Volume 10 — HAD A SET OF DOUBLE TEETH

BY HOLMAN F. DAY

Oh, listen while I tell you a truthful little tale Of a man whose teeth were double all the solid way around; He could jest as slick as preachin' bite in two a shingle-nail, Or squonch a molded bullet, sah, and ev'ry tooth was sound. I've seen him lift a keg of pork, a-bitin' on the chine, And he'd clench a rope and hang there like a puppy to a root; And a feller he could pull and twitch and yank up on the line, But he couldn't do no business with that double-toothed galoot. He was luggin' up some shingles,—bunch, sah, underneath each arm,— The time that he was shinglin' of the Baptist meetin'-house; The ladder cracked and buckled, but he didn't think no harm, When all at once she busted, and he started down kersouse. His head, sah, when she busted, it was jest abreast the eaves; And he nipped, sah, quicker 'n lightnin', and he gripped there with his teeth, And he never dropped the shingles, but he hung to both the sheaves, Though the solid ground was suttenly more 'n thirty feet beneath. He held there and he kicked there and he squirmed, but no one come; He was workin' on the roof alone—there war'n't no folks around— He hung like death to niggers till his jaw was set and numb, And he reely thought he'd have to drop them shingles on the ground. But all at once old Skillins come a-toddlin' down the street; Old Skil is sort of hump-backed, and he allus looks straight down; So he never seed the motions of them number 'leven feet, And he went a-amblin' by him—the goramded blind old clown! Now this ere part is truthful—ain't a-stretchin' it a mite,— When the feller seed that Skillins was a-walkin' past the place, Let go his teeth and hollered, but he grabbed back quick and tight, 'Fore he had a chance to tumble, and he hung there by the face. And he never dropped the shingles, and he never missed his grip, And he stepped out on the ladder when they raised it underneath; And up he went a-flukin' with them shingles on his hip, And there's the satisfaction of a havin' double teeth.