Singers and Storytellers Page: 24
v, 298 p. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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SINGERS AND STORYTELLERS
concludes thus, most of the punctuation marks being added:
Since I seen you, instead of one location out where I was at work,
there is 5. I have done work on all 5-enough to satisfy me that I am
right, but have not finished any one place. If you come out this way this
summer stop an see me, if you get here at night and I am gone get a
kee from Conring and take my room-the east front room, there will be
a bed in there, then next morning come on out to the mountains-you
know the way.
In the summer of 1958 an intelligent and able young man
of Austin named Ed Wallace, who had prospected in the
Chinati Mountains and elsewhere out from Valentine, came to
see me. He had been with Bill Cole a good deal before Cole
died in 1957 at the age of eighty-six. Bill, he said, had main-
tained a wholesome unconcern for his soul until he died, had
carried himself erect as of old, and always had money enough
to drink good whiskey and eat good meat regularly. He enjoyed
sharing both with somebody he liked. He evidently liked Ed
Wallace, who had come across him first in the mountains.
Bill had not confined his digging to the mountains. He dug
two big holes in his own front yard and tore down the
gallery-some call it porch-to the house in order to dig under
it. This was after his mother, old, old, had died. He was
following "sure leads." His crowbar had got hung in what
Bill pronounced "bullion" in one of the holes in the yard. It
took a block and tackle to pull the crowbar loose.
Of all the storytellers who imparted something out of
themselves to me, Railroad Smith alone revealed a plan for
stringing together stories that he either told or left half-told,
besides a lot untold altogether. Back in the days when the
University of Texas campus consisted of forty acres and no
skyscraper, R. R. Smith used to "come home," as he put it, once
in a while to talk. He could talk through the day and talk
through the night. He was long beyond the longest of art. His24
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Singers and Storytellers (Book)
Collection of popular folklore of Texas, including personal anecdotes about storytellers and singers, as well as folk songs, myths, and ghost stories. The index begins on page 295.
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Boatright, Mody C. Singers and Storytellers, book, 1961; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc67655/m1/30/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.