ON THE TRAIL OF NEGRO FOLK-SONGS

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	68	NEGRO FOLK-SONGS
	MASSA HAD A YALLER GAL


	He took her to de tailor, To have her mouth made small. She swallowed up the tailor, Tailorshop and all. *Chorus* Massa had no hooks nor nails Nor anything like that; So on this darky's nose he used To hang his coat and hat. *Chorus* A less comely person of a different sex is celebrated or anathematized in another song, which seems to be fairly well known in the South, as parts of it have been sent in by various persons. According to the testimony of several people who remember events before the war, this is an authentic slavery-time song. The air and some of the words were given by my sister, Mrs. George Scarborough, as learned from the Negroes on a plantation in Texas, and other parts by an old man in Louisiana, who sang it to the same tune. He said he had known it from his earliest childhood and had heard the slaves sing it on the plantations. A version was also sent by a writer whose pen name is Virginia Stait.