Ward the biggest rice man been on
Waccamaw. He start that big gold rice in the country. He the head rice
Cap'n in dem time. My father the head man, he tote the barn key. Rice
been money dem day and time. My father love he liquor. That take money.
He ain't have money but he have the rice barn key and =rice= been money!
So my father gone in woods (he have a head, my father!), take a old
stump, have 'em hollow out. Now he (the stump) same as mortar to the
barn yard. And my father keep a pestle hide handy. Hide =two= pestle! Them
pestle make outer heart pine. When that pestle been miss (missed), I
wuzn't know nothing! The way I knows my age, when the slavery time war
come I been old enough to go in the woods with my father and hold a
lightard (lightwood) torch for him to see to pestle off that golden rice
he been tote out the barn and hide. =That= rice he been take to town
Sat'd'y when the Colonel and my father go to get provision like sugar,
coffee, pepper and salt. With the money he get when he sell that rice,
he buy liquor. He been hide that sack o' rice fore day clean (daylight)
in the prow of the boat and cover with a thing like an old coat. I
members one day when he come back from town he make a miss (step) when
he onloading and fell and broke he jug! The Big Boss see; he smell; and
he see WHY my father make that miss step; he already sample that liquor!
But the Boss ain't say too much. Sat'd'y time come to ration off. Every
head on the Plantation to Brookgreen line up at smoke-house to draw he
share of meat and rice and grits and meal. (This was fore my father been
pint (appointed) head man. This when they had a tight colored man in
that place by name Fraser. They say Fraser come straight from Africa).
Well, Sat'd'y when time come to give my father he share of rations, the
headman reach down in the corner and pull out a piece of that broke
whiskey jug and put on top my father rations where all could see!
Colonel Ward cause that to be done to broke him off from that whiskey
jug. My father was a steady liquor man till then and the Boss broke him
off.

"Slavery going in. I members Marse Josh and Miss Bess had come from
French Broad (Springs) where they summered it. They brought a great deal
of this cloth they call blue drilling to make a suit for every boy big
enough to wear a suit of clothes and a pair of shoes for every one. I
thought =that= the happiest 'set up' I had in boyhood. Blue drilling pants
and coat and shoe