Wlliam Gilmore Simms
The Simms Review (Vol 1: No 1) >> Bryant Visits Woodlands, 1843 >> Page 4

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Page 4

Correspondence | 1850, 1856
Transcription cows. At a plantation, where I passed a frosty night, I
saw fires in a small inclosure, and was told by the lady of the house that she had ordered them to be made to warm
the house that she had ordered them to be made to warm
the cattle.
The light-wood fire was made, and the negroes dropped
in from the neighboring plantations, singing as they came.
The driver of the plantation, a colored man, brought out
baskets of corn in the husk, and piled it in a heap ; and the negroes began to strip the husks from the ears, singing with great glee as they worked, keeping time to the music, and
now and then throwing in a joke and an extravagant burst
of laughter. The songs were generally of a comic charac-
ter ; but one of them was set to a singularly wild and
plaintive air, which some of our musicians would do well
to reduce to notation. These are the words :

Johnny come down de hollow.
Oh hollow 1
Johnny come down de hollow.
Oh hollow 1
De nigger-trader got me.
Oh hollow 1
Despeculator bought me.
Oh hollow 1
rm sold for silver dollars.
Oh hollow 1
Boys, go catch do pony.
Oh hollow 1
Bring .bim round de corner.
Oh hollow I
rm goin' away to Georgia,
Oh hollow 1
Boys, good-by forever 1
Oh hollow 1
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