The ‘Dumb Supper’

From the June 8, 1952, Nashville Tennessean Magaine

By Corky Brian

If a group of girls wish to know the identity of the young men they are destined to wed, they may “set a dumb supper.”

Thus ran a piece of Tennessee folklore in which many persons believed implicitly as late as the turn of the century.

My maternal grandmother, the late Mrs. Laura Haggarty, once told me of the instructions handed down by word of mouth for the young girls who wished to try the experiment.

Not a word must be spoken, not a giggle, not even a whisper heard, during the preparation of the supper, so the directions went. Everything must be done backwards and there must be nine different kinds of food prepared.

When the food is ready and placed on the table, and each girl has set a place for her intended husband and placed his chair, the young men will come to dine upon the prepared meal. If a girl is destined to live alone, however, her coffin will come in and occupy her chair.

Each man will leave a gift beside his plate for his wife-to-be. But, unless she throws the gift after him as he leaves, he will kill her with the gift when they are wed.

I have talked with two ladies who once upon a time set a dumb supper. Although each heard strange and weird sounds, neither saw their intended mates. A frightened person broke the spell before the husbands-to-be and coffins had time to appear.

My grandmother told the story of her dumb supper thus:

A group of young girls gathered at the Garland home down on Grand-Daddy creak on a calm, beautiful, starlit night during the 1890s to set a dumb supper.

After the older folks had gone to bed for the night, the young girls went into the kitchen across the hall to prepare the supper. Most of the rural houses in those days had an open passage-way or hall connecting the large rooms on either side.

Young Joe Lee Garland begged to watch the supper. He was very anxious to see who would sit at the place set by one of the other girls, Sarah Jones. Finally the girls agreed he would be absolutely quiet and not utter a sound, not even a giggle.

They began their preparations. They did everything backwards. They cooked nine different kinds of foods. Each set a plate for her husband-to-be and placed his chair at the table. Then the food was placed upon the long table.

Not a sound had been uttered. Everything had been done just so.

The young girls sat down on the couch across from the table to await the arrival of their young swains.

Scarcely had the girls seated themselves when suddenly the wind began to blow and beat upon the house, although it was a calm night with a star studded sky.

The dogs began to growl fiercely and howl. The cows in the barn lot began to bawl. The roosters began to crow and the hens to cackle. All the farm animals were disturbed. There were many strange and weird sounds.

Down the road that ran beside Grand-Daddy creek was heard the sound of men riding hard. Their horses’ hoofs rang out over the countryside as they struck the rocky road.

At the Garland gate, they reined in with “Whoas,” distinctly head by the girls waiting in the old kitchen. The girls heard, too, the creak and strain of leather as the men dismounted and unloosed their saddles, and their footfalls as they mounted the steps and entered the passage-way to the kitchen. The sound of their dragging saddle-girts drained every visage of color from the faces of the frightened girls cowering on the couch in the kitchen.

All these strange sounds had been heard, too, by young Joe Lee.

Frightened, but with forethought enough to act, he jumped from his chair, grabbed a meat skin from a platter, and threw it across the table, loudly exclaiming, “I’ll stop dis d—— racket.”

At the sound of his voice the wind stopped blowing and the dogs stopped howling. Not even a whisper of a sound was head from the passage-way. Everything was calm and still as before.

Color gradually returned to the faces of the frightened girls. They regained their composure. Their limbs no longer trembled as with the palsy. And though they pretended to be angry and offended with young Joe Lee, secretly each was thankful to him from the bottom of her heart for breaking up the dumb supper.

Grandmother said that if things had gone much longer they would all have been dead. They were almost scared to death as it was. They could neither move nor speak for fright.

Sarah Jones, the oldest girl in the group, was becoming worried for fear she might be an old maid, and for that reason she was more anxious, perhaps, than the others to know her destiny for sure. She scolded Joe Lee rather harshly for ruining their supper.

She declared that she was not going to be outdone, but would take a thimbleful of salt and go backward to bed that night. She would describe her man to the other girls in the morning.

(According to another bit of folklore, if a young girl will take a thimbleful of salt and go backward to bed without uttering a sound, her husband-to-be will give her a drink of water in the night—in her sleep, of course. Those who have tried this vow that the drink of water will be given and that one will feel no thirst on awakening, unless, of course, one is destined to be an old maid.)

When morning came, Sarah Jones was a very sad girl. Not only had she been given no water to quench her thirst, but she had dreamed out the closing scene of the dumb supper.

She described to each of the other girls the young men who sat at their prepared placed but she tearfully told them that a long black coffin had come in and occupied her chair.

All the other girls married the men they believed she saw in her dream sitting at their places at the table. Sarah Jones passed away a few years prior to my grandmother’s death. She had never married.

(Newspapers .com)