o have time to
do so much wrong. Course dere is gwine to be black sheeps in most
flocks, and it is gwine to take patience to git them out, but they will
come out, just as sho' as you is born.

"Is de colored people superstitious? Listen at dat. You makes me laugh.
All dat foolishness fust started wid de black man. De reason they is
superstitious comes from nothin' but stomp-down ignorance. De white
chillun has been nursed by colored women and they has told them stories
'bout hants and sich lak. So de white chillun has growed up believin'
some of dat stuff 'til they natchally pass it on from generation to
generation. Here we is, both white and colored, still believin' some of
them lies started back when de whites fust come to have de blacks 'round
them.

"If you wants to know what I thinks is de best vittles, I's gwine to be
obliged to omit (admit) dat it is cabbage sprouts in de spring, and it
is collard greens after frost has struck them. After de best vittles,
dere come some more what is mighty tasty, and they is hoghead and
chittlings wid 'tatoes and turnips. Did you see dat? Here I is talkin'
'bout de joys of de appetite and water drapping from my mouth. I sho'
must be gittin' hongry. I lak to eat. I has been a good eater all my
life, but now I is gittin' so old dat 'cordin' to de scriptures, 'De
grinders cease 'cause they are few', and too, 'Those dat look out de
windows be darkened'. My old eyes and teeth is 'bout gone, and if they
does go soon, they ain't gwine to beat dis old frame long, 'cause I is
gwine to soon follow, I feels. I hope when I does go, I can be able to
say what dat great General Stonewall Jackson say when he got kilt in de
Civil War, 'I is gwine to cross de river and rest under de shade of de
trees'."

[~HW: Ezra Adams, Swansea (about 10m. south of Columbia)~]

Project 1885-1.
Folk Lore
District No. 4.
May 27, 1937.
Edited by: J. J. Murray.

EX-SLAVE STORIES

"Aunt" Mary Adams was swinging easily back and forth in the porch swing
as the writer stopped to speak to her. When questioned, she replied that
she and her mother were ex-slaves and had belonged to Dr. C. E. Fleming.
She was born in Columbia, but they were moved to Glenn Springs where her
mother cooked for Dr. Fleming.

She remembers going with a white woman whose husband was in jail, to
carry him something to eat. She said that Mr. Jim Milster was in that
jail, but he lived to get out, and later kept a tin