LE BEN HORRY

Uncle Ben and his wife, aunt Stella, live in their two-room,
white-washed cabin that sits sideways to the King's Highway, which Uncle
Ben always calls 'the King Road,' near Murell's Inlet, S.C. Paving and
straightening this old King's Road, now US 17, has put the two old
people in the world. Around the cabin lie the fourteen and three quarter
acres that were paid for by Uncle Ben and his father, six or eight acres
cleared, the rest woodland. Uncle Ben earns a living by gathering
oysters from the Inlet's waters, opening and roasting the oysters for
white visitors. Uncle Ben is a great walker. He walks to Conway, the
county seat of Horry (Murrell's Inlet is situated on the line between
Horry and Georgetown counties), a distance of approximately thirty miles
depending on whether one sticks to the paved highway or takes short cuts
through the woods, in preference to riding. One day he had walked to
Conway and back by eleven o'clock in the morning. Uncle Ben's scrappy
conversation will tell how he earns his bread, fears and fights 'the
Law', provides for Stella's future, and works for and honors white
folks. Brookgreen, which he mentions as the plantation on which he was
born and raised, is an open-air museum, donated to South Carolina by
A.M. Huntingdon, and visited by thousands of tourists. (=See US17, Tour
1=).

"I the oldest liver left on Waccamaw Neck that belong to Brookgreen,
Prospect, (now Arcadia), Longwood, Alderly Plantations. I been here! I
seen things! I tell you. Thousand of them things happen but I try to
forget 'em. Looker!" He pointed to what appeared to be primeval forest
in front of his battered little porch. "That woods you see been Colonel
Josh Ward's taters patch. Right to Brookgreen Plantation where I born.
My father Duffine (Divine) Horry and my brother is Richard Horry. Dan'l
and Summer two both my uncle. You can put it down they were Colonel
Ward's musicianer. Make music for his dater (daughter) and the white
folks to dance. Great fiddlers, drummers. Each one could play fiddle,
beat drum, blow fife. All three were treat with the same education. You
know, when you going to do anything for them big people you got to do it
right. Before time (formerly) they danced different. Before strange city
people fetched different steps here. But, then, they could use they feet
all right!

"My father fore he dead been the head man for old Colonel Josh Ward.
Lived to Brookgreen. They say Colonel