All Dressed Down

I LIKE THE ONE IN FRONT


Dr. Lester CN Simon


I like the one in front. I like the one behind. As a matter of fact, I like all the girls and I wish all the girls were mine. But not in these times. Jill and I were going up the hill to fetch a pail of water when my good friend Sammy asked me to help him plant a piece of corn in the gully. Quite sensibly and rightly so too, and moreover, being a farmer in a dell, Sammy explained that more water could be found down a gully than at the top of a hill. Plus, it was easier going down a gully than climbing up a hill. Furthermore, getting out of a gully was like going up a hill. So Sammy said I could bring Jill with me down the gully, if she wanted to come along, since there were plenty ears of corn to plant.

Shucks; Liza would have been a better companion down the gully. She was such a liquid, totally sweet-watery soul. So much so in fact, she drowned. Since then, every time I remember Liza, think about my nice girl Liza and wish Liza could come back, water comes to my eye. Liza. What a night, what a night, what a Saturday night. Long time girl since I haven’t seen you, I wish I could hold your hand. Long time girl since I haven’t seen you, I wish we could walk and talk.

But what about the brown girl in the ring? She looks like sugar and plum and she could show me her motion as she skip across the ocean. But silly me, I might get seasick, remember Liza and water would come to my eye. The trouble with Brownie was that her old lady went walking a mile and a half and she might just see us going down the gully to meet Sammy. Strange, Brownie had complained that every time she passed, we looked at her. Every time she passed we looked at her; so much so, she was going to tell her mother not to send her down there any more.

So it was Jill and I who went down the gully. But before I fell down and broke my crown, there was a strange sounding song coming from Sammy. Down the way where the nights are gay, the sun shines daily on the mountain top. Lord, see me trials. I got so frighten, my foot slipped out of the mango root-top, took a trip on a sailing ship and only when I reached Jamaica I made a stop. So I'm sad to say, I'm on my way and I won't be back in the gully for many a day. My heart is down, my head is turning around, I had to leave my little girl Jill before she came tumbling down.

Was it all a trick to get my girl, Jill, or was Sammy just different and greedy in an unusual becoming usual kind of way? After all, I remember when someone called him a black sheep and asked him if he, the black sheep, had any wool. He had said, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full: One for his master, one for his dame and one for the little boy who lived down the lane. Only the devil knows what is going on in Sammy’s, the farmer’s dell.

Rumor has it that Sammy’s son, Tom, stole the pig and away he ran. Rumor says the pig was eat, Tom was beat and Tom ran “crying” down the street. And recall when Sammy’s brother, Tommy Tucker sang for his supper? In these health conscious times, all he sang for was white bread and butter. How could he cut it without a knife? How could he marry without a wife?

So did Sammy plant the piece of corn in the gully? Did it bear till it kill poor Sammy? Is Sammy dead, really dead, oh? Although he stole my girl, Jill, it was not because he was a thief or usually unusual why Sammy is dead. It was the grudge, a greedy grudgeful thing for me and my girl Jill. That is why, like his father, Solomon O’Gundy, Sammy was born on a Monday, he christened my girl, Jill on a Tuesday, married her on a Wednesday, the wretched bastard took ill on a Thursday, grew worse on Friday, died on Saturday and was buried (in the gully) on a Sunday. That was the end of greedy, grudgeful Sammy.

So, like a lump of dump, I now sit on a wall. If, one fateful day, in remembrance of things past, I should have a great fall, please tell all the king’s horses and all the king’s cast of men not to try to put me and Jill and Sammy together again.