Cain's Wife

1910

"I never discuss marriage," said the late Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, to the Womans' Companion, "without thinking of an old colored preacher in my state who was addressing his dark-skinned congregation, when a white man rose in the back of the building."

"Mr. Preacher," said the white man.

"Sir to you," said the parson.

"Mr. Preacher, you are talking about Cain, and you say he got married in the land of Nod, after he killed Abel. But the Bible only mentions Adam and Eve as being on the earth at that time. Who, then, did Cain marry?"

The colored preacher snorted with unfeigned contempt.

"Huh!" he said. "You hear dat, brederen an' sisters? You hear dat fool question I am axed? Cain, he went to de land o' Nod, just as de Good Book tells us, an' in de land of Nod Cain gits so lazy an' so shiftless dat he up an' marries a gal o' one o' dem no 'count white trash families dat de inspired apostle didn't consider fittin' to mention in de Holy Word."

—Amador Ledger, Jackson, CA, Dec. 30, 1910, p. 2.