fail an' I seen it work out just a few weeks ago when old Aunt Dinah
died up de road. I heered dat cow a lowin' an' a lowin' an' a walkin'
back an' forth down de road for 'bout four nights in a row, right past
Aunt Dinah's cabin. I say to my old woman dat somepin is sure gwine to
take place, an' dat some pusson gwine die soon cause dat cow, she givin'
de sign just right. Dere wasn't nobody 'round sick a tall an' Aunt
Dinah, she plumb well at de time. About er week from then Aunt Dinah,
she took down an' start to sinkin' right off an' in less than a week she
died. I knowed some pusson gwine die all right, yet an' still I didn't
know who it was to be. I tell you, Boss, I is gittin' uneasy an'
troubled de last day or two, 'cause I is done heered another cow a
lowin' an' a lowin' in de middle of de night. She keeps a walkin' back
an' forth past my house out there in de road. I is really troubled
'cause me an' de old woman both is gittin' old. We is both way up in
years an' whilst both of us is in real good health, Aunt Dinah was too.
Dat cow a lowin' like she do is a bad sign dat I done noticed mighty
nigh allus comes true."




Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Jordan Davis
306 Cypress Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 86


"I was a boy in the house when the war started and I heard the mistress
say the abolitionists was about to take the South. Yes ma'm. That was in
Natchez, Mississippi. I was about nine or ten.