SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

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 eml 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 f t mean stage manager
—I mean property man—yea, 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 widel
"De songs we used to sing in old days tftien 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 f Jungle-
town/ 'Red Wing, 1 and 'Mammy's Li f l Alabama Coon* 1 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
Bussellville, of course*
W I been married, but ain't married now# We couldn't git along some**
how. Yes suh, I been right here workin 1 stiddy for a long time* Been
janitor at two or three places same time; was janitor of de senior high
school here for twenty-two years, and at de Bank of Russellville twenty-
nine years*
"Folks always been mighty nice to me~-and no slave ever had a finer
master dan old Captain Scott.
"In de old show days de manager of de opery always said, 'Let de niggers
see de show, 1 and sometimes de house was half full of colored folks—
2«
132