# Journal of American Folk-Lore/Volume 13/Issue 48/Notes and Queries

NOTES AND QUERIES.
Cure for an Aching Tooth.—About twenty years ago, when spending the winter in Virginia, I suffered torments from an aching tooth. No trustworthy dentist being accessible, I determined to await the action of simple remedies which had often afforded relief, but which this time completely failed. While enduring the pain as best I could, I was visited by one of the old colored servants, who had come, as she said, expressly to cure my ailment. When I asked how she expected to accomplish the ​result, she replied: "You jes' wrap yer head up in a warm shawl, honey, an' follow me 'cross de ole fiel' to de ole cem'tery yonder 'mong de pines an' de oaks, an' ole Sylvy will show you how. Youm jes' trus' me, honey, an' come right 'long." Now, the cemetery, or old family burying-ground, such as belonged to all Southern plantations, was about half a mile distant from the "house," that is, the family residence. The weather was cold, and the ground covered with light snow. Now for a week past I had not dared to let any air breathe on me. My friends showed amused smiles, and the children laughed openly. However, I determined to brave the ridicule, and, putting on a stout pair of walking boots, we went together "'cross de ole fiel'," and reached the ground in time to see the setting sun cast red lights on the snow. I was told to kneel down at the foot of a slender pine, facing the blazing sunset. My dusky friend took a sharp knife from her pocket. I began to wish for a companion, but this had been refused, on the ground that it would break the "spell" if any third person were present or aware. I watched with surprise as she quickly made in the tree three deep incisions on the northern side. My guide then bade me drop the shawl and throw back the head. "Now open your mouf, quick, hone ! De blessed sun 's gone down." She cut round the tooth, and deftly transferred the blood from the knife to the tree into the three incisions already made. The bark was then replaced, leaving the trunk apparently unscarred. Then she turned to me, with injunctions to tell no soul of what had been done, and especially to cultivate faith. From that time, I was relieved of the pain, and the tooth has never ached since.
Mrs. L. H. C. Packwood.
Maitland, Fla.
Sol Lockheart's Call.—A few words in regard to Sol Lockheart may not be amiss. He is well known in Grovetown, Ga., and its vicinity. He has been in my employ for many years, and during his long term of service I have never had cause for any complaint. He attends to feeding a large number of mules, horses, and cattle, carries the keys, and has never abused my confidence. He is regarded by all, white and black, as a man of integrity; is sober, honest, truthful, attentive to his duties, courteous and obliging in manner, and charitable as far as his limited means will admit. Nevertheless he is very superstitious, believes in ghosts, the signs of the moon and stars, does not believe in cunjer. He has odd remedies for diseases; to wit, having an attack of chills and fever, he took a cotton string, and, after he had three chills, tied three knots in the string, went to the woods, and fastened the string around a persimmon-tree, then turned and walked away; he has not had a return of the disease. He is a licensed preacher, not an ordained one; that is, he can preach when no ordained minister is present. He is always attired in his purple gown and with bare feet when he preaches at his church, Mt. Pleasant, near Grovetown, Ga. Every year he goes off preaching when the ladder appears to him, and always goes in the direction the ladder points. I have written out his case as he gave it to me; it is free from what is known as the "negro dialect:"—
​"When a man starts to pray, he has a conscience to tell him when and where; then he has at the same time a conscience to tell him not to go and pray. The first is a good spirit, the last is a bad spirit. Maybe you may be lying in bed at midnight, eating breakfast or dinner, or between meals. The good spirit may say, 'Go in the swamp to pray,' night or day. If you follow the good one, you will receive good; if the bad one, you will get nothing.
"I have to work out and find the difference between the two spirits. I felt sometimes like obeying the good spirit and sometimes the bad, and I continued to live to obey it better, and was one morning, just at daylight, called out by it into a gully ; and when I got there and sat down, I lost my sight, and I heard a voice at my head saying : 'When a child learns to read it don't forget for seventy-five or eighty years; write and send your mistress word and give her thanks for teaching your lips to pray, and tell her to get right, if she ain't right;' and then there rose a dead head before me, with rotten teeth; the head seemed all torn up, a terrible sight; the sight made me sick and blind for three days. A woman in the presence of me said, 'Give me a pipe of tobacco;' another one said, 'You don't use tobacco, just use at it;' a voice said, 'Go and set you out a tobacco plant, and let it grow to about one and a half feet, and there is a little worm on the plant.' And he showed me the plant, a pretty green plant, and I never saw as pretty a tobacco plant—the worm eats it and lives on it. Methodists live by the power of God, the Baptists live off of grace; go and tell all the Methodists they are wrong.
"Three days after that I was in the field ploughing, a sunshiny morning; there came a west wind as a fire and lifted me up, and showed me a ladder from the northwest, that passed right along by me, about two miles from me; the voice told me to go to it and be baptized. I saw the church, and in it twelve people, and in the pulpit a colored man preaching. I could see half his body; the twelve people were in front of him, and I saw myself sitting behind him in the pulpit, and by that spirit and that sign I was showed I was called to preach. The end of the ladder at the church was light and bright; the end away from the church ran up into the sky and was dark; if it had a been bright I would have seen into heaven.
"I told my experience in April eleven years ago, and was baptized the third Sunday in May. As my experience I told the three deacons and our minister what I had seen and heard. When they carried me to the water I lost my sight again, got into the water about waist deep; my breath left me; a voice spoke at my right ear, 'Brother Lockheart, I baptize you.' I was sick all the time from the time I saw the head till I was baptized. Tuesday night, after I was baptized, I fell from my chair dead, and when I fell back a cloud passed over me darker than any black night, and from that I got well; that night was the best night's rest I ever had.
"Two days after that I was ploughing in the field, turned my mule round and sat on my plough-stock; a voice spoke in midday, 'What makes me a nigger?' The skin and hair shows it; if you look upon a hill and see two black men standing, you say there stands two niggers; if you see two white ​men, you say there stands two white men; that is to show the difference between the two, skin and hair. I saw the master and servant walk out one day; the master got snake-bit, but by the help of God he got well, and he found the servant, the nigger, knew the snake was there before it bit him, but would not tell him. The master would never like the nigger no more for not telling him.
"The nigger wants the master to tell him the terror that is in death and hell, but he won't tell him on account of the snake. Now you can see clearly to pull the mote out of your brother's eye.
"Two days after that I saw the heavens open and a white cloud come out about the size of a man's hand; it spread to the size of a table-cloth, closed to the size of a man's hand again, then again spread out to the size of a table-cloth and then closed out of sight, like a door closing in the heavens: then the next day, early in the morning, I saw the spirit of God, like a bird, like a rain-crow in shape, but the color of a dove: it had wide wings; as it passed by on the right side, it burnt inside of me like a flame of fire, and run me nearly crazy for about five minutes, and then I was all right again. About a week after that I was walking along from the field, when the horn blew for dinner. I walked right up to a coffin on two little benches; it was painted a dark red, and on each side were silver handles, and when I first saw it I was badly frightened and stopped and looked in it, till when I got quiet, it was empty, but lined, with a pillow at the head. When I got over my fear a voice spoke at the head of the coffin and said, 'Your body shall lie in that and rest in the shade,' and then, as soon as the voice ceased speaking, the coffin disappeared, and then I began preaching.
"About a year after I was called, I went on a journey preaching. I walked all the way for about forty miles. I walked, for the commandment says you must not use your critter on the Sabbath day. When I was coming home, I felt great pain, as if some one was driving nails in me. It was nine o'clock Saturday morning. Sunday morning about the same time, I saw in the road before me the likeness of a man, clothed in a long white gown; he turned my mind round, just like a wheel turning round. The next day, at the same time, I saw the same spirit again, who said to me, 'You have a purple gown made like mine.' The spirit looked like a young white man, clean-faced; his hair was kinder straw-colored, and hung down to his shoulders. For three days he kept after me till I had one made, and on a Friday I felt something in my shoes. I could n't keep them on, until Saturday evening, and then a voice spoke and said, 'Take off those shoes and go to Cermonia church to-morrow barefoot and preach.' I now preach like the Apostles, with my purple gown on and barefoot, at my own church, Mt. Pleasant, near Grovetown, Ga.
"One night I prayed to the Lord to let me visit Heaven, and then fell into a deep sleep, and then I began a journey up in the sky. I soon came to a fine building, and it was paled round with white palings. I walked up in front of the gate; the gate was shut. I looked through the gate, and saw a white man standing in the door of the house. The house was built round, ​of white stone, and the house was full of windows, as high as I could see. I could not see to the top of the house. All the windows were full of little children. I didn't see any grown folks there I expect, what I see and know in this world, they are powerful scarce up there in Heaven."
Roland Steiner.
Grovetown, Ga.
The Ballad of Springfield Mountain.—In reply to the request for further information regarding this ballad, of which two verses were given in an article on "Early American Ballads," printed in No. 47 of this Journal (vol. xii. p. 242), a number of versions have been communicated the printing of which is of necessity deferred until the next number. Transcripts of the melody are particularly desired.