"I don't know what things has gone to. So much diffence in everthing now than it was back in dem days. Don't know nothing about no Booker T. Washington. I sees much but hears little 'bout dat what I doesn't see, Yes, siree boy, all such little 'muck' go in one ear and come out tother'n wid me. Dat's de talk fer dese young niggers dats eddicated, and I ain't dat bad off.
"Winnsboro fust town I ever seed, but it don't favor itself now.
"Maybinton the place I love best in all the world. Most my life is right here. I'll be buried in Hardy graveyard, whar my white folks dat was so good to me lie sleeping, and dat's whar my ma and pa and others that I loves lies too.
"Post office at Maybinton is whar Miss Bessie Oxner stay. Bill Oxner, her pa kept de post office from de time it started till they stopped it, fur as I knows. It look better then than it does now. Mr. Bill Oxner pretty good man.
"He was a settled man. His wife was a good-looking lady who before her marriage was a Bethune.
"Dar was a big store at the end of Mr. W. B. Whitney's plantation. Dis along to'd first of Freedom. Mr. Slattery lived twixt the Maybins and the Whitney's house. The store upon the end was kept by Mr. Pettus Chick and Mr. Bill Oxner. It was a good store. Didn't have to go to Newber'y to git no candy and 'Bacco. And Dr. Jim Ruff was de doctor what tended to folks in dem parts when dey got sick.
"De old Buck when I first knowed it was run fer a dwelling house by Mr. Jeff Stewart. I been knowed Maybinton all my life. But when I come along stages had done gone out but that's where dey stopped when they come from Spring Hill. I'se heared dat de Buck had large stables and a lots of folks stop there and rested overnight on their way to the Springs. (Glenn's, Chick's, and West Springs.)
"Used to rather dance than to eat. Started out at sundown and git back to the Whitney's at daybreak, den from dar run all de way to Squire Hardy's to git dar by sunup. Pats our feets and knocks tin pans was the music dat us niggers danced to all night long. Put on my clean clothes dat was made right on the plantation and wear them to the dance. Gals wore their homespun stockings. Wore the dresses so long dat they kivered their shoes. My britches were copperus colored and I had on a home wove shirt with a pleated bosom. It was dyed red and had wristbands. I wore that shirt for five years.
"Didn't have no nigger churches down dar den. We went to Chapman's stand. It had a brush top and log seats. The darkies from the Hardy Plantation walked five miles to hear a nigger from Union preach. He driv a one horse waggin and course he stayed around from place to place and the folks take care of him and his mule. Big Jim Henderson owned Chapman's stand which was in the Glymp quarter. The Glymp quarter still got the best land in our settlement yet. All my 'quaintances done left me, fac' is, most of them done crossed over de river. Folks meets me and speaks familiar. I axes, "Who is that?" I used to deal with Mr. Bee Thompson in Union.
"I'se got some business to tend to in Union soon and I spec I be up there in short to see is it anything familiar dar."