"We used to ask a riddle like this: Love I stand, Love I sit, Love I
hold in my right hand. What is it? It was made up when an old woman had
a little dog named 'Love'. She killed it and put a part of it, after it
was baked, in her stockings; part in her shoes; part in back of her
dress, and part in her gloves. A nigger was going to be hung the next
Friday, and told if he guess the riddle he would be turned loose. He
couldn't guess it, but was turned loose anyway.

"I think Abe Lincoln might ter done good, but he had us all scared to
death, took our mules and burned our places. Don't know anything about
Jeff Davis. Booker Washington is all right.

"I joined de church when 28 years old, because I thought it was right.
Wanted to git right and git to God's Kingdom. I think everybody ought to
join de church.

"O' course I rather it not be slavery time, but I got more ter eat den
dan now. Den we didn't know what ter do, but now we perish ter death."

=Source:= Madison Griffin (84), Whitmire, S.C.
Interviewer: G.L. Summer, Newberry, S.C. (6/18/1937)

Project 1885-1
FOLKLORE
Spartanburg, Dist. 4
June 7, 1937

Edited by:
Elmer Turnage

STORIES FROM EX-SLAVES

"I was born in old Edgefield county, about three miles below what is now
Saluda Courthouse. I was a slave of Alec Grigsby. He was a fair marster,
but his wife was awful mean to us. She poked my head in a rail fence
once and whipped me hard with a whip. I lived in that section until
eight years ago, when I come to Newberry to live with my daughters.

"I worked hard in cotton fields, milked cows and helped about the
marster's house. When the bush-whackers and patrollers come around dere,
us niggers suffered lots with beatings. Some of dem was killed.

"The old folks had corn-shuckings, frolics, pender pullings, and
quiltings. They had quiltings on Saturday nights, with eats and frolics.
When dey danced, dey always used fiddles to make the music.

"The men folks hunted much: doves, partridges, wild turkeys, deer,
squirrels and rabbits. Sometimes dey caught rabbits in wooden boxes,
called 'rabbit-gums'. It had a trap in the middle, which was set at
night, with food in it, and when the rabbit bite, the tray sprung, and
the opening at the front was closed so he couldn't get out.

"The marster had a big whiskey still, and sold lots of liquor to people
around there."

=Source:= Peggy Grigsby (106), Newberry, S.C.
Int