Sallie says present generation knows too much and too little, that the "Old-time religion" was best for all, she thinks "Satan's goin' 'round wid his tail curled up, catching all he can devour"; and "folks should do like Christ did when Satan tried to tempt Him, and tell Satan to go get behind them, and they get behind Jesus they could not have sorrow run across their hearts and minds."
[Mary Rice]
Interview with Mary Rice
—Gertha Couric, [HW: Eufaula]
DESE UPPITY NIGGERS
Few of the ex-slaves will readily admit that they were mere field hands in the old days. Generally they prefer to leave the impression that they were house servants, or at least stable boys or dairy hands.
But "aunt" Mary Rice, age 92, who lives in Eufaula, holds no such view about the superior social position of house servants. She was a "big missy gal" ('teen age) during the War, and about her duties on the plantation of Dr. Cullen Battle near Tuskegee, where she was born, she said:
"Honey, I lived in de quahter. I was a fiel' nigger, but when I was a lil' gal, I helped around de milk-house, churnin', washing de pails and de lak, and den give all de little niggers milk.
Mary Rice, Eufaula, Alabama
"Massa Cullen and Mistis' Ma'y Jane was de bes' Marster and Mistis' in de worl'. Once when I was awful sick, Mistis' Ma'y Jane had me brung in de Big House and put me in a room dat sot on de 'tother side of the kitchen so she could take kere of me herself 'cause it was a right fur piece to de quahter and I had to be nussed day and night.