
A field of wheat, oats or other grain after it has been mowed.
as Stubborn as a mule
as Stubborn as an ox
stuck on
To be in love with. "That girl is certainly stuck on that boy."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1085
stuck up
Proud, has an attitude of silly superiority.
stuck with
Saddled with, left with responsibility for. "He's gone to Texas and she's
stuck with those young'uns."
stud
A kind of poker game, also an oversexed man.
studding
Upright timbers for the construction of the walls of a house. Usually in the
South in ordinary dwellings the studding is 2"x 4" scantlings.
stud horse
An oversexed male, especially one who has fathered many children.
studs
An ornamental removable shirt fastener, usually in formal dress instead
of buttons.
study
Steady.
The proper Study of mankind is man.
study 'bout it
To consider, to think.
Stuff a cold and starve a fever is a good policy.
stuff and nonsense
A mild exclamation.
stuffed shirt
An all front and no back man, a show-off, a splurger. Often a bore.
stumble on
To come upon, to hit upon. "I stumbled on this statement in the Bible the
other night that if a man called his brother a fool, he would be in danger
of hell-fire."
stump
To confuse, to baffle. "I reckon that question stumped him."
To stub or strike one's foot unthoughtedly against an object — a rock or root.
stump babies
There's an old folk belief, passed on especially to inquiring children, that
babies are found in stumps.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
stump puller
An old-timey winding machine used for twisting stumps out of the ground.
On our farm we used to fasten a pole to a stump with a chain and hitch a
mule to the end of the pole and start him going round and round to twist
the stump out. Sometimes this worked as a stump puller if the stumps
were not too large.
in a bad row of stumps
To be in a bad way, an unpleasant situation.
stump-sucker
A defective horse, one that bites a part of a stump and holds on to it while
he sucks air. Some horse doctors say that a horse that does this is sucking
wind.
stump-tailed
Bobtailed.
stump water
See "spunk water."
He was Stung at his own game.
stunner
A glamorous woman or extraordinary feat.
stunt
To stun. "I hit that hog with the axe but only stunted him."
stunted
Defective, undersized, mentally retarded.
"One day I had carried Dr. McKeithan's meal to him in Lillington,"
said my historian friend Mr. Mac. "It was early in the morning and the doctor
was up on the roof of his porch fastening a radio aerial. While I was waiting
for the cook to bring my meal bag back, Handsome Newberry, a sort of
weak-minded Negro and butt of village jokes, came along. Handsome was
a little, ugly, bowlegged fellow and that accounted for his mocking nickname.
He stopped and watched the doctor a moment and then called easy up to
him, 'Boss, can you tell me what's that you're fixing up there?'
" 'Hello, Handsome,' said the doctor. 'Yes, I'll tell you. It's a radio
aerial.'
" 'You mean one of them things that takes music right out'n the air,
suh?'
" 'Yes, that's right.'
" 'Um, ain't people smart? Just think of that — music and all kinds
of pritty sounds busting right at your ear and you can't hear them withouten
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1087
you got one of them wires. Um, ain't people smart?'
" 'Yes, people are smart, Handsome,' said the doctor.
" 'Is! You done said, Doctor. But you know they ain't complete and
away smart.'
" 'Maybe you're right. I guess they're not.'
" 'Nossuh, they's some things they can't do.'
" 'What things, Handsome?'
" 'One of them I know plumb well. They can't cure consumption,'
said Handsome.
'' 'No, they can't but they've been able to do a lot of good, and someday
we doctors will cure it.'
" 'Is? I'm glad to hear that. I thought they'd never been able to do
nothing for it a-tall.'
" 'Oh, yes.'
"You know, Doctor, I believes I got a real way to cure consumption
if you could try it out.'
" 'If you have, then you're a made man.'
" 'Is?'
" 'Absolutely — nothing you can't have — automobiles, yachts,
summer houses, hardwood floors, oil-burning furnaces—'
" 'Um, um, what is a yacht, Doctor?'
" 'A pleasure ship that sails on the sea.'
" 'Go 'way from here! Don't get me nigh to them deep waters.'
" 'Well, go ahead and tell me about your cure.'
" 'Well, suh, it's good old kairsene.'
" 'Kerosene?'
" 'Yessuh, boss. You just take the man, him that's a-barking and aharking with tubuckylosis and stick him in a barrel of kairsene up to his
chin and let him set there. And the kairsene soaks in and in till it reaches
all that gorm of germs, and they come out of his mouth and fly away like
a swarm of wing-gnats. No, suh, they cain't stand kairsene. And he rises
out of there a newmade man.'
" 'Yes, I suppose he would if it didn't kill him.'
"At this Handsome threw up his head, gave two or three dog-yelping
laughs and went ambling on up the alley. 'You're right about that, Doc,'
he called back, 'but they kill him anyway, don't they? People sure is smart,
but they ain't too smart.'
"The doctor looked after Handsome a moment, hunched his shoulders
and went on fixing the wire that pulled music out of the air. 'He's certainly
a character, isn't he, Mr. Mac?' he said to me. 'Pity he's stunted in his mind.'
"Just then the cook came out bringing my empty meal bag, and I didn't
have to reply."
�1088
Paul Green's Wordbook
as Sturdy as an oak
sty
An inflamed swelling of the eyelid. One way of curing a sty is to rub it nine
times with a gold ring or a piece of gold.
substance
The heart of the matter, the main points. "Well, the substance of the speech
was — we ought to forget the Civil War and get on with our business of
building for the future."
He parts with the substance for the shadow.
If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.
Nothing succeeds like success.
such a matter as
An indefinite time.' 'Well, he was gone such a matter as two weeks or more.''
suck
A swampy or miry place. "My cow got lost, and I found her down there
in the suck."
suck egg dog
A low-down character.
/'// be a suck egg dog! (mule)
A mild interjection.
go suck eggs
A term of derogatory dismissal.
sucker
A common freshwater fish, also a dolt or one who is easily gulled.
suck the hind tit
To be deprived, to have the worst of anything, be discriminated against.
' 'That' s the way the North kept the South sucking the hind tit and no wonder
trouble broke out."
suck the lemon dry
To get out of a person or a subject all that is possible.
go suck yourself
A vulgar term of dismissal.
suds
Draft beer.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1089
Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for such is the
kingdom of heaven.
Tis better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.
sugar
A term of warm endearment, affection. "She likes me but she won't give
me no sugar."
sugarberry (hackberry)
The Indians used these berries to cure syphilis which they caught from the
white man, but the berries didn't prevail.
sugar daddy
A lecherous old fellow with much means by which he is able to purchase
the affection of some young girl.
sugar gourd
In the old days a gourd with an opening in it was kept in the kitchen to hold
sugar.
sugar lump
A sweetheart, also a term of endearment.
sugar-mouth
A sweet talker, a deceitful person, a sycophant.
sugar tit
An artificial tit made by using a bit of cloth folded in the shape of a nipple
with a mixture of sugar and butter inside it. It was used as a pacifier. I
remember the first picture I wrote for Warner Brothers in Hollywood. I
had a scene in the cotton patch where the Negro women were picking cotton
and their babies were lying on the blankets in the shade, each one pacified
with its sugar tit. We had a time getting these sugar tits to work and finally
had to scrap the scene because the babies, not used to this sort of tit, kept
up such an ungodly row that Director Mike Curtiz finally said, "To hell
with them." So we took the babies out, paid the mammies off and went
on with the picture. The term more recently is used to refer to welfare aid.
suggans
Blankets or heavy comforters.
Suicide Club
A young men's club formed in Wilmington in the latter part of the 18th
century, 1780-90. The members, some sixteen" to twenty, were "according
to tradition'' avowed Atheists and held strange and secret meetings at which
pagan rites were indulged in. It was said that among their mockeries was
�1090
Paul Green's Wordbook
one of the Lord's Supper where much drinking and carousing took place.
But the report was that this proved too much for the patience of the Almighty,
or Whoever or Whatever was offended, and in less than a year twelve of
the sixteen in attendance took their own lives in remorse.
suicide root
A root which in its wild growth wraps itself around another root or the body
of the plant or tree and slowly kills it.
suit
Dress, attire, toilette, an arrangement. "You've fixed me anice suit of hair."
suits to a tee
Very satisfactory.
sulky
sun
A light two-wheeled cart suitable for one person, although in our
neighborhood the boys who owned sulkies used to love to get their girls to
ride with them, and no wonder, for they could sit close together. And
sometimes in a rough place his arm could go around her for safety's sake.
To sulk, to be sullen.
sulphur
A good vermin chaser and especially fine for the itch.
When we were young, my brother and I contracted the itch. We had
a little shed room on our back porch and we shut ourselves up in there, lighted
a tin pan of dry sulphur, took off our clothes and went through the
purification process, sitting on the bed or walking around and letting the
fumes pour up and around us. It was a common belief in the Valley that
this would work a sure cure. Every moment or so we'd have to open the
door a crack, breathe in some fresh air and shut it again. After an hour or
so we could endure no more, and we got our clothes on as best we could
and burst out of the room, wheezing and squealing like persons dying of
the asthma. We had to lie around most of the next day to get our strength
back. But our itch was cured.
For the next couple of weeks the house was so filled with the smell of
sulphur that the whole family had to sleep with all doors open.
smooth sumach
This species of shrub grows in rocky or barren soils throughout the Valley
and for that matter in almost all of North America. It is used as a cure for
many diseases, claims being made it is good for gonorrhea, diarrhea, scrofula
and fevers. The berries are supposed to be good for sore mouth and for
gargling. In the case of burns, take equal parts of the beaten root mixed
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1091
with equal parts of milk and water, thicken it with flour and apply it on
freshly burned places, and, so the saying goes, not a scar will be left.
If you can sing in the summer, you may dance in the winter.
No summer without a winter.
summer freckles
Freckles that appear from exposure to the hot sun in summer.
summerset
Somersault.
Summerville
One of the many perished villages and towns in the Valley. This Summerville
was built up on a ridge just west of Lillington and was in a good way of
becoming a summer resort for the planters who were beginning to build
houses there and bring their families up out of the fever-infested lowlands
for the hot summer months. The establishment of Lillington near the river
finally caused the perishing of this old town. There are still one or two houses
left to denote something of its spread and its aristocracy. The old restored
Tirzah Church remains a bright landmark.
sump
A puddle of water, a dirty water hole.
sump'n
Something.
to sun
To spread or put out in the sun.
The sun is the poor man's clock.
Where the sun does not enter, the doctor does.
He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good.
sunball
A weather gall, or atmospheric duplicate sun, usually above the sun.
sunbeam
A term used for a beautiful or precious little child or favorite daughter. In
the old Pleasant Union Church we used to have a song we would sing on
Children's Day. The little girls in their bright frocks would sing this in their
little high-pitched voices, sounding sweetly to the ears of their doting parents,
"We are little sunbeams."
sunbonnet
An old-timey bonnet with a high brim and with a ruffled back for protection
�1092
Paul Green's Wordbook
from the sun. Much the same as slat bonnet.
Come day, go day,
God send Sunday.
Sunday
The day of rest.
The first chapter of Genesis in recounting God's creation of the world says,
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him — male and female created he them." "And he gave him dominion
over all the earth and every living thing that moveth on the earth....And
God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good. And
the evening and the morning were the sixth day....And he rested on the
seventh day from all his works." Thus, our commemorative Sunday as a
day of rest and worship.
Of course, Sunday in the Valley as elsewhere was not only a day of
spiritual communion and enjoyment of church worship, it was also an
occasion for social communion, neighbor to neighbor, a time to get news
of one another's doings. Saturday evening at our house as elsewhere was
a time for the weekly bath in and of the big tin tub. Also early Sunday
morning the men of the family were busy shaving and brushing up. Then
off to church.
I'm sure the elders got more pleasure out of Sunday morning church
service than we children did. Our time for joy came in the afternoon when
we could play games like "I Spy," "Stealing Sticks," "Prison Base" and
so on. But we were always conscious that this was the sabbath day and we
mustn't be riotous. Sometimes we would forget, and I can still see my father
— who was a gentle understanding man — come out where we were playing
and say, "Listen, children, you'll have to quiet down — you're making too
much racket here on the Lord's day." And then we would quit shouting
and squealing so loudly in our enjoyment for a while. But soon we'd be back
as loud as ever and get another reprimanding.
In those days hunting, fishing, baseball or even marbles, and of course
all games of chance, were forbidden. But with the coming of the first world
war and the going of thousands of boys from the South into the service a
different valuation of customs took place. The constrictive blue laws
disappeared. Now the day is pretty much wide open with baseball, football
— all sports — finding Sunday one of their biggest days for profit.
But still the churches continue strong in their morning services. It's
mainly in the afternoon that hell breaks loose — wide open grocery stores,
golf, auto racing, etc., etc.
Sunday clothes
Dress-up clothes.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1093
Sunday gal
A flirt, a deceiver. There's a good rhyme about it.
A Sunday gal is fair
But a weekday gal will wear.
Sunday-go-to-meeting duds
Best clothes, party clothes.
Sunday School
Sunday School has become the custom throughout the Valley and is usually
held an hour or two ahead of the regular preaching hour. Different teachers
have different age groups, and these groups are instructed in the Scriptures.
We used to have what we called quarterlies, a sort of synopsis or textbook
usually in pamphlet form with the lessons arranged for each Sunday. I
enjoyed studying a quarterly and being able to answer up sharply in the
Sunday School class. In fact I used to teach in the Sunday School, teaching
the men's group, but finally when I got completely converted by Darwin
and others, I lost my enthusiasm and finally faded out of the picture.
Sunday School cards
Little 3"x 4" cards, usually illustrated with the figure of Christ or some
other Biblical character and given out to the' 'little folks''' Sunday School
class for their knowledge and instruction. The cards often had catechism
questions printed on them with a space for answering. I loved them and
tried to be ready with my glib answers ahead of everybody else when Sunday
came. My half-sister Alda (Allie to us) taught the class and did it well. "Who
was the oldest man?" Quick answer — "Methusaleh." "How old was he
when he died? " "Over nine hundred years old.'' A grunt of disbelief from
some unregenerate four-year-old. "Who was the meekest man?" "Moses."
"Who was the strongest man?" "Samson." And so on.
Sunday suit
The one suit of clothes kept for Sunday wear.
sundog
A mock sun.
sundown
Sunset.
sun drawing water
Often in summer when an afternoon shower was light enough to show streaks
of rain falling across the face of the sun behind, we would — or someone
would — call out, "Look, the sun's drawing water!" Or maybe another
would say, "The devil's beating his wife!" I've never been able to find out
�1094
Paul Green's Wordbook
the source of either of these old sayings.
sunflower
The plant grows from the arctic circle to the tropics and is especially prolific
in the Valley. The dried seeds make wonderful bird feed. I have known the
evening grosbeaks to be so greedy over the seed furnished in our bird feeder
that their catalogued date of departure is delayed for weeks. They must have
a pathological difficulty as to will to migrate, whatever the easy pickings
— the welfare. But instinct always wins and they finally depart, and we look
forward to next year when they can come again.
There are other and numerous uses for the plant — for chickenfeed, cure
for dysentery and bladder infection and so on. The Indians used oil from
the seed to grease their heavy hair.
The flowers are round, with petals yellow like the sun, but as to name, it
is accounted for by the fact that, when in bloom, its "countenance'' shows
its adoration of the sun by turning toward it on its rising and turning with
it as the hours proceed toward sunset. On cloudy days its devotion is
somewhat marred, though it does the best it can, however feebly. Thomas
Moore, the Irish poet (1779-1852), has a lovely reference to this in his
beautiful lyric, "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms," set
to an old Scotch melody.
"The heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turned when he rose."
sunny side
Optimistic attitude. "She always shows her sunny side when company
comes."
sunny-side up eggs
Eggs fried with the yoke atop and unbroken.
sun pain
Headaches caused by exposure to the sun.
The sunshine follows the rain.
sunshiny
Cheerful, good-hearted, radiant even.
sun time
Time gauged by the sun.' 'I run my sawmill, boys, by sun time — start sawing
at sunup and knock off at sunset."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1095
sun to sun
From sunup to sunset.
supper for the dead
An old folk practice among the Negroes by which the dead could be
summoned from the grave and give information about their taking off, or
other matters, so it was believed. A table would be set as usual for the family,
and a plate, knife, fork, cup and chair placed at the table for the dead one.
Food would be put on the plate too. Then through some incantations or
hocus-pocus carried on by a conjure doctor, the dead would come up out
of the darkness and take a seat at the table and begin to eat.
I wrote a play on this subject, telling the story of a Negro girl, Miny,
who had been found drowned in a creek, and old Queenie, a voodoo woman,
and her two snake-headed daughters, Lil and Fury, came to the girl's parents
and set out a supper for the dead so they could find out the nature of her
death. The mother had already begun to suspect her husband, Miny's father,
as having had something to do with it. Old Queenie then began to burn her
mystic herbs in a bowl on the table while she and her daughters did a queer
dance around them, chanting the while—
"God befo' me,
God behime me,
God be wid me."
And then as the smoke of the herbs continued to rise in the room, old Queenie
chanted forth her spell language—
"Feathers, cakes and beans and cawn,
Thumb of de bastard son jist bawn,
Spider, wasp and field-mice tongue,
Eye of a man de gallus hung.
"Devil's snuff and de dried dog brains,
'Oman's scabs dat died in chains,
Ground calf-tongue and de black cat's bone—
Come up, Miny, git yo' own.
"Black snake ile and rain-crow aig
Puts de strength in the ghostes laig,
Make um power of muscle and bone—
Come up, Miny, hyuh's yo' own."
The ghost of the little girl Miny appeared and indicated that her father
there had ruined her and because of him she had committed suicide. On
learning this, the wife Vonie, mother of the girl, grabbed the shotgun down
�1096
Paul Green's Wordbook
from above the door and killed her husband Fess, who had seduced his own
daughter.
The play won a prize of first place in a New York competition, but
according to my friend Barrett H. Clark, the producers "found it so full
of violence that they wouldn't stage it." I often ponder this matter of violence
in drama. Shakespeare certainly filled most of his plays with it. "Out, vile
jelly!" etc.
as supple as a cat
He who sups with the devil needs a long spoon.
suption (soption)
Barbecue sauce, gravy, or grease or gooey liquid. "Gimme some more of
that suption to make this barbecue hot enough."
as sure as day
as sure as death
as sure as fate
as sure as hell
as sure as night follows day
as sure as shooting
as sure as the sun rises
as sure as the sun sets
as sure as the sun shines
Better sure than sorry.
Look beneath the surface.
the surrender
A milestone in Southern history — marking the surrender of General Lee
at Appomattox, April 9,1865. "No, Mr. Green, I ain't that old. I was born
one year after the surrenduh."
Survival of the fittest is a law of nature.
suspicion
To suspect. "He suspicioned there was something wrong with them
slaughtered hogs."
Suspicion haunts the guilty-minded.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1097
suster
Sister.
sut
Soot.
swag
Boodle, stolen goods.
'swage (assuage)
To shrink. "Wait till the swelling 'swages down and then we can see just
what's wrong."
SWAK
Initials sometimes put on envelopes indicating "Sealed with a kiss."
swallow
To accept, to believe. "He swallowed the man's story, hook, line and
sinker."
One swallow does not make a spring.
One swallow does not make a summer.
swamp angel
The veery, a shy bird of beautiful melody, much like a small thrush in color
and shape.
Mr. Mac, the Valley historian, says that the swamp angel actually is
the thrush and its beautiful singing in the late summer afternoons in the
deep cool woods is the most beautiful thing he ever heard.
swamp dogwood
A shrub found in the low moist woods and along the banks of the streams
in the Valley. It is valuable as a cure for many diseases, and Burlage and
Jacobs say that the Cree Indians used it for coughs and as a stimulant and
a tonic. Its long stems were once used to make baskets.
swamp mallow
Called by some a marsh mallow. It grows in the borders of marshes
throughout the Valley. Seeds of this swamp mallow make a good cordial
and once were used for acid stomach.
The swan sings when death comes.
I swan!
A mild interjection, meaning I swear.
Don't swap horses in midstream.
�1098
Paul Green's Wordbook
swap knives
A game much indulged in by school boys in the old days. Sometimes the
swap was made "with no questions asked." I remember once swapping
knives blindly with a fellow and the knife I got had no blades in it at all.
swarm up (over)
To attack viciously. "He'll swarm all over you if you make him mad."
A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay.
A swarm in July
Is not worth a fly.
(A proverb rhyme.)
swaybacked
A horse with a dip in its back.
swave
Climb. "He swaved right up that tree."
Swear not at all.
If you swear while fishing, you will catch no fish.
/ swear
A mild interjection.
swears like a pirate (sailor)
In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread.
sweat bees
Bees or other insects hovering around a sweaty person.
A sweating glass of water means rain.
sweep
There's a superstition that if one sweeps under the bed of a sick person,
that person will die.
Everyone should sweep in front of his own door.
sweep pole
A long pole, usually of resilient white oak or black gum sapling, used as
a fulcrum with grabs attached for lifting logs from the ground and carrying
them underneath a log wagon to the sawmill.
sweep under the rug
To hide away a subject, to cover it up, to deceive by outer appearances when
"under the rug" lies the truth.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1099
as sweet as a flower
as sweet as an angel
as sweet as a rose
as sweet as honey
as sweet as pie
as sweet as sugar
Every sweet has its sour.
so sweet that butter would melt in his mouth
"Sweet Adeline"
An old sentimental song, especially a favorite of barbershop quartet groups.
sweet alyssum
A fragrant herbaceous plant found in the Valley where it has become
naturalized and is a favorite in the home gardens. There used to be a legend
that if it were dried and beat into powder, it was a good cure for hydrophobia,
also for hiccoughs.
"Sweet and Low"
The famous poem of Tennyson set to music, and sung by many a mother
as a lullaby. The phrase also means seductive talk, persuasive argument.
sweet balsam
Rabbit tobacco.
sweet bay
One of the most decorated and beautiful trees growing in the Valley. The
sweet bay is seldom found in the upper reaches of the Valley. The leaves,
the berries and the bark were good for poulticing sores or swelling joints,
and a tea made from boiling the roots was used for children's colic. The
tea was also good for gallstones, liver and spleen troubles in grown-ups.
The tree was supposed to have a mystic power of protection in that neither
witch nor devil, thunder nor lightning would harm one where sweet bay was
planted. I have got a couple planted near my house in Chatham County
close by Chapel Hill, but I didn't plant them for fear of the witches, the
devil or thunder, but hoping to smell their sweet blossoms. They have
responded to that hope but obviously with some effort.
"In the Sweet Bye and Bye"
A favorite church hymn which depicts the joys to be experienced by the
Christian souls in yonder world. This has brought untold comfort to many
a Valley soul, as well as elsewhere.
�1100
Paul Green's Wordbook
sweet enough to eat
Usually said of a baby or one's sweetheart.
sweeten the pot
To add to the ante in a card game.
sweeten up
To mollify, to flatter excessively.
sweet flag
The calamus plant. The root is supposed to be good for all sorts of stomach
troubles.
I remember old Miss Gaskins who used to come and stay with us on
a visit, how she would carry some of the sweet flag root wrapped up in her
old handkerchief. And sometimes as she sat by the winter fire, she would
take out the root in her trembling hands, break off a piece, put it in her
toothless mouth, and sit there sucking it and staring peacefully at the fire.
The root was supposed to be good for the preservation of the teeth and as
an aphrodisiac, though too late to do old Miss Minty any good in either case.
"Sweet Genevieve"
As long as I can remember this has been a great favorite in the Valley. Our
male quartet used to make the night ring with it as we walked or rode home
' 'under the silvery moon" from some neighborhood frolic or cornshucking.
The words were written in 1869 by George Cooper, friend and associate of
Stephen Foster and for whose' 'Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming'' and
other songs he wrote the lyrics. The melody of "Sweet Genevieve" was
composed by Henry Tucker, also of the Civil War period and fame. The
ballad tells the true story of a young man's only sweetheart dying a few
months after the two were married.
"O Genevieve, I'd give the world
To live again the lovely past!
The rose of youth was dew-impearled
But now it withers in the blast.
I see thy face in ev'ry dream.
My waking thoughts are all of thee.
Thy glance is in the starry beam
That falls along the summer sea."
Chorus
"O Genevieve, sweet Genevieve,
The days may come, the days may go,
But still the hands of mem'ry weave
The blissful dreams of long ago."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1101
And how in close harmony our quartet would squeeze out a beautiful minor
and hold it on "But still the hands of mem'ry weave,'' even sometimes tears
filling our sympathetic eyes.
sweet gum tree
This tree grows prolifically in the Valley throughout its entire length and
up into the edge of the mountains. We children used to chop gashes in these
trees and then later get the exuded gum and use it for chewing gum. The
leaves of the tree are very aromatic and, if dried and beaten up and mixed
with whiskey and taken regularly, were very good for irritable stomach. The
dried balls of the tree with their little spikes were often used as decoration
items on homemade furniture.
sweetie pie
A term of endearment.
sweet lips
An especially loving woman.
sweet mouth
To court, to infatuate, praise to undoing. "She put the sweet mouth on him
and he was a goner."
sweet potato
The common long potato as contrasted with Irish potato. A main staple
of food for the Valley people. Also the juice from the vines was used as a
mild children's purgative. During the hard reconstruction times many of
the Scotsmen in the Valley dried the potatoes and used the dried crumbs
to make coffee, and also used potatoes to make mucilage and starch.
sweet shrub (sweet betsy)
An odoriferous shrub. Carrying one of the buds in one's pocket was supposed
to make the girls love you.
sweet spirits of nitre!
An exclamation.
A woman's sweet talk
And a plentiful table
Will hold any man
That's worthwhile and able.
(A folk proverb.)
sweet tooth
A penchant for sweet things.
�1102
Paul Green's Wordbook
sweet William
A very popular garden flower.
Sweet words butter no parsnips.
swell
Fine, dandy.
swelled up
Angry, sullen.
swell head
An egotist.
sweltry
Sultry.
swig
A small dram, a small drink of liquor, also as a verb. "He don't do nothing
but lay around the house and swig whiskey."
/ swigger!
A mild interjection.
as swift as a bird
as swift as a bullet
as swift as an arrow
as swift as an eagle
as swift as thought
swimmy-headed
Slightly dizzy.
swims like a duck
swims like a fish
Cast not your pearls before swine.
swing
To handle, take care of, be able to control. "I haven't got enough money
to swing that deal."
swinge
Singe.
swinging-limb
The low-hanging limb on a tree, especially used by children to swing from.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1103
Also a favorite hitching place for horses and mules at a picnic or church
gathering.
swing it
To make swing music or move to its rhythm.
swingletree
Singletree, a bar hitched to a plow or wagon with rings at each end to which
trace chains would be attached for the horse or mule to pull. We also had
doubletrees for a double team.
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
To me one of the most beautiful of all Negro spirituals. It was common
property among the field workers in the Valley, both black and white, but
segregation set up again in the churches, and it belonged then to the Negroes
only. I have never heard it sung in a white church, but soon no doubt it will
be heard there too. I paraphrased the title somewhat for naming a Negro
musical play I wrote for New York back in 1934, though the message
remained the same — "Roll Sweet Chariot."
"Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home,
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
"I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Coming for to carry me home.
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.
"If you get there before I do,
Coming for to carry me home,
Just tell 'em I'm a-coming too,
Coming for to carry me home.
"I ain't been to heaben but I been told—
The streets of heaben is paved with gold—
"I'm sometimes up and sometimes down—
My head is almost to the ground—"
Like most all of the spirituals the author-composer is unknown. Maybe it
grew bit by bit from one worker to another in the long cotton field hours
or from some equally long tending of a sick or dying person.
swink
Shrink.
�1104
Paul Green's Wordbook
a switch
A bunch of artificial hair or the lady's own saved in a hair dish and used
to fill out a hairdo.
switchblade knife
A pocketknife whose long blade flies open when a spring is pressed. It is
a dangerous weapon in the hand of an irate man. These knives used to be
more common in the Valley than they are now, and in the old days many
a man carried one to have in readiness at public gatherings and especially
at political rallies where in the heat of politics he might receive an insult
or some question be raised as to his honor or character.
Dr. John Giles had his switchblade with him one day at a political
speaking in Lillington. Afterwards he met up with Roderick Massey and
the two got to arguing as to whether Andrew Johnson should have been
impeached. Dr. John said he shouldn't and Roderick said he should. Hot
words began to pass between them. Now Dr. John as everybody knew had
a terrible high temper, and in a rage he out with his switchblade and gave
Roderick a rake across the stomach that dang nigh ruined him, as Mr. Mac,
the Valley historian, recounted the incident to me. Roderick fell to the
ground, and of course the neighbors rushed up to try to do something.'' Go
get Dr. McBryde!" somebody shouted. Then somebody else said he had
seen the doctor going to Lumberton and he wouldn't be back till tomorrow.
"Then drive over the river and get Dr. McNeill here in a hurry, for God's
sake!" another one said. But another one spoke up and said that Dr. McNeill
had gone to Raleigh to a medical meeting — and that's what Mrs. McNeill
said.
So there was no doctor left anywhere. Then all eyes turned toward Dr.
John, who was putting up his wiped knife and straightening his rumpled
clothes. He looked back at them and they looked at him. Finally, he let out
a loud "Goddamn!", pulled off his hat and stomped it in the dirt, and
reached for his bag. His Negro boy, Attorney-at-law, called Turney for short,
who had been holding the bag while the doctor had done his cutting, handed
it to him. There was nothing else to be done, so Dr. Giles squatted down
by the wounded man and went to work on him. They say he was so mad
he cried and cussed as he sewed. "If I'd a known this was to happen, Rod,"
he blubbered, "I wouldn't a-cut you so deep nor so wide." Then Roderick
started to argue with him again, saying Johnson was a traitor and ought
to be hanged, and he'd stand to it till he died. At this Dr. John lifted up
his big hog needle, the tears streaming down his cheeks, and said, "One
more word out of you, Rod, and while I got you down I'll sew up your lips
and thread 'em to your nose so damned tight you'll never breathe again,
let alone argue." Rod saw that he meant it. So he lay still while the doctor
sewed, and said no more. He recovered all right, and later he and Dr. John
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1105
were good friends. In fact he was one of the pallbearers that helped put the
old doctor there where he sleeps in Tirzah churchyard.
/ be switched!
A mild interjection.
switches
Little long twigs usually taken from the new sprouts of the spirea bush.
"Better obey your parents, children, or Santa Claus will bring you a bag
of switches on Christmas — he did for Martin Matthews."
switching
A light spanking.
swivel
Shrivel.' 'There stood that little boy in the cold, his lips all swiveled up and
blue."
swivet
A hurry, turmoil, nervous haste, the fidgets.
swizzled
Fooled, deceived, cheated.
swole
Past tense of swell.
swoom
Swoon.
Put up thy sword.
They that live by the sword shall perish by the SWOrd.
swordsman
A cocksman, a ladies' man, a sport. "Everybody knowed that Charlie was
a swordsman and that's how come he got killed by that jealous husband."
swunk
Shrunk.
syllabub (sillabub)
In the old days this was a special Christmas drink in the Valley. Even deacons
in the church and sworn teetotalers felt that a bit of syllabub was allowable
at this religious holiday time. The drink was made by mixing a little liquor
(preferably corn) with a rich, almost custard-thick cream and sweetened.
syphilis cure
The fruit of the sugarberry tree eaten heavily was one of the many promising
cures. The Indians had faith in this practice as a cure after they'd caught
the disease from the white man, or woman.
�1106
Paul Green's Wordbook
T
tabby
A female cat.
tabernickle
Tabernacle.
tableful!
A crowd.
tabookit
A sound made by the hooves of a galloping horse.
keep tabs on
To keep an eye on, look after, be responsible for.
tackles
Poor Southern whites.
tackle
To attempt, to try, to make an effort at.
tacky
Common, vulgar. It is used both as an adjective and as a noun.
In bad taste.' 'That girl came to the party in one of the tackiest dresses that
I ever saw."
mill tacky
A cotton-mill poor white, a common worker, usually looked down on by
the farmers, even tenant farmers.
tacky party
A costume party where everyone comes dressed in' 'tacky'' and outlandish
clothes, usually old clothes.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
tad
1107
A little child, usually refers to boys. Also a small amount, a bit.
taddick
A little bit, small amount. "Hand me that taddick of wool."
Tag
One of the most popular of all children's games. There are a number of
varieties — Squat Tag, Turn Tag, Wood Tag, Iron Tag, etc. One child is
chosen "It" by a counting-out rhyme, and he chases the other players.
"Safety" in each game is to touch or do what players agree upon. In Squat
Tag, for example, "It" must catch a player before he squats and hold him
long enough to count one-two-three. Then the one caught becomes "It."
But if the chased one squats before he is tagged, he is safe. Players are granted
only three squats. In Turn Tag, "It" must turn and chase anyone who crosses
between him and the one being chased. In Iron Tag, the pursued one is always
safe as long as he is touching iron before being tagged.
tag along
To follow dispiritedly, but doggedly.
tail
A following detective.
The backside.
A screwing, sexual intercourse. I heard the following at a sawmill once.
"I was in town last night and I got me a piece of tail."
"You did?"
"Yeh, man, and I mean tail."
"Urn, and what'd it cost you?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Yeh, nothing. Kinfolks."
Cut a dog's tail off and put it under the steps, and the dog won't run away from
home anymore.
tailband
The crupper.
his tail between his legs
Humiliated, shamefaced.
tailboard
A cross board at the end of a cart or wagon body which can be removed
for loading or unloading.
�1108
Paul Green's Wordbook
tail dragging
Loafing, working half-heartedly. "I'm going to turn him off come Saturday
— he's just too tail dragging."
tail end
The exact end.
tail feathers
Pretensions, false manners, highfalutin airs.
You've got to get hold of more than the tail feathers if you want to catch the
chicken.
tail in a split
To be in a difficult situation.
One of the Valley doctors told me that his tail was in a split one time.
Well, of course, doctors get their tails in splits many times, but this was a
particular time and happening. He was at a convention, he said, in a distant
city, when a Valley boy, a young man, came to see him. He knew the fellow
and there was some confidential talk between them. This young man told
the doctor that he had caught venereal disease in the town while he was away
from home. This job would soon be ended and he was going to have to go
back home, and he didn't know what to do about his young wife. The doctor
suggested that he try to get another job in the town and let his wife know
that his work was keeping him there longer than he thought. In the meantime
he should get himself cured. The doctor said he did. When the doctor got
back home, he was called on shortly by the young wife herself, and after
much hemming and hawing, she let him know that she, too, had caught
venereal disease. "I've been a plumb fool,'' she wept,' 'messing around with
that low-down man," and she told who it was.' 'And he's ruined me, ruined
me," she said. The doctor comforted her and started treating her. Then she
heard with great j oy that her husband had been delayed and was continuing
in the distant town. So by the time the young man came home she was cured
up. "Yessir," said the doctor, "for a while my tail was in a split, and theirs
were too. But it worked out all right, and I reckon neither of them ever knew
about the other. Before long they began to have some chldren. They've got
four now and they're getting along well — a happy family, though two of
the older ones have mighty bad eye trouble and I'm treating them."
The old saying' 'tail in a split" always reminds me of our possum hunting
custom in the Valley. If we caught a possum, we'd cut down a little sapling
— usually a whifp cak one — and cut it off to about a five- or six-foot length.
We'd slit open one end of the sapling, insert the possum's tail in the slit,
and let it close up tight again, thus holding him captive by the tail. Then
with the pole over our shoulders and the captive possum sitting humbly on
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1109
it, held by his tail, we'd march proudly home with our game. He'd be put
in a wired-over pen and fed persimmons and boiled sweet potatoes for a
few weeks, and then served up as a special and delectable food. I never found
it so. To me cooked possum is about eighty percent grease. Still I am thankful
for the old folk sayings I got from the creature, and I try as much as possible
not to get my tail in a split. Naturally, I don't always succeed.
tailings
Seconds, inferior quality, the chaffy materials that are blown away by the
fan in threshing.
tail on fire
To be in a great hurry or fiercely angry.
tail over the dashboard
In high spirits.
tail up
Resolute, optimistic, much the same as tail over the dashboard.
tain't
It ain't.
tairpin
Terrapin.
take
To get ready to do, to plan, to get set. "Now the government will take and
cut your pension down to nothing."
To be effective. "The salt didn't take and every one of my hams sp'iled
in the warm weather spell."
You must take the fat with the lean.
take a back seat
To retire from the limelight, be demoted.
to take a bleed (leak)
To urinate.
to take a crack at
To try, to attempt, to make an effort.
take after
Resemble. "When I was a little boy, more than one neighbor would look
at me and say to my father, 'That boy takes after his grandfather Bill Byrd,
don't he?' "
�1110
Paul Green's Wordbook
take and
An expression of emphasis. "He took and went over the creek to get a pot.''
take and do it
Get busy and do, act resolutely. "Don't talk so much, just take and do it."
take a pen in hand
To write in a bombastic or over-inflated style.
take a powder
To run away, to quit a job suddenly.
take a shine to
To like.
take back
To recant.
take care of it
To wind a matter up, finish, conclude. "That about takes care of it."
take for a ride
To cheat, to lead on deceptively. "He promised to pay that money back,
but he took me for a ride."
To be killed.' 'They found him crumpled under a pile of lumber — the gang
had taken him for a ride."
take in
To assemble, to begin. "School took in last Tuesday."
To cheat. "I got took in on that deal, yessiree!"
take in the town
To go out on the town for a big time.
take it from me
Accept my word for truth, believe me. "Take it from me — that Jack Tufts
just won't do."
take it out on
To treat another spitefully or abusedly. "He took his disappointment out
on me and I wasn't to blame at all."
taken
Past tense of take. "He taken his gun in hand."
take notice
An emphatic statement of observing.' 'That baby began to take notice before
he was six months old."
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
1111
take off
To flee, run, leave.
To mimic. "Earsie Matthews can take off Mr. Billy Green to a fare-ye-well."
take on
To assume a task, to make a to-do over.
take one down a peg
To lower one's pride, to discomfit.
take one's foot in one's hand
To make a decision. "He tuk his foot in his hand and lit out for home."
take out
To unfasten, to unhitch. "Take out the mules and feed 'em, the sun's gone
down."
take sick
To become sick, usually suddenly.
take stock in
To believe in, to give credence to. "I don't take a bit of stock in what he
says these days."
take the bridle off
To cut loose, to go on a tear.
take the cake
To win the prize, to win first place, to be tops.
take the rag off the bush
To outdo, out-lie, over-exaggerate.
take to
To run. "He took to the woods when he saw that bear."
To like. "That baby took to old man Lee as soon as he saw him."
take to the cleaners.
To ream, to bankrupt, to steal everything.
take up
To loiter, to waste time, to hang about.' 'That old sorry hound dog has took
up here and I can't run her off."
take up for
To defend, espouse a cause, to support. "I'll take up for the young folks
any day."
�1112
Paul Green's Wordbook
take up with
To become a pal of, a companion to.
taking out fire
There are many Valley superstitions about easing a burn or taking out fire.
I knew an old Negro man who said he could do it. He had a queer outlandish mumble and wordless song which accompanied the pantomime of his
passing his hands over the burnt place. "Now, Missy, you'll feel better right
away."
tale
Malicious gossip. "He told a tale about her."
Talk is easy.
Talk of the devil and his imps will appear.
Don't talk while fishing, for the fish won't bite.
talk a blue streak
Excessively talkative.
talk back
To respond impertinently, sassily.
Talking comes by nature, silence comes by wisdom.
talk the hinges off the door
Excessively garrulous.
talk through one's hat
Speak foolishly.
talk turkey
Straight talk, stern advice, a laying down of the law.
as tall as a church steeple
as tall as a haystack
tallow
The cooked and rendered fat of animals. Tallow is good for all sorts of colds
and coughs when smeared on the chest and rubbed in. Also it is good to
soften up hard brogan shoes in winter or any kind of leather goods. The
folk superstition in the Valley used to run that when one's chest was wellgreased with tallow, no witches or harmful spirits could come nigh enough
to hurt.
tall tales
Wild and imaginative narratives.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1113
Tall trees catch much wind.
It is the tall trees the lightning strikes most.
as tame as a kitten
tan
To whip, spank. " If you don't behave yourself, boy, I'll tan your hide good.''
tanglefoot
A specially prepared sticky paper to catch flies. We used to have them spread
all about our house, and yet the flies increased.
tank up
To drink to excess, to get drunk.' 'He goes down to that filling station ever'
Sad'dy night and tanks up, then comes home drunk and beats the children."
tansies
Cakes made of eggs and tansy leaves and eaten during Lent.
tansy
A wild flower that grows some two to four feet high and is plentiful
throughout the Valley. It is aromatic and bitter of taste and according to
report has been used in medicine since the Middle Ages. It often decks the
roadside in summer with its yellow flat-topped flower clusters. In the Roman
Catholic Church tansy (from the Greek word meaning immortality) typifies
the bitter herbs which were to be eaten or chewed at the Easter season.
tantrabogus
A frightful monster, a folklore creature of unimaginable fearfulness, the
devil himself.
tantrum
A fit of high temper, hysterics.
tap
To choose, to designate, as to tap one for a fraternity membership.
Tap Out (Clap Out)
A children's game of chase, also a young people's courting game. Any
number can play this game. A ring is formed, with the players holding hands.
Sometimes they march around singing a song — any song they choose. "It"
moves around outside the ring and taps a chosen person, usually a boy
tapping a girl and vice versa. The one tapped then chases the tapper around
the ring. If the boy catches the girl, he is allowed a kiss, and if the girl catches
the boy — and this most often happens, for the boys usually slow down
for the purpose of being caught — then she can allow herself to be kissed.
Many a marriage has begun this way. And oh, how my heart used to ache
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Paul Green's Wordbook
when my favorite girl would pass me by and tap some no 'count fellow farther
down the ring. The game is much like Drop the Handkerchief.
"Ta-ra-ra Boom-der-e"
A popular song of the old days. We boys used to have our own version which
began—
"Ta-ra-ra boom-ray-dee,
I got bumps all over me."
tared
Tired.
tares
Deductions or tolls made from the gross weight of a commodity to be sold.
Also any weeds or foreign growth in a field of wheat.
Sins, evil deeds for good, as given in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of
Matthew.' 'The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good
seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among
the wheat and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought
forth fruit, then appeared the tares also."
Don't sow tares, the Scripture commands.
Tar Heel
A native North Carolinian. The name also applies to different athletic
teams — football, basketball, tennis, wrestling, etc. — from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the original and main campus.
There are many "legends'' that give accounts of the origin of the name.
One is that when Lord Cornwallis' soldiers crossed the Tar River by wading
it during the Revolutionary War, they found their feet sticky with tar that
had been dumped into the river from the nearby tar-pitch-and-turpentine
activities of the settlers. The word got around that anyone wading in North
Carolina rivers would acquire tar on his heels — hence "tar heels."
tar kiln
An old-timey kiln for making tar. Usually good rich pine butts or knots
were used, being piled in a heap, with a trough underneath made of clay.
Then the pile was covered with dirt, with an opening in the center for the
smoke to come out. The timber was lighted and set for a slow sweaty burning.
The tar oozed into the clay trough and flowed to a barrel or pot placed on
a lower level.
tarnal
Eternal.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1115
tarnation!
A mild expletive.
beat the tar out of
To thrash soundly.
tartar
A bad-tempered, fierce person, usually applied to a woman. "Lord, that
Sally Ann Butts is a reg'lar tartar."
task
A set amount, a delimited job of work. "Now, boys, I've set you a task
of two hundred pounds of cotton apiece before you can go off and play
baseball," my father announced that morning. And of course Hugh and
I were up at daybreak and into the west cotton fields picking away when
the sun came up. The heavy dew made the cotton weigh more, and by twelve
o'clock we were free and, after a bit of dinner, off with bounding feet and
singing heart to the ballfield at the old Schofield place, Hugh to play left
field and me to pitch.
taste
A tiny bit, a shade more.' 'Your house is a taste finer'n mine with that extra
chimney."
ta-ta
A jocular half-mocking reply to a statement or announcement.
'tater
Potato. "Sister, give that child a 'tater and hush its squalling."
tatterdemalion
A ragged good-for-nothing person.
tatters
Rags. "Look at them pore Barnes young'uns — just going in tatters."
tatting
One of the needlework skills taught in the early female academies.
tattle
To gossip.
tattletale
A gossip, a scandalmonger.
Tattletale-tit,
Your tongue shall be split
And every hog and dog
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Shall have a little bit.
(A teasing rhyme.)
tattoo
An indelible mark or pattern needle-worked into the skin, often repented
of later to little avail.
Sailors and soldiers and young men going far from their sweethearts
or favorite women would often have some love-token tattooed, usually on
the forearm. The Indians in the Valley were addicted to tattooing also. Many
men favor the seductive and naked female form for a pattern. Newell Everett
who worked at our sawmill had two buxom female breasts tattooed on the
inside of his powerful forearm. "When I get to feeling low," he said, "all
I got to do to get my spirits coming is to roll up my sleeve and look at that
pair of woman's titties."
taw
A large marble, usually of glass, used to shoot the smaller marbles or dinahs.
A sweetheart. An especially prized possession.
come to taw
To toe the mark, to measure up, also to suffer retribution.
tea cake
A round sweet thin cake popular in the Valley, named from the English habit
of serving cake with tea.
tear
A spree, a wild party or cutting up. "George Sexton got drunk last night
at the box-party and went on a tear — we had to conk him on the head with
a piece of scantling to quiet him."
It's easier to tear down than to build up.
tear down, tear off
To flee, run. "He tore down the road like the dogs were after him."
a tearing hurry
A frenzied activity.
tear-jerker
A sentimental story or funeral service, a powerful preacher. "Old Sandy
King is a tear-jerker all right — when he really gets going in the pulpit."
a tease
A joking, fun-loving person.
teasel
A low plant that likes to grow in the damp woods and along running streams.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
1117
The root is astringent, and the leaves were once used to heal up cuts and
open wounds.
techous
Touchous.
teddy
A woman's chemise.
teeny
Tiny.
teeny-einsy (teen-einy) (teeny-ouncy)
Very tiny.
teeter-totter
A child's playground balancing board, a seesaw.
A person with a gap between his front teeth will be lucky.
One's teeth should be pulled when the zodiac blood sign is in the feet and not
in the head — if the latter, one is likely to have a lot of bleeding.
something to get one's teeth in
A subject one can make headway in, something palpable, actual, real.
to have one's wisdom teeth
To have grown up to wisdom's maturity, to be knowing, hard to be fooled,
and so on.
teetotally
Entirely, completely. "That gal has teetotally ruined him."
telepathy
A common superstition of long enduring to the effect that thought or
knowledge can be transferred from one person to another without any
physical means of communication. The parapsychology (a more scientific
and passable name for extrasensory perception) laboratory at Duke
University is engaged head over heels in this folk belief.
tell
To recognize, identify. "My car is red, so I can tell it easy in any parking lot."
To show, mark. "His age is beginning to tell on him."
Till.
Tell no tales out of school.
tell off
To scold, berate, bless out, bawl out. "I told that scutter off and I mean
told."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
tell out
To scold.
tell-tale-tit
See "Tattletale-tit."
tell the news
To weep loudly, to shout, cry out. "Every time Maudie Messer whups her
boy you can hear him tell the news clean down here to our house."
tempest in a teapot
Much ado about little or nothing.
temptious
Tempting.
Ten Commandments
The most powerful of all aphorisms and folk proverbs in guiding the behavior
of the Valley people.
The decalogue, a summary of God's, given to Moses on Mt. Sinai for man's
obeying.
"Ten Little Indians"
One little, two little, three little Indians,
Four little, five little, six little Indians,
Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians,
Ten little Indian boys — and girls and papooses and
braves and squaws.
(The last is recited in a rush.)
(A child's nursery song.)
on tenterhooks
In an emotional state of uncertainty.
"Tenting Tonight"
The actual title is "We're Tenting Tonight," but we always said "Tenting
Tonight." It, too, was one of our quartet favorites.
This is another heart-reaching song coming out of the tragic and
wasteful Civil War. It was written by Walter Kittredge soon after he was
drafted into the Union Army in 1862. It quickly became a favorite with both
North and South. I used it in a Civil War play "Wilderness Road," and
in an antiphonal scene both the boys in blue and the boys in gray sang it
— one side in answer to the other and then both sides on the chorus together
— separated by a protecting hillock.
"We're tenting tonight on the old campground,
Give us a song to cheer
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1119
Our weary hearts, a song of home
And friends we loved so dear."
"Many are the hearts that are weary tonight,
Wishing for the war to cease.
Many are the hearts looking for the right
To see the dawn of peace.
Chorus
"Tenting tonight, tenting tonight,
Tenting on the old campground."
And so on, with the heart-hurting words,
"Dying tonight,
Dying on the old campground."
terbacker
Tobacco.
termatoes
Tomatoes.
in terms of
A popular cliche among political speakers and dull classroom teachers,
meaning to appraise one thing by picturing another.
tessie boy
An effeminate fellow, a weak-willed errand boy.
tessie man
A volatile and knee-bending servant or sycophant, a handyman.
testes
Tests.
fetch
Touch.
Tetherball
A one-person, if necessary, ball game. A pole is set up some eight or ten
feet high and a tethered ball, with some string footage a little less than the
height of the pole, is attached to the top of the pole. The player or players
with a racquet or even a hand can knock the ball wrappingly around the
pole without letting it slacken. A tennis ball is often used.
A tethered sheep soon starves.
talk like a Texan
Said of one given to boastfulness about his accomplishments or possessions.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
Texas star
A folk-dance figure. Also a well-known flower.
Old Mis' Caroline Turner grew the flower in her garden in memory
of her brother who had migrated to Texas soon after the Civil War. She
also wrote a little book of poetry by the same name and had it privately
printed. Mr. Mac, the local historian, said he once had a copy of it but
somebody borrowed it and never returned it. He said he didn't remember
any of the poems by heart. "But they were good, Paul, plumb good," he said.
Thattan Hall
An early theatre in Wilmington, North Carolina. The Thalian Society, which
built it, produced many Shakespeare and European plays, and until the end
of the 19th century all parts were taken by males. From some of the
newspaper reports over the years many of the males made ideal females.
Also, according to some theatre historians, the Little Theatre in America
had its beginnings here. The Hall is still in active theatre use.
thang
Thing. "You get that thang right out of my house."
Thanks is the poor man's money.
thanky-ma'am (excuse-me-ma'am)
A shallow ditch across a dirt road, or its opposite — a bullhead to turn the
water — both giving a bump to a buggy when it passes over and usually
accompanied by the laughing remark of the courting couple, "Thankyma'am."—at least in the old, old horse-and-buggy days.
That gets me!
Something which stumps, puzzles or irritates.
that I know of
A phrase still common in the Valley. "Has John been by today?"
"Not that I know of."
That's a huckleberry over my persimmon.
One thing or statement that tops another. "Yeh, I'll hush up — what you
say is a huckleberry over my persimmon."
That's it.
The conclusive fact, the accounting, enough said. "Seventeen dollars for
the lot, and that's it."
That (It) whips me.
Defeats me, is beyond my solving.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
the
1121
A particularizing article, used especially in connection with sicknesses, as
"He's got the itch'' — or the headache, the neuralgia, the appendicitis, and
so on.
Theophilis Thistle, the thistle sifter,
Sifted a sack of thistles with the
Thick of his thumb.
A sack of thistles did Theophilis Thistle,
the thistle sifter, sift.
If Theophilis Thistle, the thistle sifter, sifted
a sack of thistles with the thick of his thumb,
Where is the sack of thistles that Theophilis
Thistle sifted?
(A tongue twister.)
"There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood"
One of the most vivid and powerful of all fundamentalist church hymns.
The words were written by that tormented poet, William Cowper, about
1770 and the tune we sang was composed by Lowell Mason (1792-1872) many
years later. Mason was one of America's most prolific as well as most beloved
composers.
Francis Arthur Jones in his Famous Hymns and Their Authors gives
a stirring and piteous picture of Cowper's mental sufferings about the time
he wrote the hymn. It was suggested by a text taken from Zechariah 13,
verse 1, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David
and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness."
It was one of the first hymns Cowper wrote after his first attack of
temporary madness. He was naturally of a nervous and shy temperament
and this extreme sensitivity added to his malady or at least made him more
open to its maraudings. It seems he had been promised a post as Clerk of
the Journal of the House of Lords and was rejoiced to contemplate his
coming appointment and more freedom from the confines of poverty. But
to his horror he learned he must undergo a public examination before the
House before he could receive the appointment. Jones quotes an account
of the matter given in the "North American Review" for January 1834:
' 'As the time drew nigh, his agony became more and more intense; he
hoped and believed that madness would come to relieve him; he attempted
also to make up his mind to commit suicide, though his conscience bore
stern testimony against it; he could not by any argument persuade himself
that it was right, but this desperation prevailed, and he procured from an
apothecary the means of self-destruction. On the day before his public
appearance was to be made, he happened to notice a letter in the newspaper,
which to his disordered mind seemed like a malignant libel on himself. He
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immediately threw down the paper and rushed into the fields, determined
to die in a ditch, but the thought struck him that he might escape from the
country. With the same violence he proceeded to make hasty preparations
for his flight; but while he was engaged in packing his portmanteau his mind
changed, and he threw himself into a coach, ordering the man to drive to
the Tower wharf, intending to throw himself into the river, and not reflecting
that it would be impossible to accomplish his purpose in that public spot.
On approaching the water, he found a porter seated upon some goods: he
then returned to the coach and was conveyed to his lodgings at the Temple.
On the way he attempted to drink the laudanum, but as often as he raised
it, a convulsive agitation of his frame prevented its reaching his lips; and
thus, regretting the loss of the opportunity, but unable to avail himself of
it, he arrived, half dead with anguish, at his apartment. He then shut the
doors and threw himself upon the bed with the laudanum near him, trying
to lash himself up to the deed; but a voice within seemed constantly to forbid
it, and as often as he extended his hand to the poison, his fingers were
contracted and held back by spasms.
' 'At this time some of the inmates of the place came in, but he concealed
his agitation, and as soon as he was left alone, a change came over him,
and so detestable did the deed appear, that he threw away the laudanum
and dashed the vial to pieces. The rest of the day was spent in heavy
insensibility, and at night he slept as usual; but on waking at three in the
morning, he took his penknife and lay with his weight upon it, the point
towards his heart. It was broken and would not penetrate. At daybreak he
arose, and passing a strong garter round his neck, fastened it to the frame
of his bed: this gave way with his weight, but on securing it to the door,
he was more successful, and remained suspended till he had lost all
consciousness of existence. After a time the garter broke and he fell to the
floor, so that his life was saved; but the conflict had been greater than his
reason could endure. He felt for himself a contempt not to be expressed
or imagined; whenever he went into the street, it seemed as if every eye flashed
upon him with indignation and scorn; he felt as if he had offended God
so deeply that his guilt could never be forgiven, and his whole heart was
filled with tumultuous pangs of despair. Madness was not far off, or rather
madness was already come."
"There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from ImmanuePs veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains—
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
Lose all their guilty stains.
"The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day
And there may I though vile as he
Wash all my sins away,
Wash all my sins away, etc.
"E'en since by faith I saw the stream
My flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme
And shall be till I die,
And shall be till I die, etc.
"When this poor lisping stammering tongue
Lies silent in the grave,
There is a nobler sweeter song
I'll sing, thy power to save,
I'll sing, thy power to save."
There was an old woman
Lived under a hill
And if she's not gone
She's a-living there still.
(A nursery rhyme.)
They that are bound must obey.
They who cannot as they would must do as they can.
They who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
thick and thin
Every kind of circumstance, good and bad.
as thick as fleas
as thick as flies
as thick as glue
as thick as hops
as thick as molasses
as thick as mush
as thick as peas
as thick as pea soup
1123
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Paul Green's Wordbook
as thick as the hairs on a dog's back
as thick as thieves
thicket
A woman's pudenda.
thickhead
A stupid person.
thick neck
A bully.
thick of hearing
Somewhat deaf.
It takes a thief to catch a thief.
thimble
The steel sheath covering the wooden end of a wagon axle around which
the hub of the wheel revolves.
Also a popular young folks' game sometimes known as "Weave the
Thimble"or' 'Who's Got the Thimble?'' Each player except "It" sits with
the palms of his hands together and extended. "It" goes around with a
thimble or coin hidden in his own clasped hands and slides his hands between
the hands of the other players in succession, one of them being the secret
recipient of the coin or thimble. As "It" does this, he keeps up a chant,
'' Weave, weave the thimble.'' When he reaches the end of the line of players
he asks the first player, "Thimble, thimble, who's got the thimble?" The
first player makes his guess and so on. Then "It" says "Rise up, thimble,
show yourself.'' Whoever has guessed correctly becomes "It" and the game
proceeds.
thimbleberry
The black raspberry.
as thin as a lath
as thin as a rail
as thin as a rake
as thin as paper
thingamajigger
An item of indefinite reference. "Hand me that thingamajigger over there,
please."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1125
the thing of it is
An introductory phrase to emphasize a following statement. "The thing
of it is she ought to pay her debts, then the people would respect her more
and take more stock in her preaching."
things
Cattle, stock, also pigs.' 'You boys feed the things while I'm gone to Dunn.''
Clothes. "Wait till I pack my things and I'll be with you."
Think today and speak tomorrow.
As you think of others, others think of you.
As a man thinketh in his soul so is he.
think hard of
To have animosity toward.
to my thinking
In my opinion.
thinking cap
State of concentration. "I'll put on my thinking cap and see if I can remember
her maiden name."
think of
To recollect, to remember. "I intended to go to the homecoming at old
Bethesda, but I didn't think of it."
Think of it!
A mild interjection.
thin-skinned
Sensitive, easy to anger.
third degree
A stern ordeal, a fierce probing, a beating. "We gave that fellow the third
degree and he owned right up."
Thirst is sure the end of drinking, and sorrow is the end of loving.
thirteen
A bad luck number. Some hotels don't have a thirteenth floor or a room
with the number thirteen. "Okay so far," said the man as he fell by the
thirteenth floor.
Thirteen people at a table means bad luck for the youngest one — maybe early
death.
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Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Save February alone
And that has twenty-eight days clear
And twenty-nine in each leap year.
(A learning rhyme.)
this here
Something close by, as opposed to "that there."
This is the life.
A comfy living, a hunky-dory situation.
thistle
This is a coarse biennial from two to three feet high. There are some seven
species in the Valley. When the root is boiled in milk it is supposed to be
good for the dysentery.
thorn apple
See "Jimson weed."
thorn in one's side (flesh)
A bothersome or irritating person or thing.
thorny
Difficult, touchy, hard to handle. "Teaching sex in the public schools is
a thorny subject."
thoughted
Thought. "He thoughted the matter over and decided 'no.' "
'thouten
Without.
th 'owed
Threw. "They say George Washington once th'owed a silver dollar slap
acrost the Potomac River."
thrash
An eruptive breaking out especially afflicting children in the mouth. Also
a disease afflicting the inner hock of a horse's hoof. There are many hocuspocus cures for children's or babies' thrash. One that the old colored man
Uncle Benjamin Dunn practiced was to breathe into the child's mouth,
mutter some barbaric syllables, then go to the woods and break out the top
of a little pine tree. He would then row out into the millpond with his boat
to where the water was shallow enough and plant the piece of tree there.
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
1127
As it gradually died the thrash would disappear. Uncle Benjamin also could
blow fire out of burns. He would stand over the person who had been burnt
and make all kinds of queer passes in the air and over the burn with his hands,
mumbling to himself and puffing away. Then when he had finished he would
straighten up and cry out, "Clear my paf, folkses, here I come!" And he
would dash out of the house, run down the hill and jump into the pond or
creek. There he would huff and puff and wallow around like a great hog
or circus animal. "Since I tuk the fire into myself," he would say, "this
here's the best means I know of how to squench it."
Uncle Benjy also had other powers. One night he heard a ruckus down
in his hen house. He hurried there and saw a Negro man. "Throw up your
hands!" he shouted from the darkness. The thief, thinking someone had
a gun drawn on him, threw up his hands. Uncle Benjy walked up to him,
looked at him, and said, "You stand there, and you can't take them hands
down now nuther, for they's paralyzed." And the Negro couldn't. All night
long he stood there frozen in his tracks, his hands held up. The next morning
at sunrise Uncle Benjy went down and told him he could let his hands drop
now. And the Negro did, and they said he raised a cloud of dust going away
from there.
The thread follows the needle.
Thread the Needle
A children's game. It is played much like London Bridge. Two children
become the leaders. Facing each other, they clasp hands and raise them in
the air. The other children in a line pass under the hands. When the hands
are suddenly lowered, two children are caught, and they must pay a forfeit
— sometimes, if they are a boy and girl, they have to kiss. A song most often
accompanies the action—
"The needle's eye it does supply
The thread that runs so true (plumb through),
O many a one we let pass on
Because we wanted you.
"There's (They's) none so sweet or dressed so neat.
It's out and in we do intend
To make this couple meet
And kiss with kisses sweet."
old man three-balls
A pawnbroker.
Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run.
They all ran after the farmer's wife.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
She cut off their tails with a carving knife.
Did you ever see such a sight in your life
As three blind mice.
(A nursery rhyme used as a round.)
three on a light
It's bad luck for three people to light their cigarettes from a single match.
Three removes are as bad as a fire.
Things always come in threes.
Three's company, four's a crowd.
three sheets in the wind
Drunk, tipsy.
Three things that quickly fade are an echo, a rainbow and a woman's beauty.
thribble
Triple.
thribs
Three in the game of marbles. If a player happens to knock three dinahs
out of the ring when he shoots his taw and cries out ahead of anybody else
"Thribs!" he may keep the three. But if another player in the game calls
out "Venture thribs!" ahead of him, he is allowed only one.
thriller-diller
A spectacular thing.
throat-cutter
An unscrupulous trader or sharp-dealing business man. "I agree with Barry
Newton,'' said Mr. Botking the other day,' 'Asa Sinclair is the slickest throatcutter in the political game today."
belly thinks the throat is cut
A condition of great hunger.
throat latch
A narrow leather bridle strap which passes under the throat of a horse or
mule to prevent the animal from rubbing the bridle off against a tree or
hitching post, or even getting it off with one of its forefeet.
the throne
The John, the commode in a bathroom or privy.
through and through
Completely.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1129
through the mill
Suffered hard times, difficulty. "That fellow's been through the mill all
right."
throve
To confuse. "His question really threw me for awhile."
To win in wrestling. "I ain't afraid of him, I can throw him every time we
wrestle, even if he is twict my size."
throve cold water on
To discourage, to dampen one's enthusiasm.
throw dust in one's eyes
To deceive, fool, confuse.
throw for a loop
To outdo completely, to cause one to come a cropper.
throw in
To go into partnership with. "If you'll throw in with me, I believe we can
clean up in the drug business."
To make an addition, to add extra, to give boot. "I'll swap my horse for
yours if you'll throw in the buggy."
Throwing Tobacco Tags
A popular game among boys in the old days, asortof crackaloo. The bright
colored tin tags from plugs of chewing tobacco were especially sought for
— Apple, Plum, Brown Mule, Peach or whatnot. A mark would be drawn
and the players would see who could pitch their tags close to the mark. Often
several tags were beaten together to add weight and accuracy to the throw.
The one whose tag was nearest the mark after the throw collected the losing
tags.
throw in the sponge (the towel)
To yield, to give up.
Throw Knives
Much the same game as Throwing Tobacco Tags.
throw lead
To shoot rapidly and wildly.
throw off on
To criticize unduly, to berate.
throw one's weight around
To act big, to make obvious use of one's influence.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
throw over
To jilt, same as kick.
throw the book at
To react strongly at someone, penalize heavily.
throw up
To vomit.
thumb
To fire, dismiss. "I got the thumb, and I'm out."
thumb paper
A piece of paper or cardboard held under the thumb by a student to keep
the open page of his book from getting dirty or wearing out too soon.
all thumbs
An awkward or heavy-fingered person.
stick out like a sore thumb
To be obvious, especially as in a flaw or error.
thumb one's nose at
To deride, scorn.
under one's thumb
To have control of.
thumping
Large, a great deal. "Last night I took a thumping dose of calomel and you
can imagine how I feel today — just to look at the garden house sets me
to running towards it."
Thunder in hot weather will make eggs spoil so they won't hatch and also will
turn milk sour as well as stop fish from biting.
By thunder!
An exclamation.
The first thunder in the spring wakes up the snakes.
Thunderation!
An interjection.
thunder ball
A meteor.
thunderclap
A burst of thunder, a sudden and astounding happening or piece of news.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1131
thunderhead
A small black wad of cloud usually rising in the southwest on hot afternoons
in summer, presaging the formation of a larger cloud and rain to follow,
accompanied by thunder and lightning.
thunder mug
The chamber pot.
play thunder
To make a mess of things. "Now you've just played thunder by getting
engaged to that Sadie Cofield — why she's slept with every man in
Summerville." "Now, Lem, don't git upset — after all, Summerville ain't
such a big place."
thunder roots
Sweet potatoes.
When it thunders, the fish won't bite.
thunderstone
Thunderbolt, perhaps a piece of fused sand, glass-like where lightning has
struck the earth.
In the old days a thunderstone was the best possible protection against
lightning, so 'twas said. These stones, according to popular belief, were
discharged at the earth from every flash of vertical lightning. They were
supposed to be glassy-looking and about the size of a good madstone —
a couple of inches long and about an inch wide. Old Duncan McPhail, the
Negro horse doctor, had one of these magic stones which he said he found
in a sand bed. He kept it in a trunk in his house and in the wildest electric
storms had no fear that his dwelling would ever be struck by lightning. And
often if he had to be outdoors in the fields or off doctoring a cow or sick
mule and thunderstorms were about, he carried the thunderstone in his
pocket. And though everybody else might rush indoors during the fierce
cannonading in the skies, old Duncan would go on quietly and serenely about
his work.
I got to know Duncan well when I was a boy and used to love to hear
him talk. "I was a bad nigger in my younger days," he once said to me.
"Aw go 'way, Uncle Duncan," I said, "you never were bad."
"Oh, yessuh I was," he replied stoutly and with a little show of pride.
"Bad, mighty much bad. But I won't go into that, for it's all done past.
And I'm thankful I got over my wildness. It was the stars falling that changed
me."
"The stars?"
"Yessuh."
"Aw now."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
" 'Twas. It was the heavenly firmament breaking to pieces and pieces
of it falling down. The stars fell."
"You mean the stars really fell?"
' 'And that's ezzactly what I do mean. The stars sho' did fall. I witnessed
'em with my own two eyes. One night close after the surrenduh, I waked
up to reach for my friendly liquor jug I kept close by the bed and I heard
a great commotion going all up and down the big road where the folks were
squealing and shouting. And looking out through the window I seen a bluish
white light. I first thought it was Judgment Day had come. And yessuh,
I lost no time in finding myself out in the yard. Andwhee-ooh, it was plumb
raining stars. They hit on the ground in front of the house like millions of
little glass bubbles, and they was bounding up like trab-balls higher'n my
head, for you mought know at that izzact minute I was down on my knees
wrassling up a great prayer to the most high God. Yessuh, that was a night!
And it changed my ways. I promised God then if he'd not destroy the world
and let me live till daybreak, I'd never take another drink of liquor and would
behave myself and try to do good on earth. He kept his promise. Well, suh,
one hot summer day soon after that I was walking 'long the road and my
feet just seemed bound to the crossroads where Jeems Turner sold liquor,
when bam! out'n the clear sky come a bolt of lightning and it struck right
in front of my feet. When the smoke cleared off, there lay that thunderstone,
so hot you couldn't handle it. When it cooled off, I put it in my pocket.
Yessuh, it's got the power and I ain't afraid of nothing that comes out of
the sky no more. I got the insterment of pertection."
thyme
A favorite garden herb.
on tick
On credit, charged to one's account (ticket).
ticker
The heart. "He went to the doctor last week and they told him his ticker
was in bad shape."
ticket
Belief, credo. "Man as a responsible agent is my ticket."
meal ticket
A support, the breadwinner of the family.
ticking
A coarse cloth especially used to cover pillows and feather bedding.
A ticking sound in the wall foretells death.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1133
Tickle, Tickle
A tickling rhyme. There are a number of these rhymes we children used to
gleefully recite with the appropriate finger digging and tickling. The soles
of the feet or underneath the arm was the most ticklish place we found.
Old maid, an old maid,
You are sure to be
If you laugh or smile
When I tickle your knee.
tickled pink
Very much pleased, gratified.
tickled to death
A common exaggeration.' 'Lonnie Matthews just about tickles me to death.''
to tickle one's ears
To flatter.
tickler
A bottle, especially a liquor bottle. "Mr. Will drank a whole tickler of
whiskey coming from Dunn, and no wonder he was shouting when he got
home."
tickle tail
A gossamer-like weed. We children used to gather these tickle tails in handfuls
where they had wind-drifted into fence jambs and tickle our noses to make
ourselves sneeze.
tickle the ivories
To play the piano.
Tickling a baby will cause it to stammer when it grows older, also cause it to steal.
tickly
Easily tickled, easy to make laugh.
ticks
A body curse of numerous kinds — dog ticks, cow ticks, bed ticks, seed
ticks, and so on.
tickweed (smooth tickseed)
A lovely little sunflower which gladdens the roadsides in summer. Its leaves
help as an expectorant.
Tiddly-Winks
A game we called Tiddly-Winks was played with long knitting-needle-like
sticks. The sticks are gathered in the hand, then dropped on the rug or floor
�1134
Paul Green's Wordbook
in a loose pile or scattered disarray. The player must pick each one up
carefully without moving in the slightest any other stick. If he fails, then
the other player gathers up the sticks and has his turn. See "Straws."
tidy
A covering, sometimes ornamental, to protect the back or arms of a chair
or sofa from becoming soiled.
tied up
To be busy, engaged. "Sorry I'm tied up on that date or I'd be glad to come
and speak for the bond issue."
tie the knot
Get married.
tiff
A quarrel, a falling out.
tiger lily
Sometimes called the crumple lily. It has perennial bulbs and is a favorite
garden flower. It originally came from China, they say, and the Chinese
used the bulbs for food.
tight
Constipated. "That doctor gave me some pills, and now I'm all tight."
Drunk. "He come to the party tight as a tick."
as tight as a banjo
as tight as a drum
as tight (thrifty) as a Scotchman
as tight as a tick
as tight as Dick's hatband
as tight as hickory bark
as tight as the bark on a tree
as tight as the skin
in a tight
In a tough situation.
a tight doing woman
A woman with a lot of know-how in sexual intercourse.
to tighten one's belt
To make a new resolve, to summon extra willpower for a hard job ahead,
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1135
to curtail one's expenses, and so on.
tight-fisted
Stingy.
the tight-skinned man
"Ever hear about the tight-skinned man?"
"No."
"Wanter hear about him?"
"Yeh."
"Well, his skin was so tight on his body that every time he winked his
eye he skinned his prick."
"Uh!"
"Wanter hear about the loose-skinned man?"
"No! Good-by!"
(A sell or catch, a bit of stringing.)
tight squeeze
A precarious situation, a difficult way forward.
tightwad
A skinflint. "Mr. John Allen is a tightwad all right. He'll take your fiftydollar note for thirty days at six percent and you get forty."
till hell freezes (over)
A very long time indeed, forever.
till the cows come home
A long, long time. "That woman will cheat him till the cows come home."
time
Wages, salary.
A term of imprisonment.
Difficulty, trouble. "Boy, did I have a time finding you!"
Time and tide wait for no man.
Time heals all.
Time heals all wounds.
Time wounds all heels.
Take time by the forelock.
Lost time is never found.
I've got more time than money.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
time being
For the moment, at the present.' 'All is quiet out there for the time being.''
time book
The charge book usually kept by the local village merchant or landlord in
which were entered the supplies furnished on time to the tenant farmer till
his crop was sold in the fall.
time crank
One who is over-particular about his watch or clock keeping correct time.
My brother Will Green was a watch-repair man, and he said he had a lot
of trouble with time cranks. " It's a disease all watchmakers dread," he said,
"and it ain't restricted to any geographical location. It occurs wherever
people and timepieces occur, and his Honor Remus Brown, the Mayor of
Linneyville, was one of the worst afflicted I ever met up with. He was always
taking out his watch, looking at it, thinking about the time, asking a friend
what time of day it was, telling how much his watch was losing, how much
it was gaining — and the like.
'' Soon after Remus discovered he had a gravel pit on his land just west
of the town, he had me order him a fine Hamilton watch. It cost $150. I
adjusted it as best I could. But in a day or two his honor was back to have
it checked. It had lost a minute or more, he said, according to the radio.
So I fixed it," Will said, "but next week he was back again. It had gained
a minute. I explained to him there was no such thing as a perfect watch or
clock and never would be. The stars themselves, I told him, don't keep perfect
time. At least according to the almanac they don't. You have to add or
subtract or figure it out by a table to make even the magnetic north right.
But he was determined, Remus was. I could tell from the look in his eye
that the disease had him. So he traded in the $ 150 Hamilton and got a $200
one. Of course that didn't do any better. So he had to have a $300 watch.
I ordered that for him. His gravel pit was doing well, you see, and the steam
shovels were digging up the whole side of the hill there where you enter the
town.' Making a great mess of things,' said Miss Almira Jenkins, President
of the Garden Club. But I don't know about that, it depends maybe on how
you look at it.
"Anyhow, about this time Remus' wife fell sick with a bad inside
trouble. Some said she should have had an operation — I don't know. Others
said Remus was too stingy to send her off where the specialists could take
care of her. My own thinking is he had spent so much on watches that he
was short of cash. Like me, Remus was never one to go and hold his hat
and sweat standing in front of old Cousin Atlas McCoy in the bank to borrow
money. Well, his wife died. And soon after that Remus was in to see me
worrying about his watch again and wanting me to get him a $400 one. So
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1137
I did—about the best money could buy. I delivered that watch to him and
expected him back in a few days, being caught in the spell of his disease
the way he was, to have me adjust it for him. But he didn't show up. Nor
did he come back for some time. Then I heard he was out courting again,
sparking Sadie Roberts across the river whose father Ed Roberts owned a
world of land. Remus came into the shop several times during his courtship
and not once did he ever mention the fact that his watch was slow. In fact
one of the first things he did was trade in his expensive watch for his original
$150 one which I still had on hand. And he put the money into earrings,
a jeweled comb and a ring for Sadie. And thereafter when he came in he
would always make his way straight to the jewelry counter case.
"Soon after he had bought the diamond ring for Sadie, the two were
married and I saw nothing much more of Remus for several months.
' 'Then one day as I was working away at my little table in the window,
a voice beyond the counter said, 'Hey, Will, I want you to take a look at
this here watch.' I glanced up and there was Remus. He had the same old
look and his voice had the same old sound. 'It lost several minutes last week,'
he said.
"I saw that the time disease had him again. No, I don't know just how
he and Sadie are getting along. But from his frequent visits here to have
his watch checked up I would not think too well. In fact, I've heard they're
thinking of divorce. Only yesterday, he told me he had to get rid of his old
watch and wanted me to buy him a $200 one. Yes, once atime crank, always
a time crank, we watchmakers say. Love may interrupt it for awhile, but
only for awhile."
time of day
To have slight acquaintance with.' 'Well, we pass the time of day — that's
all."
time or two
Rarely, once or twice in a long while, an indefinite number of times.
timersome
Timid, timorous.
as timid as a mouse
tinhorn
A cheap person, a loud mouth.
tinker
To trifle, to work at a matter or job half-heartedly. "Oh, he's in there just
a-tinkering, go ahead and call him."
�1138
Paul Green's Wordbook
tinker's damn
Of little worth, a trifle, an insignificant thing or person. "He ain't worth
a tinker's damn, if you ask me."
tin lizzie
The early Ford car.
tintsy-wintsy
Very tiny. Same as teeny-einy.
tintype
A word used for emphasis. "You can bet your tintype I'll not join them
Ku Klux."
tip
A gratuity, usually in money, also hint or important bit of information.
To lean. "Tip that scantling a shade this way and you'll have it."
tip off
To give a guiding hint, to let out confidential information.
tipping
Tiptoeing. "He come tipping into my room about daybreak and I yelled
bloody murder at him."
tipsy
Under the influence of liquor, somewhat drunk.
tip the hat
The old polite custom of a man's tipping his hat (lifting it slightly from his
head) to a lady when meeting or passing her. This has disappeared along
with men's hats. But while it lasted I never remember seeing a white man
tip his hat to a colored woman. I tried it somewhat furtively now and then
as a young man.
tip-top
In fine fettle or health. "I'm feeling tip-top, Mr. Paul, since I had my
operation for gallstones."
as tired as a dog
tired to death
Extremely tired, bored. "When Mr. Lee talks, I get tired (tared) to death.''
The Titanic
The great "unsinkable" Royal Mail Steamship, a White Star liner, that struck
an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage from Southampton
to New York and some two hours later sank in the depths of the dark cold
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1139
Atlantic. This occurred near midnight on April 14, 1912. The luxury ship
carried 2,224 passengers and crew, and 1,513 went down with the ship.
I can still remember with what horror we read the great black headlines
of the morning News and Observer. For days the gloom of tragedy was felt
throughout the Valley as elsewhere in the world. It was natural, of course
— human nature being what it is, whatever that is — for the good Valley
church people to believe that somehow the hand of God who rules all things
had a part in the happening. Soon it was talked around as to how the rich
people on the ship were carousing and commiting sin and that was why the
Almighty decided to destroy it. No point was made of bad seamanship and
the captain's effort to set a new crossing record, these being the reason for
his driving his ship on at a speed of more than forty knots an hour, although
he had been warned by radio from other ships in the vicinity that icebergs
were about.
And how our hearts ached over this awful tragedy! And the item that
brought us all down to tears was to read in the paper that the ship's orchestra
struck up "Nearer, My God, to Thee" and continued playing it until the
engulfing waters poured drowningly over them.
Only a few weeks passed and I heard old Uncle Jerry McLean and others
of our black neighbors singing a Titanic song as they chopped grass from
the spring cotton. Where they got the song, I don't know. Maybe it sprang
out of their own sympathizing lamenting.
"Won't (wasn't, weren't) it sad about the Titanic
How she went down!
Won't it sad about the Titanic
How she went down?
"It was on a Monday morning,
Just about one o'clock
When the mighty ship Titanic
She began to reel and rock!
"Won't it sad about the Titanic
How she went down!
"Husbands parted from their wives,
Women and children lost their lives.
Won't it sad about the Titanic
How she went down!"
tits
Breasts, sometimes refers to nipples only.
Tit-tat-toe
A game.
�1140
titty
Paul Green's Wordbook
A woman's breast. Also the old Scotch word used in the Valley long ago
for sister.
titty-binder
A corset, a bra.
a tizzy
A tantrum, confusion.
to
Till. "He kept on drinking to he died."
toad-flax
A common Valley wild flower but uncommon in that some species are annual
and biennial as well as perennial. One species bears showy yellow flowers,
grows from one to three feet tall, and is a good spectacle along ditches and
in muddy places in spring and early summer. A tincture was sometimes used
for jaundice and externally for hemorrhoids. Another species is called blue
toad-flax as contrasted with yellow toad-flax and often turns old fields blue
with its azure beauty. It is poisonous to cattle.
toad-frog
Toad. The blood or urine of a toad-frog will cause warts if it touches one's
skin.
toady to
To kowtow to, to be obsequious to. "He toadies to anyone who's got money
or position — that's how he's got where he has."
toady up to
To flatter, to make up to.
toast
To warm, make hot. "Let me toast my feet at the fire a minute — they're
frozen."
tobacco
Chewing-tobacco juice used to be a good cure for all sorts of ailments,
especially of the skin, such as ringworms, pimples, boils, and eruptions.
Also it is good for wasp and bee stings.
My father would always take some of his chewed tobacco and put on
our hurts when we were little children. Later he quit chewing tobacco and
we had to look elsewhere for help for our pains. To the Indians as well as
the early settlers tobacco was a medicinal herb. It was a good nerve and body
tonic. Also tobacco ashes mixed with gin were good for dropsy in both
children and grownups. It was generally believed in the Valley that tobacco
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1141
and snuff were good for the teeth and gums and helped prevent toothache.
All the advertisements of the dentists haven't yet been able to entirely destroy
that belief. Another belief in the Valley about tobacco was that if a person
was bit by a poisonous snake and another wished to suck the poison out,
he must first chew some tobacco and then the poison wouldn't hurt him.
Poultices made of wet cured tobacco leaves are good for all kinds of insect
bites.
tobacco beds
Seed beds usually made ready in January and February in the Valley.
Tobacco seeds are raked in and the bed covered with tobacco cloth. The
plants are ready for transplanting to field rows in late March and on up to
the middle of April.
tobacco curing
The process of preparing the ripened tobacco for market.
In the lower part of the Valley tobacco begins ripening in June and
continues on through the upper reaches of the Valley into August. The leaves
ripen from the bottom of the plant and gradually on to the top. These leaves
are stripped off (or primed) as they ripen and carried to the tobacco barns
where they are tied in' 'hands'' of approximately five leaves on the tobacco
sticks and hung around the entire interior of the windowless barn. When
the barn is filled, fires are started in the furnaces (oil is used now instead
of wood) and the buildings closed tight. The first process is to set the desired
color (yellow). Then the temperature in the barn is gradually raised to, say,
180 degrees in order to kill out (dry out) the stems in the leaves. It takes
a little over three days usually to cure out a barn. Gradually over the years
tobacco has replaced cotton in the Valley and most of North Carolina as
a main money crop.
tobacco patch
A tobacco field. The word patch is used even when it is a huge field.
tobacco poultice
Cured tobacco leaves dampened and bound against a wound, especially rusty
nail hurts, was a good remedy.
tobacco tags
The ornamental tin or metal tags which marked the different brands of
chewing tobacco. See "Throwing Tobacco Tags."
One today is worth two tomorrows.
to-do
A fuss, confusion, showy behavior.
�1142
Paul Green's Wordbook
toe itch
See "ground itch."
toes up
Dead. "There lay old Joe with his toes up — and no more running after
women."
toe the line
Same as toe the mark, be on one's good behavior.
tolerable
In average health. A usual neighborly reply to an inquiry such as "How're
you feeling, Tom?" — "Just tolerable." Also meant bearable.
toll
A portion of grain or corn kept out by the miller as a charge for grinding
the rest. Also a charge at a tollgate, a tax or dues.
Toentice, to lure. "She tolled him in her parlor and cooled him with her fan."
to tomahawk
To kill off.' 'They tomahawked my proposal on the first vote and that was
that."
tomato
The common garden vegetable. In the old days they were called love apples
and were thought to be poisonous. My Grandmother Green grew them for
a decorative plant, never dreaming of eating them.
A green tomato sliced and rubbed on poison ivy infection will work a good cure.
tomboy
A girl of boyish actions and habits. "She'll never get a husband till she quits
being such a tomboy."
tomcat
A rounder, a sexually motivated male.
tomcatting about
To prowl about in search of sexual adventure.
Tom, Dick and Harry
The common run of people, used derogatively. The mass, the crowd, the
raggle-taggle people. "No wonder folks don't trust you for mayor — you
run around with every Tom, Dick and Harry there is."
Little Tommy Tucker
Sings for his supper,
What shall he eat?
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1143
Cornbread and butter.
How will he cut it
Without airy a knife?
How will he be married
Without airy a wife?
(Nursery rhyme.)
torn thumbs
Sausage packed in large intestines.
tomtit
A popular bird nominated as the state bird, vying with the cardinal in many
people's affections.
Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son
Stole a pig and away he run.
The pig was eat and Tom was beat,
And Tom ran crying down the street.
(A recitation rhyme.)
This popular nursery rhyme is a mutilation of an earlier old Scotch nursery
rhyme which ran as follows—
Tom, Tom, the baker's son
Stole a pig and away he run.
The pig was eat and Tom was beat
And Tom ran crying down the street.
According to an old folk tale I ran into in Edinburgh a few years ago, a
pig was an ancient bun or cake sold by the Scotch bakers. So it actually was
a bun that Tom stole and not the usually small, squealing shoat shown in
Tom's embrace as he ran. Somehow in the passage of years and the repetition
of the nursery piece, the original meaning of "pig" was lost, also "baker"
was changed to "piper" according to choice.
torn walkers
Stilts.
We children never saw store-bought stilts. We made our own. We'd
cut dogwood saplings about five or six feet long, trim them, leaving a sixor eight-inch piece of limb protruding from the sapling some foot or more
from the ground. These would serve for us to stand on. With the ends of
the saplings tucked under our arms and our feet planted on these binding,
cut-off limb extensions, we'd stalk about. And what rough wear and tear
on our poor shoes! We couldn't use our torn walkers barefooted. They hurt
too much.
The tongue of idle persons is never idle.
�1144
Paul Green's Wordbook
Tongue-biting is a sign that one has been telling lies.
the tongues
The Pentecostal frenzy when the religiously aroused and demonic people
would begin jabbering in a splurge of wild vocables. I remember hearing
one man say that when "the tongues came on" him, he could speak "real
chinee."
tongue-tied
Too shy or embarrassed to speak. "When I finally met that pretty girl I had
admired from afar, dern, I was tongue-tied."
tony
High class, proud. "They are tony people in that big house."
tooby sure (to be sure)
Surely, certainly, (purely introductory at times).' 'Tooby sure we ain't gone
and got ourselves lost."
toofies
Aterm for children's teeth. "Open your mouth, son, do them toofies hurt?"
tool
The penis.
tool-bag
The scrotum.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
toot
To brag. "Hear him toot since he won a cattle prize at the fair."
A spree, shindig, a fearsome drunk. "I heard you were out on a toot last
week, and no wonder you look like death itself."
Each child costs a woman a tooth.
After a tooth pulling, if one does not put his tongue where the tooth was, a
gold tooth will grow in that place.
When a tooth is put under the pillow, the fairy will come and leave money.
The Negroes believed that if you carried a tooth taken from a human
skull you would never have fits.
toothache
There are many folk remedies for the toothache. Old man Cheshire Jones,
a near neighbor of ours, used to have the worst kind of toothache. One day
in the dead of winter he went to the Negro conjure man down the road to
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1145
be cured. The "doctor" took him to the creek nearby, made him take off
his shoes, roll up his pants legs, and stand in the icy water up to his knees,
while he, the doctor, went up and down the bank breaking off twigs of every
kind of bush and carrying on a mumbling rigamarole to himself. "Now your
toothache's gone. Now your toothache's gone," he kept saying.
"But it ain't," said old Cheshire. "You good-for-nothing fool, it's
worse than ever." He was half-frozen by this time and hopping up and down
in the water.
"Well," said the conjure man. "Then it ain't the toothache, it must
be the neuralgic, and I never said I could cure the neuralgic."
Well, Cheshire was so mad he tore out of the creek after the conjure
doctor and ran him down the road. He stumbled over a rock, fell, and
knocked out the aching tooth. Later on the conjure doctor went by to collect
his fifty cents. "What in the tarnation for?" asked old Cheshire.
"For curing your toothache, suh," said the conjure man. "I has all
kinds of ways."
And Cheshire started chasing him again.
Another good remedy for the toothache was to keep on hand a supply of
toothpicks made from a tree that had been struck by lightning. There was
supposed to be a vast healing power in a lightning-struck tree. The roots
of such a tree were good also for all kinds of healing teas and tonics. An
exception was the sweet gum tree for, as everybody knew, it was too tough
for the influence of lightning to penetrate.
A toothache in a child can be cured by washing behind his ears.
toothache tree
This tree is known by a number of names such as' 'the devil's walking stick,''
"prickly ash," "Hercules'club," "spikenard tree," "the pigeon tree, "and
"the shot bush."
A couple of years ago poking around the woods of my great-great
grandfather's old plantation place, I found a grove of these gnarled and
awkward trees. I dug up two or three small ones and took them to Chapel
Hill and planted them in our wild flower garden and there they are flourishing
well. I think of old Colonel Alexander McAllister every time I see them.
The fresh bark of this tree is an emetic and cathartic and is also reputed
to be an antidote for the bite of the rattlesnake. Other recommendations
for it say it is good for cholera, rheumatism, syphilis and of course toothache
as well as the dropsy. The oil of the seed of this tree has been used in earache
and deafness and for all sorts of rheumatic pains.
toothache wax
Another toothache cure. One broke off a piece of wax, which could be
ordered in the old days from Sears-Roebuck, and pressed it into the decayed
�1146
Paul Green's Wordbook
part of the tooth to "bring instant relief."
tooth and nail
With might and main, a biting and gouging fight.
toothbrush tree
The black gum tree, especially young trees from which sprouts could be
pulled for the toothbrush.
tooth-dentist
A dentist.
Toothpicks made from a tree struck by lightning have a healing power in cleaning
food and infectious matter from gums and rotting teeth.
tootle
Idle blowing on a flute or other wind instrument. "He goes about tootling
on that horn and smoking marijuana."
toot one's own horn
To brag.
tootsies
Feet, a child's word.
tootsy-wootsy
Sweetheart, a beloved one.
go over the top
To raise the full amount or exceed a quota set, of people, events, or things.
To come out of the trenches and move toward the enemy in battle or war
maneuvers.
to top
To better a bet or offer, to win an argument.
To cover a female in copulation.
To cut the top out of corn or tobacco plants.
top dressing
A final application of fertilizer to a crop, often nitrate of soda.
topknot
A crest of feathers on a fowl or hair on a person.
topo
Topographical map.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1147
top off
To finish. "He topped off the barbecue with a gallon of 'simmon beer."
Top of the day.
A cheery good morning greeting.
topping tobacco
Cutting or breaking the top out of the tobacco plant to control its height.
The preferred height is four and a half to five feet depending mainly on the
richness of the sandy soil.
tops
The best, also to be in fine health.
top sawyer
The top man in a sawpit setup, the man who stood above while the bottom
sawyer stood beneath and they sawed up and down with a long saw. This
was the old method of cutting boards back in colonial times.
topsy-turvy
In disarray, everything upside down.
toreckly
Directly, immediately, soon. "I'll be there toreckly."
to rights
In a right condition, to clean up, to tidy up.
torment
Hell, the place of punishment in the hereafter. "Be a good little boy and
you won't go to torment when you die."
tory weed
Also known as "hound"s-tongue" or "sheep-lice." This European biennial
usually grows from one to three feet tall and is found in pastures and waste
places from Canada to North Carolina and west to Kansas and Minnesota.
The leaves and roots are narcotic. In the old days this weed was used as a
sedative, in coughs and also externally for burns, tumors, goiters, and the
like.
tossel
Tassel.
toss-up
Of equal probability, an uncertainty of outcome.
tot
A small drink, also a tiny child.
�1148
tote
Paul Green's Wordbook
To carry, especially in one's arms. "My boy's getting so heavy I can't tote
him."
tote the rag off'n the bush
To win a prize, take first place.
tother
The other, another.
toting
The custom of a Negro cook or servant's carrying (toting) victuals and maybe
a piece of clothing now and then as an understood part of the job payment.
touch
A slight pain, a small bit. "Gimme just a touch of snuff."
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
touch and go
A delicately balanced situation of uncertain outcome.
touched
Looney, crazy.
touch-me-not
Also called "jewel weed." This plant grows in damp shady places from
eastern Canada to Florida and was often used in dysentery and kidney
troubles. The flowers sometimes were crushed into a watery pulp and used
for dyeing.
touchous (techous)
Over-sensitive, easy to anger, high-tempered. See "contrarious."
Touch pitch, and you'll be defiled.
touchy
Sensitive, ill-mannered, much the same as touchous. "You're so touchy lately
I hardly dare speak to you."
as tough as a hickory stick
as tough as a lightwood (lightard) knot
as tough as a mule
as tough as hickory
as tough as leather
as tough as shoeleather
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1149
as tough as steel
as tough as whitleather
tough it out
To endure, to last on through.
tough shit
Hard luck, a tough job.
tough titty
A hard and distasteful duty. "Life is a tough titty but man's got to suck it."
A bad woman, a bawd, a tough character.
towhead
A derogatory reference to a child cotton mill worker.
toys, folk
In the old days there were no ten-cent stores and most all toys and dolls were
homemade. Among the toys we children constructed for ourselves were
beanshooters, hawk-callers, whirligigs, shucking pegs, waterwheels,
cornstalk rock-throwers, slings, popguns, log-carts, grabs, torn walkers,
tea sets, shuck dolls, water guns, and wooden swords.
trab-ball
A homemade ball, out of ravelled old stockings. We used to wind the string
around a center wad until we had a ball about the size of a small apple. Then
we would sew this ' 'whipped down'' until it was usable for the bat and run
game of Old Cat. So far as I can find out, the term came from the ancient
English game of trapball or trapbat.
trace chains
The chains by which a mule or horse pulls a plow or wagon.
trace hook
The hook that fastens the chains to the plow or wagon.
track
To pursue.
To follow correctly, as the hind wheels should follow in the track of the
front. "Look at him, his feet don't track."
Tract.
make tracks
To run, to hurry away.
�1150
Paul Green's Wordbook
trading
Shopping. In the old days in the Valley no one ever spoke of "going to shop.''
It was always "to trade."
trailing arbutus
An early spring creeping plant, with heavenly pink blossoms. It grows from
Michigan to Florida and best on the north side of the Valley hills. I once
found acres of it growing among the scattered little scrub oak trees in the
sand barrens of Harnett County. My wife and I have transplanted specimens
of it several times to our Chatham County farm but have had poor success
with it. A tincture of the plant was once used for kidney trouble, so the herb
artists say.
"Trail of the Lonesome Pine"
A popular sentimental song of the '20s.
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is grown, he will not depart
therefrom.
traipsing
To walk proguingly about. "A traipsing woman is a slattern."
"Tramp, Tramp, Tramp the Boys Are Marching"
A famous Civil War song.
trap
The mouth. "Shet your trap and you won't swallow so many flies."
trapped like a rat
trash
Poor whites, no 'count people.
trash burner
Jocular term for wood-burning locomotive or steamboat.
trash mover
A heavy downpour of rain.
travel
To go fast, to run. "Man, did he travel when the shooting started."
To move or walk. "He's so blind he can hardly see to travel."
travel bug
Desire to roam. "He's got the travel bug."
tread snow
The hissing of the snow that falls down the chimney into the fire. "Listen
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1151
and you can hear the tread snow in the fire there.''
tread softly
See "stinging nettle."
tread water
To keep one's head above water by treading swiftly up and down with one's
feet.
Make no progress but just hold one's own.
Wasting time in waiting for a matter to eventuate.
Where your treasure is there will your heart be.
treat
An extra reward or bonus.
To pay another's bill, as treat one to lunch.
tree
To run up a tree, as a dog chasing a possum up a tree. "Listen to that bark,
that dog's treed."
A tree is known by its fruit.
A great tree makes a great fall.
When you have nothing else to do, be putting in of a tree — it will be growing
when you are sleeping, lad.
tree dog
A hunting dog good for treeing game rather than running game.
Tree frogs hollering means rain.
tree of heaven
See "stink tree."
tree planting
The planting of a tree to honor someone used to be a common practice but
is now pretty much out of style.
the trembles (weak-trembles)
Palsy, the shakes.
trembling like a leaf
trick
To conjure.
An attractive thing or person. "Look at that new Chevy, ain't that a trick!"
�1152
Paul Green's Wordbook
Also a girl. "She's a cute trick."
trickets
Trinkets.
trickly
Trickling.
trick or treat
A Hallowe'en ritual when children come to the door in their masks and
makeup on Hallowe'en night, chirping out "Trick or treat." If candies,
fruits and goodies are not forthcoming, the children have the right to play
some trick on the house.
trifling
Lazy, no 'count.
There have been many trifling people in the Valley and one of the
triflingest was old Steve McDaniel. He took to his bed from pure laziness
so the neighbors would feed him, claiming to be bedridden by palsy. People
did fetch him food for a year or two. Then the wag Zack Broadhuss exposed
his fraud by hiding behind his house one night and shouting fire and making
a great hullabaloo. Old Steve came tearing out in his nightgown and was
mad as thunder when he found he'd been tricked. But soon he was back
in bed again, and he really was struck with the palsy this time, followed by
a stroke. Nobody believed him though, not until a week or two later when
he actually died. Of course, they said it was the way the Lord had paid him
back for his playing the hypocrite.
trigger
A wooden stick arranged under a deadfall or trap for trapping a bird or
animal.
To set off. "When Jesse called Mack an S.O.B. — that triggered the whole
fight."
trigger itch
Nervous fingers with a gun, one over-quick to shoot.
triggery
Fine detail carpentering, fine tracery woodwork.
trim
To cheat, also to castrate. "When the signs are right, I've got to trim my
hogs."
Neat, slim.
Trim one's sails to fit the wind.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1153
The Trinity
The Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the Christian faith. Many an irreverent
wag in the Valley speaks of these three as "the Old Man, Junior, and
Spooky."
trinkling
Trickling. "And the blood come a-trinkling down."
tripe
Anything worthless.
trivet
The three-legged little iron stool or holder for a cooking utensil to be set on.
Trojan (Trojas)
A hard-working energetic person. "My oldest boy is a regular Trojan for
work."
trollop
A slovenly, slattern woman.
tromp (tromple, tromping)
To tramp, to trample.
troop
To move determinedly. "He went trooping after that woman but he never
caught her."
a trot
A pony, an English translation of material in a foreign language, say, Latin.
trots
Diarrhea. "I've had the trots for about a week and I'm plumb wore out."
trotters
Feet, as pigs' feet.
trot the mule
Use of a string by inmates to transfer a small item or gift from one prison
cell to another.
Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.
trouble-shooter
A peacemaker, an umpire.
trounce
To defeat, to whip.
Troy was not taken in a day.
�1154
Paul Green's Wordbook
truck
Dealings, association with. "I don't have no truck with that fellow, no sir."
Trash, barter, trade.
truckle bed
Trundle bed.
as true as a die
as true as an arrow
as true as a plumb
as true as steel
true blue
Honest, reliable, aboveboard.
True love's the very weft of life, but it sometimes comes through a sorrowful
shuttle.
trump
A dependable person, a first-rate thing.
Anything that turns out lucky.
blow one's own trumpet
To brag, to boast.
trumpet vine
This plant was and still is possessed of a bad name in the Valley, for it's
supposed to be especially poisonous to children's skin, almost as bad as
poison ivy. I used to play around it and climb up it when I was a child but
never was hurt by it. There's one thing about the vine though I've noticed
in more recent years, and that is it seems to be a thing almost of instinct.
It will climb right on up to the top of the highest tree before it begins sending
out its branches. I wonder how it knows when it's got to where it's going.
But there are plenty of plants and things in the Valley that seems to have
this foreknowledge, for instance, the Venus'-flytrap, the be-shame bush
(sensitive plant), aspen tree and others.
trundle bed
A low children's bed on rollers, usually kept under the grownups' bed during
the day and pulled out at night.
truss
An elastic belt with a pad to correct hernias or ruptures. A number of my
boyhood friends wore trusses, available from Sears and Roebuck who always
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1155
carried a full line at all prices in the old days from 44 cents to $4.75.
Trust in God but keep your powder dry.
I wouldn't trust him as far as a cat can spit.
I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.
I wouldn't trust him from here to the gatepost.
I wouldn't trust him out of my sight.
trustle
Trestle.
Truth
A game. In this the players pile their hands one on top of the other, and
then draw out in turn. As each person draws his or her hand from the pile
in sequence, beginning at the bottom, he has to answer truly any question
put by the group.
Truth begets trust and trust begets truth.
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers,
But error, wounded, writhes in pain
And dies amid his worshippers.
(Old saying from W.C. Bryant.)
Truth is mighty and will prevail.
Truth may have legs but scandal has wings.
It's the gospel truth.
It's the honest truth.
Truth Meeting
A children's game usually played by girls who gather in a huddle and agree
to tell the truth, no matter what. Some of the questions provoke great hilarity
and sometimes embarrassment.
Truth or Consequences
A game in which, when one is asked a question, he must answer truly or
take the consequences. Sometimes the question is so embarrassing that the
player would rather take the consequences, such as a pinch or a bang on
the head or a silly trick.
truth pledges
To affirm it strongly say "I cross my heart and hope to die," or
�1156
Paul Green's Wordbook
"Certain true
Black and blue
Lay me down
And cut me in two—
Really and truly!"
try
An effort, experiment."You never know what you can do till you give it
a try."
like trying to catch wind in a sieve
Try on's Palace
Once the most beautiful residence in Colonial America. It was built in 1767-70
by William Tryon, royal governor of North Carolina in New Bern, the seat
of his government. Besides being the governor's residence, it was the
statehouse and contained an assembly hall, council chamber and public
offices. Except for one wing, it was destroyed by fire in 1798, and that soon
fell into decay.
A number of public-spirited citizens, led by Mrs. Virginia Latham of
Greensboro, finally got the palace and gardens restored to their former glory.
It is now a showplace for the nation.
Every tub should stand on its own bottom.
tubby
Chubby.
tuberculosis cure
Of the many folk remedies and cures in the Valley for tuberculosis, a
concoction made from flaxseed was supposed to be one of the best. Take,
say, one pound of flaxseed and boil them in a half gallon of water along
with a dozen unpeeled lemons. Add during the boiling a quart of strained
honey. When the mixture has boiled down to one quart in volume, strain
out the flaxseeds and lemon seeds and hull. Thereafter, take one teaspoonful
every hour indefinitely.
Another cure was to mix sawdust from a lightwood knot with whiskey.
tuckahoe
The large starchy root of this plant was used for food by the Indians.
tucker bag
A sort of duffle bag for personal belongings.
tuckered (out)
Tired out, exhausted. "I'm completely tuckered (out) after doing my
�An AIphabet of Reminiscence
1157
Monday's washing."
tucking comb
A comb used for fastening a woman's hair in at the back.
tudder
Same as t'other, the other, that other.
tug chains
The short chains fastened to the hames used for securing the shafts of a wagon
or cart.
Tug of War
A game of strength. Two teams line up, boys and girls if agreed on. A rag
or handkerchief is tied at the middle of the rope and then two lines are drawn
on the ground at right angles to the rope some distance apart — ten, fifteen
or twenty feet, whatever is agreed on. Then the rope is stretched between
the two groups so that the marker is exactly halfway between the lines. At
a signal the teams begin pulling against each other. The team which succeeds
in pulling the marker across the line on its side is the winner of that pull.
A number of pulls may be made.
tuk
Past tense of take.
tulip tree
The yellow poplar. This large timber tree is common in rich soil throughout
the United States. It is especially plentiful in the Valley. There is a tulip tree,
known as the Davie Poplar, which is a rather sacrosanct object on the campus
of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was under this tree
that General William R. Davie took lunch in 1789 when he and his committee
chose the site for the University.
Yellow poplar timber is especially good for veneering since it takes a higher
polish than any other American wood.
tumble
A try or test. "Give me a tumble, won't you?'' Also means sexual intercourse,
as He tumbled that woman.
tumblesets
Somersaults.
tumble turd
A tumble bug. Also a term of derision for a person.
tummy tickler
A sudden bump in a road, same as a bullhead, used to turn the water. See
"thanky-ma'am."
�1158
tune
Paul Green's Wordbook
Attitude, point of view. "Put the shoe on the other foot and you'll change
your tune."
tune up
To get ready, prepare to. "Look at that baby's mouth — he's tuning up
to cry."
tunnel bed
Trundle bed.
tup
turd
To copulate.
Dung, feces.
Turk
A rough person, a fighter, a quarreler.' 'Them Oxendines always were regular
Turks."
turkentine
Turpentine.
turkey
A failure, a bust."That movie sure was a turkey."
didn 't say turkey
Paid no attention, ignored one. "He went off and didn't say turkey to
anybody."
turkeyberry (turkleberry)
Partridgeberry.
turkey caller
A device for imitating the call of a turkey.
Cousin Hardy Draughan of Dunn invented one consisting of a little
resonant poplar wood box with a thin wooden lip against which he would
scrape a piece of slate; the result was a sound exactly like a call of a turkey.
He sold this contraption to Sears and Roebuck for a goodly sum, and I used
to see it advertised in the catalog.
turkey cock
A vain person.
turkey day
Thanksgiving.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1159
turkey eggs
Freckles.
"Turkey in the Straw"
Another popular play-party and fiddling piece in the Valley as elsewhere
through the South and Southwest. The tune was a prime favorite at fiddlers'
conventions. I labored many an hour at night myself, trying to learn how
to fiddle it the way I had seen old John Riardin do it. And my sister Mary
would patiently play a chorded accompaniment to the squeakings of my
Sears-Roebuck instrument. But I could never bring it off.
As Carl Sandburg said, "there are thousands of words to the tune, depending
on the creative word-ability of the singer or singers."
"As I was a-going down the road
I met a Mr. Tairpin and I met a Mr. Toad.
The toad and tairpin begun to sing,
The tairpin cut out the pigeon wing.
"Turkey in the hay—heigh heigh heigh!
Turkey in the straw—haw haw haw!
Funniest thing I ever saw
Was that old turkey scratching in the straw.
"I went out to milk and I didn't know how,
I milked a goat instead of a cow.
The goat he bounced and gave a buck
And sent me sprawling in the muck.
"Turkey in the hay—heigh heigh heigh!
Turkey in the straw—haw haw haw!
Funniest thing I ever saw
Was that old turkey scratching in the straw."
turkey shoot
A contest of marksmanship in which the turkey was sometimes the object
shot at as well as the prize given for the winner.
turkey tail out
To fork, to spread out in little tributaries.
turkey trot
A dance, also a fast-swaying walk.
turkey-trotting pukers
Constant vomiting.
turkey wing
A fan or duster made from a turkey's wing.
�1160
Paul Green's Wordbook
turkle
Turtle.
turkleberry
Partridgeberry.
Turk's-cap lily
One of the most beautiful of all lilies, gorgeous with its Turk's cap. Last
summer when my wife and I were walking in the deep oak woods east of
our house, I saw a spot of gold shining low in a little opening off to the left.
We ran there and stood in awe over the little lovely creature, alone, perfect.
We will watch for it next summer. It's a sacrilege to say with the pharmacists
that a tincture of the fresh bulb will cause constipation, mouth-burning and
restlessness.
turn
Manner, behavior, appearance. "Zebedee's oldest girl sure has a pretty
turn."
Fright. "I almost stepped on a copperhead snake out there and it sure give
me a turn."
To begin an action, to do. "I had this intestinal flu and I turned in and took
me a good dost of turpentine and ginger and it cured me right off."
A load, an armful. "Hurry out to the woodpile, son, and bring me a turn
of stovewood."
Time or sequence. "It's my turn to swing now, so git off."
To become sour or fermented.
To nauseate.' 'That bait of beef turnt my stomach — so look out, here goes.''
Talent, knack, ability. "I've just read a piece by Jonathan Daniels in 'The
Nuisance and Disturber,' and he's got a real turn for writing, he has."
To change one's belief or politics. "He was a Primitive Baptist for a long
time, but now he's turned Christian Scientist."
One good turn deserves another.
Turnabout is fair play.
turned out
Dismissed. "After she danced she was turned out of the church."
Evicted.
The final result. "Those children turned out fine."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1161
Caroline Turner
The wife of Dr. Henry Marshall Turner. She lived in the plastered, brickcolumned house overlooking the east bank of the Cape Fear River, and there
this redheaded woman ruled as queen over the plantation. The doctor went
away to war and she fell into a decline. I gave to the University of North
Carolina some old letters of hers in which she pours out her complaints and
laments about the cruel and wasteful war. She wrote a little book of poems,
entitled Star in the West, about looking toward far-off Texas where so many
of her Valley people had migrated. I've never been able to find a copy of it.
Dr. Henry Marshall Turner
A doughty and powerful man in the Valley. A fierce man, a brave man,
and a tortured soul he was. He was reputed to be the first man who ever
operated on a person for appendicitis. A small pamphlet has been written
about him and a copy can be found in the library at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Up and down the country he went tending the sick, trying to amputate
here, bleeding a wench there, and rolling his pills and doing for the dying.
And all the while his mind was turmoiling with plans for the development
of the Valley country — great timbering operations, his fields and crops
and drainage and the river, yes, that river. The Cape Fear River always
fascinated him the way it did Colonel A.S. McNeill. It teased him in his
waking and in his lying down. Many a night he lay there in his mansion above
the river, dreaming and planning, while his redheaded Caroline slept soundly
away by his side. He could hear the rush of the river at freshet time down
below the house, and he ached in his soul to tame it and make it a highway
of commodity and commerce. Finally he went into partnership with Colonel
A.S. McNeill and others, and they attempted to canalize the river and make
it navigable. But the river whipped him and all the others. All that remains
of their efforts are the great gashes along the side of the river, now overgrown
with bullace vines and poison ivy and inhabited only by the furtive creatures
of the forest.
turn in
To go to bed. "It's time to turn in, folkses."
turnip
A cheap watch, same as cymling. "What time is it by your turnip?"
You can't get blood out of a turnip but you can get the turnip.
turnip greens
A favorite vegetable dish in the Valley. When the turnip leaves are gathered
fresh and cooked for a good while with hog j owl or a piece of good sidemeat,
they are hard to beat.
�1162
Paul Green's Wordbook
turn loose
To move, to act. "Then he turnt loose and hit me right in the face."
turn off
To accomplish, to do a job of work easily. "He can turn off work faster'n
anybody I ever saw."
turn off fair
To have fair weather after foul.
turn one's back
To dismiss, to reject.
turn one's stomach
To disgust, to make sick.
turnout
Dress, a show, a rig. "Man, where are you going in all that turnout?"
The intersection of a side road or path.
turn out
To go wild, to become lawless.' 'Have you heard about Manly's boy Jeff?—
He just turned out."
turnover
A small piece of pie, so called because the dough-crust is folded over the
filling for cooking.
turn over a new leaf
To resolve on reformation.
turns over
A horse or mule is worth a hundred dollars for each time he turns over in
wallowing. "Look at that mule — turned over three times — I'll take $300
for him." We had a sorry old mule we traded for on our farm. The very
first night we turned her loose in the barn lot, she looked around, scraped
at the ground and bit with one of her hooves, then lay down and began
wallowing. She turned over four times. In a few days we found out she wasn't
worth killing — one of the worst balkers we'd ever seen. Since then I've
had no stock in the above old saying.
turn tables on
To get revenge, give back as good as one gets.
turn the corner
To get past a difficult crisis, convalesce.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1163
to turn up one's toenails
To die.
turpentime
Turpentine.
turpentine
A teaspoonful of turpentine taken nine mornings in a row will produce an
abortion. Miss Ef fie Upton tried it fifteen mornings in a row, so 'twas said,
but she had to go on and have her woods colt just the same, shame or no
shame.
turpentine and sugar
A favorite old Valley medicine. A teaspoonful each morning is supposed
to be good for the kidneys. Lennie Oxendine said he used to take it regular
— for a while he did — but then he got to passing blood and he had to quit
it. "These old-timey remedies," he said, "ain't a manner account."
turpentine distilling
Once a prime occupation in North Carolina, "the home of the longleaf
pine." The Valley, from near the ocean on up into the Piedmont, was covered
with these pines, some of them of great height and size. I've mentioned
elsewhere that we had one pine on our farm twenty-nine feet in circumference
three feet above the ground and over a hundred feet high. These pines would
be boxed, then scraped on the face above the box for the resin to exude and
slide into the box. Then this would be dipped out and carried to the distilling
vats. When I was a boy, these turpentine stills were to be found everywhere,
only a few miles apart. For several decades North Carolina was known as
the tar, pitch and turpentine state. Now it is the tobacco state.
If a turtle bites you he won't let go till sundown or till it thunders.
turtlehead
The flowers of this perennial herb resemble the head of a turtle, and therefore
its name. Another name is chelone and still another, fish-mouth or snakemouth. A tonic made from its leaves is supposed to be a good treatment
for worms. And it is said that the Indians used it as a tonic and laxative.
tush
A long tooth, a fang.
tush hog
A boar.
tussick
A small clump of marshy grass or moss in a swamp.
�1164
Paul Green's Wordbook
tussle
A wrestling match, a struggle.
tussy-mussy
A nosegay, a bouquet.
T-U turkey, T-Y ty,
T-U turkey buzzard's eye.
(A recitation rhyme.)
twaddle
Empty talk, stupid stuff, nonsense.
twang
Tang, taste. "That apple cider's already got a good twang to it."
" 'Twos the Night Before Christmas"
A most popular Christmas poem which tells all about Old Nick (Santa Claus,
not the Devil) and his reindeer — Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet,
Cupid, Donner and Blitzen — and how he drives through the night over
houses, almost always snowy houses, even in Florida, and brings his sack
of fabulous gifts down the chimneys for all good little girls and boys.
twayblade
A rather delicate perennial wild flower one-half to two feet tall. It has small
greenish flowers and leaves that are somewhat oval. My wife and I always
keep a sharp lookout for this shy flower on walks through our woods and
sometimes we are rewarded with a sight of its humble drooping petals. If
it has any medicinal use, I've never heard of it, which sets it apart even more
from its fellows.
'tween whiles
At intervals, between whiles.
Twelfth Night
The evening preceding or the evening of Epiphany, a Christmas feast
traditionally celebrated on January 6 or on the first Sunday after New Year.
In the Western churches it mainly commemorates the visit of the three wise
men to the infant Jesus as reported in the second chapter of Matthew.
The Negroes in the Valley used to say that on the twelfth night after
Christmas the sun rose twice, and the cattle would kneel down on the holy
occasion. Once when Lammy O'Quinn was bawling out his Negro hired
hand, Romulus Gibbs, Romulus rubbed his eyes, looked out and said,
"Lawdy, Mr. Lammy, I was waiting for the second sunrise.'' And Lammy,
being Lammy, said, "I was up early and the first sunrise has already come
and gone. Get out'n that bed, you bag of lazy bones!'' And Romulus couldn't
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1165
disprove him and so had to hump himself. I got an old saying from Lammy
long ago which I like — "Don't call on the Lord unless you know his name.''
twell
Till.
Twelve pears hanging high,
Twelve men came riding by.
Each took a pear,
Left eleven hanging there.
(Riddle — One of the men
was named Each.)
'tweren 't
It wasn't. " 'Tweren't my fault he stumbled and fell."
twerp
A silly, irritating person.
twict
Twice.
As the twig is bent so is the tree inclined.
twin bluebells
Ruellia, sometimes known as hairy ruellia, a fine little plant to have in a
wild flower garden. Its name is rightly descriptive.
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
When it nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light.
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveler in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark.
He couldn't see which way to go
If you did not twinkle so.
(A recitation rhyme.)
When we children would be picking cotton in the fall and on into the dark
of evening, we would sometimes straighten up our aching backs and glimpse
the glimmer of a star high in the sky and then recite this rhyme with warm
and tender feeling for the little peek-a-boo creature far, far away. And we
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Paul Green's Wordbook
would often recite the whole "poem" so far as we could remember it.
twirp
A fool, an odd fellow, a ninny.
twist around one's finger
To have control over.' 'That woman can twist her husband around her finger
whenever she wants to."
twisted seventy ways from Sunday
Out of order, gone all awry.
twisting
To get game from a hollow tree by twisting it out with a long stick with a
small forked end. Often our dogs would tree a rabbit up a hollow tree, and
we would cut off a long sprout of dogwood or black gum bush and run it
up the hollow till we reached the trapped little animal. Then we would twist
the sprout until it had fastened in the skin of the animal and gradually pull
it forth, never minding its pitiful squealings. Cruel, cruel!
twist one's arm
To bring pressure to bear, to use special influence to get a desired action
or result. "Yessir, that LBJ knows how to twist old Dirksen's arm when
he needs to."
twitch
A short, twisted noose or loop of rope attached to the end of a stick some
two feet long used to slip on the upper lip of a mule or horse and to be twisted
tight enough to keep the animal from rearing out of reach of the
veterinarian's medicine-drenching. See "drench."
As the old birds sing, the young ones twitter.
twitters
Flutters, excited talk or behavior.
Two heads are better'n one or what's a cabbage for?
Two heads are better than one or why do folks marry?
It takes two to make a bargain and one to break it.
It takes two to make a quarrel.
put two and two together
To reach a conclusion about an obscure matter by putting the clues logically
together.
two cents
Of poor value, not much good. "I don't feel like two cents today."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1167
two-dollar bill
A good luck item, especially one with a corner torn off. Once a two-dollar
bill was thought to be unlucky, so I've heard. What caused the change, I
don't know.
two-double
Double. "It takes two-double reins to hold that horse."
two hens fighting
A sign that two strange women were coming and they would be strumpets
and the wife had better get busy making up to her husband.
in two
Broken, disconnected. "This cord has come in two."
two jumps ahead of the sheriff
To be on the edge of bankruptcy, also to be dodging the law.
Two little birds sat on a limb,
One named Jack, the other, Jim,
Fly away, Jack, fly away, Jim.
Come back, Jack, come back, Jim.
(Rhyme to go with the finger game.
See "Jack and Jim.")
two of a kind
Of the same sort.
two-time
To deceive. Often applied to a man who dates two women, or vice versa.
no two ways about it
No argument about it, used for emphasis.
two whoops and a holler
A measurement of distance. "He lives only two whoops and a holler from
here."
tyke
A dog.
typhoid fever
Once a blighting curse in the Valley as elsewhere, along with pneumonia.
A number of my youthful acquaintances perished from the bacterial
disease. And often one who recovered suffered some ill effect. One of my
boyhood pals was a bright student at old Pleasant Union School. He
contracted typhoid fever and during its siege was delirious for two or more
days. Finally he recovered, but his brightness was gone. Thereafter he was
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Paul Green's Wordbook
dull in his mind and of poor memory. A friend said to me,' 'That fever just
about burnt his brains up." Modern sanitary conditions on the farm and
in the cities along with antibiotics have helped the disease to pretty much
disappear.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1169
U
udder
The other.
A derogatory term for a woman, especially an elderly or ugly woman,
as Ugly as a gouge
as Ugly as a mud fence
as Ugly as a mud fence trimmed in tar
as Ugly as a scarecrow
as Ugly as homemade sin
as Ugly as homemade sin cooked in a fireplace
as Ugly as homemade soap
as Ugly as Satan
as Ugly as sin
as Ugly as sin and nearly as agreeable
as Ugly as the devil
Ugly enough to turn milk sour
ugly off
To peter out, to quit, to fade away.
uh-uh
A grunt of assent.
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umbershoot
Umbrella.
umble
Humble.
'umble pie
Apologies. Same as eat crow.
Opening an umbrella in the house brings bad luck.
umbrella tree
The chinaberry tree, a native of many parts of Asia and now naturalized
in the southern United States. It has lovely sweet flowers in May and its
umbrella shape provides good shade.
urns
Them. "Muh fed urns some wild cherry tea and urns pyeartened right up."
unaccustomed as I am
A speaker's overworked introductory phrase.
unbeknownst
Unknown, secretly.' 'All unbeknownst to me he got my brother to sign that
deed."
Uncle Benny
A Franklin car.
Uncle Sam
The United States.
Uncle Sam's a good old man,
Washed his face in the frying pan,
Combed his head with a wagon wheel,
Died with the toothache in his heel.
(A recitation rhyme.)
uncumstand
Understand.
under
By. "He goes under the name of John Martin now."
undercoat
Underskirt.
To understand all is to forgive all.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1171
under the belt
To get control of, to finish, complete. "He got that tough job under his
belt and now is ready for another."
under the thumb of
To be under the control of. "That woman Sal Weaver sure has got old Zeb
under her thumb."
under the weather
111, feeling poorly.
undo
To untie, to unhitch. "Undo the horse and come on in."
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
unfitten
Not fit.
unfrock
To disgrace, to dismiss from a position of influence, as to unfrock a minister.
unglued
Emotionally upset. "Last fall I came all unglued and had a bad nervous
breakdown."
unhandy
Inconvenient, awkward.
In union is strength.
the union flag
A baby's diaper.
United we stand, divided we fall.
An unjust man is an abomination.
unknown tongues
The barbaric vocables and syllables given forth by frenzied religious fanatics
when they are in the spell of their evangelical fervor. I once copied down
some of the words at a meeting at William's Grove. Among them were such
words as "hoofy-beigh-Jesus" and "hokum-ma-loki."
It is unlucky to destroy an ant bed.
unmentionables
An old-fashioned term for women's drawers or any undergarments.
unreal as a dream
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Paul Green's Wordbook
unrip
Rip.
until when
A redundant phrase of time used for emphasis. "He beat me so bad until
when he let me up I was too weak to move."
unvarnished truth
Absolute truth.
up
To act, bring out. "Rorie Matthews upped with his gun and shot Dan
McLeod dead."
For emphasis. "Drink it all up, I tell you."
up against it
In difficult circumstances.
up a horse's ass (apig's ass)
A mild expletive of derision or denial.
up and about
To be convalescent, to be getting around despite infirmity.
Up and at 'em!
A command to action.
up and coming
Progressive, energetic.
up and down
Completely. "I really told him up and down."
Vacillating.
up and gone
Restless, a job changer. "He's one of these up and gone fellows and I can't
use him."
on the up and up
Trustworthy. Also recovering from illness.
up a stump
In a tough spot needing decision or action.
up a tree
In difficulty.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1173
up by light
Up by dawn.
up for grabs
Available to the highest bidder, ready for taking.
up in arms
Excited, angry.
up in G
High up, proud acting.
Up Jenks (Jenkins)
A very popular guessing game in the Valley when I was growing up, and
one that often provoked a lot of merry laughter. Players are seated on
opposite sides of a table. The side having a coin for playing sits with hands
below the table and one of the players takes the coin. At the command "Up
jenks!" the hands are brought up and held closed in the air. At the second
command "Down jenks!" they are slapped flat on the table, palms down.
The leader of the searching side then selects a turned-down palm, hoping
to find the coin. The number of misses are counted in the score. When the
lucky palm is upturned, the score is noted and the coin changes sides. The
game goes on till the players tire of it, or until one side is so far ahead of
the other that there's no chance of the opponent's catching up.
up one side and down the other
Completely, entirely, absolutely. "I gave him hail Columbia up one side
and down the other and he promised to do better."
up one's sleeve
To be secretive, to have a surprise or undisclosed plan of action.
upper crust
The aristocracy.
upper hand
An advantage.
uppers
The upper part of one's shoe. To be down on one's uppers is to have the
soles worn out and to be in a beggarly condition. "I hear he is down on his
uppers — stone broke."
upper story
The higher part of the brain, the head.
upping block
ups
A block or step for mounting a horse, especially used by ladies in the old days.
Advantages. "I've got the ups on you now, hosscake, and you'd better cry
uncle."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
ups-a-daisy
A phrase usually spoken when one is playfully pitching a baby up in the
air, fondling or swinging it.
upscuddle
A quarrel, a disturbance.
upset
Nauseated. To have a sick stomach, to be vomiting.
upslop
Vomit.
up salt river
In a forlorn situation.
up shit creek and no paddle
To be in a precarious condition.
upshot
The final result.
have the ups on
To have the advantage over.
upstairs
To be proud, snooty, disdainful. "Since she inherited money she's all
upstairs."
up the river
To be in prison, to be in difficulty.
up tight
Tense.
up to
Doing, intending, planning. "He's not up to much good if you ask me."
up to now
Until this time or moment.
up to snuff
Equal to the occasion, to be feeling well.
up yonder
Reference to the upper rooms of a house as contrasted to the kitchen. Also
far off, up in the sky.
Heaven.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
use
1175
To frequent. "In the old days the wild turkeys would use around here but
now you don't hear of 'em any more."
Use not today what tomorrow will need.
No more use than a man's titties or the pope's balls.
The used key is always bright.
The used key is never rusty.
used to
Once upon a time, formerly. "Used to, people seemed to be more neighborly
than they are now."
used to be
Formerly, in the old days. "It used to be much colder than now."
usen
Use. "The coons always usen around here."
uster could
Used to could, once was able to. "He uster could pull five hundred bundles
of fodder a day, but now he's old and can't pull a dozen."
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V
Valley
The Valley in this collection refers to that geographic area coursed by the
Cape Fear River which is formed in Chatham County, near Chapel Hill,
N. C., by the confluence of the Deep and Haw rivers, flows through Harnett
County between Lillington and Buie's Creek, where Paul Green was born
and lived his childhood, through Fayetteville and into the Atlantic Ocean
near Wilmington, N.C. (Ed. note)
valley
The sunken v-shaped jointure or gutter in the roof of a house.
as vain as a peacock
vamp
The upper part of the shoe. The pedal on an organ.
Also to court, flirt or entice. "That girl started vamping him as soon as they
met."
vamoose
To scat, to hurry, to flee.
vanilla plant
A plant from eighteen inches to four feet in height with numerous heads
of purplish and sometimes white flowers in a terminal cluster. It grows in
grassy bog areas all through the Valley and in the old days, so they say, was
used as an adulterant in tobacco. Tea made from the aromatic leaves is a
good stimulant. Also cuttings from the plant were once used in closets as
protection against moths.
varge
Verge.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1177
varma
A special kind of tobacco. The little tobacco town of Varina in the Valley
is named for this species. According to B.W. Green in The Virginia Word
Book, the town was named for a town in South America where the great
South American patriot Bolivar lived. In The North Carolina Gazeteer(1968)
William Powell ascribes the name of Varina, N.C., to "the first postmaster's
wife, who used the fanciful name in her courtship correspondence."
varmint
A queer frightful creature.
Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
venture (dubs, thribs, etc.)
A phrase of objection in the game of marbles. "I said venture dubs first
and you've got to put one o' them marbles back."
Ven us's-fly trap
This is certainly one of the world's most unique plants. The two-lobed leaf
of these small perennials is red inside and attracts insects which light to enjoy
the spread-out viand. The lobes, about an inch or more long, suddenly close
over their quarry and devour it by absorption. The eating done, they open
again and offer their apparently innocent food to the needy. This plant used
to be prolific in the lower part of the Valley. A few years ago one could see
it for sale on the streets of Chapel Hill. It is now protected by law.
Venus 's-looking-glass
A slender erect little annual from one-half to two feet high with purple
flowers. It blossoms from late April through August. It actually is not a
flower but a little weed and is often a pest in a vegetable garden. So far as
I know, it has no medicinal value.
verbena
This white vervain grows from Maine to Texas and is considered a choice
herb in the flower garden. It is an emetic and vulnerary, and is a good
protection against fever.
verge
Part of the mechanism of a clock, actually the spindle of the balance wheel.
vetch
A common trailing vine that grows throughout the Valley and is found
especially in grain fields. Some people identify it with the tare spoken of
in the Bible. The seeds are detergent and, according to the old horse and
cow doctors, it causes the bloat in animals and also is injurious to swine.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
vim and vigor
High spirits, exhilaration, a surplus of energy.
one's own vine and fig tree
One's own home, one's cherished domicile, one's freehold.
violet
One of the most popular little flowers on earth. There are some sixteen
different kinds of violets that grow in the Valley, running from the bearded
white violet through the early blue and on down to the tri-lobed leafed yellow
violet. This flower has been praised by musicians and poets through the ages.
One of our happiest experiences when we were children was to go into the
woods in the early spring, especially where the land had been burnt over,
and gather great handfuls of violets and bury our noses in them deliciously.
A poultice made from the roots of the common "blue" violet is a good
remedy for bone felons and boils.
vinegary
Sour-tempered, surly, irascible.
VIP
The abbreviation for Very Important Person.
viper's bug loss
Sometimes called blue-weed, it is found in dry meadows and pastures in
the central and northern part of the Valley. The root contains a poisonous
alkaloid which produces eruptions and irritations of the skin.
virgin birth
Giving birth to an offspring without male fertilization or fatherhood.
Virginia bluebell
Prescribed for chest ailments.
Virginia butterfly pea
It is much like the common butterfly pea and grows in dry or sandy soils.
Virginia creeper
Sometimes called the American ivy. It is a strong climbing vine common
in the woods through the Valley. This plant is popular for use in decorating
chimneys and shares its popularity only with the English ivy.
Virginia day flower
A beautiful and delicate plant which flowers in July and grows in either moist
or medium dry soil. Not long ago my wife and I discovered two of these
plants growing along the edge of the little stream that flows from our spring
back of the house. Nearly every day in walking along our path we would
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1179
turn off to see these little flowers. According to my friend Burlage, it is a
good relaxant and works well on constipation.
Virginia reel
A popular folk dance.
Virginia snakeroot
This is sometimes called the pelican flower and has wondrous medicinal
values. In fact, it is highly recommended as an erotic stimulant. In a play
I once wrote called The Founders, my comedian married a woman who was
barren and finding this remedy he took to snakeroot and ate a lot of it.' 'Till
I fairly foamed at the mouth," he said. But the results were good, for his
barren wife before many months had gone by presented him with twin sons,
one of whom he named Thomas Dale after the governor and the other John
Rolfe after Pocahontas' husband.
virgin's-bower
The clematis, sometimes called Virginia virgin's bower. It grows in wet waste
places and in the thickets and borders of woods and is found throughout
the Valley. It has been reported to be useful in the treatment of syphilitic
eruptions, skin diseases and itch — diseases coarsely antagonistic to its gentle
name.
Virtue is its own reward.
A virtuous woman, her price is above rubies.
visitors
Menses. "I can't make love with you. I've got visitors."
vittles
Victuals.
void
To defecate, to empty the bowels. "I wanter void, Cap'n, wanter void,"
said the convict.
volunteers
Unwanted plants that spring up unexpectedly.
vomitwort
Indian tobacco, or tobacco lobelia. This herb grows in fields and along
roadsides in the upper part of the Valley. It is supposed to be good for dozens
of ailments such as whooping cough, hernia, headache, tremors, nausea
and vomiting. It has also been used in the treatment of epilepsy, pneumonia,
hysteria, cramps and convulsions. It is poisonous to animals and therefore
in their good sense they let it alone. And now, with all the new vitamin pills
and mycin drugs, man is letting the plant alone also.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
voodoo
Black magic or witchcraft is supposed to have come originally from the West
Indies. Belief in voodoo is still widespread.
Not too long ago I went to a Negro woman's house in Chapel Hill and
noticed all sorts of queer marks in the sandy walk before her front door.
She saw me looking at them and explained that she had put them there to
protect herself from the old black evil eye that was "proguing round and
about."
vygrous (vigorous)
Dangerous, wild. "That boar hog is mighty vygrous and you better watch
out for him."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1181
W
wad
A roll of greenbacks.
A chew of tobacco.
A reason, a convincing argument, a conclusive and final statement. "He
shot his wad and still nobody was convinced."
wade into
To attack vigorously.
waffle
A mess, a mistake.
To waver, to be uncertain, to hesitate.
wag
To move on, to go slowly. "Come on, we'll wag on down the road."
The wages of sin is death.
on the wagon
To be a teetotaler, practicing abstinence from liquor or any strong drink,
especially by one who enjoys imbibing.
wagtail
A wanton woman.
waiter
A tray. Uncle Beirne said, "I want a waiter," and so they called for the
"busboy."
An attendant on the groom at a wedding. "I can't come Wednesday. I'm
a waiter at Luke Gavin's wedding."
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Paul Green's Wordbook
wait on
To be an usher or attendant or a groomsman at a wedding. "I waited on
Bob when he got married and he done the same for me when I hitched up."
wake-robin
The trillium. Although its name refers to the waking of the robins, the plant
comes to leaf usually long after the robins have already waked up and gone
on their way north. This bulbous plant grows in rich shady woodland soils
and goes by a dozen or more different names such as birthroot, ground lily,
Indian shamrock, red Benjamin, bumblebee-root and so on. Some people
even call it daffydown dilly appropriate to the old children's folk song:
"Daffydown dilly has now come to town
In a red petticoat and a green gown."
The roots of the wake-robin are astringent and tonic.
"Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie"
A popular sentimental song and one our quartet used to sing often.
Wake up, Jacob, day's a-breaking
Peas in the pot and hoecake baking.
(A recitation rhyme.)
walk
A path, usually one leading to the front or back door of a house. "Throw
the newspaper on the walk."
walk a chalk line
To behave circumspectly, to mind one's p's and q's.
walking-around money
Small change, spending money.
walking on air
Highly elated.
As I was walking through the wheat,
I picked up something good to eat,
Neither fish, flesh, fowl nor bone—
I kept it till it walked alone.
(Riddle—An egg.)
walking on water
See "folk cures."
walking papers
Discharge papers, dismissal notice.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1183
walking pneumonia
Virulent pneumonia, much akin to the galloping consumption. See
"galloping pneumonia."
every walk of life
All classes represented.
walk out with
To court, to play suit to.
walleye
An eye in which much of the white shows. My father told me to beware always
of either a walleyed horse or a walleyed woman.
wallflower
A young woman, unpopular as to male company, not asked to dance, etc.
Walls have ears.
walnut, black
A common nut in the Valley, a hard shell as opposed to the softer-shelled
English walnut. Walnut bark and leaves have many good medicinal uses.
For instance, a green walnut hull would cure ringworm or skin eruptions,
provided the victim could endure the burning pain caused by the juice. This
tree grows in rich soils in all parts of the Valley. The leaves are moderately
aromatic, bitter and astringent, and the inner bark of the tree and the root
are mild cathartics, acting, so it is said, "on the bowels without pain and
debilitating the alimentary tract." The Indians in the Valley used the rind
of the green fruit in staining and dyeing. The goodies inside the hard shells
are highly esteemed. Machinery has been invented now to crack the walnuts
and get the goodies out without mashing them.
wamperjawed
A one-sided jaw. Same as wapperjawed.
wampus
An imaginary creature who lives in the deep Cape Fear River swamps.
wander
To rave deliriously. "I sat by his bed all night and from six o'clock on till
day he kept wandering."
wandering dew
The wandering Jew plant.
Wandering Dollar
A game, same as Weave the Thimble.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
to wangle
To finagle, to arrange to put through a project or accomplish some aim by
devious means.
All I want in all creation
Is a pretty little wife and a big plantation.
All I want to make me happy
Are two little kids to call me pappy.
(A recitation rhyme.)
wants the world
Greedy. "He wants the world with a fence around it."
wapperjawed
Having a crooked or wry jaw. Same as wamperjawed.
There never was a good war nor a bad peace.
War
A game played by boys. We used to play our wars mainly with maypops,
but sometimes when we had an especially rough leader we would play it with
rocks. And sometimes too we'd arm ourselves with beanshooters and fight
each other by shooting pebbles. See "maypop war."
wardrobe
A large upright chest used to keep clothes, usually in the bedroom.
old war horse
A worn-out politician or a corny joke or story. Much the same as old
chestnut.
warm
To spank.
warm bit
A sexy woman.
like death warmed over
"He's getting better now, but he still looks like death warmed over."
A warm hand means a cold heart.
warming pan
A lidded brass pan in which hot coals used to be put for the warming of
a cold bed.
warnit
Walnut.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1185
warn't
Was not.
war paint
A woman's makeup, rouge, lipstick and so on. "Wait till I put on my war
paint and I'll be ready."
He is the greatest warrior who conquers himself.
wartless
Of good character, honest.
warts
A growth on the skin, small and tumor-like and hard. There are dozens and
dozens of folk cures for warts as well as explanations of their cause. Handling
frogs or getting frog blood on your skin is supposed to cause warts. The
best cure I ever found for warts was to prick the wart, get a bit of blood,
put it on some grains of corn and throw them to the chickens, and the
chickens' eating the corn would cause the warts to disappear. I know this
works for I did it several times as a boy, and the warts always went away.
Among the other folk cures, one should take an old piece of cloth, a
piece of dishrag is best, prick the wart, get some blood on the cloth, bury
the cloth and as it rots away, the warts will disappear. Tobacco juice spat
on a wart is a good way to get rid of it. Another cure is to count your warts,
make a knot in a thread for every wart, and throw the thread away. As the
thread rots, the warts will disappear.
wash
Clothes to be laundered. "Tomorrow's Monday, and I'11 have to get up my
wash tonight."
To stand the test, to prove true. "That fellow's testimony won't wash, I'll
tell you that."
A gully.
washed in the blood
A belief that through the symbolism of baptism a converted sinner is freed
from his sins and is washed in the blood of Christ and is therefore fit for
salvation. One of the Valley favorite hymns is "Washed in the Blood."
washed up
Undone, finished, a failed talent.
washing dirty linen in public
A vulgar discussion of personal matters with others to reveal family or
business secrets.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
washout
A failure, a complete disappointment. Also an eroded place in a road.
washpot
The common iron pot usually kept in the backyard of a farmer's house for
boiling clothes, for making soap, for heating water, for scalding hogs, and
so on, in the old days.
washstand
A small bedroom table equipped with a bowl and pitcher, slop jar, chamber
pot, hair receiver, soap dish, toothbrush.
WASP
White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant.
waspis, wastis
Wasps.
waspish
Irritable, easy to anger.
Waste makes want.
Waste not, want not.
A watched pot never boils.
watching candle
The candle used at the sitting up with a corpse.
watch it when you will
A phrase of emphasis.
water
To weaken, dilute.' 'They say that that old philosophy professor waters his
milk."
A pregnant woman shouldn't drink too much water for fear of drowning her
baby.
In the deepest water are the biggest fish,
like pouring water on a duck's back
water brash
Water on the stomach, a nauseating sickness, pyrosis.
watercress
A cress that grows in wet boggy places, even in standing water, and is highly
prized as a vegetable and salad in early spring. It is supposed also to be a
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1187
good tonic and blood purifier for children.
water dog
A second rainbow effect over the first, sometimes a small halo. Also a halo
around the sun or moon.
A person who really enjoys swimming and other water activities and is "at
home in the water" without fear.
water down
To cheapen, to dilute.
watered stock
Diluted stock.
water gall
Same as a water dog. Another meaning is that of a small cloud formation
in the sky which presages rain.
water gate
A floodgate.
water gun
A folk toy, much the same as pop gun, and used for squirting water at close
range in fun.
water haul
Pulling up a seine but catching no fish. Also an action with no result.' 'Our
meeting with the legislative committee was a water haul."
water hemlock
This plant is sometimes called death of man, or wild parsnip. It grows in
all parts of the Valley, in swamps and in wet low-grounds. The plant is acrid
and narcotic and the fresh roots are supposed to be especially toxic.
won't hold water
Undependable, not bona fide. "His promises won't hold water with me."
water jack
A water boy. One who brings water to laboring groups such as convicts
working on the highways. There is a very well-known call which I have often
heard given forth by some sweaty laborer swinging his pick under the eyes
of a guard and crying out, "Water jack, water jack! Coulda been there and
halfway back."
water lily
A decorative lily now used in many flower garden pools. There are several
kinds of water lilies.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
\vaterloo
Disaster, ruin, failure, defeat.
to make water
To urinate, same as to pass water.
watermelon
A favorite southern melon. There is an old saying that if one eats watermelon
and ice cream together, the combination will make him sick. I've tried it
many times and have never been sick from such eating yet. The Valley
housewives especially value the rind for pickle-making.
"Watermelon on the Vine"
This song is evidently of minstrel origin, and we workers in the field sang
it with good feeling, especially when we had a watermelon waiting for us
at the noon hour.
"You can talk about your apples,
Your peaches and your pears,
Your 'simmons hanging on the 'simmon tree.
But bless your heart, my honey,
That stuff's nowhere a-tall
It's watermelon that's the special thing for me.
"Hambone is sweet and bacon is good,
And possum meat is very, very fine,
But gimme, oh gimme, I surely wish you would,
That watermelon hanging on the vine."
watermelon seeds
These seeds, when dried and eaten, are a stimulant to the urinary tract.
water mills
Grist mills using dammed-up waterpower to turn the big mill-rocks for
grinding grain. We children used to make little water whirligigs, put them
into flooded brooks and delight in watching them turn.
water moccasin
A poisonous snake. We boys used to be told that there was no danger from
a water moccasin while in the water, because "he can't bite in the water.
If he did he would drown." But we were scared of them just the same.
water over the dam
A matter of past time or action which cannot now be changed and best be
forgot.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1189
water shelf
A horizontal board shelf usually nailed to the wall of a farmer's back porch
where he conveniently set his bucket and wash basin.
water-swole
Water-swollen.
water under the bridge
Same as water over the dam.
on the water wagon
No longer indulging in alcoholic beverages.
water witch
Didapper.
wattle and dab (daub)
Close lath work plastered over with clay and chopped straw. Sometimes
twigs are used.
don't make waves
Don't stir up trouble, let sleeping dogs lie.
waxberry
Bayberry.
wax myrtle
See "bayberry."
a-way
Direction. "Which a-way?" "That a-way."
any way, shape, form or fashion
All inclusive.
in a bad way
Seriously ill or in harsh financial trouble.
"Way Down Yonder in the Cornfield"
An old popular field song. We used to sing it while working.
"Some folks say that a nigger won't steal.
But I caught two in my cornfield—
One carried a shovel and the other carried a hoe
And if that ain't stealin', I don't know.
Way down yonder in the cornfield."
"The Wayfaring Stranger"
An early 19th century hymn, and still popular.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
way gate
A gate across the road.
way-out
Ultramodern, wild. "I like that way-out music."
Hugely pregnant.
Exaggerated.
a ways
A long distance. "He lives down the road a ways from here."
no two ways about it
No doubt, certain, no argument.
We had a pie made out of rye,
And possum was the meat,
Rough enough and tough enough
And more than all could eat.
The raccoon has a ringed tail,
The possum's tail is bare,
The rabbit's got no tail at all
But a little bunch of hair.
(A recitation rhyme.)
as weak as dirt
as weak as dishwater
as weak as puppy piss
as weak as skimmed 'possum piss
as weak as water
weak-kneed
Unstable, weak-willed.
weak spot
A flaw in one's character. "Keep accusing him and you'll find his weak spot
somewhere."
weak trembles
Palsy, the shakes. "I got so hot I had the weak trembles."
weaky
Weak.
He who marries for wealth sells his own liberty.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1191
weaned on a pickle
A person with a sour expression. Alice Roosevelt Longworth said of
President Calvin Coolidge, "He looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle.''
weapon
The membrum virile.
wear
The fashion. "A pompadour is all the wear now."
wear and tear
Depreciation due to normal and regular use.
Wearing untied shoes brings good luck. "Mr. Archie Johnson told me once
he had never tied his shoes after his wedding night."
As your wedding ring wears, you'll wear off your cares.
wear the britches
Spoken of a woman who bosses her husband around, who plays the man
in the household.
wear the stripes
To be a member of a chain gang. In the old days all Southern prisoners wore
stripes and the more dangerous ones had to wear a ball and chain. But
nowadays this is all changed except that the guard still has a gun. The groups
of young men working along the road, all dressed in snuff-colored clothes,
have the appearance of being pretty much like any other group of young
laboring Americans.
Be not weary in well-doing.
wear you out
To whip harshly, to beat with a switch. "If you don't stop that squalling,
I'll wear you out."
weasel (out)
Same as arsle out. To go back on one's promise, to fail to keep one's
commitment.
weather
Usually inclement weather — rain, snow or sleet. "From the looks of the
sky we're going to have some weather along about night."
There are hundreds and hundreds of superstitions and folk beliefs relative
to the weather, such as the following:
A large halo around the sun or moon suggests fair weather; a small
halo foul weather.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
When flies are thick and bite fiercely, it is going to rain.
A red sunset means a fair morning.
When swallows come early, a hot summer follows.
A green Christmas means a fat graveyard.
Rain before seven—
Clear before eleven.
weather breeder
A humid hot condition of the air, presaging falling weather.
weave-horse
A horse that has a meandering or weaving motion as he trots or moves
forward.
Weave the Thimble
A children's game. A coin or thimble is passed about a circle of players and
the central player is to guess who has it. The coin or thimble is held in the
palm, then passed about the circle by each player alternately clapping his
hands together and then extending his arms so as to touch the hands of his
neighbor. For this purpose the right hand should be held downward and
the left turned upward as the arms are extended. The coin is to be palmed
from hand to hand, and the rhythmical motion is accompanied sometimes
by a song, using almost any old tune anyone wishes, which goes somewhat
as follows:
Thimble, thimble (dollar, dollar), how you wander,
From the one hand into the other!
weaving-house
A building, separate from the main house, in which the weaving used to
take place. This was the custom in the old days.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.
It is bad luck to postpone a wedding.
the wedding cake
There are a number of customs connected with the wedding cake, among
them being the belief that if an unmarried girl sleeps on a piece of the wedding
cake she will dream about her future husband.
If a bride tears a wedding dress, (it's a sign) her husband will beat her.
One wedge drives out another.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1193
weed
Tobacco, "the weed."
weeds
Clothes.
Weeds need no sowing.
The weeping bride makes a laughing wife.
weeping willow
A very popular tree in the Valley and one, of course, famous in many a ballad
and song. The weeping willow usually suggests mourning or sadness.
weevily
Full of weevils.
wee-wee
To urinate. A child's word.
weirdo
A queer fellow, extreme hippie-type.
as welcome as spring
as welcome as the flowers in May
as welcome as the itch
as welcome as the sun after a rain
You're welcome.
A polite reply in answer to a statement of thanks or acknowledgement of
some favor.
welk
Welt.
as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb
Don't wait to dig a well for water till the house is already afire.
It's too late to cover the well when the child is drowned.
well and good
A phrase used for emphasis. "You know well and good I didn't take your
books."
Well begun is half done.
well bricks
Specially curved bricks for the lining of wells.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
well digging
In the earliest Valley days the pioneers built their dwellings near a spring.
Then as the population increased and springs were not sufficient to serve,
wells were dug. These usually were round holes in the earth and dug on down
to the proper water level. Usually fifteen or twenty feet was sufficient depth
on the coastal plain to secure plenty of water. Then on up in the Piedmont
the depth slightly increased. Our well on our farm in Harnett County went
to a depth of some thirty feet. It never went dry and is still serving but now
with an electric pump to do the "hauling."
A well-digger in my youth was a man of some special attention, like the horseand cow-doctor. Clinton McNeill, a powerful black man, a neighbor of ours,
claimed he could dig a well in the stretch of time between sunrise and sunset.
Well done is better than well said.
well-heeled
Wealthy, plenty of means.
well-off
Wealthy.
well-posted
Well-informed.
well sweep
In the old days when ropes and chains were scarce, water was usually drawn
from the household well by a sweep.
A pole some eight or ten feet high would be set up near the well for
a fulcrum. Then another pole, the sweep, would be passed through a crotch
at the top of the upright pole, and a bolt put through the sweep there. Then
some feet farther along the sweep a horizontal pole would be fastened with
a bucket hitched to the end of it. The bucket pole would be used to pull the
bucket down into the well to fill it. Then hand over hand the bucket pole
would be lifted, fetching up the water. The weight of the long end of the
sweep would help pull the weighted water bucket up. Sometimes a windlass
would be used instead of a well sweep. But both have long passed away.
When I was a boy, well sweeps could be seen here and there in the Valley.
But I've seen neither sweep nor windlass for more than fifty years.
well'um
Well, ma'am. "Well'um, since you axed me, I jest don't know how I does it."
welsh
To tattletale, to renege on a promise, to fail to pay one's debts.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1195
Went to the river and couldn't get across,
I jumped on a nigger and thought he was a hoss,
Nigger bucked and I fell in—
Ain't gonna try that hoss ag'in.
I went to the river and couldn't get across,
Paid five dollars for an old gray hoss,
The hoss wouldn't ride and the hoss couldn't swim
And I'll never see my five dollars ag'in.
(An old recitation rhyme.)
a-went
Have gone. "They might a-went to church. I don't know."
We're all in the dumps
For diamonds are trumps,
The kittens are gone to St. Paul's.
The babies are bit.
The moon's in a fit.
And the houses are built without walls.
(A nursery rhyme.)
wet
One who is in favor of liquor as opposed to a dry.
Wrong, mistaken. "He's all wet if he thinks I did it."
wet as a drowned rat
wet behind the ears
Inexperienced, naive or childlike.
wet blanket
A person who is sour-faced and pessimistic, a bringer of bad news.
wet one's whistle
Take a dram.
wet or dry
A method of choosing up sides in a ball game. In the old days at Pleasant
Union one of the leaders would ask the other leader which he chose, wet
or dry. Then the first leader would spit on the bat (usually a flat handletrimmed narrow board) and twirl the bat into the air. When it fell, if the
wet side was up, then wet got the first choice of players, and so on.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
whacking
Very large, bounteous, plentiful. "He made a whacking crop of oats this
year."
Whaddo (Whatta) you know!
What do you know! Sometimes used as an exclamation of disbelief as well
as a query.
whale
To flog. "If you don't behave, I'm going to whale the living lard out of you."
A lot, a great deal.
whall
A while. "I saw him pass here whall ago like his shirt was a-far."
whammy
A police device for catching speedsters.
whang
To beat, to hit. "That limb whanged him side the head and knocked him
silly."
whangdoodle
A foolish thing, a thingamajig. Also the penis.
I'll tell you what
A preparatory phrase for emphasis. "I'll tell you what, that woman's got
no morals."
that's what
Surely, no doubt of it. "George Butts ought to be put in jail for beating
Mis' Liz, that's what."
what all
All, entirety. "I don't know what all I did with my money." "What all in
the world are you doing?"
What are little girls made of? (twice)
Sugar and spice and everything nice,
And that's what little girls are made of.
What are little boys made of? (twice)
Snaps and snails and puppy dog tails,
And that's what little boys are made of.
(A nursery rhyme.)
What cannot be cured must be endured.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1197
whatchamacallit (what-you-may-call-it)
An item the name of which one cannot recall for the moment, a thingamajig.
What comes from the heart goes to the heart.
Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well.
What gives?
What is happening, what is going on?
what-have-you
More of the same, a term of general comment and inclusion. "The people
down there are all drunkards, thieves, bullies or what-have-you."
What in God's name!
An exclamation.
What in hell!
Exclamation.
What in tarnation!
Exclamation of some irritability.
what is
That is. "A wet kiss is the messiest thing what is."
What is a workman without his tools.
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
What the devil!
Exclamation.
what the doctor ordered
Exactly suitable, what was wanted.
what the heck, what the Sam Hill, and so on
Mild exclamations.
What went with it?
What happened?
what's what
The real lowdown, the actual truth.' 'Let's go in and find out what's what."
wheel
Bicycle. "Leave your wheel outside the door and come on in."
A wagon's worst wheel makes the loudest squeal.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
wheelbar'
Wheelbarrow.
wheelhorse
A hard worker, a reliable person.
wheeze
A tall tale or a tiresome old saying. "And Minnie had to pull out that old
wheeze about a stitch in time saves nine."
whelp
A lazy good-for-nothing person, usually refers to a woman.
When I die, don't bury me at all.
Just pickle my bones in alcohol.
Put a bottle of booze at my head and feet.
That tells the world I'm resting sweet.
or
Put a bottle of booze to hold in my hand
And I'll find my way to the promised land.
(A drinking rhyme.)
When I was a baby, a baby, a baby,
When I was a baby, a baby was I.
'Twas this way, 'twas that way,
'Twas this way, 'twas that way,
When I was a baby, a baby was I.
(A singing pantomime game.)
This song goes on describing different characters and each with pantomimic
action appropriate to the person — a young girl, a gentleman, an old man,
a mother, a doctor, and so on and so on.
When I was a boy
I lived by myself
And all the bread and cheese I got
I laid it on the shelf.
The rats and the mice
They raised such a strife
That I had to go to London
To get me a wife.
The road was so long
And the streets were so narrow
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1199
That I had to bring her home
In an old wheelbarrow.
(A recitation rhyme.)
When I was a little boy,
Hardly knee high,
Mama took a little stick
And made me cry.
Now I am a big boy
Mama can't do it,
But Papa takes a big stick
And goes right to it.
(A recitation rhyme.)
When the cat's away, the mice will play.
When the dew is on the grass,
Rain will never come to pass.
(Weather rhyme.)
whenever
When. "She hurt herself whenever she fell off the bed this morning."
When I was a child, I spake as a child.
"When I Was Single"
A popular anti-feminist song. Another of our field-morning songs, a merry
one.
"When I was single — oh then, oh then,
When I was single, oh then,
When I was single,
My pockets would jingle,
And I wish I was single again."
"When Johnny Comes Marching Home"
Another popular song of the Civil War times by the talented George F. Root
who also wrote' 'The Battle Cry of Freedom'' and "Just Before the Battle,
Mother," among other fine songs. I was first introduced to "Johnny" by
Roy Harris, the composer, at the MacDowell Colony in 1926. Roy was
developing it as an orchestral piece. In illustrating the richness of the material
he played it for me on the piano and did so with such fire and power that
several of the old piano strings gave way with sharp protesting pings.
"When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder"
This is another soul-comforting hymn much loved in the Valley as elsewhere.
Words and music were both written by one man, James M. Black
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Paul Green's Wordbook
(1856-1938), which makes it something of an exception. It was used always
to good effect in the revival meetings. The scaring opening words often served
as a text for the preachers at old Pleasant Union Church.
"When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound
And time shall be no more,
And the morning breaks eternal bright and fair,
When the saved on earth shall gather
Over on the other shore,
And the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there."
This was an especial favorite with the Honorable Joseph Carrington, a Valley
banker and perennial politician. He often spoke of the reunion with all his
loved ones and what a joyous time to be with' 'the chosen ones'' after death.
Miss Lucy Adkins, who borrowed money on her teacher's certificate from
the Honorable Joseph's bank at the cost of heavy carrying charges, later
was heard to say that she doubted he'd be there when the roll was called.
"He'd be necessarily detained elsewhere," she said.
When You and I Were Young, Maggie"
One of the world's most touching songs of love's devotion. The story goes
that a young Canadian schoolteacher, George W. Johnson, courted and
married pretty Maggie Clark in 1864. Soon after, they moved to Cleveland,
Ohio, where he obtained a better teaching job than the one he had held
before. Within a year tragedy struck, and Maggie died. Johnson then wrote
the poem that expressed his grief, "When You and I Were Young, Maggie,''
and published it in a small volume of his verse. James A. Butterfield, a gifted
young musician from Chicago, came across the poem and set it to music.
Of the some 150 songs Butterfield composed, this is the only one that has
lived.
"I wandered today to the hill, Maggie,
To watch the scene below,
The creek and the creaking old mill, Maggie,
As we used to long ago.
The green grove is gone from the hill, Maggie,
Where first the daisies sprung,
The creaking old mill is still, Maggie,
Since you and I were young."
When you are married and eating fish,
Don't get greedy and swallow the dish.
When you are married and living by the sea,
Step to the mirror and kiss yourself for me.
(A recitation rhyme.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1201
"Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight?"
This tearful offering appeared in 1877, words and music by the Reverend
R. Lowry. For more than a hundred years it has been a useful revival-meeting
piece to aid in bringing prodigal Valley sons back into the fold and to a
mother's tender care. Sometimes it helped, sometimes not. In the case of
my boyhood friend, call him Sam Maxton, it failed. For all the singing and
praying, he went his violent way at last to fill a suicide's grave.
"Where is my wandering boy tonight—
The boy of my tenderest care,
The boy that was once my joy and light,
The child of my love and prayer.
My heart overflows
For I love him he knows,
O where is my boy tonight?"
wherewithal
Means, the money. "I would like to go to the fair but I ain't got the
wherewithal."
Where You Are
A children's game. The full title of this game is "Where you are, Who you're
with, What you're doing." One player goes around and whispers to each
member of the group where he is. Another tells him quietly whom he is with,
and then a third tells each player what he is doing. Then the leader asks each
person the three questions, and the juxtaposition of people and situations
in the answers is often hilarious, especially if those assigning where, with
whom and what the player is doing are highly imaginative.
whe'r (whether)
"I don't know whe'r he's living or not."
Where there is marriage without love there will usually be love without marriage.
whetrock
A whetstone. In the old days there was a common belief that the best way
to get a whetstone was to take a smooth tough piece of green hickory, put
it in running water in a stream and let it stay there a year. It would turn
into a rock and would be the best kind of stone for sharpening axes, scythes
and other tools. Another first-rate kind of whetstone was supposed to be
a petrified rock. See "hickory whetrock."
which-a-way
Which way? Also topsy-turvy.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
the which
"He said the madstone would cure that dog bite, the which it did."
whiddle
Whittle.
Wheedle.
whiff
To throw with great speed. "Old Lefty Grove just whiffed that third strike
by the batters."
whiffer
A tattletale.
whig (wig}
A sour Scotch drink made from sour whey. It was usually pronounced in
the Valley in the old days without the "h" as wig, and the common
comparison we had was in reference to something sour, "as sour as wig."
whimsy-whamsy
All crazy, awry.
whim-whams
The hysterics, the heebee-jeebies.
whings
Wings.
As a boy I often heard the word "wings" pronounced "whings." But
like "jist" for joist, "chice" for choice, such pronunciation has passed out
of fashion.
"Whings" brings to mind the old man, Acharel Matthews, who so used
the word and took it on himself to obey a command he said he received from
the Lord relative thereto. To my young bravado inquiry as to this, he once
said to me, "Yessiree, the Lord came to me in a vision in the night plain
as the pa'm of my hand and said to me, 'Son, Acharel,' he said, 'I want
you to prove your faith to me and to others, helping to bring them to
repentance. I want you to fly.' The Master didn't tell me just how to work
it but just to fly. I wiv-wavered about it and he spoke to me again in the
deep of the night. 'I want you to fly.' Well, I determined to obey the Lord.
I talked to my boys and they was against it. But I kept right on, determined
to have my way, that's the Lord's way. Well, to make a long story short,
me and the Lord finally prevailed and me and the boys made some wide,
thin-boarded whings with strops to 'em. I put 'em on and climbed a ladder
up on the barn roof. Several people, including Preacher Rolland, had
assembled to see me and the Lord prevail. So I balanced myself on the comb-
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1203
edge of the roof and said a little prayer of trust in the Lord and sailed off.
Later I realized what had happened. I was the source of my own downfall.
For at the very identical instance I plunged off into the air the thought struck
me — jist suppose this thing don't work. That's what done the damage.
Right at the spang second I needed faith to make me sail off in the air on
my whings like a bird this doubt struck me. It was the devil done it. Ah,
Lord, he's sly and always laying in wait. He put the thought into my mind.''
Old Acharel landed in the hog pen, and several of his greedy fattening
hogs attacked him, thinking maybe he was a shock of corn falling as feed
for them. The sons and the neighbors saved him from the hogs, but for the
rest of his life he walked somewhat sideways because of the injury to his
spine. The boys burnt the "whings" in the trash pile and, though the
"whings" are long gone, the story is still alive in the Valley.
•whip
The leader, the foreman. "That big fellow was the whip for the whole logging
crew."
whip around
To change directions. "The wind whipped around to the North and it turned
cold as fury."
whipped down
To be tired out, exhausted.
whippersnapper
An insignificant person.
whipping boy
One who suffers for the wrongdoings of another.
whippoorwill
A famous night bird. The whippoorwill is often associated with sad omens,
sickness or death.
One of the old folk beliefs was that when you hear the first whippoorwill
you can kill off any bad luck if you get down on the ground and roll over
three times. After this the evil bird cannot hurt you. But also there is a brighter
side to the whippoorwill's coming because when its first notes are heard,
winter and all cold weather are gone.
whippoorwill peas
A variety of peas speckled like whippoorwill eggs.
whippoorwill shoes
Lady's-slipper flower.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
whip steel
To use a sledge hammer in driving a steel drill down. "Lawd, that man could
whip steel all day and never complain."
whipstitch
Instant. "He was up from there in a whipstitch."
whirligig
A little play waterwheel.
whirlwind
An overly energetic person.
A whirlwind means dry weather. In the early days in the Valley the old Scots
used to refer to a whirlwind as a "furl o' fairies wind."
by a whisker
Within an ace of, a close shave, a narrow escape.
Whiskey drinking is risky drinking.
Drinking a lot of whiskey will cure a snakebite.
whist
A card game, also a command to silence.' 'Whist on your tongue, will you.''
whistle
Throat. "I'll wet my whistle with some of this Adam's ale and then I'll be
able to talk better."
Whistle in the dark to give you courage.
It is bad luck to whistle in a boat for it's likely to raise a wind.
whistle britches
Corduroy pants which make a scrubbing noise as the legs rub together.
whistling in the dark
A wasted effort, an ineffectual act.
A whistling woman and a crowing hen
Are sure to come to no good end.
whit
A bit, a tiny amount. "I don't care a whit whether she gets married or don't.''
white
The color white is a symbol of death. The white dove, the white heron, the
white horse, the white swan are connected with death, with the cemetery
and the warnings of doom.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1205
As a boy I heard it told that when old Miss Rebecca Lloyd was lying
on her deathbed a snow-white dove came and perched on the comb of the
house just over her. And on the day the old woman's breath took its final
flight the dove flew straight up into the sky and kept on flying and finally
disappeared in the light of the blazing sun. Old Miss Minty Gaskins declared
that this dove was carrying Miss Becky's immortal soul to heaven just the
way the bird in the Scriptures once toted a leaf in its mouth. See' 'bird omen.''
Also honest, fair, reliable. "Oh, he'll treat you white all right."
as white as a ghost
as white as a sheet
as white as chalk
as white as cotton
as white as snow
white alder (pepper bush)
This species grows in swamps and damp places from Maine to Florida and
throughout North Carolina. Tea made from it was once a good medicine
for fevers, coughs and lung afflictions.
white birch
Not native to the Valley but becoming popular as an ornamental tree.
white-bowl-of-milk
The call of the whippoorwill.
White chickens lay more eggs than brown or black chickens.
white-collar worker
One who works with his brains rather than his hands.
white elephant
A worthless holding, especially as to a sizeable building or project. "He
spent a lot of money on that old hotel and it's nothing but a white elephant.''
white feather
Cowardice.
When white folks build 'em a fire, the nigger can keep warm toting wood.
Got one mind for white folks to see,
Another mind for what I know is me.
A white glove often conceals a dirty hand.
Suffering and grieving produce white hair early.
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white-haired boy
The pet, the hopeful one.
white horse
Death. "Some of these days, and it won't be long, the figure on the white
horse is going to stop at my door." There used to be a common belief that
death rode a white horse and could be seen now and then making his way
to a doomed person's house.
To dream of three white horses presages death.
white lightning
Raw moonshine, corn liquor.
white-livered
Cowardly.
white moth
The millermoth, also associated with death.
I remember hearing Reverend Wicker tell a horrifying story to us
children one night when he was staying at our house. He told about how
he had to sit up with a sick man who was a dreadful sinner, and during the
night this man died unrepentant without having his soul saved. And there
he lay on the bed with his mouth open. And Mr. Wicker said he looked at
him and saw a white moth come out of his mouth and fly away.' 'And that
was his soul, children, that white moth. And you know where that thing
was bound? It was bound for hellfire there to burn forever and ever."
Don't kill a white moth — it might be somebody's soul.
white mulberry
Sometimes called the silkworm tree. This tree is a native of China and has
been naturalized in the Valley. Back in the old, old days it was thought that
silk worms could be raised and fed on the leaves of these trees and the
manufacture of silk would result. But just as up in Virginia, the experiment
failed. The root of the tree is astringent, and a tea made from its bark is
supposed to be good for diarrhea.
white oak
Perhaps the most beautiful of all trees in the Valley. For a long while it has
been the main source of cross ties for the railroads, in shipbuilding, flooring,
framing, and a multitude of other uses. The acorns have been good for
fattening hogs and the bark is astringent, used in tanning and for all sorts
of medicinal uses, gargles and injections. White oak strips were much used
for making baskets and chair bottoms especially.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1207
white of an egg
Drop the white of an egg in a glass of water and it will form a picture of
your love's calling. If he is a sailor, the shape formed will look like a ship;
if he is a farmer, it will look like a plow or hoe maybe, and so on. Old Aunt
Dicey Ragland, who has never married, said to romantic Effie Latham one
day, "Law, ma'am, you better not be a-doing of that. I tried it onct and
it made me the shape of a coffin and what happened? Why my sweetheart
Bent Morphis was blowed up by dynamite blasting the next day and they
didn't find enough of him to bury. Yes ma'am, if you're not to get married
before you die, that egg business will sure make you a coffin. Stay away
from it, yes ma'am. Like you, maybe, I still got hopings too, but I sure don't
mess with them whites of eggs in glasses of water anymore and you better
not. 'Cause as long as we don't know the worst we can still expect the best.
Ain't it the truth!"
"Whiter Than Snow"
Another popular Valley hymn. Here once again is stated the intense faith
that the miracle of salvation is to take place through the blood of Jesus.
"Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole,
I want thee forever to live in my soul.
Break down every idol, cast out every foe.
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow—
"Whiter than snow, whiter than snow,
Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."
The words are by James Nicolson and the tune by William G. Fischer.
white sand
A good cure for stomach ulcers, or so Uncle Bob Green was told. He had
a bad ulcer and an old man told him that if he would take one teaspoonful
of white sand every day he would get cured. Well, believe it or not, Uncle
Bob tried it and he was cured. It's a wonder it didn't kill him.
white swelling
The folk term for the once dreadful disease osteomyelitis. This curse used
to be more prevalent in the Valley than it is now. Better diet, sanitation,
more medical knowledge and more available hospitals have tended to
diminish it.
As a little boy I suffered with it for two terrible years. I first fell out
of an apple tree and hurt my arm, and then the disease took over. Many
a night I would lie in front of the fire on a pallet with my aching arm and
knee toward the soothing heat, and every hour or two my mother would
rise and put on replenishing logs. Doctor Joe McKay treated me with every
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kind of purgative known to man, including calomel, black draught and castor
oil. He even painted my whole arm with iodine.
Every passing neighbor prescribed too. "I'll tell you what, Billy," one
would say to my father, "get you some red oak bark, bile it good and mix
the tea with meal and make a good poultice, then wrop that boy's arm in
it, and it'll do the trick." Another would say, "His kidneys are poisoning
him. Feed him some of this good swamp root and he'll mend right away."
Swamp root was one of the hundreds of patent medicines for which the
hardworking people in the Valley paid out their good money to the scavengers
of the North. Finally Doctor Joe lost patience with me and one day in his
little office there in Buie's Creek where I had gone for treatment, he had
his Negro man grab me and hold me.' 'Look out yonder and see that crow,
Paul," he said. I looked off, and pang! he had split my elbow open with
his lancet. Then as the Negro continued to hold my churning form, the doctor
progued in my inner forearm with a huge sucking needle. I still bear the
scars and I still hear in my inner ear the awful screams I let out.
"Billy," he said later to my father, "you better take him up to Johns
Hopkins in Baltimore to Dr. Osier and let him cut his arm off. He's going
to die if you don't and that soon.'' Somehow my father and mother scraped
up $75 and Father took me to Baltimore and just in time for, although I
was ten years old, I weighed only forty pounds. The wonderful doctors at
the hospital saved both me and my arm.
Poor old Aunt Margaret Messer, Little Bethel Church's holy woman,
opposed my going to the last. "Prayer is the only thing that will save him,
prayer and Dr. Yokum's sanctified handkerchiefs putt on the pizen place,"
she said. I am glad my parents wouldn't listen to her.
So I have some definite opinions on the subject of white swelling. So
has my old friend Mr. Mac, the miller. One day when I was down at his
mill chewing the rag with him on various matters, folklorish, historical and
sundry, Ashe Brodie, the bootlegger, came in with a half-bushel of corn
to be ground. He was wiv-wavering with drunkenness, and Mr. Mac fell
afoul of him for his ways and especially for having his sick son down to
the Holy Roller camp meeting at Falcon to be prayed over and healed of
his bone disease by the sanctified people.
' 'Why in the world, Ashe,'' the old miller fumed.' 'don't you take that
boy up to Rex Hospital and get him operated on for that leg that's rotting
off?'' But the slobbering hypocrite whined and said he was ashamed of Mr.
Mac for not putting his trust more in the power of "our almighty and blessed
Lord." Ashe himself was almost a nervous wreck from hiding in the swamps
and jumping from every wind-moving bush, thinking it was a revenue officer.
And while the old miller had him there hemmed up in the millhouse he worked
a bit on his sorry superstitious soul — for that crippled boy's sake.
"Ashe," he said, "you better be careful how you mix your medicine
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1209
and your Lord. They're like oil and water. You ain't old enough, but I
remember the case of Tatum Baker, the liquor-head. He woke up one
morning with his back bent like a jackknife. Some said a spell had been put
on him, others that he slept without a sheet and had caught the cramps.
Anyhow, he went for months like that. He tried all kinds of quack doctors,
plasters, pills and even took a case or two of female disorder medicine, but
nothing seemed to help him. Finally he gave in to his wife's pleading and
went down to the Holiness meeting at Falcon to be prayed over.
"And the sisters and brothers prayed all right — for a night and the
whole of next day they did. About sundown of the second day, the misery
left Tatum, and he straightened up and went to shouting. Not only that,
but he happy-danced off a piece up and down the aisle and let loose a great
bellowing of unknown tongues. Yessir, he was healed and healed good. He
thought he was. But old Moster was only playing with him. Later that night
going home he felt so fine he couldn't be contained. He had to celebrate.
He stopped there in Dunn and got himself a quart of liquor and drank it
all as he walked on home. This time wouldn't count, he said, just the way
all you liquor-heads say, and before long he was addled and drunk as he
wobbled ahead.
''It was a hot night and a big thundercloud had come up. As he wandered
up the lane at the Shovel place, a real cloudburst fell out of the sky. Now
it happened that old Andrew Shovel himself was lying dead in his house.
Some neighbors were there sitting up, and in front of his yard was a hearse
with its two black-plumed horses tied to a tree. Tatum hurried along as fast
as he could, and as he got near, in his disordered state of mind he mistook
the hearse for some sort of covered carriage. Since it was pouring such a
heavy rain and thundering and lightning so, he opened the door and crawled
in to keep dry.
"Now as everybody knows, a hearse don't have any handles on the
inside, for the corpse has no need to open the door from within. Well, all
of a sudden and blam! the lightning struck a tree in old Shovel's yard. The
horses bucked and charged and broke loose, and away they went with hearse,
Tatum and all. Lickety-split they went right down the lane back toward Dunn
where they came from. As they went charging along, the hearse leaning and
blundering from side to side, Tatum's mind cleared up somewhat and he
realized where he was. And then he set up a terrible yelling and screeching
and praying to the Lord God Almighty — sort of the way you must have
done the other day, Ashe, when you were trying to get saved at the mourners'
bench — yeh, no doubt just the way you did.
"Other neighbors heard the hearse coming, and they rushed out on
their porches as it went by. And in the flashes of lightning they could see
the 'dead man' in there, squatted on his knees, throwing up his hands and
bowing and praying. And they fled back inside and barred their doors.
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Finally the horses ran smack into the main avenue of Dunn, and there by
the street lights the inhabitants visioned this strange flying contraption. And
more than one of them bolted out of the house and took to the alleys and
side streets and even fields. Right on through the town the horses ran. As
they swerved around the curve going toward Clinton, the hearse turned over
and threw Tatum out through the broken glass and hard against a ditch
stump. This time he really was hurt. His back was cracked.
"From that day forth he walked exactly as he walked before — bent
all over — and neither doctors nor preachers could ever heal him. They said
he learned his lesson all right, but he learned it too late. For before long
he died, a lost soul from hardening of the liver and in great pain. No sir,
it won't do to mix your medicine and your religion.
"Now sit still, Ashe, for that ain't all, and you know where there's no
hope there's no hurry and many a man feeds his brains to his belly. Take
the case of another bootlegger like you — bootlegger, you heard me, Ashe
— old man Abner Witherspoon, who had denied his children both their
chance at health and schooling, all for the sake of the liquor he loved. He
once got down mighty low with locked bowels, and he promised the good
God if he would let him up again he would serve him all the days of his life,
would take care of his wife and children, never make whiskey again, never
curse, and never have evil thoughts rambling in his brain. So God let him
up, and he walked about. But it weren't any time at all till he was back at
that whiskey still, firing and straining and a-cussing and thinking of every
Saturday night when he'd get off down to Dunn and cut up with some hot
wild women. You know how it was, Ashe, for you do that yourself. So God
Almighty struck him down again and brought him right up to the hinge creak
of the gate of death. And such a loud clamoring and pow-wow of praying
and begging the country had never heard before. Sort of like the pow-wowing
and hollering you did the other day, Ashe, from what they tell me. Maybe
it was because of these children and his wife, Melinda, a godly woman all
the years of her being, that the Big Boss in the sky finally heard him again
and restored him to health.
' 'What did he do then? He did what so many of us are prone to do —
and what you have done time and again, Ashe — the minute the threat of
danger faded far away, he went back to his vomit. But as the hog said when
the devil sheared him, once is a lot, two times is too much, and three times
is completely and tee-totalling overdoing it. So for old Abner there never
was a third chance. For when he started back consorting with Old Scratch
— and you know every time a man falls he falls harder than before and mires
up that much deeper in the slough of his undoing — well, the ha'nts got
him this time. Yessir, and I mean ha'nts. You can call it delirium tremens,
the happy weepings or the jerks or the pentecostal pourings, but anyhow
old Abner was a pitiful sight to see. You know how it is, Ashe, when you
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1211
begin to see faces in knotholes and hear voices in your head and little fingers
begin tickling behind your ears, and a great creature you can't even see begins
to walk behind you with heavy feet, and you hear him going bump, bump,
all in time to your beating heart.
"One day the Iron-faced Man would be after Abner. Then another day
Rawhead-and-bloody-bones would run him around the house. Then at night
likely as not the little Headless Girl would get under his bed and snigger
at him with gurgling sounds coming from the slit place in her throat. Be
still, Ashe, I ain't finished.
"Then there was the ghost of old Aunt Mahaly, the witch woman, with
her bucket of snakes that would get after him. She would set upon him in
his delirium, coming up out of the deep Cape Fear swamps to do it, with
Jack-muh-lantern coming ahead of her with a ball of fox-fire in his hand
to light her way. And she would bring her witch's pot and put it right in
the middle of the floor and start her fire burning around her devil's brew,
and the snakes crawling out of the bucket would get busy bringing chips
in their mouths to feed the fire. He thought they did — he was so far gone.
' 'And it was right there that the wonder-working ways of nature's God
took his final reckoning with Abner. For one night when the thunder and
lightning were popping and cracking in the trees around the house, the ha'nt
of old Mahaly started her hocus-pocus by his bed, snakes and all. Some
of the neighbors were sitting up with him that night and trying to hold him
down. The next day Finley Broom was coming to haul him away to the
asylum. But when morning broke coolish and fair with the world all fresh
and clean again, there was no need of Finley's straightjacket and his buggy.
For during the night old Abner had got loose from his neighbors and jumped
spang in the middle of Aunt Mahaly's cauldron and was scalded to death.
Yessir, Ashe, it's not what actually is in the world that makes so much to-do
with man, but what he thinks is in the world. Scalded to death, you heard me.
' 'From the squallings and babble of words that had kept breaking from
old Abner's lips as he died, the watchers knew he thought it was boiling
water into which he leapt. Anyhow more than one swore that when they
picked him up from the floor dead as a nit he had blisters on his hands and
face same as if actual scalding water had been poured on him. Take it or
leave it, that's what they said. Heigh, wait a minute, Ashe, don't rush off
like that. I'm just getting to the point."
But Ashe was gone out of the millhouse as if the dogs were after him,
and he raised a dust fleeing down the road. Mr. Mac must have scared him
some, for he did do right by his crippled boy the next day — sent him to
a surgeon at Rex Hospital and had him finally cured of his white swelling.
But for Ashe there seems to be no cure. He is back again making liquor in
the swamp and drinking plentifully of it, and trembling and moaning with
nervousness every time a pine cone falls.
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whitewash
To clear or to prove innocent.
whitewashing the hearth
The fireplace and hearth were not used during the summer, and it was the
custom in the Valley to make them more presentable than just to stand there
dark and waiting for the winter fires. Usually the fireplace was brushed out
and maybe some clumps of shrubbery placed in it. Then the custom was
to "whitewash" or "clay" the rock faces and the hearth.
This was a strict requirement at our house. I can still hear my mother
say,' 'Warm weather's here now and it's time to clay the hearth.'' The claying
took place several times during the summer. About a mile from home was
the "Cofield place," with a bank of whitish clay.
We children would take a bucket and trowel or small shovel and get
clay from this bank. It was mixed with water and a gooey mush made of
it. Then with sopping wet rags the hearth and fireplace faces would be thickly
smeared with it. When dried, it all looked nice and white. And woe to any
slovenly tobacco chewer who happened to stain that whiteness with his
spitting.
whitleather
The toughest kind of leather. I was told as a boy it was leather from the
neck hide of steers, made tough by the yoke-wearing. A common saying
is, "as tough as whitleather."
whiz
A most capable person. "She's a whiz at cooking."
who-all
Who.
Whoa, Maud!
A warning to be careful, to stop.
Who do you think you are!
A reprimand.
" Who killed Cock Robin?"
"I," said the sparrow,
"With my bow and arrow
I killed Cock Robin."
"Who saw him die?"
"I," said the fly,
"With my little eye
I saw him die."
(A nursery rhyme.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1213
since who laid the rail
A long while. "I been knowing that fellow since who laid the rail."
whole hog or nothing
Completely, entirely, or not at all.
whole shebang
The collected whole, the entire crowd.
the whole shooting match
The entire group or collection of items.
whole soul and body
Completely, entirely. See "Big John."
whoop and a holler
A measurement of distance. "He lives only a whoop and a holler away."
whooping-socker
A big shot of alcohol, a large drink of liquor.
whoosh
To go by in a hurry.
whop
To hit or throw an opponent down suddenly as in wrestling.
whop down
To sit. "Whop yourself down there and rest a while."
a whopper
A big lie or tall tale.' 'That boy told me a whopper and so I whupped him.''
Also anything huge.
whore-hopper
An habitue of a bawdy house, a chaser after loose women.
Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.
Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
Oh, who will shoe your purty little foot,
And who will glove your hand,
Oh, who will kiss your sweet rosy cheek
When I'm in that furrin land?
Oh, Poppa will shoe my purty little foot
And Momma will glove my hand.
And you shall kiss my sweet rosy cheek
When you come from that furrin land.
(Folk lyric.)
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whup
Whip.
whupped
Whipped. Also tired-out, exhausted.
no why or wherefore
Without question, certainly, absolute.
There's never a why but there's a wherefore.
Why is a dog's tail like the heart of a tree?
(Riddle—It's farthest from the bark.)
wibble-wobble
Unsteady.
wick
Self-pride. "He's got too much wick for his candle."
as wide as a barn door
as wide as the ocean
widow man
A widower.
widow's peak
A hairline with a peak downward on the forehead of a woman.
widow's weeds
Mourning dress.
widow woman
A widow.
A good wife and health
Are a man's best wealth.
If I had a wife and she would get drunk,
I tell you just what I would do.
I'd build me a boat and set her afloat
And paddle my own canoe.
(Proverb rhyme.)
Me and my wife and a bob-tailed dog
Tried to cross the creek on a rotten log—
The log did break and we fell in
So I lost my bottle of gin.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1215
Ha-ha-ha, you and me,
Little brown jug,
How I love thee.
(A recitation rhyme.)
wiggle-tail
An active larva, as mosquito larvae.
Wiggle-waggle through the grass,
Big head and no ass.
What is it?
(Riddle—A snake.)
as wild as a buck
as wild as a colt
as wild as a ha'nt
as wild as the ocean
the wild blue yonder
The sky, also foolish and outlandish plans and dreams.
wild carrot
See "Queen Anne's lace."
wildcat
A furious frenzied woman.
wild cherry
Next to the pine, the wild cherry is perhaps the most valuable of all medicinal
plants and trees in the Valley. Tea and syrup made from it are good for the
nerves, good for fever, scrofula, consumption, bad heart and whatnot. I
remember my mother used to send us children out to get bark off the wild
cherry tree which she would boil, mix with syrup and give to us for a tonic.
I, too, have given it to some of my children and with no bad results.
wildfire
Erysipelas. Also a fire, as a forest fire, running wild.
wild ginger
See "heartleaf."
A wild gOOSe never laid a tame egg.
wild goose chase
A fool's errand, such as an April Fools' Day joke of sending a gullible person
for a left-handed monkey wrench. Also an effort that produces no results.
"When I heard they were paying more for leaf tobacco in Raleigh, I took
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mine there — but it was a wild goose chase."
wild indigo (horsefly killer, fly killer)
This plant is found in fertile soils from Virginia to Florida, and is usually
two to four feet high. We used to fasten sprigs of it in the mules' bridles
to keep the flies away. It had its medicinal uses too in the old days. One
ounce of boiled root to one pint of hot water made a good tonic. Dose —
one teaspoonful every three or four hours.
wild iris
A beautiful small iris that grows in damp places and even in wet swamps.
The root is chewed or eaten for numerous complaints, dropsy, spleen and
kidney afflictions and as a good purgative.
wild oats
Youthful indiscretions, mostly of a sexual nature.
Don't sow your wild oats in a briar patch.
wild onion
A common pest throughout the Valley. The juice or syrup from its bulbs
has been used for colic in infants.
wild pigeons (passenger pigeons)
These were once the most abundant pigeons in the United States but are
now extinct. The species had a handsome red breast and a somewhat long
tapering tail and traveled in huge flocks, often large enough to darken the
whole sky. When I was a boy, I would hear now and then from some older
person stories about "them wild pigeons." Uncle Bayliss Purefoy said to
me one day while we sat on the bank of Morgan's Creek waiting for the
fish to bite that he'd seen and heard many quare and wonderful things in
his life but nothing ever to equal "them pigeons."
He went on, "Sometimes you'd hear a roaring way-off yonder like the
rush of a train and then here they'd come, a flood of 'em, maybe a flock
a mile across. Louder and louder the roaring would sound as they passed
along overhead. And the earth would grow dark, most like the 'clipse had
come. Onct — and you got to believe me — we measured the time, and it
took a flock a whole hour to pass over. Sometimes they'd light down to
roost in a neighborhood and all through the woods you could hear the limbs
of the pine trees popping and breaking from the weight of 'em. And tame!
— you could walk right up to one setting on a low limb and kill him with
a stick. We killed mergins of 'em an' et pigeon meat till the thought of that
meat made you heave. But that's gone — all long gone. They say they ain't
a single one of them birds left in the entire world."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1217
wild potato vine
Another curse to the farmer. It grows prolifically in very poor soil and its
roots go down beyond the reach of a plow. Its tubers were once used by
the Valley Indians for food.
wild sarsaparilla
An aromatic plant, the root of which is a gentle stimulant.
wild strawberry
A smaller strawberry than the garden variety but an exquisite fruit for jam
and also a good remedy, so it is said, for gout.
wild tobacco
The wild lobelia, puke weed, or vomitwort.
Where there's a will there's a way.
"Will you walk into my parlor?"
Said the spider to the fly.
"It's the prettiest parlor
that ever you did spy."
"Not I," said the fly.
(Nursery rhyme.)
Wilful waste makes woeful want.
William Trimbletoe
A counting rhyme. The players sit in a circle at a table or on the floor, and
each player places one or two fingers before him. The leader counts out as
follows:
"William Trimbletoe, he's a good fisherman,
Catches hens, puts them in pens,
Some lay eggs, some don't—
Wire, briar, limberlock,
Sit and sing till twelve o'clock.
The clock fell down, the mouse ran around,
O-u-t spells out.
On your way home."
Then the one who is "It" leaves the room, and the other players choose
names for themselves, such as mule, donkey, horse, bear and so on, assigning
a name to "It" also in his absence. Then the leader calls "It" to return and
asks him which he'd rather come home on, a mule, a horse, and so on, calling
the names that have been given. If "It" chooses his own name, he must
walk home. If not, the one he chooses goes and gets him and brings him
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in on his back. Then the leader says,'' What have you got there?'' and "It"
replies, "A bag of nits." Then the leader says, "Shake him till he spits."
And the carrier shakes his rider terrifically to the gales of laughter. Then
the game begins again.
willies
Hysterics, nervousness, hicumstrikes.' 'That fellow gives me the willies just
to look at him."
A willing helper does not wait until he is asked.
willing tit
A loose girl or woman.
"Willie, the Weeper"
Another of our favorite misery songs, cf. "Cocaine Lil," "The Graveyard
Song," and "St. James' Infirmary."
"Did you ever hear the story 'bout Willie, the Weeper?
Made his living as a chimney sweeper.
He had the dope habit and he had it bad,
Listen while I tell you 'bout the dream he had—
Teet ta teeta dee dee, toota toota doo doo,
Yah dee dah dah dee dee dah dee dah dah."
The song goes on to tell how Willie went to the dope house on Saturday
night, smoked a "dozen pills or mo' " and then took off on a "trip." He
was riding high till "Bim bam boo!—and the dope give out."
willy-nilly
Indecisive, will I — nill I, yes-or-no manner, unimportant either way.
wind
Nonsense, empty talk.
Stamina, endurance. "Since I quit cigarettes, my wind is twice as strong."
Wind and tide wait for no man.
Wind from the east means stormy weather.
Sow the Wind and reap the whirlwind.
When the wind is in the east,
'Tis neither good for man nor beast.
When the wind is in the north,
The fisherman he goes not forth.
When the wind is in the south,
It blows the bait in the fish's mouth.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1219
When the wind is in the west,
Then 'tis at the very best.
(Weather rhyme.)
It's an ill wind that blows no good.
wind-broken
Bellowsed, diseased in the respiratory system.
wind-busted
Same as wind-broken.
windfall
Any piece of unexpected good luck or fortune.
windfalls
Berries or fruits or nuts fallen from the trees due to the wind.
windflower
The anemone.
winding blades
The four arms or blades on which a skein of cotton or yarn is put to be wound
into balls. "He came at me with his arms flying like winding blades."
winding sheet
A sheet that covers a corpse.
windjamming
Voluble and silly talk, over-loquaciousness.
windmilling
Said of a catapulting horse, one which is somersaulting.
out the window
Lost completely, disappeared. "With all those doctor bills my savings have
gone out the window."
window shopping
Eye shopping, gazing at goods in windows without buying.
wind shakes
Cracked fibers in trees caused by the wind.
windsucker
A bellowsed horse.
wind-swallowers
People who without knowing it swallow a lot of wind. Our family doctor
tells me that many stomach pains result from this. They usually tend to
�1220
Paul Green's Wordbook
"break wind" a great deal, too.
windup
The end, the conclusion. Also the motion of a baseball pitcher preparing
to throw the ball.
windy
Prone to exaggeration.
as windy as March
Sharp horns on the moon mean windy weather.
is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is
not wise.
Look not upon the wine when it is red.
wing
The arm. "His old wing is hurting him and he can't pitch worth a cent."
winkers
Eyes.
in three winks
Quickly, almost instantly.
wintergreen
The pipsissewa plant.
Malinda Chapin's children had tapeworm for years, and they were so
filthy that you could smell them almost before you could see them. The
welfare lady in town kept sending them to the hospital where they'd be treated
for a while and then they'd come home no better than when they left. Finally,
Cicero West, the herb doctor, made up a lot of tea from the wintergreen
or pipsissewa plant and fed it to them by the quart. They recovered from
their tapeworm all right, but he never did get them so they didn't stink.
wintersweet
The sweet marjoram.
wipe out
To kill, to murder, to rub out, to forgive and forget.
wipe the floor with
A severe thrashing or mauling. "Such a beating I've never seen — he wiped
up the floor with him."
wipe the slate clean
To make a new beginning, a new resolve, to forget old differences.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1221
wire grass
Bermuda grass. A farmer's tough pest once it gets started but fine for healing
up eroded places in land.
wire pulling
Finagling, swapping and trading to get one's way.
wire road
A road with telegraph or telephone wires along it.
Old Wire Road
The road that used to run along the Cape Fear from Fayetteville to Raleigh.
Many historic incidents have happened on this road and many historic
characters traveled it, among them old peg-leg Santa Anna when he was
being taken to Washington as a prisoner.
Wisdom is the sunlight of the soul.
wisdom tooth
A tooth that comes late and is supposed to come at the time when a person
is old enough to have some wisdom.
A wise man gets learning from those that have none.
A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.
Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
It's a wise child that knows his own father.
Be not wise in your own conceit.
(Naomi) Wise
A celebrated tragic young woman in North Carolina history and folklore
who was drowned in Deep River by her lover, Jonathan Lewis. A ballad
was written and sung for many years about the tragedy. I've heard there
are even more stanzas. Our quartet used to sing it. See " 'Omi Wise."
If you wish something done well, do it yourself.
wishbone
The forked bone in the breast of most birds, especially chickens.
There used to be an old custom when one got the wishbone at the table.
After it was cleaned off, the person having it would offer to pull the bone
apart with some other person. The one who got the longer piece was the
lucky one and would get his wish. And it was believed that if this piece was
put above the door, then the first one of the opposite sex who entered the
door would be the future husband or wife.
�1222
Paul Green's Wordbook
She didn't have no wishbone
Where her backbone ought to be.
wishbook
A mail-order house catalogue, especially Sears and Roebuck catalogue.
Wishes never fill the bag.
Wishes won't wash dishes.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
wishy-washy
Undecided, weak of will, easily persuaded.
witch
A witch is a woman, usually an elderly one, endowed with supernatural
powers, powers of an evil and harmful nature. There are innumerable stories
of witches and innumerable tokens and fetishes and protections against them.
Perhaps of all folklore creatures the witch is the most popular and active.
Sometimes the witch is called a hag and possesses the same sort of evil powers.
Silver is supposed to be the best protection against one of these creatures.
See "protection against witches" and "silver bullet."
witch doctor
A hocus-pocus root doctor character who is supposed to be able to unwitch
a person or provide cures or protections against all evil powers.
witches' stirrups
Tangles in a horse's mane supposed to be made by witches who have entwined
them to make it easier to mount the horse. These tangles usually show up
the morning after the witches have ridden the horses.
witch grass
Often called couch grass or dog grass, a pest hard to get rid of. It is found
in the fields and waste places in the Valley, and a drink from it was once
used for irritations of the bladder and kidney diseases.
witch hazel
Sometimes called the spotted alder. It is a sort of tree-like shrub and has
the distinction of blooming in December like the wintersweet. The tea from
witch hazel taken by the expectant mother was supposed to be an aid to
childbirth. Many people in the Valley in the old days would keep a green
hazel stick stuck up over the door of the house where a baby was expected.
This was supposed to keep off witches and any evil influences. Forked witch
hazel twigs were likewise used in the old days, and now and then you find
a person who still uses them as diviners' or dowsing rods in locating good
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1223
places to dig wells for water or hunt for hidden treasure.
I remember the Negro well-digger and mason, Uncle Lawrence Askew,
going about with his witch hazel twig, a forked twig. Holding it before him
with both hands, he'd tramp around till he felt it turning in his hands, and
then he would say, "Right here's the place to dig and you'll get a good well
of water.'' I talked to Uncle Lawrence about it. "Do you mean it really turned
in your hand, Uncle Lawrence?" "Itsho" did. You might put all your man
to it and try to hold it to keep it from turning, but it would turn just the
same. It felt the power of the water down below pulling on it, yes sir." See
also "dowsing rod."
with a grain of salt
Grudgingly, suspiciously.
wither on the vine
To become useless.
within an inch of one's life
A narrow escape from injury.
without
Unless. "I can't go without you go with me." "We'll have a big crowd on
Easter Monday without there comes a big rain."
withouten
Without.
with the bark off
Frankly, to tell it straight, honestly.
wizard
A male witch. According to one folk belief, the way for a man to become
a wizard is to put one hand on the top of his head and the other hand on
the bottom of his foot, and, while in this position, swear by all good and
evil that he will forsake all that is good and uphold the devil and all his evil
works. And if he swears this loud and firm enough, he will have the power
of a wizard. He will be a wizard.
Old Dilda Diggs said she saw a wizard once. She was walking along
the road and looked off to one side and there he was standing. "He was
a little bitty black rascal, Mr. Paul, and all around him looked like a wide
snowfield, and I know'd he was a witchman." Old Aaron Diggs, her
husband, said it didn't make any difference if it was a witch or a wizard.
If you ever caught up with her or him, all you would find would be just a
lump of jelly. He said that he had a sister who was a witch and weighed only
ninety-nine pounds, but she had monstrous power. And when she would
go out at night and try to bother people, he would warn everybody to take
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Paul Green's Wordbook
a sieve or sifter and put it on the doorknob and she couldn't go through
that door. A sifter was the only thing that would stop her. But his sister
Rose, the one he said was a witch — according to the neighbors — used
to go around telling that her brother, Aaron, was a wizard or witchman.
They lived near Lumberton, but both are dead and long gone now.
as wobbly as a duck
wolf
A girl-chasing man.
A parasite grub that grows in the flesh of cattle.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
A woman much besot
Is finally cheaply bought.
woman's home companion
The menses.
A woman's tears are a fountain of deceit.
women folks
Women.
wont
Wasn't, weren't. "He wont but five miles from home when his motor give
out."
won't do
Not reliable, irresponsible. "The trouble with Neal is he just won't do."
Unacceptable. "That red tablecloth just won't do for this dinner."
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck,
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?
(A tongue twister.)
wooden overcoat
Coffin.
"Woodman, Spare That Tree"
A well-known poem.
A woodpecker pecked on the schoolhouse door.
He pecked and he pecked till his pecker got sore.
(A somewhat vulgar recitation drollery,
very popular with us Pleasant Union schoolboys
long ago.)
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1225
woodpile
A place on the farm near the house where firewood was usually kept to be
cut and taken in. The woodpile is not a pile of wood, but a place.
wood pussy
The skunk.
Woods colts (bastards) are supposed to be especially smart.
woodshed
A spanking. "What that boy needs is the woodshed." It was the custom
to take the child out to the woodshed for a severe spanking and "talking
to" about his misbehaving.
He is not the best woodsman who makes the most chips.
wood sorrel
The oxalis, also called sour clover and sheep sorrel. It grows in the Valley
damp places and is a diuretic. Old Mis' Zula Smith used to beat up the plant
and mix it with butter or some sort of grease and use it to cure sores on
people's lips.
Wood Tag
See "Tag."
woof
Complaining. Idle talk. "We just set around woofing."
To conjure.
wool
Difference, business, matter of concern. "Cuts no wool with me whatever
you do."
all wool and a yard wide
First-rate, reliable, of fine character. "The new chancellor is all wool and
a yard wide."
woolgathering
Idle dreaming, inattention. "I was woolgathering and didn't hear what you
said, professor."
wool hat
An ultra-conservative, especially in politics and social reform. Also a dullard.
pull the wool over one's eyes
To deceive.
�1226
Paul Green's Wordbook
woozy
Sleepy, tired, also swimmy-headed.
get the word
To hear, to have news of.
A word in due season, how good it is!
A word to the wise is sufficient.
one's word be his bond
Trustworthy, reliable, honest. How often I have heard my father say of some
respected neighbor, "He's straight as a shingle. His word is his bond."
word in edgewise
To be able to break in on a flood of talk.' 'Why don't you dry up a minute
and let Sally get a word in edgewise."
word of mouth
Oral communication.
word out
News, information. "Get the word out I'm running for sheriff."
words
Angry argument. "We had some words, then he out with his pistol and shot
me through the leg."
wore out
Tired, exhausted.
work
To ferment. Also to wriggle. "My scuppernong wine has already started
working."
To get results, to influence, to have one's way, to manipulate. "With them
curls and smiles and dimples, she knows how to work him."
Also medical. "That calomel really worked. I was on and off the mug all
night long."
Work well begun is half done.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
He wouldn't work in a pie factory if you gave him the job of tasting.
workaholic
One whose devotion to working at his job is excessive.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1227
workday
Every day except Sunday.
work horse
A badly put-upon person, usually an overworked husband.
a-working
Wiggling. "Them worms are just a-working in that can."
Man may work from sun to sun;
A woman's work is never done.
work on
To castrate.'' I can't come over there Tuesday. I have to work on my hogs.''
works like a dog
works like a horse
works like a Trojan
works like the devil
work the streets
To beg, solicit, to pimp.
world
A great deal, a bounteous supply.' 'He's got a world of timber on that river
place."
Half the world does not know how the other half lives.
have the world by the tail
To be sitting pretty, to have all that one wishes.
worm
To dose a child or animal with medicine to get rid of worms.
worm dust
Very fine sawdust resulting from borers working in timber.
worm fence
See "rail fence."
to worm out of
Toelicit from. "I didn't mean to let on about those folks, but Mazie wormed
it out of me."
Also to extricate.
�1228
Paul Green's Wordbook
wormseed mustard
A medicinal plant.
worm weed
See "Jerusalem oak."
wormwood
Envy, bitter regret.
wormy
Low-down, vulgar.
worn to a frazzle
Tired out, exhausted.
worration
Annoyance.
worry
To bother, to tire.
worrywart
A person who continually looks on the sad side of things.
Buy him for what he's worth and sell him for what he thinks he's worth and
you'll be rich.
worth a cent
A term of disparagement. "He couldn't spell worth a cent."
not worth a hill of beans
Hardly of any value, no account.
not worth a straw
Worthless.
worth his weight in gold
Very valuable.
worth one's salt
Reliable, steady.
wound up
To be overly excited, nervous, tense.
WOW
To win great success, to triumph, to overpower, to give great delight. "In
the old days Libby Holman could just wow an audience with her torch
songs."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1229
wow!
An exclamation of astonishment or of pleasure.
wrack and ruin
Demolishment, an undone condition. "That fine old Turner place has gone
to wrack and ruin with niggers living in it."
wranglesome
Quarrelsome.
wrap around one's finger
To have undue influence over.''She can wrap him around her finger anytime
she wants to."
wrap up
To finish, conclude, to end a meeting. "Well, we're ready to wrap up now
— has anyone else anything to say?"
wringing
Saturated, dripping. "Go in there and put on a dry shirt. You're just
wringing."
wringing wet
Very wet indeed.
new wrinkle
Method, device, a scheme, a gimmick. "When the Wright Brothers flew
their first airplane, that brought a new wrinkle in the world."
as wrinkled as a dried prune
wrinkle-horned
Wise, old, full of experience.
The number of wrinkles in a fat baby's knee prophesies the number of children
he or she will have.
Keep the wrinkles out of your face by keeping sunshine in your heart.
nothing to write home about
Nothing important, nothing to raise anyone's enthusiasm.
to get up on the wrong side of the bed
Ill-humored, irritable. "Whoo-ee, you musta got up on the wrong side of
the bed this morning."
wrapper
Wrapper, usually referring to a woman's wrap-around robe over a
nightgown.
�1230
Paul Green's Wordbook
wrappings of the finger
Poverty, destitution.
wropt
Wrapped.
wunk
Past tense of wink.
wusp
Wisp.' 'Mr. Page wouldn't feed his poor old mule more than a wusp of straw
at the time."
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1231
Y
yack-yack
A medley of talking tongues, especially female.
yak
y'all
To chatter, to talk aimlessly. "There she sat with her dress cocked up yakyakking about the state of the world."
You all.
yaller
Yellow.
yaller junders (jandice)
Yellow jaundice, the old folk name for hepatitis.
yam
A sweet potato.
yammering
Yelling, shouting, and complaining.
yan
Yon, yonder, beyond. "He went yan side the creek this morning, and I ain't
seen him since."
Yankee
A Northern soldier or inhabitant of the North, especially in reference to
the Civil War or to Dixie which is the South. As a child, I was raised like
all other children in the Valley to hate the Yankees and to think of them
as hardly human beings. We Green children had an old woman who took
care of us a while whose name was Nancy Demming and she used to tell
us the most fearsome tales about the Yankee soldiers. She said she
�1232
Paul Green's Wordbook
remembered when Sherman's bummers came through, waylaying people
in the country and stealing everything that could be stolen, that she saw a
Yankee squatted down behind the barn doing his business and "Chillun,
his feet were forked and he had a tail that hung down like the devil." And
we children oohed and ahhed at the wonder of this.
Any member of the New York Yankees baseball team.
Yankee bummers
Sherman's bummers. See "ghost."
"Yankee Doodle"
The famous comedy song of the American Revolution.
yap
yard
Pretty much the same as yak, loud, loose talk, jaw.
The measurement from the thumb of an outstretched hand to the tip of one's
nose. Mr. Thomas, the peddler who used to come around and sell my mother
dress goods or ribbon, always measured his goods this way. He was a short,
fat man and I am sure that his yard was much less than 36 inches.
yard child
A child born of miscegenation.
yard eggs
Chicken eggs laid on the ground and not in wire receivers as in professional
poultry farms.
yardman
A gardener.
yarn
A falsehood, a wild story, an unbelievable account.
yarrow
Sometimes called old man's pepper or dog daisy. This plant grows in dry
pasture places and the Indians used to make tea of it and take it for stomach
trouble. The flowers and leaves make a good tea. This plant was supposed
to be used by Achilles and his name is often given to it.
yarth
The earth.
yaupon
Known as Carolina tea, also as yaupon holly. This is a tree shrub that grows
in the lower part of the Valley. The Indians made a sort of black drink from
it, and some of the people in the Valley still make yaupon tea. Not so long
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1233
ago I attended a yaupon party given by Mrs. Winslow. Some yaupon drink
had been made from the dry leaves and one cup of that stuff was enough
to last me quite a while, but some of the guests drank it and praised it highly.
They can have it.
yawhoo
A Cape Fear Valley spectre. There are a number of these imaginary creatures
that have become part of the folklore — for example, Rawhead-and-bloodybones, Jack-muh-lantern, the Headless Little Girl, the Iron-faced Man, the
witch-woman, Aunt Mahaly, and others. John Charles McNeill, the beloved
Valley poet, celebrates the yawhoo in his volume of poems, Possums and
Persimmons (edited by Richard Walser).
"His hands were gigs, his toes were spears,
He lashed a snaky tail,
Hot blood gushed out of his eyes and ears
And spattered along his trail
And streaked his body with crimson tears
Which else had been quite pale."
yea man!
An emphatic yes.
year
Ear.
yearling
An adolescent boy. "He's in the yearling stage now and, man, is he hard
to handle!"
yelk
Yolk.
Any yelling's good for selling.
yellow
Cowardly.
as yellow as a gourd
as yellow (cowardly) as a suck-egg hound
as yellow as gold
as yellow as saffron
yellow bellies
Perch. Also the Japanese soldiers in World War II were given this "lovely"
name by us, the enemy.
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Paul Green's Wordbook
yellowhammer
The flicker.
yellow jessamine
A prolific vine, loaded with yellow flowers. It is becoming popular as a vine
to decorate porches or fences.
yellowroot
This plant grows mainly in the upper Piedmont and in the mountains. Tea
is made from it and is supposed to be good for the sore throat or thrash
and also for nerves.
yellow yarrow
A cure for toothache.
yen
yep
A yearning, a desire. "I don't know what to do with my daughter, she has
a yen for them beatnik fellows."
Yes.
yes-siree-bob
An emphatic affirmation. "If they keep on a-monkeying there in Asia, a
third world war will break out, yes-siree-bob."
yestydeevening
Yesterday evening, meaning yesterday afternoon. A common eastern North
Carolina pronunciation.
yew tree
A popular cultivated tree. It is especially common around cemeteries.
"YieldNot to Temptation"
A popular church hymn.
yistiddy
Yesterday.
yit
Yet.
Brother Yokum
One of the many fakers and hocus-pocus religious hypocrites who have,
like the patent medicine vendors, milked the people in the Valley year after
year out of much of their hard-earned money. This Brother Yokum used
to advertise his sanctified and healing handkerchiefs in the Valley, and many
a person would send a mail order out to California to get these handkerchiefs
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1235
to put on afflicted places — boils, cancers, sprains, sore muscles and the
like. Then when it was felt that the power had gone out of the handkerchief,
it would be returned to Brother Yokum with twenty-five cents accompanying
each one, and he would endow the handkerchief with the usual power and
return it.
in yonder
In another room, at another place. "Where's the carving knife?" "In
yonder" (meaning, say, in the dining room).
you bet
A term of endorsement or agreement.
You missed me, you missed me,
Now you've got to kiss me.
(A teasing rhyme.)
young
Scant, scarce, in small supply. "How is the gas in that tractor?" "It's
beginning to get a little bit young."
young fry
Children.
you 're in
You've won, you've reached success.
by yourself
(myself)
Alone, singly. "Are you going up there in the night all by yourself?"
yourunses
Yours.
Youth is life's seed time.
If youth only would — if old age only could.
yowl
Cry. "That baby yowled all night and I couldn't sleep a bit." Also to howl
or yell.
yo-yo
A cord winding skill toy.
yow-yow
A chasing bark of dogs.
yucca
The Spanish needle or Spanish bayonet, bear grass. Also called Adam's
needle and thread. It is said the Indian doctors used a salve made from it
�1236
Paul Green's Wordbook
for inflammation.
yudder
The other.
yum-yum
An expression of joyous tasting.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1237
Z
zany
zip
A simpleton.
Pep, spirit, fire. "He's still got zip, old as he is."
Zion for Sion)
A hill in Jerusalem, the site of the royal palace of David (about 1000 B.C.)
and his successors. It became known as the place of the temple, the center
of Hebrew worship, government and national life. Also in Hebrew folklore
and religious belief it stands for the heavenly city of God. It has the same
heavenly significance for those of the Christian faith, and many a Protestant
church hymn sings its praises.
"Zion stands with hills surrounded,
Zion kept my power divine,
All her foes shall be confounded,
Tho' the world in arms combine.
Happy Zion, what a favor'd lot is thine!"
Zionism
The movement among the Jews for the establishment of a home and a
movement kept alive generation after generation because of anti-Semitism
mainly and as part of the Hebrew religious prophecy. Finally, in 1948 the
state of Israel was formed after the United Nations had decided on the
partition of Palestine to make way for it. The result has not been an entirely
happy one. The uprooted Palestinians are still seeking a return of their
homeland taken over by the Jews. Quarrels and killings and border wars
are of common occurrence. And the United States along with the United
Nations is kept busy trying to work out a solution that will bring peace to
the region. But both Israel and the Palestinians continue their implacable
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Paul Green's Wordbook
antagonisms and show no signs of lessening the spilling of blood.
zodiac
An imaginary belt across the sky along which the moon and principal planets
pass. Early astronomers and astrologers divided this path into twelve parts
of thirty degrees in length called ' 'signs." Each of these signs contained a
constellation of stars, and each sign received its name from the name of
the constellation in it. All of the signs except Libra were named after living
things and the belt was called the zodiac after the Greek word zodiakos,
meaning an animal.
These early thinkers believed there was a close relationship between
the heavenly bodies and man and so it was that the twelve signs soon became
associated with the human body. Charts dating back as early as 1300 B.C.
showed the astrologers' belief in the relationship. With this guide they
constructed everything from fortune-telling to guides for planting and good
fishing. For instance, take the sign Scorpio which is associated with the loins
and known as the water sign. While that sign is in the sky for two or three
days, farmers find it profitable to plant crops that are above the ground.
All the almanacs carry full information and guidance as to the zodiac.
by zooks!
A mild interjection.
zoon bug
The June bug, katydid.
Zounds!
A mild oath.
zowie
Suddenly.
zull
Sull, sulk.
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�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1241
Author's Note
For many years I have traveled up and down the Cape Fear Valley, North
Carolina, where I was born and where I have lived much of my life, collecting
the folklore of my people—noting down their speech, beliefs, customs, anecdotes,
ballads, epitaphs, legends, proverbs, stories, superstitions, herb cures, games and
the like, as well as gathering biographies of many a gnarled and crusted character,
real and imaginary. The main body of this rich harvest of human living and dying
I have gathered into this volume. Some of the material, shaped into stories or
plays, has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The English Journal, Esquire,
Harper's Magazine, North Carolina Folklore, Southwest Review, Theatre Arts,
Yale Review and in volumes of " fiction'' and plays of mine published by Harper
Brothers, Samuel French, Inc., Robert M. McBride and Company and The
University of North Carolina Press. Permission to use the material in its raw and
more native rendering is gratefully acknowledged.
Paul Green
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�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1243
Other Creative Works by Paul Green
FULL-LENGTH PLAYS WITH BROADWAY PRODUCTIONS
IN ABRAHAM'S BOSOM— Pulitzer Prize, 1927.
THE FIELD GOD
JOHNNY JOHNSON, with music by Kurt Weill.
ROLL SWEET CHARIOT
THE HOUSE OF CONNELL Y
NATIVE SON, dramatization with Richard Wright, author of the novel.
SYMPHONIC DRAMAS
Paul Green originated this genre of drama, reputed to be one of two
American contributions to world drama.' 'Symphonic drama'' was the term
he applied to plays which utilized all elements of theatre "sounding
together"—dialogue, poetry, music, pantomime, lighting, sound effects,
dance, etc.—in the dramatization of historical events, usually for staging
in the area where the events occurred. [Dates given represent production
seasons. An asterisk indicates the play has been published.]
*THE LOST COLONY, annually since 1937, Roanoke Island, North
Carolina.
*THE HIGHLAND CALL, 1939,1940, Fayetteville, North Carolina; 1955,
1956, Campbell College, Buie's Creek, North Carolina; 1976,
Cumberland County, North Carolina.
*THE COMMON GLORY, 1947-63; 1965-73; 1975-76, Williamsburg,
Virginia.
FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, 1950, 1951, Washington, D.C.
THE 17th STAR, 1953, Columbus, Ohio.
* WILDERNESS ROAD, 1955-57; 1972-80, Berea, Kentucky.
*THEFOUNDERS, 1957, 1958 and 1964, Williamsburg, Virginia.
*THE CONFEDERACY, 1958, 1959, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
*THE STEPHEN FOSTER STORY, annually since 1959, Bardstown,
Kentucky.
*CROSSAND SWORD, annually since 1965, St. Augustine, Florida.
*TEXAS, annually since 1966, Palo Duro Canyon, Texas.
* TRUMPET IN THE LAND, annually since 1970, New Philadelphia, Ohio.
*DRUMBEATS IN GEORGIA, 1973, 1974, Jekyll Island, Georgia.
^LOUISIANA CAVALIER, 1976-1980, Natchitoches, Louisiana.
*WE THE PEOPLE, 1976 Bicentennial drama, Columbia, Maryland.
* THE LONE STAR, annually since 1977, Galveston, Texas.
�1244
Paul Green's Wordbook
PUBLISHED PLAYS (in addition to symphonic dramas)
THE LAST OF THE LO WRIES, 1922.
THE NO 'COUNT BOY, one-act, 1924.
THE LORD'S WILL AND OTHER CAROLINA PLAYS, 1925.
LONESOME ROAD, Six Plays for the Negro Theatre, 1926.
THE FIELD GOD and IN ABRAHAM'S BOSOM, 1927.
IN THE VALLEY AND OTHER CAROLINA PLAYS, 1928.
THE HOUSE OF CONNELL Y AND OTHER PLA YS, 1931.
ROLL SWEET CHARIOT, 1935.
SHROUD MY BOD Y DO WN, 1935.
HYMN TO THE RISING SUN, 1936.
JOHNNY JOHNSON, 1937, 1970.
THE ENCHANTED MAZE, 1939.
OUT OF THE SOUTH, fifteen plays, 1939.
NATIVE SON, with Richard Wright, author of the novel, 1941.
PEER GYNT (American version), 1951.
WINGS FOR TO FLY, Three Plays of Negro Life (for radio), 1959.
FIVE PLA YS OF THE SOUTH, 1963.
THE SHELTERING PLAID, one-act, 1965.
THE HONEYCOMB, 1972.
Also numerous one-act plays published individually by Samuel French, Inc.
NOVELS
THE LA UGHING PIONEER, 1932.
THIS BODY THE EARTH, 1935.
SHORT STORIES, volumes of
WIDE FIELDS, 1938.
SAL VA TION ON A STRING, 1946.
DOG ON THE SUN, 1949.
WORDS AND WAYS, 1968.
HOME TO MY VALLEY, 1970.
LAND OF NOD AND OTHER STORIES, 1976.
ESSAYS
THE HA WTHORN TREE, 1943.
FOREVER GROWING, 1945.
DRAMATIC HERITAGE, 1953.
DRAMA AND THE WEATHER, 1958.
PLOUGH AND FURROW, 1963.
�An Alphabet of Reminiscence
1245
POETRY, LYRICS AND MUSIC
TRIFLES OF THOUGHT, privately published as a soldier, 1917.
THE LOST COLONY SONGBOOK, compiler/lyricist, 1938.
THE HIGHLAND CALL SONGBOOK, compiler/lyricist, 1941.
SONG IN THE WILDERNESS, (Cantata with music by Charles Vardell),
lyrics, 1947.
THE COMMON GLORY SONGBOOK, compiler/lyricist, 1941.
TEXAS SONGBOOK, compiler/lyricist (includes Paul Green melodies).
CARMEN (American version), lyrics, 1953.
JOHNNY JOHNSON (music by Kurt Weill), lyrics, 1936.
WHAT IS THE SOUL OF MAN? (single piece), lyrics and music.
SCREENPLAYS including:
CABIN IN THE COTTON (based on the novel of the same title by H.H.
Kroll), Warner Brothers, 1932, starring Richard Barthelmess and Bette
Davis.
STA TEFAIR (based on novel of the same title by Phil Strong), Fox Film
Corp., 1932, starring Will Rogers and Janet Gaynor.
DR. BULL (based on novel The Last Adam, by James Gould Cozzens),
Fox Film Corp., 1933, starring Will Rogers.
VOLTAIRE, Warner Brothers, 1933, starring George Arliss.
DA VID HAR C/M(based on the novel by E.N. Westcott), Twentieth Century
Fox, starring Will Rogers, 1934.
RADIO PLAYS
A START IN LIFE, published in The Free Company Presents, ed. James
Boyd,1941.
WINGS FOR TO FLY, Three Plays of Negro Life, Samuel French, Inc.,
1959.
FOREIGN PRODUCTIONS
THE FIELD GOD, Gate Theatre, London, 1927-28.
WHITE DRESSES, Japan, 1951.
JOHNNY JOHNSON, Bochum, Germany, 1973-74.
JOHNNY JOHNSON, Finnish National Theatre, Helsinki, Finland,
1975-79.
THE STEPHEN FOSTER STORY, Japan, 1985.
�ABOUT THE AUTHORS
PAUL GREEN was born in Lillington, North Carolina, on March 17,1894.
In 1921 he received his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, and the following year married Elizabeth Atkinson Lay.
Green's most famous work, for which he received the 1927 Pulitzer
Prize, was a drama titled In Abraham's Bosom. Another notable work
of Green's was the production of a symphonic drama titled The Lost
Colony, which has run for more than fifty years. Paul Green passed away
in Chapel Hill on May 4,1981.
�
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Title
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Appalachian Consortium Press Publications
Description
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This collection contains digitized monographs and collections from the Appalachian Consortium Press.
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Appalachian Consortium Press
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Appalachian Consortium Press
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June 1, 2017
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<a title="Digital Scholarship and Initiatives" href="http://library.appstate.edu/services/digital-scholarship-and-initiatives" target="_blank">Digital Scholarship and Initiatives</a>
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Appalachian State University
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Title
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Paul Green's Wordbook: An Alphabet of Reminiscence
Description
An account of the resource
<span><em>Paul Green’s Wordbook: An Alphabet of Reminiscence</em>, the culmination of more than sixty years of observing and collecting superstitions, customs, cures, riddles, games, stories, songs, and beliefs,</span> was published in 1990<em>.</em><span> A personal collection of folk traditions, Paul Green thought that these common idioms served to showcase the heritage of mankind. With roots in eastern North Carolina, Green took inspiration from his peers to write down the traditions of his home state in 1600 pages. The first rendition of </span><em>Paul Green’s Wordbook</em><span> was released in March 1937 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and tentatively titled </span><em>Folk Beliefs and Practices in Central and Eastern North Carolina 1926-28.</em><span> It took Green most of his life to revise the wordbook until it was in its final state in 1990.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1A_cOCs5W9M_r9DdiC27c4fG-w5r-h3vI" target="_blank">Download EPub<br /><br /></a><a title="UNC Press Link" href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469638355/paul-greens-wordbook/" target="_blank">UNC Press Print on Demand</a>
Subject
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Americanisms--North Carolina
English language--Dialects--North Carolina-- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc
North Carolina--Social life and customs
North Carolina--Languages--Dictionaries
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Green, Paul
Language
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English
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Appalachian Consortium Press
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1990
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North Carolina
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PDF
E-books
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Text
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<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed" target="_blank">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed</a>
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<a title="UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records </a>
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<a title="Appalachian Consortium Press Publications" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/82" target="_blank"> Appalachian Consortium Press Publications</a>
Dictionary
observations
phrases
reminiscences
words