kitchen and dining-room jined, but most folks had de dining-room in de
big house.

"It took a week to take de cotton boat from Chester to Columbia. Six
slaves handled de flat-boat. Dere was six, as I said, de boatman, two
oarsmen, two steermen and an extra man. De steermen was just behind de
boatman. Dey steered wid long poles on de way up de river and paddled
down de river. De two oarsmen was behind dem. Dey used to pole, too,
going up, and paddling going down. Seventy-five or eighty bales was
carried at a time. Dey weighed around three hundred pounds apiece. In
Columbia, de wharfs was on de Congree banks. Fer de cotton, we got all
kinds of supplies to carry home. De boat was loaded wid sugar and coffee
coming back. On Broad River we passed by Woods Ferry, Fish Dam Ferry,
Hendersons Ferry and Hendersons Island and some others, but dat is all I
recollect. We unloaded at our own ferry, called Scaife Ferry.

"I split rails fer fences. On Christmas we had coffee, sugar and biscuit
fer breakfast."

Source: Alexander Scaife (82), Box 104, Pacolet, S.C.
Interviewer: Caldwell Sims, Union, S.C.

=Project #-1655=
=Phoebe Faucette=
=Hampton County=

=FOLKLORE=

=ELIZA SCANTLING EX-SLAVE=

=87 Years=

"If you wants to know about de slavery times," said old Aunt Eliza,
"you'se sure come to de right person; 'cause I wuz right dere." The
statement was easy to believe; for old Aunt Eliza's wrinkled face and
stiff, bent form bore testimony to the fact that she had been here for
many a year. As she sat one cold afternoon in December before her fire
of fat lightwood knots, in her one-room cabin, she quickly went back to
her childhood days. Her cabin walls and floor were filled with large
cracks through which the wind came blowing in.

"I gits along pretty good. My chillun lives all around here, and my
granddaughter that's a-standin' at the window dere, takes care of me.
Den de government helps me out. It sure is a blessing, too--to have sech
a good government! And 'Miss Maggie' good to me. She brought me dis
wood. Brought it in her truck herself. Had a colored man along to handle
it for her. But I so stiff I sometimes kin hardly move from me waist
down. And sometimes in de morning when I wake, it is all I kin do to get
up an' wash me face. But I got to do it. My granddaughter bring me my
meals.

"I is 87 years old. I know 'cause I wuz so high when de war broke out.
An' I plowed my January to July de yea