"

"Dat time when the Yanks was goin' to Augusta, an I went to black my
Marster's boot,--he'd give us a two-cent peice, big as a quarter--for
boot blackin, I say, 'Marster who is dem soldiers?' An he say to me,
'Dey's de Yankees, come to try to take you awy from me.' An I say,
'Looks like to me Marster, ef'n dey wants to take us dey'd arsk you
fer us.' Marster laughed and say, 'Boy! Dem fellers dont axes wid
words. Dey does all dey talkin' wid cannons.' Did you know that a
white woman shot de first cannon dat was ever fired in de state o
Georgia? She was a Yankee Colonel's wife, dey say, named Miss Anna, I
dunno the rest o her name. She wants to be de first to fire a cannon
she say, to set the negroes free. Dat was befo' de war, begin. De roar
of dat cannon was in folkes ears for more'n five days and nights."

Uncle Andrew gave a little grunt as he lifted himself out of his
chair. His little frame seemed lost in the broad-shouldered lumber
jacket that he wore. He had laid aside the paper sack from which he
had been eating, when the visitor came, and removed an old stocking
cap from his head. When the visitor suggested that he keep it on, as
he might catch cold he replied, "I dont humor myself none." The
sunlight fell upon his head and shoulders as he stood, to steady
himself on his feet. Traces of his ancestry of Indian blood,--one of
his grandfathers was a Cherokee Indian,--were evident in his features.
His skin is jet-black, but his forehead high and his nose straight,
with nostrils only slightly full. There was dignity in his bearing and
beauty in his face, with its halo of cotton-white hair and beard, cut
short and neatly parted in the middle of his chin.

Walking about the room, he called the visitor's attention to family
portraits on the walls. Some were colored crayons, and a few were
enlarged snap-shots. Proudly he pointed to the photograph of a
huge-sized Negro man, apparently in his thirties, and said, "He was
our first comins'. Reckon he took after his great granddaddy, who was
eight feet tall and weighed twe-hundred and fifty pounds. That man's
arms was so long, when dey hung down by his side, his fingers was
below his knees. Dis grandfather was free-born. My father, Dave Moss,
he was sold three times. He had twenty-five children. But he had two
wives. As I aforesaid, folks didn't always marry in dem days, jes took
up wid one another. My mother was his title-wife. By her, he jes had
me and my two full-bro