DE LAM' A STRAYIN'.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1193, 4 November 1882, Page 4 (Supplement)

DE LAM' A STRAYIN'.

[Exhortation at a colored camp meeting. The dialect is that of a Mississippi plantation.] Look out, backslider, whar you walkin’ ? Make a misstep, sho’s you bo’n. I tell you what, it’s no use talkin’, Ef you slip up, chile, you gone ! De road is full er stumps and stubble, Ruts an’ sink holes eberywhar’, I spec’ dey’ll gib you heap er trouble, ’F you don’t stop yo’ foolin’ dar It’s dark ez pitch an’ mighty cloudy.. Spec’ de debbil’s walkin’ roun’, Fus’ thing you know he’ll tell you“ howdy”— Lif’ his hoof an’ stomp degroun’. Man, can’t you see a sto’m’s a brewin’ ? Hear de awful thunder peal! Look light’nin* threat’nin’ ruin— Oh, backslider, how you feel? Drap on yo’ knees an’ go to prayin’, Ax de Lawd to help you out. Chile, tell him, you’s a lam’ a strayin’— Done got los’ an’ stumblin’ ’bout, An’ den’ you’ll sec de stars a gleamin’— ’Lumination all de way. Yea, ’bout ten thousan’ twinklin’, beamin’— Smack untwell de break er day, But ef you fail, debbil git you. Fetch you slap ! right in yo’ eye, You’ll feel mos’ like er grape shot hit you, Drapp’d f’om half way to de sky ! —Robert McGee. A good-looking lass loves a good lookingglass. The clothes communion Baptists arc those who meet together to compare dress finery.— N. O. Picayune. Physiology—“ Mother, what have people got noses for ?” asked an Austin child of her mother, who had seen better days. “To turn up at poor folks, my child,” was the cynical response.