ought to have everything clean up nicely so as to keep clean all de year. Say, must always put de wash out on de line to be sure de day fore New Years en have all your garments clean."

"What my ideas bout de young folks dese days? Well, dey young folks en dey ain' young folks, I say. Cose I don' bother up wid dem none, but I think wid my own weak judgment, dey quite different from when I come along. Folks is awful funny dis day en time to my notion. Don' care what people see dem do no time. I sho think dey worser den what dey used to be. De way I say dey worser, I used to have to be back at such en such a time, if I went off, but now dey go anytime dey want to en dey comes back anytime dey want to. I sho think dey worser. De fact of it, I know dey worser."

Source: Josephine Bacchus, colored, age 75-80, Marion, S. C.
Personal interview by Annie Ruth Davis, Dec., 1937.

Project 1885-1
Folklore
Spartanburg Dist. 4
June 14, 1937
Edited by: Elmer Turnage

STORIES FROM EX-SLAVES

"I was born near Winnsboro, S. C., Fairfield County. I was twelve years old the year the Confederate war started. My father was John Ballard and my mother was Sallie Ballard. I had several brothers and sisters. We belonged to Jim Aiken, a large landowner at Winnsboro. He owned land on which the town was built. He had seven plantations. He was good to us and give us plenty to eat, and good quarters to live in. His mistress was good, too; but one of his sons, Dr. Aiken, whipped some of de niggers, lots. One time he whipped a slave for stealing. Some of his land was around four churches in Winnsboro.

"We was allowed three pounds o' meat, one quart o' molasses, grits and other things each week—plenty for us to eat.

"When freedom come, he told us we was free, and if we wanted to stay on with him, he would do the best he could for us. Most of us stayed, and after a few months, he paid wages. After eight months, some went to other places to work.

"The master's wife died and he married a daughter of Robert Gillam and moved to Greenville, S. C.

"The master always had a very big garden with plenty of vegetables. He had fifty hogs, and I helped mind the hogs. He didn't raise much cotton, but raised lots of wheat and corn. He made his own meal and flour from the mill on the creek; made home-made clothes with cards and spinning wheels.

"They cooked in wide chimneys in a kitchen which was away off from the big house. They used pots and skillets to cook with. The hands got their rations every Monday night. They got their clothes to wear which they made on old spinning wheels, and wove them themselves.

"The master had his own tanyard and tanned his leather and made shoes for his hands.

"He had several overseers, white men, and some Negro foremen. They sometimes whipped the slaves, that is the overseers. Once a nigger whipped the overseer and had to run away in the woods and live so he wouldn't get caught. The nigger foremen looked after a set of slaves on any special work. They never worked at night unless it was to bring in fodder or hay when it looked like rain was coming. On rainy days, we shucked corn and cleaned up around the place.

"We had old brick ovens, lots of 'em. Some was used to make molasses from our own sugar cane we raised.

"The master had a 'sick-house' where he took sick slaves for treatment, and kept a drug store there. They didn't use old-time cures much, like herbs and barks, except sassafras root tea for the blood.

"We didn't learn to read and write, but some learned after the war.

"My father run the blacksmith shop for the master on the place. I worked around the place. The patrollers were there and we had to have a pass to get out any. The nigger children sometimes played out in the road and were chased by patrollers. The children would run into the master's place and the patrollers couldn't get them 'cause the master wouldn't let them. We had no churches for slaves, but went to the white church and set in the gallery. After freedom, niggers built 'brush harbors' on the place.

"Slaves carried news from one plantation to another by riding mules or horses. They had to be in quarters at night. I remember my mother rode side-saddle one Saturday night. I reckon she had a pass to go; she come back without being bothered.

"Some games children played was, hiding switches, marbles, and maybe others. Later on, some of de nigger boys started playing cards and got to gambling; some went to de woods to gamble.

"The old cotton gins on de farms were made of wooden screws, and it took all day to gin four bales o' cotton.

"I was one of the first trustees that helped build the first colored folks' church in the town of Greenwood. I am the only one now living. I married Alice Robinson, and had five sons and one daughter, and have five or six grandchildren.

"Abraham Lincoln, I think, was a good man; had a big reputation. Couldn't tell much about Jefferson Davis. Booker T. Washington—Everybody thinks he is a great man for the colored race.

"Of course I think slavery was bad. We is free now and better off to work. I think anybody who is any count can work and live by himself.

"I joined de church when I was 17 years old, because a big preaching was going on after freedom for the colored people.

"I think everybody should join the church and do right; can't get anywhere without it, and do good."

Source: William Ballard (88), Greenwood, S. C.
Interviewed by: G. L. Summer, Newberry, S. C. (6/10/37)

Project #1655
W. W. Dixon
Winnsboro, S. C.

CHARLEY BARBER
EX-SLAVE 81 YEARS OLD.

Charley Barber lives in a shanty kind of house, situated on a plot of ground containing two acres all his own. It is a mile and a half southeast of Winnsboro, S. C. He lives with an anaemic daughter, Maggie, whose chief interests are a number of cats, about the premises, and a brindled, crumple-horned cow that she ties out to graze every morning and milks at evening.

Charley is squat of figure, short neck, popeyed, and has white hair. He tills the two acres and produces garden truck that he finds a sale for among the employees of the Winnsboro mills, just across the railroad from his home. He likes to talk, and pricks up his ears,(so to speak), whenever anything is related as having occurred in the past. He will importune those present to hear his version of the event unusual.

"Well sah, dis is a pleasure to have you call 'pon me, howsomever it be unexpected dis mornin'. Shoo! (driving the chickens out of the house) Shoo! Git out of here and go scratch a livin' for them chickens, dat's followin' you yet, and you won't wean and git to layin' again. Fust thing you know you'll be spoilin' de floor, when us is got company dis very minute. Scat! Maggie; git them cats out de chairs long 'nough for Mr. Wood to set in one whilst he's come to see me dis mornin'.

"And dat's it? You wants me to talk over de days dat am gone? How dis come 'bout and how dat come 'bout, from de day I was born, to dis very hour? Let's light, up our smokestacks befo' us begin. Maybe you wants a drink of, water. Maggie, fetch de water here!

"How old you think I is, sixty-five? My goodness! Do you hear dat Maggie? (Rubbing his hands; his eyes shining with pleasure)