Had a Set of Double Teeth

Oh, listen while I tell to you a truthful little tale
Of a man whose teeth was double all the solid way around;
He could jest as slick as preachin' bite in two a shingle nail,
Or squonch a moulded bullet, sah, and ev'ry tooth was sound.

I've seen him lift a kag of pork, a-bitin' on the chine,
And he'd clench a rope and hang there like a puppy to a root;
And a feller he could pull and twitch and yank upon the line,
But he couldn't do no bus'ness with tha' double-toothed galoot.

He was luggin' up some shingles,--bunch, sah, underneath each arm,--
The time that he was shinglin' of the Baptist meetin'-house;
The ladder cracked and buckled, but he didn't think no harm,
When all at once she busted and he started down kersouse.

His head, sah, when she busted, it was jest abreast the eaves;
And he nipped, sah, quicker'n lightnin', and he gripped there with his teeth,
And he never dropped the shingles, but he hung to both the sheaves,
Though the solid ground was suttinly more'n thirty feet beneath.

He held there and he kicked there and he squirmed, but no one come.
He was workin' on the roof alone--there warn't no folks around.
He hung like death to niggers till his jaws was set and numb,
And he reely thought he'd have to drop them shingles on the ground.

But all at once old Skillins come a-toddlin' down the street.
Old Skil is sort of hump-backed and he allus looks straight down;
So he never see'd the motions of them Number
'Leven feet,
And he went a-amblin' by him--the goramded blind old clown!

Now this ere part is truthful--ain't a-stretehin' it a mite,--
When the feller see'd that Skillins was awalkin' past the place,
Let go his teeth and hollered, but he grabbed back quick and tight,
'Fore he had a chance to tumble, and he hung there by the face.

And he never dropped the shingles and he never missed his grip,
And he stepped out on the ladder when they raised it underneath.
And up he went a-flukin' with them shingles on his hip,
--And there's the satisfaction of a havin' double teeth.