LVIII
Breakfast is at twelve o’clock, and after a short rest work goes on again. A shower starts a new train of thought:—
[XML]
The one shirt I have ratta cut ahm,
Same place him patch ratta cut ahm,
Rain, rain oh!
Rain, rain oh!
Rain, rain oh fall down an’ wet me up.
“The rats have cut my only shirt with their teeth. I put in a patch and they bit it through again in the same place, so when the rain came down it made me very wet.”
(The broad “ahm” (for him, it), is more used now by the Coolies than the Negroes. “Ratta” is both singular and plural. When I first heard the word I thought it referred to a terrier. “Same place him patch”—in the same place where it was patched, just where it was patched.)