Up and down the guards strode, keeping ever-watchful eyes upon their charges, who worked and sang, apparently in blissful ignorance of guards or toil or any external thing. Occasionally one would stop for a drink of water brought by a remarkably ragged young Negro who nearly all the time was playing when he was most needed. The thirsty one would dawdle, invent all sorts of ingenious methods of delaying, take as long as he could in assuaging his thirst. If the operation consumed too much time there would come a warning from one of the guards, ominous, threatening, but shaken off as lightly as the water from the proverbial duck.
The convicts were of all shades and sizes and shapes. In the awkward garb they were a ludicrous, ill-assorted lot. Some there were with the shifty, roving eyes of tricksters. Others wore on their faces the hallmark of the criminal of dangerous type. The faces of a few of these bore livid scars of varying lengths gained by knifings in desperate fights. But to Mimi most of the men were kindly of expression, were obviously those arrested and convicted on petty charges because the city needed them or men like them to work its streets.
There was one item only in which this motley crowd was as one. A stalwart Negro with a ringing baritone led them in the song which had awakened Mimi. On and on he sang, verse after verse of a wildly sweet and simple song, joined in the chorus by the others. Like the beat of a giant metronome there came a grunting “Hunh!” as the shining points of the pickaxes were plunged into the red clay. There was little rhyme and little melody in the song, but rhythmically it was without flaw.
“Oh, she ast me—hunh!—in de parlour—hunh! An’ she cool me—hunh!—wid her fan—hunh! An’ she whispered—hunh!—to her mammy—hunh! Mammy, I love dat—hunh!—dark-eyed man—hunh! Well, I ast her—hunh!—mammy for her—hunh! An’ she said