DADDY DO-FUNNY'S

WISDOM JINGLES

BY

RUTH McENERY STUART

ILLUSTRATED BY G. H. CLEMENTS

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1916

Copyright, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, by
The Century Co.
Published, October, 1913

To the Memory of those faithful brown slave-men of the plantations throughout the South, Daddy's contemporaries all, who during the war while their masters were away fighting in a cause opposed to their emancipation, brought their blankets and slept outside their mistresses' doors, thus keeping night-watch over otherwise unprotected women and children—a faithful guardianship of which the annals of those troublous times record no instance of betrayal.

FOREWORD

In presenting a loyal and venerable ex-slave as an artless exponent of freedom, freedom of conduct as well as of speech, the author of this trivial volume is perhaps not composing an individual so truly as individualizing a composite, if the expression will pass.

The grizzled brown dispenser of homely admonitions is a figure not unfamiliar to those who have "moved in plantation circles" in the cotton and sugar country, and touched hands with the kindly dark survivors of the old regime.

If the man, Daddy Do-funny, was unique as an individual, perhaps in the very fact of an individuality unembarrassed by the limitations of convention, of education and of precedent, he becomes in a sense typical of his people and of his time.

Of course, a man is not called Do-funny for nothing, not even playfully and in the free vernacular of rusticity at its freest.

One of a small community of superannuated pensioners upon the bounty of their former owners, Daddy was easily first citizen of Evergreen annex on Crepe Myrtle plantation, which is to say he was therein a personage of place and of privilege, coming and going at will, doing as he pleased, and as, with uplifted eye, he reverently boasted, "sponsible to nobody but Almighty Gord for manners and behavior."

Even so late as this year of grace, a full half century after "emancipation," there are still to be found on many of the larger plantations in the far South a few such members of the order of the Rocking-chair, whose records of "good and honorable service" reach back through periods of bondage, even such kindergartners as septuagenarians in the privileged class, having clear title to nearly a quarter of a century of slave memories; not to mention the occasional centenarian with even his semi-occasional uncle or father poking around, toothless and white-plumed dignitaries, these, sometimes with leaders, being blind, but ever important in pride of association and memory.

It is something even if one is bent double and may never again behold the light of day, to be able to reach back into a dim and forgotten past and to say, "I remember," especially when the memory recalls days of brilliance and of importance.

But Daddy's place among the gentle Knights and Ladies of the Rocking-chair was far and away above such as these whose thoughts, alert though they were and loyal, travelled forever backward to the sweet but worn fields of memory where every pleasure is a recognition and fashions do not change—a restful retreat for dreamers whose days of activity are done.

But Daddy's mind worked forward and upward and although he did not know the alphabet excepting by rote, a common ante-bellum plantation accomplishment, and while professing high contempt for what he called "cold shelf-knowledge," his reputation for wisdom, wisdom as gleaned in observation and experience and "ripened by insight," was supreme, while his way of casually tossing it off in bits in playful epigram finally gave the word its plural form so that the expression "Do-Funny Wisdoms" came into familiar use.

As an example of his rambling talk, much of which seems at least semivagarious on transcription, I recall one of his meandering dissertations on the value of experience as superior to observation.

Several of the old people, his neighbors, had joined the listening children who surrounded him under the fig-tree, and perhaps he unconsciously deferred to them in his accent of their common possession in length of days, although he gave no sign of heed to any audience, when he said:

"Dey's mighty few facts de same behind an' befo', not to say inside an' outside, and a man can go roun' an' roun' de blackberry bush an' not git nowhar. 'Spe'unce is a thorny bramble, an' yer 'bleeged to go th'ough it, to draw blood, an', I tell yer, de blood is de life!"

Although this tribute brought grunts of approval from the gray heads, Daddy was soon off at a tangent in playful fancy, hitting off a foible or "celebrating truth and justice" in one of the unconscious epigrams which it is sought herein to preserve, even when having occasionally to hammer them into shape, for, while Daddy was almost unerring in rhyme, his rhythm, never at fault in delivery, was strictly a temperamental matter, not adequately renderable in cold print.

But more than as philosopher, satirist or seer was the old man distinguished as a social factor on the place. Wherever his chair was set, there were the children gathered together, both black and white, eager listeners to his quaint pictorial recitals, even seeming to cherish the "Wisdoms" which fell from his tongue, as is not a common way with children, who seem instinctively to spurn the obviously didactic.

But Daddy's moralizing, besides its saving grace of imagery, was generally sequential and convincing; while his repartee, to use a word which seems almost a misfit in this rural setting, had a way of hitting the mark and striking fire, as when, in reply to the question from a forth-putting youngster on one occasion, "Where do you keep all your wisdoms, Daddy?" he snapped:

"In my ole toof holes, dat's whar! Wisdoms don't ripen good tel yo' toofs is ready to drap out. Ev'rybody knows dat Gord A'mighty ain't nuver is set but one live Wisdom-toof in a man's mouf—an' dat comes late an' goes early."

And then he added with a mischievous smile:

"You-all smarty undergrowth, you ain't chawed life yit. You jes 'speramintin' wid yo' milk-toofs.

"Now's yo' havin' time, chillen, but to have an' to lose, dat's life!

"Study wisdom now an' minch on it good wid yo yo'ng baby toofs an' hol' fas' to it, so's it'll meller down ripe, time de caverns opens for it.

"But look out! I knows a lot o' ole vacant wisdom caves for rent behin' dis crepe myrtle hedge—so, I say, watch and pray! Pray for insight an' outsight! An' even so, dey's some wisdoms so fine you can't see 'em tel you nearin' Home an' livin' on de far side o' life!"

Daddy lived alone in a tiny vine-clad cabin and there were times when he seemed frail and to need care, and the doctor said he was rheumatic. This, however, he denied, declining companionship while he insisted that the sharp pains which occasionally twisted his brow were only growing pains which he was glad to endure as not having got his growth in his first childhood, he was "'bleeged to wrastle wid it in de second," and, "of course," he added, "it comes harder when a man's bones is set."

On days when his pains were bad, he would propel himself around in a roller-chair, which he called his chariot; and although evidently suffering, he was never heard to complain. Once, when he seemed almost helpless, some one asked him how he had got into the chair, and was quickly silenced by his ready answer, "Gord lifted me in!"

Now, to Daddy clothes were clothes. In dress as in manners, he knew no obligation of precedent; and as to fashion, the word made him chuckle.

When his pains were unusually severe and it was difficult for him to get into his own garments, he did not hesitate to clothe himself in one of the flowing wrappers which his old wife, Judy, long since dead, had worn.

And thus it happened that while on some days an aged man might have been seen hobbling about, working among his plants, on others there appeared to be an old woman propelling herself around in a rolling chair; and seeing her, his neighbors, with perhaps a chuckle, would remark, "I see Daddy Do-funny is laid up ag'in!"

Another peculiar habit of the old man was the way in which he took his bath—a dangerous process, one would think, for a rheumatic, but harmless, no doubt, to growing pains. Seeing the rain coming, he would exclaim: "Gord sendeth de rain! He's offerin' me a bath—just or unjust!" Then donning his "bath-slip," an old wool wrapper of Judy's and getting into his roller-chair, he would wheel out and sit calmly in the shower, often closing his eyes and lifting his face as he exclaimed: "Bless Gord for de sweet drops! Bless Gord for de rain!" and when he had had bath enough, he would either put up his umbrella or roll his chair indoors as he felt inclined.

But perhaps we cannot get nearer the soul of the old man than by recalling a conversation which occurred during an invasion of the children, a conversation between him and his guests which is thrown into a sort of rhyme for easy memorizing, passing from one speaker to another without more than the natural pause for reply.

Obviously, the children began it:

"Ol' Daddy Do-funny,
How do you come on?"
"Po'ly, thank Gord, honey,
Po'ly dis morn.
My ol' spine it's sort o' stiff,
An' my arms dey 'fuze to lif'.
An' de miz'ry 's in my breas',
An' I got some heart-distress.
An' de growin' pains dey lingers,
In my knee-j'ints an' my fingers,
But I'm well, praise Gord, dis mornin'."

"Ol' Daddy Do-funny,
What cuyus talk!
How is you well, when you
Can't even walk?"

"Hush, you foolish chillen, hush!
What's dat singin' in de brush?
Ain't dat yonder blue de sky?
Feel de cool breeze passin' by!
Dis ol' painful back an' knee,
Laws-a-mussy, dey ain't me!
I'm well, praise Gord, dis mornin'!"

RUTH McENERY STUART.

DADDY DO-FUNNY'S WISDOM JINGLES

DADDY'S WEATHER PRAYER

THE OLD ROOSTER

THE BUTTERFLY

THE WREN

THE WATERMELON

THE GOURD

JUDGE OWL

THE MOSQUITO

CONFESSION

Dat whale wha' gulped Br'er Jonah down
Was bleeged to swim close-t to de groun'
Ontel he riz up an' confessed
He'd swallered mo' 'n he could digest.
But you ain't by yo'self, Br'er Whale, in dat—
No, you ain't by yo'self in dat.

THE GAME-COCK

Dey's some things square an' some things round,
An' little game cocks ain't sol' by de pound;
Dey's weighed by sand an' pluck an' grit
An' de number o' dead dey leave in de pit.
An' dey ain't by deyselves in rank like dat—
No, dey ain't by deyselves in dat.

THE EPICURE

Ef you keep yo' eyes on Br'er Carrion Crow,
You'll wonder huccome he kin carry on so!
He flies in high circles an' chooses meat
Dat no honest workin'-man would eat.
An' he ain't no new high-flyer in dat—
No, he ain't by 'isself in dat.

THE MULE

THE GRUBWORM

Br'er Grubworm wrops 'isself in twine
An' swings in 'is shroud on a evergreen vine,
Becaze it's mortal death dat brings
His on'iest chance to git 'is wings.
But you ain't by yo'self, Br'er Worm, in dat—
Oh, you ain't by yo'self in dat.

RAIN OR SHINE?

LITTLE GREEN TREE-TOAD

SPARROWS

THE FLY

THE LITTLE CHICKEN