ter ketch de noise.

I knowed some pore white trash; our oberseer wuz one, an' de shim
shams[3] wuz also nigh 'bout also. We ain't had no use fer none of 'em
an' we shorely ain't carin' whe'her dey has no use fer us er not.

De Ku Kluxes ain't done nothin' fer us case dar ain't many in our
neighborhood. Yo' see de Yankees ain't come through dar, an' we is
skeerd of dem anyhow. De white folks said dat de Yankees would kill us
if'en dey ketched us.

I ain't knowed nothin' 'bout de Yankees, ner de surrender so I stays on
fer seberal months atter de wahr wuz ober, den I comes ter Raleigh an'
goes ter wuck fer de city. I wucks fer de city fer nigh on fifty years,
I reckon, an' jis' lately I retired.

I'se been sick fer 'bout four months an' on, de second day of May. De
day when I wuz a hundert years old I warn't able ter git ter de city
lot, but I got a lot uv presents.

Dis 'oman am my third lawful wife. I married her three years ago.[4]

[Footnote 3: Shim Sham, Free Issues or Negroes of mixed blood.]

[Footnote 4: The old man was too ill to walk out on the porch for his
picture, and his mind wandered too much to give a connected account of
his life.]

N. C. District: No. 2 [320190]
Worker: Mary A. Hicks
No. Words: 793
Subject: Ex-Slave Story
Story Teller: Henry Bobbitt
Editor: Daisy Bailey Waitt

[TR: No Date Stamp]

EX-SLAVE STORIES

An interview with Henry Bobbitt, 87 of Raleigh, Wake County N. C. May 13,
1937 by Mary A. Hicks.

I wuz borned at Warrenton in Warren County in 1850. My father wuz named
Washington, atter General Washington an' my mamma wuz named Diasia atter
a woman in a story. Us an' 'bout forty or fifty other slaves belonged
ter Mr. Richard Bobbitt an' we wucked his four hundred acres o' land fer
him. I jist had one brother named Clay, atter Henry Clay, which shows
how Massa Dick voted, an' Delilah, which shows dat ole missus read de
Bible.

We farmed, makin' tobacco, cotton, co'n, wheat an' taters. Massa Dick
had a whole passel o' fine horses an' our Sunday job wuz ter take care
of 'em, an' clean up round de house. Yes mam, we wucked seben days a
week, from sunup till sundown six days, an' from seben till three or
four on a Sunday.

We didn't have many tear-downs an' prayer meetin's an' sich, case de
fuss sturbed ole missus who wuz kinder sickly. When we did have sompin'
we turned down a big wash-pot in front of de do', an' it