UNCLE JIM'S BAPTIST REVIVAL HYMN.

BY SIDNEY AND CLIFFORD LANIER.

[Not long ago a certain Georgia cotton-planter, driven to desperation by awaking each morning to find that the grass had quite outgrown the cotton overnight, and was likely to choke it, in defiance of his lazy freedmen's hoes and ploughs, set the whole State in a laugh by exclaiming to a group of fellow-sufferers: "It's all stuff about Cincinnatus leaving the plough to go into politics for patriotism; he was just a-runnin' from grass!

This state of things-when the delicate young rootlets of the cotton are struggling against the hardier multitudes of the grass-suckers-is universally described in plantation parlance by the phrase "in the grass;" and Uncle Jim appears to have found in it so much similarity to the condition of his own (" Baptis' ") church, overrun, as it was, by the cares of this world, that he has embodied it in the refrain of a revival hymn such as the colored improvisator of the South not infrequently constructs from his daily surroundings. He has drawn all the ideas of his stanzas from the early morning phenomena of those critical weeks when the loud plantation-horn is blown before daylight, in order to rouse all hands for a long day's fight against the common enemy of cotton-planting mankind.

In addition to these exegetical commentaries, the Northern reader probably needs to be informed that the phrase "peerten up" means substantially to spur up, and is an active form of the adjective "peert' (probably a corruption of pert), which is so common in the South, and which has much the signification of "smart" in New England, as e.g., a" peert" horse, in antithesis to a "sorry"-i.e., poor, mean, lazy one.]

Solo.-Sin's rooster's crowed, Ole Mahster's riz,
De sleepin'-time is pas';
Wake up dem lazy Baptissis,
Chorus.-Dey's mightily in de grass, grass,
Dey's mightily in de grass.

Ole Mahster's blowed de mornin' horn,
He's blowed a powerful blas';

O Baptis' come, come hoe de corn,

You's mightily in de grass, grass,
You's mightily in de grass.

1876.

De Meth'dis team's done hitched; O fool,

De day's a-breakin' fas';

Gear up dat lean ole Baptis' mule,

Dey's mightily in de grass, grass,
Dey's mightily in de grass.

De workmen's few an' mons'rous slow,

De cotton's sheddin' fas';

Whoop, look, jes' look at de Baptis' row,
Hit's mightily in de grass, grass,

Hit's mightily in de grass.

De jay-bird squeal to de mockin'-bird: "Stop!

Don' gimme none o' yo' sass ;

Better sing one song for de Baptis' crop,
Dey's mightily in de grass, grass,
Dey's mightily in de grass."

And de ole crow croak: "Don' work, no, no; "
But de fiel'-lark say, “Yaas, yaas,

An' I spec' you mighty glad, you debblish crow,
Dat de Baptissis's in de grass, grass,

Dat de Baptissis's in de grass!"

Lord, thunder us up to de plowin'-match,
Lord, peerten de hoein' fas',

Yea, Lord, hab mussy on de Baptis' patch,

Dey's mightily in de grass, grass,
Dey's mightily in de grass.

NINE FROM EIGHT.

I WAS drivin' my two-mule waggin,
With a lot o' truck for sale,

Towards Macon, to git some baggin'

(Which my cotton was ready to bale),

And I come to a place on the side o' the pike

Whar a peert little winter branch jest had throw'd

The sand in a kind of a sand-bar like,

And I seed, a leetle ways up the road,

A man squattin' down, like a big bull-toad,
On the ground, a-figgerin' thar in the sand
With his finger, and motionin' with his hand,
And he looked like Ellick Garry.

And as I driv up, I heerd him bleat

To hisself, like a lamb: "Hauh? nine from eight Leaves nuthin'—and none to carry ?"

And Ellick's bull-cart was standin'

A cross-wise of the way,

And the little bull was a-expandin',

Hisself on a wisp of hay.

But Ellick he sat with his head bent down,

A-studyin' and musir.' powerfully,

And his forrud was creased with a turrible frown,

And he was a-wurken' appearently

A 'rethmetic sum that wouldn't gee,

Fur he kep' on figgerin' away in the sand

With his finger, and motionin' with his hand,
And I seed it was Ellick Garry.

And agin I heard him softly bleat

To hisself, like a lamb: "Hauh? nine from eight Leaves nuthin'—and none to carry !"

I woa'd my mules mighty easy
(Ellick's back was towards the road
And the wind hit was sorter breezy)
And I got down off'n my load,

And I crep' up close to Ellick's back,
And I heerd him a-talkin' softly, thus:
"Them figgers is got me under the hack.
I caint see how to git out'n the muss,
Except to jest nat'ally fail and bus'!
My crap-leen calls for nine hundred and more.
My counts o' sales is eight hundred and four,
Of cotton for Ellick Garry.

Thar's eight, ought, four, jest like on a slate :
Here's nine and two oughts-Hauh? nine from eigh?
Leaves nuthin'-and none to carry.

"Them crap-leens, oh, them crap-leens !
I giv one to Pardman and Sharks.
Hit gobbled me up like snap-beans
In a patch full o' old fiel❜-larks.

But I thought I could fool the crap-leen nice,
And I hauled my cotton to Jammel and Cones.
But shuh! 'fore I even had settled my price
They tuck affidavy without no bones

And levelled upon me fur all ther loans

To the 'mount of sum nine hundred dollars or more, And sold me out clean for eight hundred and four,

As sure as I'm Ellick Garry!

And thar it is down all squar and straight,

But I can't make it gee, fur nine from eight
Leaves nuthin'—and none to carry."

Then I says "Hello, here, Garry!
However you star' and frown
Thare's somethin' fur you to carry,

Fur you've worked it upside down!"
Then he riz and walked to his little bull-cart,
And made like he neither had seen nor heerd
Nor knowed that I knowed of his raskilly part,
And he tried to look as if he wa'nt feared,
And gathered his lines like he never keered,
And he driv down the road 'bout a quarter or so,
And then looked around, and I hollered "Hello,
Look here, Mister Ellick Garry!

You may git up soon and lie down late,

But you'll always find that nine from eight

Leaves nuthin'—and none to carry."

MACON, GEORGIA, 1870.