Superstition and signs still have a big place in the life of this woman even after a hundred long years. She has outlived or forgotten many she used to believe in, but still holds fast to those she remembers. If a rooster crows anywhere near your door somebody is coming "and you might as well look for 'em, 'cause that rooster done told you". When a person dies if there is a clock in the room it must be stopped the very minute of death or it will never be any more good—if left ticking it will be ruined. Every dark cloudy day brings death—"Somebody leaving this unfriendly world today". Then she is sure when she "feels sadness" and doesn't know why, it a sign somebody is dying "way off somewhere and we don't know it". Yes, she certainly believes in all the signs she remembers even "to this good day", as she says.

When asked about the war Aunt Adeline said that times were much harder then: "Why we didn't have no salt—jest plain salt, and couldn't get none them days. We had to get up the dirt in the smokehouse where the meat had dripped and 'run it' like lye, to get salt to put on things—yas'm, times was sho' hard and our Marster was off in war all four years and we had to do the best we could. We niggers wouldn't know nothing about it all if it hadn't a been for a little old black, sassy woman in the Quarters that was a talkin' all the time about 'freedom'. She give our white folks lots of trouble—she was so sassy to them, but they didn't sell her and she was set free along with us. When they all come home from the war and Marster called us up and told us we was free, some rejoiced so they shouted, but some didn't, they was sorry. Lewis come a runnin' over there an' wanted me and the chillun to go on over to his white folks' place with him, an' I wouldn't go—No mam, I wouldn't leave my white folks. I told Lewis to go on and let me 'lone, I knowed my white folks and they was good to me, but I didn't know his white folks. So we kept living like we did in slavery, but he come to see me every day. After a few years he finally 'suaded me to go on over to the Willis place and live with him, and his white folks was powerful good to me. After a while, tho' we all went back and lived with my white folks and I worked on for them as long as I was able to work and always felt like I belonged to 'em, and you know, after all this long time, I feel like I am their's."

"Why I live so long, you asking? 'Cause I always been careful and took good care of myself, eat a plenty and stayed out in the good fresh open air and sunshine when I could—and then I had a good husband that took care of me." This last reason for her long life was added as an after thought and since Lewis, her husband, has been dead these forty years maybe those first named causes were the real ones. Be that as it may, Aunt Adeline is a very remarkable old woman and is most interesting to talk with.

FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECTS
Augusta-Athens
Supervisor: Miss Velma Bell
EXCERPTS FROM SLAVE INTERVIEWS
UNCLE WILLIS
[Date Stamp: APR 8 1937]

[TR: Also in combined interviews as Willis Bennefield.]

"Uncle Willis" lived with his daughter, Rena, who is 74 years old. "I his baby," said Rena. "All dead but me and I ain't no good for him now, 'cause I kain't tote nothin'."

When asked where her father was, Rena looked out over the blazing cotton field and called: