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SONGS ABOUT ANIMALS 169
Sally Nelson Robins, of Richmond, who has died since this book went to press, sent a Virginia variant of the same song.
Fox, he got a bushy tail,
Raccoon tail am bare. Rabbit got no tail at all
Jes' a leetle bit a bunch er hair.
Chorus
Git erlong, Liza Jane, Git erlong, Liza Jane, Git erlong, Liza, po' gal, I'm gwineter leave you now.
Rat he got a leetle tail,
Mouse it ain't much bigger. White folks got no tail at all,
Neither have the nigger.
Chorus
The rabbit may have started the fashion of bobbed hair, for all we know, and perhaps is the original Greenwich Villager.
Edwin Swain gives a stanza as it used to be sung in Florida in his boyhood, by Negroes that he knew.
Raccoon got a ring round his tail,
Possum's tail am bar\ Rabbit got no tail at all,
Nothing but a bunch o' ha'r.
James E. Morrow reports the following form as he has heard it sung in Texas:
De raccoon carries de bushy tail,
Possum doan' care 'bout no hair. Mister Rabbit, he come skippin' by, An' he ain't got none to spare.
Mrs. C. E. Railing sings this stanza as she learned it from old Negroes in Virginia:
De raccoon hab de bushy tail,
De possum's tail is bare. De rabbit hab no tail at all
'Cep' a little bitty bunch o' hair.
Another fragment, given anonymously, varies from this, though slightly. |
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