and could sing baritone a little. Ed Williamson and Tom Nick was de
principal dancers, and Tom would make up all de plays. What? Stole a
unifawm coat of yours? Why, I never knowed Tom to do anything like that!
Anyway, he was a good-hearted niggah--but you dunno what he might do.
Yes, I still takes out a show occasionally to de towns around Pope
and Yell and Johnson counties, and folks treat us mighty fine. Big
crowds--played to $47.00 clear money at Clarksville. Usually take about
eight and ten in our comp'ny, boys and gals--and we give em a real hot
minstrel show.

"De old show days? Never kin forgit em! I was stage manager of de old
opery house here, you remember, for ten years, and worked around de
old printin' office downstairs for seven years. No, I don't mean stage
manager--I mean property man--yes, had to rustle de props. And did we
have road shows dem days! Richards & Pringle's Georgia minstrels, de
Nashville students, Lyman Twins, Barlow Brothers Minstrels, and--oh,
ever so many more--yes, Daisy, de Missouri Girl, wid Fred Raymond. Never
kin forgit old black Billy Kersands, wid his mouf a mile wide!

"De songs we used to sing in old days when I was a kid after de War
wasn't no purtier dan what we used to sing wid our own minstrel show
when we was at our best twenty-five and thirty years ago; songs like
'Jungletown,' 'Red Wing,' and 'Mammy's Li'l Alabama Coon.' Our circuit
used to be around Holla Bend, Dover, Danville, Ola, Charleston, Nigger
Ridge, out from Pottsville, and we usually starred off at the old opery
house in Russellville, of course.

"I been married, but ain't married now. We couldn't git along somehow.
Yes suh, I been right here workin' stiddy for a long time. Been janitor
at two or three places same time; was janitor of de senior high school