elebrated 'Mancipation about twelve times in Hornett
County. Every time a bunch of No'thern sojers would come through they
would tell us we was free and we'd begin celebratin'. Before we would
get through somebody else would tell us to go back to work, and we would
go. Some of us wanted to jine up with the army, but didn't know who was
goin' to win and didn't take no chances.

"I was 21 when freedom finally came, and that time I didn't take no
chances on 'em taking it back again. I lit out for Florida and wound up
in Madison County. I had a nice time there; I got married, got a plenty
of work, and made me a little money. I fixed houses, built 'em, worked
around the yards, and did everything. My first child was already born; I
didn't know there was goin' to be 37 more, though. I guess I would have
stopped right there....

"I stayed in Madison County until they started to working concrete rock
down here. I heard about it and thought that would be a good way for me
to feed all them two dozen children I had. So I came down this side.
That was about 20 years ago.

"I got married again after I got here; right soon after. My wife now is
30 years old; we already had 13 children together. (His wife is a
slight, girlish-looking woman; she says she was 13 when she married
Douglass, had her first child that year. Eleven of her thirteen are
still living.)

"Yossuh, I ain't long stopped work. I worked here in the phosphate mine
until last year, when they started to paying pensions. I thought I
would get one, but all I got was some PWA work, and this year they told
me I was too old for that. I told 'em I wasn't but 91, but they didn't
give nothin' else. I guess I'll get my pension soon, though. My oldest
boy ought to get it, too; he's sixty-five."

FOLK STUFF, FLORIDA

Jules A. Frost
Tampa, Florida
May 19, 1937

"MAMA DUCK"

"Who is the oldest person, white or colored, that you know of in Tampa?"

"See Mama Duck," the grinning Negro elevator boy told me. "She bout a
hunnert years old."

So down into the "scrub" I went and found the old woman hustling about
from washpot to pump. "I'm mighty busy now, cookin breakfast," she said,
"but if you come back in bout an hour I'll tell you what I can bout old
times in Tampa."

On the return visit, her skinny dog met me with elaborate demonstrations
of welcome.

"Guan way fum here Spot. Dat gemmen ain gwine feed you nothin. You keep
your dirty paws offen his clothes."