"What you thinking' li'l moon, li'l moon?"

Moma Dot used once in a while to say a few lines of that when we saw the moon over the water, but I never saw the poem whole until I found it copied in her handwriting on a seperate sheet inside her Williams School of Music, Oral English Class notes from 1928.:

In A Canoe

What you thinkin' li'll moon, li'l moon?
What you thinkin'"?
Up dyah, with the stars a- winkin' An' a-blinkin?
Is you lonesome way up yondah?
Is you fraid of rain an' thundah,
Lil' moon, li'l moon?
Don' you listen, l 'l moon, i'll moon?
Don you listen,
Jes' to heah the water swishen
An' a hissen?
Heah the frogs a plunkin', chunkin',
An the lil' fishes chinken,
Lil' moon, li'l moon

". Mama Dot also occasionally gave us a few lines from her Italian and her Irish dialect pieces. She might have heard some actual Irish, but as far as I have known, there was only one nominal negro at Bonaparte in those days, that being "Jim Feron " as Irv Priest spelled him, or Farron as given by Gladys Vanwyck. or Farrin, as you could do, but we don't know if he spelled at all. Though they called him "Nigger Jim", he was half Indian, by report a "congeneal" person of such color that people are inclined to making up stories about him and believing them.

" Nigger Jim' and only recently did I notice that it actually says "Nigger Jim Bert," apparantly refering to my grandfather's rustic and relaxed look. Recently I came across an old xerox of a newspaper photo of Farron which Ila, daughter of Irv, had sent to MamaDot twenty or so years ago. The blacks and whites are exagerated by the fact that what you have here is a screen version of a xerox of a newspaper print of an old photograph, but be that as it may, he looks more like my great grandfather drury there, than like my grandfather. See: