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Of course I tell it in the negro dialect--that is necessary; but I have
not written it so, for I can't spell it in your matchless way. It is
marvelous the way you and Cable spell the negro and creole dialects.
Two grand features are lost in print: the weird wailing, the rising and
falling cadences of the wind, so easily mimicked with one's mouth; and
the impressive pauses and eloquent silences, and subdued utterances,
toward the end of the yarn (which chain the attention of the children
hand and foot, and they sit with parted lips and breathless, to be
wrenched limb from limb with the sudden and appalling "You got it").
Old Uncle Dan'l, a slave of my uncle's' aged 60, used to tell us
children yarns every night by the kitchen fire (no other light;) and the
last yarn demanded, every night, was this one. By this time there was
but a ghastly blaze or two flickering about the back-log. We would
huddle close about the old man, and begin to shudder with the first
familiar words; and under the spell of his impressive delivery we always
fell a prey to that climax at the end when the rigid black shape in the
twilight sprang at us with a shout.
When you come to glance at the tale you will recollect it--it is as
common and familiar as the Tar Baby. Work up the atmosphere with your
customary skill and it will "go" in print.
Lumbago seems to make a body garrulous--but you'll forgive it.
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