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BUCKSKIN PANTS (Story) Told by: W.P. Detherow Recorded in Batesville, AR 8/27/59 Click here to listen to the original recording So one time I had to go about five miles, going about five miles to Sunday school, and I had a date with a girl. And I went to Sunday school, and after it was all over with, I was kind of bashful and didn't have the nerve to walk off with her, and she'd look back as she went off. She kept looking back, but I didn't go with her, and I waited about a half an hour and followed her along, and it come a rain. One bad fault to the buckskin pants is, whenever they get wet, they'll stretch, and when they get dried out, why, they draw up. So I got soaking wet. When I got to where the girl lived, I went in, and my pants was away down around my shoes. And I was just upset so bad that I couldn't eat no supper. They asked me to supper, and I wouldn't eat no supper, and after supper they come in and the old lady and the old man got ready to go to bed, to give me a chance to talk to the girl, and they went to bed, and I was so upset I couldn't think of anything to say. And I set there a good little while, and finally the girl says, "If you've got anything to say to me, it's time you was a-saying it." I says, "Well, I guess I ain't got nothing to say tonight." She says, "Well, you can go to bed right over in that corner of the house there." There was a little old one-pane window--that's the kind they had in them days for light--and the pane had broken out--been broken out--and the rain was a-dripping in on me, and I took my buckskin pants and stopped the hole. And next morning I woke up and I heard something a-smacking and grunting, and I looked out and the old sow had reached up and gotten my buckskin pants and pulled them down in the mud and had them all messed up, and so I had to tell this story then, and they said I could wear the old man's pants, and he weighed 240 pound and I only weighed 135. And I put his pants on, and the seat almost drug the floor, and I took the first chair I come to and set down, and so I was upset and I couldn't eat no breakfast. Well, after breakfast it had cleared up, and the old man went to the field to cut sprouts and the daughter and her mother went to the barn to milk. And after a while they brought a big water bucket full of milk, set it on the table, and went back to separate the cows and calves, and I went and got that bucket and turned it up to drink me some milk, and the bail fell over my head and struck me in the back of the neck, and I thought the old lady was after me with a broomstick, and I just up and ran around there and tore the bucket up and spilt the milk everywhere and run away with the old man's pants on. |
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All Songs Recorded by John Quincy Wolf, Jr., unless otherwise noted The John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas Back to the Song Index Back to the Wolf Collection Homepage ©Copyright 2002 Lyon College |