As recorded by John Gould Fletcher in Arkansas (University of North Carolina Press, 1947).
(A traveller, riding through the remote Ozarks, with nightfall fast coming on and his horse spent, approached the cabin of a squatter, who was sitting at his door on the upturned end of an old whisky barrel, sawing briefly and furiously away at an old fiddle. The traveller, still sitting on his horse, spoke first:)
TRAVELLER: Hello, stranger!
SQUATTER: Hello, yourself.
TRAVELLER: Can you tell me where this road goes to?
SQUATTER: Hit’s never gone anywhar since I’ve lived here; hit’s always thar when I git up in the mornin’.
TRAVELLER: Well, how far is it to where it forks?
SQUATTER: Hit don’t fork noways, but hit splits up like the devil.
TRAVELLER: Can I get to stay all night with you?
SQUATTER: You kin git to go to hell.
TRAVELLER: Have you got any spirits?
SQUATTER: Plenty of ’em. Sall saw one down by the old holler gum thar, the other night, and hit like to skeered her to death.
TRAVELLER: I don’t mean that kind of spirits. I want some liquor. Have you got any liquor?
SQUATTER: Had some yestidy, but old Bose, he got in and lapped all of hit clean outen the pot.
TRAVELLER: You still don’t understand me. I don’t mean pot liquor. I’m wet and cold, and I want some whisky. Have you got any whisky?
SQUATTER: Oh, yes — I drunk the last of hit this mornin’.
TRAVELLER: Well, I’m hungry and I want something to eat. Have you got anything to eat?
SQUATTER: Hain’t a damned thing in the house. Not a mouthful of meat, nor a dust of meal.
TRAVELLER: Well, can’t you feed my horse?
SQUATTER: Hain’t got nothin’ to feed him on.
TRAVELLER: How far is it to the next house?
SQUATTER: Dunno, stranger; I hain’t never measured hit, nor been thar.
TRAVELLER: Well, do you know who lives here?
SQUATTER: I do.
TRAVELLER: Then what might your name be?
SQUATTER: Hit mout be Dick and hit mout be Tom; but hit lacks a damn sight of either.
TRAVELLER: Since I’m not likely to get to any other house tonight, can’t you let me sleep in yours? I’ll tie my horse to that tree, and do without anything to eat or to drink.
SQUATTER: The house leaks. Thar’s only one dry spot in hit, and me and Sall has to sleep on that. And that thar tree is the ole woman’s persimmon. Yer cain’t tie yore hoss to hit, caze she don’t want the ’simmons shuck down. She ’lows to make beer out’n em.
TRAVELLER: Why don’t you finish covering your house then, and stop the leaks?
SQUATTER: Hit’s been a-rainin’ all day.
TRAVELLER: Why don’t you do it in the dry weather, then?
SQUATTER: Hit don’t leak, then.
TRAVELLER: I am puzzled to see how you manage to make a living here. How do you do, anyhow?
SQUATTER: Purty well, thank ye; how do yew do yerself?
TRAVELLER: I mean, what do you do for a living?
SQUATTER: Keep a tavern, and sell whisky.
TRAVELLER: Well, I told you that I wanted some whisky.
SQUATTER: Stranger, I bought a bar’l more’n a week ago. Yew see, me and Sall went shares on hit. Arter a while, we had made only a bit betweenst us, and Sall, she didn’t want to use her share fust, nor me mine. I had a spiggin in one end, and she in tother. So she takes a drink out’n my end, and pays me the bit for it; and then I took one out o’ hern, and give her back the bit. We were gittin’ along fust rate, till Dick, that damn skulking skunk, bourn a hole on the bottom to suck at, and the next time I went to fotch me a drink, I’ll be danged but thar wurn’t none thar.
TRAVELLER: Well, I’m sorry that your whisky’s all gone; but, my friend, why don’t you play the balance of that tune?
SQUATTER: Hit’s got no balance to it.
TRAVELLER: I mean, you don’t play the whole of it.
SQUATTER: Stranger, kin yew play the fiddul?
TRAVELLER: I can saw a little, sometimes.
SQUATTER: Wal, if I was a-goin’ to kill a fiddler, I’d never shoot at yew; but if yew think yew kin play any more onto that thar tune, yew kin jist git down and try.
(The Traveller gets down, and plays through the tune. The Squatter starts dancing.)
SQUATTER: Stranger, take half a dozen cheers and sot down. Sall, stir yourself round like a six-mule team in a mud-hole. Go down in the holler whar I killed that buck this mornin’, cut off some of the best pieces, and fotch and cook hit for me and this gentleman. Till, drive old Bose out’n the bread tray, then climb up in the loft and git the rag that’s got the sugar tied in it. Tom, raise up the board under the head of the bed, and git the old black jug I hid from Dick, and give us some whisky; I know thar’s some left yit. Dick, take this gentleman’s hoss around under the shed, and give him some fodder and cawn, all that he kin eat.
TILL: Dad, thar ain’t knives enuf to sot the table with.
SQUATTER: Whar’s Big Butch, Little Butch, Old Case, Cobhandle, Granny’s Knife, and the one I handled yistidy? That’s ’nuff to sot any man’s table with, withouten yew’ve lost ’em. Damme, stranger, yew kin stay here jist as long as ye want to, and I’ll give ye plenty to eat and drink. Will yew have coffee for yore supper?
TRAVELLER: Yes, sir.
SQUATTER: I’ll be hanged if ye do; we ain’t got nothin’ that way here, but Grub Hyson, and I reckon hit’s mighty good with long sweetenin’. Play away, stranger, yew kin sleep on the dry spot tonight.
TRAVELLER (after about two hours fiddling): My friend, can’t you tell me about the road I’m to travel tomorrow?
SQUATTER: Tomorrow! Stranger, yew won’t git out’n these diggins for six weeks. But when hit gits so yew kin start, ye see that big sloo over thar? Wal, yew haf to git crost that fust, then yew take the big road up the bank, and in about a mile, yew’ll come to a two-acre-and-a-half cawnpatch, the cawn’s mightily in weeds, but yew needn’t mind that, jist ride on. In about a mile and a half, or mebbe two miles, yew’ll come to the damndest swamp yew ever seen. Hit’s boggy enuf to mire a saddle blanket. Thur’s a fust rate road about six feet under thar.
TRAVELLER: How am I to get at it?
SQUATTER: Yew cain’t get at hit noways, till the weather stiffens down some. Wal, about a mile from thar, yew’ll come to whar thur’s two roads. Yew kin take the right-hand one, if yew want to; yew’ll foller hit a mile or so, and yew’ll find hit’s just plum run out; then come back and try the left one; when yew git about two miles along on that, you may know ye air wrong; for thur ain’t no road thar. Then yew’ll think yerself mighty lucky if yew kin git back here, where yew kin play that tune, and stay jist as long as yew please.”