Jonah's Gourd Vine

...Whuss de news?" "Oh de white folks is still in de lead.

God was grumbling his thunder and playing the zig-zag lightning thru his fingers.

World gone money mad. The pinch of war gone, people must spend. Buy and forget. Spend and solace. Silks for sorrows. Jewels to bring back joy.

Maybe nothin' ain't real sho' nuff. Maybe 'taint no world. No elements, no nothin'. Maybe wese jus' somewhere in God's mind. But when he wiggled his tired toes the world thudded and throbbed before him.

Big talk ain’t changin’ whut you doin’. You can’t clean yo’ self wid yo’ tongue lak uh cat.

Ah wouldn't give uh bitch uh bone if she treed uh terrapin.

Funny thing," he said sitting in Zeke's kitchen with his wife, "things dat happened long time uhgo used to seem way off, but now it all seems lak it wuz yistiddy. You think it's dead but de past ain't stopped breathin' yet.

The devouring force of the future leered at him at unexpected moments. Then too his daily self seemed to be wearing thin, and the past seeped thru and mastered him for increasingly longer periods.

You tries tuh be so much-knowin'. You got tuh learn how tuh speak when you spokin to, come when youse called." "Ah ain't got tuh do but two things--stay black and die," Sister Berry snapped.

You mean uh whole town uh nothin' but colored folks? Who bosses it, den?" "Dey bosses it deyself." "You mean dey runnin' de town 'thout de white folks?" "Sho is. Eben got a mayor and corporation." "Ah sho wants tuh see dat sight.

Jes' 'cause women folks ain't got no big muscled arm and fistes like jugs, folks claim they's weak vessels, but dass uh lie. Dat piece uh red flannel she got hung 'tween her jaws is equal tuh all the fistes God ever made and man ever seen.

She is full uh pepper," John laughed to himself, "but ah laks dat. Anything 'thout no seasonin' in it ain't no good.