Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/149

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Rare Earth

with only an occasional slip back into Gullah jargon. Of course when she sang the old songs and lullabys she always did so in the negro manner. To change them would have been to rob them of their richness. For simple, rustic beauty it would be hard to improve upon such songs as:

"All about me sugar-cane,
Way up dere de moon,
Wind in tree-top's lullaby—
Merry, happy croon.

Mammy Tree's a-singin',
To her baby sleepin'
In de dark earth-cradle
As de night comes creepin'."

Enoch was very tender-hearted. He used to pick up all the stray dogs and cats he found and carry them home with him. He'd make beds in the barn and carry out saucers of potatoes and milk for them, sometimes scraps of meat. At times it happened that he had as many as five or six animals sheltered in the

barn, bony, savage, dirty, ugly, occasionally

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