I implored him to proceed.
"Once we boys," he said, "went for tote some rice and de nigger-driver he keep a-callin' on us; and I say, 'O, de ole nigger-driver!' Den anudder said, 'Fust ting my mammy tole me was, notin' so bad as nigger-driver.' Den I made a sing, just puttin' a word, and den anudder word." Then he began singing, and the men, after listening a moment, joined in the chorus, as if it were an old acquaintance, though they evidently had never heard it before.

I saw how easily a new "sing" took root among them.
XXXVI.

THE DRIVER.
"O, de ole nigger-driver! O, gwine away! Fust ting my mammy tell me, O, gwine away! Tell me 'bout de nigger-driver, O, gwine away! Nigger-driver second devil, O, gwine away! Best ting for do he driver, O, gwine away! Knock he down and spoil he labor, O, gwine away!" It will be observed that, although this song is quite secular in its character, yet its author called it a "spiritual." I heard but two songs among them, at any time, to which they would not, perhaps, have given this generic name.

One of these consisted simply in the endless repetition--after the manner of certain college songs--of the mysterious line,-- "Rain fall and wet Becky Lawton." But who Becky Lawton was, and why she should or should not be wet, and whether the dryness was a reward or a penalty, none could say.

I got the impression that, in either case, the event was posthumous, and that there was some tradition of grass not growing over the grave of a sinner; but even this was vague, and all else vaguer.
The other song I heard but once, on a morning when a squad of men came in from picket duty, and chanted it in the most rousing way.