project. 1685.-i	~ .
P0 LKLORE	~	;; ~ e d by :~
~partanbUrg	Dist.4	~ ~ ~ Elmer Turriäge ‚ ‚~‚
May 24, 1937
	     .	I ~ L ‚~‚~
	STORIES FROM ELSLAVES


	V? ~ was born seven miles from Newberry, near Jalapa. I was a slave of John Johnson and his sife, Polly(Dorroh) Johnson. They was good to dere slaves. My daddy was Danhle and my mudder EUsa Johnson who was slaves of marster John Johnson. My mudder come from G.eor~ia when she was 14 years old, bought by Marse Johnson. We lived in a little one—room house in dere yard. The mistress learned me to card arid spin, and to weave when I was a child, ‘when Iwas old enough, dey put me in de field to work, hoearid pick cotton. We ~ot no money for working, but ~ot our place to live, some victuals and a few clothes to wear. We had no garden, but helped de mistress in her ~arden and she ~iveus something to eat from it. We had homespun dresses; we made not rauch underclothes, but sometimes In awful cold weather, we had red flannel underskirts. .

	„ Nigger boys in slavery when dere work was done in evenin~, sometime went hunting and caught rabbits, squirréls or ‘possums.

	“We ~ot up at sun..~up in mornin~s and worked ‘till sun~down. ~Ne had Saturday a~fternoori off to do anything we wanted to do. At Christmas time, we got dat day off, and de master would have a big dinner wid all kinds~ood things to eat, spread out in de yard

	“We never. did learn to read and write ~ had no nigger school arid had rio ni~er church, but sometimes de white Thlks would have us go to dere church and set inback seat or gallery.

	.	“The white folks had cotton pickings and corn shuckings often and we helped. Dey had good dinners for them coming to it. De chudrens, white and black played marbles sometimes, and played base. Us slave children played base and jumped from one base to another before could be caught; and we sing:‘Can I git ~o Molly‘s bright?