If a rooster crows on your back steps you may look for a stranger.
Chinaberries are good for wormy children.
The top of a pine tree and the top of a cedar tree placed over a large coal of fire, just enough to make a good smoke, will cure chillblain feet.
COMPILATION RICHMOND COUNTY EX-SLAVE INTERVIEWS
MISTREATMENT OF SLAVES
Written by:
Louise Oliphant,
Federal Writers' Project
Augusta, Georgia
Edited by:
John N. Booth,
District Supervisor,
Federal Writers' Project
Augusta, Georgia
There are many ex-slaves living in Richmond County and Augusta who have vivid recollections of the days when their lives were inseparably bound to those of their masters. These people have a past rich in tradition and sentiment, and their memories of customs, habits of work and play, and the superstitious beliefs, which still govern their actions to a large extent weave a colorful pattern in local history.
Mistreatment at the hands of their masters and the watchdog overseers is outstanding in the memory of most of them. "When I was in slavery, us had what you call good white folk. They warn't rich by no means, but they was good. Us had rather have 'em poor and good than rich and mean. Plenty of white folk mistreated they slaves, but ours never mistreated us. They was a man lived in callin' distance, on the next plantation, who worked his slaves day and night and on Sunday for a rarety. You could hear 'em coming from the field about 12 o'clock at night, and they had to be back in the fields by daylight. They couldn't get off on Saturday nights like everbody else. Whenever he bought their clothes, it was on Sunday when they warn't workin'. He was mean, but he was good about buyin' for 'em, new shoes or a suit or anything of the like they said they needed.
"Marster had overseers, but he wouldn't let 'em whip his slaves unmerciful. They always whipped us just as your mamas whips you now.