"Member another time. Had a boat full of people this last go 'round. Wuz Miss Mary, he aunty and the lawyer. I take them fishing outside in oshun. Been in the Inlet mouth. Come half way to Drunken Jack Island. Breaker start to lick in the boat! I start to bail! Have a maters (tomatoes) can for bail with. And that been danjus (dangerous); have too much women in there; dey couldn't swim like a man. And it happen by accident, when the boat swamp and full with water, our FEET TOUCH BOTTOM. When he (the boat) turn over, I didn't aim to do no thing but swim for myself. Wasn't able to help nobody. But here out feet touch bottom. Only an accident from God!
"One time again I swamp outside, 'tween Georgetown and Charleston. Try to bail. Swim with one hand, hold boat with the other. Roughest time I ever see 'cause it been cold wedder (weather). Old before-time yawl boat, carry eight oar, four to each side. Young man then; 1877. After the wedder (weather) surrender, we we gone back in dere and find cork going up and down and save us net and all!
"When the Flagg storm been, 1893, I working for Ravanel and Holmes. I was taken up in that storm in a steamer boat. Leave Charleston generally about five in morning. That trip never reach Georgetown till nine that night. Meet a man on that trip got he wife hug to mast in a little kinder life boat. Had he two chillun; rope wrap 'em to that mast. Save man and wife and chillun and gone back and save he trunk. After that they quit call me 'Ben'; they call me 'Rooster'.
"After Flagg storm, Colonel Ward take me and Peter Carr, us two and ah horse, take that shore (follow the ocean shore line) to Little River. Search for all them what been drowned. Find a trunk to Myrtle Beach. Have all kinder thing in 'em; comb for you hair, thing you put on you wrist. Find dead horse, cow, ox, turkey, fowl—everything. Gracious God! Don't want to see no more thing like that! But no dead body find on beach outside Flagg family. Find two of them chillun way down to Dick Pond what drownded to Magnolia Beach; find them in a distance apart from here to that house. Couldn't 'dentify wedder Miss or who. All that family drown out because they wouldn't go to this lady house on higher ground. Wouldn't let none of the rest go. Servant all drown! Betsy, Kit, Mom Adele! Couldn't 'dentify who lost from who save till next morning. Find old Doctor body by he vest stick out of the mud; fetch Doctor body to shore and he watch still aticking. Dr. Wardie Flagg been save hanging to a beach cedar. When that tornado come, my house wash down off he blocks. Didn't broke up.
"Religion! Reckon Stella got the morest of dat. I sometimes a little quick. Stella, she holds one course. I like good song. One I like best?"
'Try us, Oh Lord,
And search the ground
Of every sinful heart! (Uncle Ben stopped to think).
What 'eer of sin
In us be found
Oh, bid it all depart!'
"Reason I choose that for a favorite hymn, I was to Brookgreen doing some work for Dr. Wardie Flagg and I had to climb as high as that live oak tree, and I fell high as that tree! I lay there till I doze off in sleep. And I tell you what happen to me curious. While I was sleep I seen two milk white chickens. You know what them two white fowl do? They gone and sit on my mother dresser right before the glass and sing that song. Them COULD sing! And it seem like a woman open a vial and pour something on me. My spiritual mother (in dem day every member in the church have what they call a spiritual mother) say, 'That not natural fowl. That sent you for a token.' Since that time I serve the choir five or six years and no song seem strange to me since that day. God ain't ax about you color; God ax about you heart.
"Make my living with the ister (oyster). Before time (formerly) I get seventy five cents a bushel; now I satisfy with fifty cents. Tide going out, I go out in a boat with the tide; tide bring me in with sometimes ten, sometimes fifteen or twenty bushels. I make white folks a roast; white folks come to Uncle Ben from all over the country—Florence, Dillon, Mullins—every kind of place. Same price roast or raw, fifty cents a bushel.
"I bout to quit up with sell. All the lawyer. Turn all my papers over to Mr. Burris. I got too much of paper in that Con-o-way. Court House. Got more paper in there than the house worth! Have to step to Con-o-way all the time. Struggle and starve myself out for these fifteen acres. Thirty miles to Con-o-way. Thirty miles back by the course I travels. All them tricky mens try to go and get old Ben's land sign to 'em. That's the mainest thing take me to Con-o-way every week. They all talk so sugar mouth till my name down; then when my name write is another thing. When I in too much trouble, I just has to step up to Con-o-way and see Mr. Burris. He's a good man.
"They try to mix old Ben up in this whiskey business. It look too brutish to me.