o."

=Project #1655=
=W.W. Dixon,=
=Winnsboro, S.C.=

=DAN SMITH=

=_EX-SLAVE 75 YEARS._=

Dan Smith lives in one room, rent free, of a three-room frame house, the
property of his son-in-law, Jim Cason. It is situated on the southeast
corner of Garden and Palmer streets in the town of Winnsboro, S.C. He is
tall, thin and toothless, with watery eyes and a pained expression of
weariness on his face. He is slow and deliberate in movements. He still
works, and has just finished a day's work mixing mortar in the
construction of a brick store building for Mr. Lauderdale. His boss
says: 'The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.' There is nothing
organically wrong with Dan but he appears, in human anatomy, as Doctor
Holmes's One Horse Shay must have looked the day before its final
collapse.

"You been here once befo' and now here you is again. You say you wanna
git additions? Well, I's told you dat I was born in Richland County, a
slave of Marse John Lever and on his plantation, January de 11th day,
1862, when de war was gwine on. How I know? 'Cause my mammy and pappy
told me so. They call my pappy Bob and my mammy Mary. Strange as it
seem, my mistress name Mary, just de same as my mammy, tho' marster
wasn't name Bob, lak pappy. Him name Marster John and de young marster,
an only child, was name Marse Jim. You better stop right dere 'til I
tell you pappy no b'long to de Levers. Him b'long to de Smiths. Him name
Bob Smith, after freedom. Dat's how come I be dis day, Dan Smith. You
ketch de p'int? Well dats de way it was.

"Befo' pappy take a shine to mammy in slavery time, her got mixed up
wid one of old Marse Burrell Cook's niggers and had a boy baby. He was
as black as long-leaf pine tar. Her name him George Washington Cook but
all him git called by, was Wash Cook. My full brudders was Jim, Wesley,
and Joe. All of them dead and gone long ago.

"Us chillun slept on de floor. Mammy had some kind of 'traption or
other, 'ginst de wall of de log house us live in, for her and de baby
child to git in at night. Us have plenty to eat, sich as: peas, 'tatoes,
corn bread, 'lasses, buttermilk, turnips, collards and fat meat.

"De only thing I 'member 'bout my mistress is: One day her come down to
de house and see my brudder Joe sucking his thumb. Mammy tell her, her
can't make him quit it. Mistress go back to de big house and come
runnin' back with quinine. Her rub Joe's thumbs wid dat quinine and tell
mammy to