Pete Wells and the Negro Fireman

"Well, uh, starting from Cleveland now, Mac, let's go on down to the [?] and do that little bit about Pete, you know, the a, the man who, uh-"

"Oh, Pete Wells? Yeah."

"The old, the old, uh, negro fireman..?"

"Yeah, well, uh, this was on a, this was on the towboat call to Josh Cooke, and, uh, Pete was a little, skinny old feller, and, uh his three firemen were big six-footers, and, uh, this little skinny fella weighed about four pounds less than a straw hat. Used to boss those big guys around, and, uh, he'd say, uh 'Come on boys, let's load her!' And they'd open up the doors. Clear across, there was five boilers in the, uh, wing, uh, there was a, these fire doors. Double, and, the boys would open up the doors and tie in and they'd lower this slack that they fired with in there. Piled it up, and, uh, close the doors. Let it burn for a few minutes and Pete would watch the steam gauge. 'Come on boys, we mohawk her!' Well that meant to take out the big hooks, y'know, a long iron bar with hooks at the end, and they'd spread that coal all evenly all over the fire. Close the doors, stand by for a couple of minutes. Get a breath of air. And Pete would say 'Alright boys, come on, we, we [?]' and, uh, they'd take the slash bars, stick em in between the great bars and break up, to, uh, break up that, uh, the clinkers that the, uh, slack would inevitably form. Well, for cleaning fires, Pete would say 'come on boys, we'll ransack her'. And, uh, that meant, uh, get in there and dig out all those clinkers that, uh, formed. And, uh, I heard old Pete one day, he was always singing, and, uh, he was... I sneaked up on him, and he was over and over again he was singing..."

I'm glad my belly don't drag on the ground
I'm glad my belly don't drag on the ground

"Well, it was something to be thankful for!"

[Laughing]