SON (ingratiatingly)—­“I ain’t sayin’ I ain’t.”

OLD DARKY (severely)—­“I ain’t ask you is you ain’t; I ask you ain’t you is.”

PARSON BLACK (sternly)—­“Did you come by dat watehmelyun honestly,
Bruddeh Bingy?”

THE MELON TOTER—­“‘Deed I did, pahson; ebry day fo’ nigh on two weeks!”—­Puck.

A Minneapolis laundress, a negro woman, patriotic supporter of the Red Cross, was among the thousands who witnessed a recent Red Cross parade in the Mill City in which fifteen thousand white-clad women participated.  In telling a Red Cross worker how she liked it, she said: 

“Lawdy, missus, it suttinly was a gran’ spectacle.  Nevah in mah whole life did I see so much washin’ at one time.”

“Why is it, Sam, that one never hears of a darky committing suicide?” inquired the Northerner.

“Well, you see, it’s disaway, boss:  When a white pusson has any trouble he sets down an’ gits to studyin’ ‘bout it an’ a-worryin’.  Then firs’ thing you know he’s done killed hisse’f.  But when a nigger sets down to think ‘bout his troubles, why, he jes’ natcherly goes to sleep!”—­Life.

“No, sah,” said the aged colored man to the reporter who’d asked if he had ever seen President Lincoln.  “Ah used to ‘member seein’ Massa Linkum, but since Ah j’ined de church Ah doan ‘member seein’ him no mo’.”

A Psychiatric Board was testing the mentality of a thick-lipped, weak-faced Negro soldier.  Among other questions, the specialist asked, “Do you ever hear voices without being able to tell who is speaking, or where the sound comes from?”

“Yes, suh,” answered the negro.

“When does this occur?”

“When I’se talkin’ over de telephone.”

An Alabama darky, who prided himself on being able to play any tune on the banjo after he had heard it once, perched himself on the side of a hill one Sunday morning and began to pick the strings in a workman-like manner.

It chanced that the minister came along.  Going up to Moses, he demanded harshly, “Moses, do you know the Ten Commandments?”

Moses scratched his chin for a moment, and then, in an equally harsh voice, said: 

“Parson, yo’ don’t think yo’ kin beat me do yo’?  Jest yo’ whistle the first three or four bars, an’ I’ll have a try at it.”—­Harper’s.

One day Miss Maria Thompson Daviess, the author, walked down a street in Nashville.  The street was crowded with Negroes, who were forming in a line for a parade.

“What’s the occasion for the parade, Tom?” she asked of a boy.

The boy looked at her with a grin.

“La, Miss Daviess,” he replied, “don’ you-all know colored folks well ‘nough to know dat dey don’ need no ’casion foh a p’rade?”

An old doctor was making a call on a colored family.  While talking to the patient he was continually interrupted by a crying baby, which sat on the floor and grumbled and whined continually.  Finally, the mother picked the child up.