200
If I Had a Scolding Wife
This is one of those detachable stanzas likely to bob up in a
variety of contexts. With New Orleans in place of the still-house
in the penultimate line it is reported as sung by Negroes in Missis-
sippi (JAFL XXVIII 188) and by whites in Missouri (OFS 11 360)
and in the Midwest (Ford's Traditional Music of America 395, as
part of 'Lucy Long'), in Nebraska (JAFL xxviii 272 as part of
'Ain't I Goin" brought from Arkansas), and in our own collection
(see 'Uncle Joe Cut Off His Toe,' no. 96 in vol. Ill; and 'Lynch-
burg Town,' no. 412) ; Virginia Negroes knew it (TNFS 125) as
part of 'Bile dem Cabbage Down' with an even more savage threat :
If I had a scolding wife
I'd whoop 'er sho's you born,
Hitch her to a double plow
And make her plow my corn.
'If I Had a Scolding Wife.' Reported by Clara Hearne of Pittsboro,
Chatham county, in 1923.
If I had a scolding wife
I'd whip her, sho as you born.
I'd take her down to the still-house
And swap her off for corn.