y ain't got no sense er sumpin'. But you know one
thing I knos real fokes when I sees dem and dey can't fool me."

Aunt Evvie tells the following story about her father, Rufus Chick. The
story is known by all of the reliable white folks of the surrounding
neighborhood also: "My paw, Rufus Chick, lived on the Union side of
Broad River, the latter days of his life. Maj. James B. Steadman had
goats over on Henderson Island that my paw used to care for. He went
over to the Island in a batteau. One afternoon, he and four other
darkies were going over there when the batteau turned over. The four
other men caught to a willow bush and were rescued. My paw could not
swim, and he got drowned. For three weeks they searched for his body,
but they never did find it. Some years after, a body of a darky was
found at the mouth of the canal, down near Columbia. The body was
perfectly petrified. This was my paw's body. The canal authorities sent
the body to a museum in Detroit. It was January 11, 1877 when my father
got drowned.

"When I wuz a young fellow I used to race wid de horses. I wuz de swifes
runner on de plantation. A nigger, Peter Feaster, had a white horse of
his own, and de white fokes used to bet amongst de selves as much as
$20.00 dat I could outrun dat horse. De way us did, wuz to run a hundred
yards one way, turn around and den run back de hundred yards. Somebody
would hold de horse, and another man would pop de whip fer us to start.
Quick as de whip popped, I wuz off. I would git sometimes ten feet ahead
of de horse 'fore dey could git him started. Den when I had got de
hundred yards, I could turn around quicker dan de horse would, and I
would git a little mo' ahead. Corse wid dat, you had to be a swift man
on yer feets to stay head of a fas horse. Peter used to git so mad when
I would beat his ole horse, and den all de niggers would laf at him
kaise de white fokes give me some of de bettin money. Sometimes dey
would bet only $10.00, sometimes, $15 or $20. Den I would race wid de
white fokes horses too. Dey nebber got mad when I come out ahead. After
I got through, my legs used to jus shake like a leaf. So now, I is gib
plum out in dem and I tributes it to dat. Evvie, she lowed when I used
to do dat after we wuz married, dat I wuz gwine to give out in my legs,
and sho nuf I is."

"Uncle" Henry says that his legs have given out in the bone.

Source: Henry Coleman and his wife, Evvie, of Carlisle, S. C.
Interviewe