Browse:Three Times, Walk Round (Volume 1, entries 2332)
Three Times, Walk Round
Volume 1, entries 2332. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → HANDS: MAGIC HELPERS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 2332
Anyhow, I went for a job - I needn't tell de names - I went for a job and de job was pile drivin', you know at de wharf on a pile driver, and I asked de man did he want to hire a man. He looked at me and he says, "Yes, go 'board of de driver dere." I walked round dis man with my means on me three times and he hollered 'board dis driver - holler 'board [to] de captain of de driver, 'Here's a man I'm goin' to send you." "I don't want him," [answered the captain]. I walked around him third time. He says to me, "Go on walk aboard dere," he says, ''dat is my driver." I went off aboard and I says - he asked me, the captain did, asked me, "You ever been on a driver before?" 'No, sir." "Well, what de hell good are you here?" I says, "This driver is on water and I'm a waterman from your heart." All right.
(A waterman from where?)
From his heart. He say, "Well, if you stay here, I find you out." All right. All at once de harmer fall - broke. Dat dat pulls dat big hammer up - it broke. He told a man he had dere with him, "Mike a'go up - Pete," he said, "and put dat cord together." He went up dere. "An' take dis fellah on with you" - dat's me. "Take dis fellah up along with you," told him, "help you hold it." He took me along with him. And I went up dere - harmless, you know, don't know nuthin now. All right, I hold it for 'im. Presently, I see dey was doin' it wrong - dat dey were strikin' it wrong. I says, "Pete, if I was you, I wouldn't put it together like dat." The captain says, "Turn it." over to him and see what he kin do with it." I took it and I holds it together just like it ought to be, you know, be- cause I been a sailorman all de time. I'm a rigger. I took it and I put it to- gether and come on down. He says, "I rated you at $1.50 a day but," he say, "now I'll give you as much as I'm givin' the other men. That's $2.50." "Yes, sir - thank you, sir." Now, puttin' that [cord] together caused dat. Oh! And den the boss come down [to the driver], the head boss, the one that I hired my- self with, you know - dat [boss] settin' off dere - wit my tricks dat I done had around me. I got in de favor of him with my tricks [such as circumambulating him], and he made me go up aboard dere. So, I don't know nuthin about what somebody else do outside of myself. I done that.
(Well, now what else did you do when you walked around him?)
I had cologne root, the kind of a trick I had for to gain him. I had cologne root. [Cologne root is your favorite root in cologne.] I had dis root into a bottle and I 'n'int myself with it - had pure cologne with it, you know, with this root, and I 'n'int myself with it and jes' de scent of it made him do dat. And I walk around him - you know when a fellow talkin', you know, he walking aroun', some of 'em, any old time, and I was walkin' around talkin' with him, you know, lookin' at dese here big pipes standin' six foot high, walkin' around lookin' at it and I round him three times.