ing time and I wondered
how-come dey was having candy in de store fer, now-how.

"Mammy look down at me and she say to de white man wid a beard, 'Marse,
please sir, give me five cent worth peppermint candy.' Den when he hand
her de bag she break off lil' piece and hand it to me, and wall her eyes
at me and say in a low voice, 'Don' you dare git none dat red on yo'
clean shirt, if you wants to git home widout gitting wo' plumb smack
out.'

"Den she talk about de bonnets. Finally she git one fer ten dollars
worth o' cotton. Money wasn't nothing in dem times. By dis time us had
done started on our return home and I was starting to feel more like I
allus felt.

"Nigger, what dat you is done gone and got on dat clean shirt? Didn't
you hear me tell you not to git dat new shirt all red? Look dar a
streaming down off'n your chin at dar red. How is I gwine to ever teach
you anything, when you act jest like a nigger from some pore white
trashes poor land?'

"When we gits to dat branch now I's got to stop and wash dat dirty black
mouth and den I can't git dat red candy off'n dat shirt. What ole lady
Abbie gwine to say to ye when she see you done gone and act like you
ain't never seed no quality befo'?

"Atter I has done tole you all de way from home how you must act at de
post den you goes and does like you is. Aint never gwine to carry you
nowhars 'gin long as I lives.

"Bend dat lazy, good-fer-nothing back so as I won't git you wet all de
way down your belly, you hear me? Now you is looking like you belongs to
Marse Tom 'gin. Gimme dat candy right now; I gwine to see to it dat you
gits back home looking like somet'ing after all my worriments wid ye.'

"Mammy seed dust a flying and de hoss come a-bringing Marse Tom down de
road. Mammy drap everything in the dust and grab her apron to drap a
curtsy. She 'low--'Git dat hat off dat head and bow your head fo' he git
hear."

"Howdy, Lucy, what is you and dat youngun been, anyhow?' 'Us been to git
me a bonnet, Marse Tom, and it took all de ten dollars worth of cotton
to fetch it back wid.' 'Yes, Lucy, money does not go far these days,
since the Yankees got everything'. 'No Sir, No Sir, Marse,' and he rid
on, leaving us behind in de dust."

=Source:= Interview with Gus Feaster (C-97), ex-slave,
living at 20 Stutz Ave., Union, S.C.; interviewer - Caldwell Sims,
Union, South Carolina.

Project #-1655
Phoebe Faucette
Hampton Co