es, doves, and went fishing.
The Master's wife, Miss Nancy, was good to us. She had one son, William.

"Yes, I 'member my ma telling us 'bout the padder-rollers. They would
ride around, whipping niggers.

"My ma said her step-mother sold her. Sometimes they would take crowds
of slaves to Mississippi, taking away mothers from their infant babies,
leaving the babies on the floor.

"We always shuck corn and shell it at night, on moon-light nights we
pick cotton. On Saturday afternoons we had frolics, sometimes frolics
'till Sunday daylight, then sleep all day Sunday.

"When we got sick all the medicine we took was turpentine--dat would
cure almost any ailment. Some of the niggers used Sampson snake weed or
peach leaves boiled and tea drunk.

"I joined the church when I was 12 years old 'cause the other girls
joined. I think everybody ought to join a church to get their souls
right for heaven:

"I married Charley Rice in Spartanburg County, at a colored man's house,
named Henry Fox, by a colored preacher named 'Big Eye' Bill Rice. I had
four children, and have five grand-children. I have been living in
Newberry about 35 years or more. I worked as a wash-woman many years.

"When freedom come, my folks stayed on with Capt. Posey, and I washed
and ironed with them later when I was big enough. I done some cooking,
too. I could card and spin and make homespun dresses. My ma learned me.

"I don't know much about Abraham Lincoln and Jeff Davis but reckon dey
was good men. I never learned to read and write. Booker Washington, I
reckon, is a good man."

SOURCE: Anne Rice (75), Newberry, S.C.
Interviewer: G. Leland Summer, 1707 Lindsey St.,
Newberry, S.C.

=Project 1885-1=
=Folklore=
=Spartanburg, Dist. 4=
=Jan. 17, 1937=

=Edited by:=
=Elmer Turnage=

=STORIES FROM EX-SLAVES=

"My people tells me a lot about when I was a lil' wee boy. I has a clear
mind and I allus has had one. My folks did not talk up people's age like
folks do dese days. Every place dat I be now, 'specially round dese
government folks, first thing dat dey wants to know is your name. Well,
dat is quite natu'al, but de very next question is how old you is. I
don't know, why it is, but dey sho do dat. As my folks never talked age,
it never worried me till jes' here of late. So dey says to me dat last
week I give one age to de man, and now I gives another. Soon I see'd dat
and I had to rest my mind on dat as well as de mind of