"I sho members when de soldiers come home from de war. All de women folks, both black as well as white wuz so glad to see 'em back dat we jus jumped up and hollered 'Oh, Lawdy, God bless you.' When you would look around a little, you would see some widout an arm or maybe dey would be a walkin' wid a cruch or a stick. Den you would cry some widout lettin your white folks see you. But Jane, de worsest time of all fer us darkies wuz when de Ku Klux killed Dan Black. We wuz little chilluns a playin' in Dans house. We didn't know he had done nothin' ginst de white folks. Us wuz a playin by de fire jus as nice when something hit on de wall. Dan, he jump up and try to git outten de winder. A white spooky thing had done come in de doo' right by me. I was so scairt dat I could not git up. I had done fell straight out on de flo'. When Dan stick his head outten dat winder something say bang and he fell right down in de flo'. I crawles under de bed. When I got dar, all de other chilluns wuz dar to, lookin' as white as ashed dough from hickory wood. Us peeped out and den us duck under de bed agin. Ain't no bed ebber done as much good as dat one. Den a whole lot of dem come in de house. De wuz all white and scairy lookin'. It still makes de shivvers run down my spine and here I is ole and you all a settin' around wid me and two mo' wars done gone since dat awful time. Dan Black, he wo'nt no mo' kaise dey took dat nigger and hung him to a simmon tree. Dey would not let his folks take him down either. He jus stayed dar till he fell to pieces.
"After dat when us chilluns seed de Ku Klux a comin', us would take an' run breakneck speed to de nearest wood. Dar we would stay till dey wuz plum out o' sight and you could not even hear de horses feet. Dem days wuz worse'n de war. Yes Lawd, dey wuz worse'n any war I is ebber heard of.
"Was not long after dat fore de spooks wuz a gwine round ebber whar. When you would go out atter dark, somethin' would start to a haintin' ye. You would git so scairt dat you would mighty ni run every time you went out atter dark; even iffin you didn't see nothin'. Chile, don't axe me what I seed. Atter all dat killin' and a burnin' you know you wuz bliged to see things wid all dem spirits in distress a gwine all over de land. You see, it is like dis, when a man gits killed befo he is done what de good Lawd intended fer him to do, he comes back here and tries to find who done him wrong. I mean he don' come back hisself, but de spirit, it is what comes and wanders around. Course, it can't do nothin', so it jus scares folks and haints dem."
Source: "Aunt" Millie Bates, 25 Hamlet street, Union, S. C.
Interviewer: Caldwell Sims, Union, S. C.
Project #1655
Mrs. Genevieve W. Chandler
Murrells Inlet, S. C.
Georgetown County
FOLKLORE
VISIT WITH UNCLE WELCOME BEES—AGE 104 YEARS
The road is perfectly camouflaged from the King's Highway by wild plums that lap overhead. Only those who have traveled this way before could locate the 'turn in' to Uncle Welcome's house. When you have turned in and come suddenly out from the plum thicket you find your road winding along with cultivated patches on the left—corn and peas—a fenced-in garden, the palings riven out by hand, and thick dark woods on the left. A lonesome, untenanted cabin is seemingly in the way but your car swings to the left instead of climbing the door-step and suddenly you find you are facing a bog. The car may get through; it may not. So you switch off and just sit a minute, seeing how the land lies. A great singing and chopping of wood off to the left have kept the inmates from hearing the approach of a car. When you rap therefore you hear, 'Come in'.
A narrow hall runs through to the back porch and off this hall on your right opens a door from beyond which comes a very musical squeaking—you know a rocking chair is going hard—even before you see it in motion with a fuzzy little head that rests on someone's shoulder sticking over the top. And the fuzzy head which in size is like a small five-cent cocoanut, belongs to Uncle Welcome's great-grand. On seeing a visitor the grand, the mother of the infant, rises and smiles greeting, and, learning your errand, points back to the kitchen to show where Uncle Welcome sits. You step down one step and ask him if you may come in and he pats a chair by his side. The old man isn't so spry as he was when you saw him in the fall; the winter has been hard. But here it is warm again and at most four in the April afternoon, he sits over his plate of hopping John—he and innumerable flies. At his feet, fairly under the front of a small iron stove, sits another great-grand with a plate of peas between her legs. Peas and rice, 'hopping John'. (Someone says peas and hominy cooked together makes "limping Lizzie in the Low-Country." But that is another story.)
"Uncle Welcome, isn't Uncle Jeemes Stuart the oldest liver on Sandy Island?" Welcome: "Jeemes Stuart? I was married man when he born. Jeemes rice-field. (Worker in rice-field) posed himself. In all kinds of weather. Cut you down, down, down. Jeemes second wife gal been married before but her husband dead.