"What you doin', brudder?' I say. He say: 'Tryin' to find out what dis is. It seem to be a pot lid.' Then we jump up and go to him and all of us grabble dirt 'way and sho' 'nough it was a pot lid and it was on a pot. We digs it out, thinkin' it would be a good thing to take home. It was so heavy, it take us all to lift it out.
"It was no sooner out than we takes off de lid and we is sho' s'prised at what we see. Big silver dollars lay all over de top. We takes two of them and drops them together and they ring just lak we hear them ring on de counters. Then we grabble in de pot for more. De silver went down 'bout two inches deep. Twenty dollar gold pieces run down 'bout four inches or so and de whole bottom was full of big bundles of twenty dollar greenbacks.
"We walks up to de house feelin' pretty big and my oldest brudder was singin':
'Hawk and buzzard went to law,
Hawk come back wid a broken jaw.'
"Mammy say widout lookin' at us: 'What you all comin' to dinner so soon for?' Then she looked up and see de pot and say: 'Land sakes, what you all got?' Then we puts de big pot down in de middle of de floor and takes off de lid, and mammy say: 'Oh! Let's see what we has!' She begin to empty de pot and to count de money. She tell us to watch de door and see dat nobody got in, 'cause she not at home!
"She say de money 'mount to $5,700, and she swear us not to say nothin' 'bout findin' it. She would see what she could find out 'bout it. Weeks after dat, she tell us a big white friend tell her he hear a friend of his buried some money and went to war widout tellin' anybody where it was. Maybe he was killed and dat all we ever hear.
"My mammy kept it and we all work on just de same and she buy these two lots on Senate Street. She build de two-story house here at 924, where you sittin' now, and de cottage nex' door. She always had rent money comin' in ever since. By and by she die, after my Indian pappy go 'way and never come back. Then all de chillun die, 'ceptin' me.
"I am so happy dat I is able to spend my old days in a sort of ease, after strugglin' most of my young life and gittin' no learnin' at school, dat I sometimes sing my mammy's old song, runnin' somethin' lak dis:
'Possum up de simmon tree
Sparrow on de ground
'Possum throw de 'simmons down
Sparrow shake them 'round'."
Project#-1655
Phoebe Faucette
Hampton County