This story is transcribed in partial dialect, and I think, captures the colloquial spirit of the Cajun storyteller! It’s a first-person account of life in Louisiana, collected during the Great Depression from Melinda Parker.
I ain't seen the Lord in flesh but I seen Him in the spirit an' whenever I gets in trouble, I just sits right in my room an' talks to Him an' He talks back to me. I tell you I seen my mother lot of times since she died. Once when I was livin' on Magnolia Street I was so sick I couldn't hold anythin' on my stomach for days.
Somebody had told my husband to make me some orange skin tea to settle my stomach, so while he was makin' the tea, all of a sudden I heard a knocking at the back door an' I saw a great big bird on the transom of my door. That bird flew in the room an' sat right on the end of my bed an' looked at me square in the eye. As it looked at me, it turned into my mother an' she had a glass in her hand an' it looked like it had a yolk of an egg in it. She comes to me an' feeds me with a spoon an' I ate every bit of that egg yolk. Then she changed back into a bird an' flew out the transom. As she left she told me that that egg was gonna make me well. The bird looked like a dove.
When my husband came back into the room I was layin' there smilin' with my eyes closed an' he thought I was dyin'. He asked me was I sleepin' an' I said no an' I told him what had happened an' to give me that tea. I drank everybit of it an' from that time I held everythin' I ate on my stomach an' in no time I was well. I ain't had any stomach trouble since. The only spell of sickness I ever had after that was the pneumonia of the heart.