e folkses and slaves too, for den
white folkses put dey slaves whar dey aimed to be buried deyselves. Dat
sho' used to be a fine graveyard.
"Us all gwine to git together someday when us all leaves dis old world.
I'm ready to go; jus' a-waitin' for de Lord to call me home, and I ain't
skeered to face de Lord who will judge us all de same, 'cause I done
tried to do right, and I ain't 'fraid to die."
Uncle Willis was tired and sent a little boy to the store for milk. As
the interviewer took her departure he said: "Good-bye Missy. God bless
you. Jus' put yourself in de hands of de Lord, for dey ain't no better
place to be."
PLANTATION LIFE
MARY COLBERT, Age 84
168 Pearl Street
Athens, Georgia
Written by:
Sadie B. Hornsby [HW: (White)]
Athens
Edited by:
Sarah H. Hall
Athens
and
John N. Booth
District Supervisor
Federal Writers' Project
Residencies 6 & 7
Augusta, Ga.
(NOTE: This is the first story we have had in which the client did not
use any dialect. Mary Colbert's grammar was excellent. Her skin was
almost white, and her hair was quite straight.
None of us know what a "deep" slave was. It may have the same meaning as
outlandish Negro. The "outlandish Negroes" were those newly arrived
Negroes who had just come in from any country outside of the United
States of America, and were untrained. They were usually just from
Africa.
Sarah H. Hall)
With the thermometer registering 93 degrees in the shade on a
particularly humid July day, the visitor trudged up one steep, rocky
alley and down another, hesitantly negotiated shaky little bridges over
several ravines, scrambled out of a ditch, and finally arrived at the
address of Mary Colbert. It was the noon hour. A Negro man had tied his
mule under an apple tree in one corner of Mary's yard. The animal was
peacefully munching hay while his master enjoyed lunch from a battered
tin bucket. Asked if Mary was at home, the man replied: "Yessum, jus'
call her at de door."
A luxuriant Virginia creeper shaded the front porch of Mary's five-room
frame house, where a rap on the front door brought the response: "Here I
am, honey! Come right on through the house to the back porch." The aged
mulatto woman was hanging out clothes on a line suspended between two
peach trees. To the inquiry for Mary, she answered: "Yes, Honey, this is
Mary. They say I am old, childish, and hellish; anyway, this is Mary."
"Dear, let's go in my parlor," she suggested in
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