| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
Men at Work |
||
|
told him, 'You know old Lead Belly is a good knocker.' I could run and knock. I always tried to be the winner. We wouldn't hit the side of the heady we would always hit on the breast and in the short ribs and along the arms. I used to jive 'em by hittin' 'em in the grind, slap 'em with the back of my hand that way, causin' 'em to bow. Then I'd meet 'em with a blow in the breast when they'd bow.
"I went up to this fellow, and he looked awful funny, he was bracin' for a knock. He said, 'Look here, Lead Belly, don't you want to knock?' J said, cNo, I'm out here grindin' corn today; I don't want to knock.' He says, 'Oh, yes, you gotta knock me.' I says, 'Oh, no, I ain't gonna knock.'
"I kept lookin' at him and he looked so fat and his arms so big, I says, 'What is you anyhow? You double-jinted?' He say, 'Yeah.' I say, 'Christ, man, you think I'm goin' knock you? I'm single- jinted; I don't knock with no double-jinted man.' If he want to knock with me, Pm gonna knock with a piece of stovewood or something; I ain't gonna knock with no double-jinted man."
"John Henry was a double-jinted man too. When he was a little boy, he weighed twenty pounds, a newborn baby, and his limbs was just as fat and stout—I had a picture of him; I know. I kept that picture a long time; I believe it's down at the house now. He was layin' up there so fat and stout. Even when he was a little baby he wanted to be a railroad man. He was a steel driver, the best there ever was in the world. He was double-jinted and he was a man with it. Always don't forget about John Henry that he was a double-jinted man, had two jints to your one.
"Had a little wife named sweet Polly Ann, and John Henry got low sick and he had malaria fever. And he was in the bed, doctor comin', an' before^ Polly Ann would let the steel driving go she went out and drove steel just like John Henry did. So every day she went out and drove steel till John Henry got better so he could go back on the job." —Lead Belly
1 John Henrys mother had a little baby, She was holding him in her hand,
If she be lucky and raise this child, Sheyll have another steel-driving man,
2 John Henry's mother told him, Says, "Son, you're doing awful fine, You go ahead 'long, do the best you can, That's the way yo' daddy died."
[259] |
||