“Aw, mama, it’s not Sunday yet,” said Harriett.

“Sing Casey Jones,” called old man Tom Johnson. “That’s ma song.”

So the ballad of the immortal engineer with another mama in the Promised Land rang out promptly in the starry darkness, while everybody joined in the choruses.

“Aw, pick it, boy,” yelled the old man. “Can’t nobody play like you.”

And Jimboy remembered when he was a lad in Memphis that W. C. Handy had said: “You ought to make your living out of that, son.” But he hadn’t followed it up—too many things to see, too many places to go, too many other jobs.

“What song do you like, Annjee?” he asked, remembering her presence again.

“O, I don’t care. Any ones you like. All of ’em are pretty.” She was pleased and petulant and a little startled that he had asked her.

“All right, then,” he said. “Listen to me:”

Here I is in de mean ole jail.
Ain’t got nobody to go ma bail.
Lonesome an’ sad an’ chain gang bound—
Ever’ friend I had’s done turned me down.

“That’s sho it!” shouted Tom Johnson in great sympathy. “Now, when I was in de Turner County Jail . . .”

“Shut up yo’ mouth!” squelched Sarah, jabbing her husband in the ribs.

The songs went on, blues, shouts, jingles, old hits: Bon Bon Buddy, the Chocolate Drop; Wrap Me in Your Big Red Shawl; Under the Old Apple Tree; Turkey in the Straw—Jimboy and Harriett breaking the silence of the small-town summer night until Aunt Hager interrupted:

“You-all better wind up, chillens, ’cause I wants to go to bed. I ain’t used to stayin’ ’wake so late, nohow. Play something kinder decent there, son, fo’ you stops.”

Jimboy, to tease the old woman, began to rock and moan like an elder in the Sanctified Church, patting both feet at the same time as he played a hymn-like, lugubrious tune with a dancing overtone:

Tell me, sister,
Tell me, brother,
Have you heard de latest news?

Then seriously as if he were about to announce the coming of the Judgment:

A woman down in Georgia
Got her two sweet-men confused.

How terrible! How sad! moaned the guitar.

One knocked on de front do’,
One knocked on de back—

Sad, sad . . . sad, sad! said the music.

Now that woman down in Georgia’s
Door-knob is hung with black.

O, play that funeral march, boy! while the guitar laughed a dirge.

An’ de hearse is comin’ easy
With two rubber-tired hacks!

Followed by a long-drawn-out, churchlike:

Amen . . . !

Then with rapid glides, groans, and shouts the instrument screamed of a sudden in profane frenzy, and Harriett began to ball-the-jack, her arms flopping like the wings of a headless pigeon, the guitar strings whining in ecstasy, the player rocking gaily to the urgent music, his happy mouth crying: “Tack ’em on down, gal! Tack ’em on down, Harrie!”

But Annjee had risen.

“I wish you’d come in and eat the ham I brought you,” she said as she picked up her chair and started towards the house. “And you, Sandy! Get up from under that tree and go to bed.” She spoke roughly to the little fellow, whom the songs had set a-dreaming. Then to her husband: “Jimboy, I wish you’d come in.”