THE BOY WHO WAS SENT FOR SOAP

Collected by James Taylor Adams
Big Laurel, Virginia

Reprinted in AppLit with permission from the James Taylor Adams Collection
U of Virginia's College at Wise/Blue Ridge Institute of Ferrum College

NOTE:  This text was recopied directly from a typewritten copy in the archives of the Blue Ridge Institute. James Taylor Adams (1892-1954) kept typewritten copies of the folktales he and others collected during the last thirty years of his life, while he lived in Wise County, VA. Note that this version of the tale contains a joke about swearing and an abrupt ending that does not show the boy's return home to his mother with the soap (unlike Richard Chase's published version and Tom Birdseye's picture book adaptation, for example). For another version, see "The Soap Tale." For more details on other variants of this tale, see "Soap, Soap Soap."

As told me on March 19, 1942, by Mrs. Le[?] Kilgore, Big Laurel, Va. She heard it from her grandmother [?] Mrs. Mary Morris. [Torn corner on typescript. This may be Lenore Corene Kilgore, who also told Adams a version of "Jack Goes to Seek His Fortune."]

       One time there was a boy who so forgetful that he couldn't remember anything. His mother would sent him to the store for something and he'd forget what she sent him for and get something else or come back without anything.

       One day his mother sent him to the store to get a cake of soap and told him to keep saying, "soap," so he wouldn't forget it. So he went down the road saying, "soap, soap, soap."

       He went on till he come to a big mudhole in the road and in the edge of the road was some pretty flowers. He got to looking at the flowers and forgot to say "soap" and what he'd been sent after. So he started going right round and round in the mudhole saying, "Here I lost it and here I'll find it, here I lost it and here I'll find it." He kept right on and trampling in the mud. He got so mad that he started cussin'. Then a preacher come along riding. He said, "Oh, ho, my young man, what's the matter? You shouldn't swear like that."

       "Oh, I've lost something here and here I'll find it," said the boy keepin' going' right round and round.

       "What is it?" asked the preacher.

       "I don't know what it is," said the boy, "but I lost it here and here I'll find it."

       The preacher slid off of his horse and said he'd help him hunt for it. So he waded into the mud and his feet slipped out from under him and down he came. "Oh, tut, tut!" he exclaimed, "this mud's as slick as soap."

       "That's hit," yelled the boy and he took off down the road cryin' "Soap, soap, soap" every breath, leaving the preacher to get the mud off his clothes the best he could.

Replace Copy Made By the Blue Ridge Institute to Replace Unstable Original 
April, 1991          
[JTA-100?]

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