The Jack Tales Read online

  So Jack went back to the newground and had him a farm and a house and all them sheep, and nobody to bother him. He took a little of that money and got him a new shirt and some overhalls, and the last time I went down to see Jack he was a-doin’ well.

  Soldier Jack

  Well, Jack fin’ly joined the King’s army and went off to the wars. He fought first in one country and then in another, and did pretty well. He served thirty years, and then they told him they reckoned he’d pulled his term and he could go on back home. So they gave him his dis-charge, and Jack hit the road.

  Now, back in them days soldiers didn’t get no pay, and all they gave a man when he left the army was two loaves of bread. Jack was a-walkin’ on the highway with those loaves of lightbread stuck under his arm when he met up with a beggar, and the beggar he bummed Jack for somethin’ to eat, so Jack gave him one of his loaves of bread. Then directly he met an old man with a long gray beard, and he asked Jack for some bread. Jack cut the other loaf in two and gave the old feller half of it and went on.

  But he got to studyin’ about that ’fore he’d gone very far, and then he turned back and caught up with the old man, says, “Daddy, I didn’t do you right. I gave another man a whole loaf and I didn’t give you but a half a one. Here’s the rest of the loaf.”

  The old man thanked Jack, says, “Well, now, you’re all right, Jack, and here’s something I’m goin’ to give you.” He handed Jack a sack he had across his arm, says, “If ever you want to catch anything, you take this sack and hold it open with one hand and slap it with the other’n, and say,

  ‘Whickety whack!

  Into my sack!’

  and it’ll get right in this sack for ye.”

  Then he took a little vial out of his pocket and gave that to Jack, says, “Now, this little glass will tell you whether somebody who’s sick will die or get well. All you got to do is fill it up with clear spring water and look through it. If you see Death standin’ at the foot of the bed, that person’ll get well, but if Death is waitin’ at the head of the bed, you’ll know they’re about to die.”

  Jack thanked the old man and went on with the sack over his shoulder and the glass in his pocket. He traveled on and traveled on, and along toward night the road went through a woodland and Jack heard some turkeys cluckin’. Looked up in a big oak tree and there set nine wild turkeys. So Jack opened the sack and slapped it, says,

  “Whickety whack!

  Into my sack!”

  —and all nine of them turkeys flew right down and got in the sack. Jack pulled the mouth of the sack together and went on. He came to a town about dark, went to a ho-tel and asked could he swap his turkeys for a room and somethin’ to eat. The ho-tel missus she weighed the turkeys and Jack got a room and supper and breakfast and a little change to boot.

  Next day Jack went on, and about twelve he passed by a big fine house near the road, looked like nobody lived there. The yard was growed up in weeds and there wasn’t no curtains in the windows, and Jack got to wonderin’ about such a good house bein’ empty. Met a boy in the road directly and the boy told Jack the house was ha’nted. Jack asked who did the place belong to and the boy told him. So Jack went down to that man’s house and got to talkin’ to him about it.

  “Yes,” the man told him, “that house has been ha’nted for thirty or forty years. There can’t nobody stay there overnight. I’ve promised several fellers that if they’d stay all night up there I’d deed ’em the house and a thousand acres and give ’em a thousand dollars, but there ain’t nobody ever broke the ha’nt yet.”

  “I’ll try it,” says Jack. “I’ll stay there all night.”

  Well, that man took him up on it and they got some grub for Jack to eat while he stayed there, and the man took Jack on to the house and holp him build up a fire and then left him there. Jack sat down by the fire and got out his pipe and smoked awhile. Then he fixed his supper and eat it and lit up his pipe again and sat right on tendin’ his fire ever’ now and then and a-waitin’. Well, it got up ’way on in the night, and about midnight Jack heard a great roar and somethin’ knockin’ around upstairs and wheels a-rollin’ and chains a-rattlin’, and then three little devils came jumpin’ down the stair steps. Jack sat right on. The little devils had some sacks of money with ’em and they came over to the fire and com-menced banterin’ Jack for a poker game. Jack didn’t have no money except that change from the ho-tel, but he sat down and invested it, and got to winnin’ off the little devils. They lost ever’ time, and started tryin’ to peep and see Jack’s hole card, but he was slick and played close to the floor, and it wasn’t long till he cleaned ’em out. Then they got mad and went to fussin’ at Jack and threatenin’ him with great swoards, and so Jack picked up that sack and held it open, says,

  “Whickety whack!

  Into my sack!”

  and all three of them little devils scrouged right down in the sack. Jack pulled the mouth of the sack to and tied it, put it in one corner and then he laid down by the fire and went to sleep.

  Next mornin’ the man came back, and there was Jack cookin’ his breakfast. Jack told him what happened and showed him the sack full of devils, so that man deeded Jack the house and the thousand acres and paid him a thousand dollars, and then they took the little devils down to the blacksmith shop and hired the blacksmith to sledge ’em for twenty-four hours. “I want you to lay the hammer to ’em,” Jack told him. So he did that, and it was a sight how the sparks flew. There wasn’t a thing but ashes in Jack’s sack when that blacksmith got done. So Jack paid him and took the sack on home and put it up on the fireboard.

  Well, Jack fixed up the house and hired boys to help him tend the land and he lived on there by himself and took it sort of easy. He was gettin’ to be an old man, Jack was, and he didn’t work too hard. He enjoyed lookin’ after ever’thing and makin’ little improvements around his place; but he had plenty of money, so he hired most of the heavy work done and lived right on there and saw to it that the boys made the crops pay pretty well.

  Then one day word came down in that settle-ment that the King’s girl was down sick and all the doctors were lookin’ for her to die. They said she couldn’t be cured, so the King had all the doctors’ heads cut off. Then the King he put out word that anybody could cure his girl, he’d pay ’em several thousand dollars.

  Well, Jack he didn’t want the money, but he thought he’d go up there and see about that girl. So he got down his sack and stuck that little glass vial in his coat pocket and went on to the King’s house. The King took him in where his girl was a-lyin’ in the bed and Jack sent for some clear spring water. They brought it to him and he filled up that little vial, held it up and looked through it, and there was Death standin’ at the head of the bed, grinnin’. Jack set the vial down and got his sack opened up, struck it with his hand, says,

  “Whickety whack!

  Into my sack!”

  —and Death got down in the sack. Jack tied the sack up tight, and the King’s girl got well, and they brought the money to Jack, but he wouldn’t take it. Then Jack went on home, and he had one of the boys take that sack and tie it ’way up in the top of a big poplar tree standin’ there in the yard.

  Well, Jack kept on with his place and his house. The boys who worked for him, they’d grow up and get married and go off and he’d hire some others. He noticed his hair was grayin’ up considerable and he growed him a beard directly and it com-menced gettin’ sort of long, but Jack he enjoyed life and never paid much attention to the almanac. He kept a calendar so he could tell when it was Sunday and not work, but he never noticed what year it was. He stayed at home by himself most of the time, didn’t get out much to go anywhere.

  Then one spring mornin’ Jack decided he’d take a walk over in the settle-ment, see friendly faces and have a little pleasure talkin’ to people. He got down the road a piece and met up with an old lady. Jack looked at her and he never had seen anybody as old as she was. Her face was so wrinkled and leathery it wa
s terrible to look at. Her eyes set ’way back in her head and her white hair was so thin it was almost gone. She was stooped over so her nose almost bumped her knees when she walked.

  Jack stopped, says, “Howdy do, ma’m.”

  She started straightenin’ up, with her bones a-crackin’ and her head a-shakin’ like palsy, and fin’ly she got her eyes up where she could look at Jack.

  “Howdy do, son,” she says.

  “How you gettin’ on, granny?” Jack asked her.

  “Oh, law, son,” she says, “it’s awful.”

  “Why, what’s the matter, granny?” says Jack.

  “Matter?” she says. “Why, livin’ as long as this, that’s what it is.”

  “Yes,” Jack says, “you do look sort of old-like. Just how old are ye, ma’m?”

  “Next June,” she says, “on the twelfth day of the month, I’ll be two hundred and six years old.”

  “Well, I declare!” says Jack. “I never did hear of anybody gettin’ to be that old.”

  “It ain’t right,” says the old lady, “livin’ that long and not bein’ able to die.”

  “You mean you want to die?”

  “O Lord, yes,” she told him.

  “Well, why can’t ye die, granny?”

  “Why, ain’t you heard?” the old lady asked him. “Some fool’s got Death shut up in a sack. There ain’t nobody died around here for a hundred and forty-two years, and you know that’s against nature, now ain’t it?”

  Jack turned around right there and went on back home. He studied about what the old lady said for a day or two, then he called one of his boys to climb up in that poplar tree and bring him down the sack was up there. The boy cloomb up and brought the sack in to Jack. Jack took his knife and cut the sack where he’d tied it, and when Death got loose, all the old folks com-menced droppin’ dead wherever they was. And Jack was about the first one Death got, I reckon.

  Appendix

  European scholars have commented on the curious lack of interest in English folktales in this country. It is difficult for them to understand why they find among our scholars an overemphasis on English folksongs coupled with a nearly complete neglect of the tale. As an evidence of this attitude they point out, not only the large number of folksong collections and the lack of any comparable volume of tales, but they also note that while most European countries have national folklore archives, and often more than one, we have only the Archive of American Folk-Song in the Library of Congress. It is instructive to trace the background for this attitude in the United States.

  The nineteenth century witnessed a tremendous growth of interest in the folktale in Europe, especially after the appearance of the Household Tales of the Grimm brothers in 1812. Literary men and scholars in nearly every European country went out into the highways and byways to collect songs and tales from the lips of the peasants. This was the period when the great European folktale collections were made: in Russia, in Norway, in Highland Scotland, and elsewhere. While the scholars were preoccupied with the problems of the origin and diffusion of European tales, literary men in Europe self-consciously worked with folk materials, seeking to get closer to the national spirit.

  In the United States in the nineteenth century, the folktale had a vital relationship with literature, but it was not a self-conscious one. The tall tale formed the basis, as Professors Blair, Meine, and others have shown us, for a large section of the regional literature of the South and West. Tall tales have long been assumed to be a peculiarly American form, but somehow not worthy either of collection or serious study. From the early days of this country they flourished mightily in travelers’ tales describing the marvels of a new continent. Benjamin Franklin parodied such tales by pretending to give an authentic description of the magnificent leap of the whale up Niagara Falls in pursuit of codfish, “esteemed by all who have seen it as one of the finest Spectacles in Nature.” Such stories have always fitted in with the bravado and humor of our many frontiers. No doubt such yarns were often produced by the active imaginations of the story-tellers; but they were in imitation of a rich oral lore, in turn solidly rooted in the tradition of northwestern Europe. The Travels of Baron Munchausen, published in England in 1785, had a great influence on our oral tale, but its tales were originally taken from the German.

  Story-telling in the nineteenth century was not limited to the rural settlers. Lawyers on circuit swapped yarns. Best known of them was a young country lawyer, Abe Lincoln, who carried the practice to the White House. All through the early part of the century there was a constant interchange between oral and printed lore by way of the newspapers and almanacs. Through these means folklore worked into the regional writers. The study of the effect of this folklore on literature is quite recent with American literary historians, and they have given little notice to the European relationships of the tall tale. They have been occupied primarily with the literature it helped to generate.

  From the folklorist’s point of view it was the Negro’s contribution in tale, as in song, that first received attention in the United States. This came through Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus stories which appeared in 1880, charming literary adaptations of tales told by English-speaking Negroes. But though folklorists were interested and a few similar collections appeared, it did not give rise to any considerable body of work.

  On the other hand, ballad hunting became, and still is, a recognized scholarly sport. In part this was due to the discovery that folksongs were still sung in the United States. In large measure, however, we may attribute this activity to the prestige that Harvard, and the Harvard tradition of ballad scholarship, had in academic circles. This had its origin in the great editorial work of Francis James Child, whose compilation, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, became accepted as a scholarly canon. After Child’s death, George Lyman Kittredge and his students dominated folklore studies in the United States, and perhaps unconsciously took the attitude that the disciples could do no better than to carry on in the master’s footsteps. This has led to a certain aridity in folkloristic activity in this country and a formalized and restricted range of interests.1

  Not till the founding of the American Folklore Society in 1888, with its publications, the Journal of American Folk-Lore, and the Memoir series, did the longer folktales of the English-speaking white settlers get any attention. A few English folktales appeared in the early volumes of the Journal. Until a few years ago this handful represented nearly all that there was to show.

  Although the English folktale languished unnoticed, other folktales did not suffer the same fate. The anthropologists proceeded to collect and study Indian myths and tales until at present no part of the world has been covered as systematically and as well. The anthropologists did more. It was largely through the guidance of Franz Boas that the American Folklore Society encouraged the recording of French and Spanish tales on this continent, and lengthy contributions in the Journal attest that these efforts met with success. The collection of Negro folktales was also stimulated, and these later garnerings, coming some thirty-five years after Uncle Remus and continuing to the present, were more broadly inclusive than the earlier ones. Elsie Clews Parsons and her fellow workers found that the Negroes had adopted, not only the tall tales and “noodle” stories of the whites, but that Negroes in this country, in Nova Scotia, and in the West Indies also knew the longer European folktales.

  The discoveries of the anthropologist did not seem to affect the literary scholars. It is possible, however, that we may ascribe to still another cause their lack of interest in the folktale. Although both Ireland and Scotland had fine collections of the longer tales that are common all across Europe—the kind misleadingly called “fairy tales”—no comparable collections have been made in England. The two compilations by Joseph Jacobs are reasonably large, but he was forced to use material from chapbooks and ballads, and to draw on stories from Lowland Scotland, Australia, and America to eke out the number. As contrasted with the richness of ballad ma
terial in both England and America, no doubt the field seemed meager and promised small rewards.

  There were a number of questions that troubled folklorists. Why was there, both in England and this country, this comparative scarcity of a kind of tale known over the rest of Europe? Was England an exception to the European area and had such tales always been rare there? Had they come over to this country, but for some reason died out and perhaps become moribund in England? Or—had these tales simply missed the boat and never come over? Since they had existed in England, even though to an undetermined extent, the folklorist felt they should have been found in America along with the ballads. For the folklorist in a way is a scientist: in some measure he too works by prediction. He would expect to find folktales here, just as surely as he would expect to find “Barbara Allen” and “Lord Randall” known in any area where English folksongs are sung.

  So to the folklorist the satisfactory thing about Mr. Chase’s discoveries which we have in this volume is that they show the folklorist was right. The tales were here for someone who knew how to seek them out. Mr. Chase is not the first collector to find them. In addition to the tales which appeared long ago in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, several smaller groups have been published within the last twenty years by Emelyn E. Gardner, Bertha McKee Dobie, Ralph Steele Boggs, and Isobel Gordon Carter. But Mr. Chase’s collection more than doubles the largest of these, and together with other still unpublished material, he has more than all of them put together. The richness of his collection will henceforth make it much easier for other collectors to know what to ask for, since they will know what is in oral circulation. We may confidently look forward to having many of these tales found elsewhere in the United States.