Jesse Rice
From:
South Carolina
=Project 1885-1=
=Folklore=
=Spartanburg, Dist. 4=
=Jan. 17, 1937=
=Edited by:=
=Elmer Turnage=
=STORIES FROM EX-SLAVES=
"My people tells me a lot about when I was a lil' wee boy. I has a clear
mind and I allus has had one. My folks did not talk up people's age like
folks do dese days. Every place dat I be now, 'specially round dese
government folks, first thing dat dey wants to know is your name. Well,
dat is quite natu'al, but de very next question is how old you is. I
don't know, why it is, but dey sho do dat. As my folks never talked age,
it never worried me till jes' here of late. So dey says to me dat last
week I give one age to de man, and now I gives another. Soon I see'd dat
and I had to rest my mind on dat as well as de mind of de government
folks. So I settled it at 80 years old. Dat gives me respect from
everybody dat I sees. Den it is de truth, too, kaise I come along wid
everybody dat is done gone and died now. De few white folks what I was
contemperment (contemporary) wid, 'lows dat I is 80 and dey is dat, too.
"You know dat I does 'member when dat Sherman man went through here wid
dem awful mens he had. Dey 'lowed dat dey was gwine to Charlotte to git
back to Columbia. I never is heard of sech befo' or since. We lived at
old man Jerry Moss's in Yorkville, way back den. Yes sir, everyone said
Yorkville, den, but dey ain't never called Gaffney like dat. Stories
goes round 'bout Sherman shooting folks. Some say dat he shot a big rock
off'n de State House in Columbia. My Ma and my Pa, Henry and Charity
Rice, hid me wid dem when Sherman come along. Us never see'd him, Lawd
God no, us never wanted to see him.
"Folks allus crying hard times dese days, ain't no hard times now like
it was atter Sherman went through Yorkville. My ma and pa give me ash
cake and 'simmon beer to eat for days atter dat. White folks never had
no mo', not till a new crop was grow'd. Dat year de seasons was good and
gardens done well. Till den us nearly starved and we never had no easy
time gitting garden seed to plant, neither.
"Yes sir, if I's handy to locust I makes locust beer; den if I's handy
to 'simmons, why den I makes 'simmon beer. Now it's jes' for to pass de
time dat us does dat. But gwine back to de war; den it was for
necessity. Dese young'uns now don't know what hard times is. Dey all has
bread and meat and coffee, no matter how poor dey is. If dey had to live
for days and weeks on ash cake and 'simmon beer, as us did den, and work
and wait on a crop wid nothing but dat in deir bellies; den dey could
grumble hard times. I allus tells 'em to shut up when dey starts
anything like dat around me.
"When dat crop come along, we sho did fall in and save all us could for
de next year. Every kind of seed and pod dat grow'd we saved and dried
for next spring or fall planting. Atter folks is once had deir belly
aching and growling for victuals, dey ain't never gwine to throw no
rations and things away no mo'. Young folks is powerful wasteful, but if
something come along to break up deir good time like it did to us when
dat man Sherman held everything up, dey sho will take heed, and dey
won't grumble 'bout it neither, cause dey won't have no time to grumble.
"Things passes over quicker sometimes dan we figures out dat dey will.
Everything, no matter how good it be or how hard, passes over. Dey jes'
does like dat. So dem Yankees went on somewhars, I never know'd whar,
and everything round Yorkville was powerful relieved. Den de
Confederate soldiers started coming across Broad River. Befo' dey got
home, word had done got round dat our folks had surrendered; but dem
Yankees never fit (fought) us out--dey starved us out. If things had
been equal us would a-been fighting dem till dis day, dat us sho would.
I can still see dem soldiers of ours coming across Broad River, all
dirty, filthy, and lousy. Dey was most starved, and so poor and lanky.
And deir hosses was in de same fix. Men and hosses had know'd plenty
till dat Sherman come along, but most of dem never know'd plenty no
more. De men got over it better dan de hosses. Women folks cared for de
men. Dey brewed tea from sage leaves, sassafras root and other herb
teas. Nobody never had no money to fetch no medicine from de towns wid,
so dey made liniments and salves from de things dat grow'd around about
in de woods and gardens.
"I told you 'bout how small I was, but my brother, Jim Rice, went to
Charleston and helped to make dem breastworks down dar. I has never
see'd dem, but dem dat has says dat dey is still standing in good
conditions. Cose de Yankees tore up all dat dey could when dey got dar.
"Lots of rail fences was made back in dem days. Folks had a 'no fence'
law, dat meant dat everybody fenced in deir fields and let de stock run
free. Hogs got wild and turkeys was already wild. Sometimes bulls had to
be shot to keep dem from tearing up everything. But folks never fenced
in no pasture den. Dey put a rail fence all around de fields, and in dem
days de fields was never bigger dan ten or fifteen acres. Logs was
plentiful, and some niggers, called 'rail splitters', never done nothing
else but split rails to make fences.
"If I recollects right, Wade Hampton broke down fence laws in dis
country. I sho heard him talk in Yorkville. Dey writ about him in de
Yorkville Inquirer and dey still has dat paper over dar till now. De Red
Shirts come along and got Wade Hampton in. He scared de Yankees and
Carpetbaggers and all sech folks as dem away from our country. Dey went
back whar dey come from, I reckon.
"De Ku Klux was de terriblest folks dat ever crossed my path. Who dey
was I ain't never know'd, but dey took Alex Leech to Black's Ford on
Bullet Creek and killed him for being a radical. It was three weeks
befo' his folks got hold of his body.
"Dr. Bell's calves got out and did not come back for a long time. Mrs.
Bell fear'd dat dey was gitting wild, so she sent de milk girl down on
de creek to git dem calves. Dat girl had a time, but she found 'em and
drove 'em back to de lot. De calves give her a big chase and jumped de
creek near a big raft of logs dat had done washed up from freshets. All
over dem logs she saw possums, musrats and buzzards a-setting around.
She took her stick and drove dem all away, wid dem buzzards puking at
her. When dey had left, she see'd uncle Alex laying up dar half e't up
by all dem varmints.
"She know'd dat it must be him. When she left, dem buzzards went back to
deir perch. First thing dey done was to lap up deir own puke befo' dey
started on uncle Alex again. Yes sir, dat's de way turkey buzzards does.
Dey pukes on folks to keep dem away, and you can't go near kaise it be's
so nasty; but dem buzzards don't waste nothing. Little young buzzards
looks like down till dey gits over three days old. You can go to a
buzzard roost and see for yourself, but you sho better stay out'n de way
of de old buzzard's puke. Dey sets around de little ones and keeps
everything off by puking.
"Pacolet used to be called Buzzard Roost, kaise in de old days dey had a
rail outside de bar-room dat de drunks used to hang over and puke in a
gully. De buzzards would stay in dat gully and lap up dem drunkards'
puke. One night a old man went in a drunkard's sleep in de bar-room. De
bar tender shoved him out when he got ready to close, and he rolled up
against dis here rail dat I am telling you about. He 'lowed dat next
morning when he woke up, two buzzards was setting on his shirt front
eating up his puke. He said, 'You is too soon', and grabbed one by de
leg and wrung his head off. But befo' he could git its head wrung off it
had done puked his own puke back on him. He said dat was de nastiest
thing he ever got into, and dat he never drunk no more liquor. Dem days
is done past and gone, and it ain't nobody hardly knows Pacolet used to
be called Buzzard Roost.
"Lawd have mercy, white folks! Here I is done drapped plumb off'n my
subject; but a old man's mind will jes' run waa'ry at times. Me and Joe,
Alex's son, went to see de officer 'bout gitting Joe's pa buried. He
'lowed dat Alex's body was riddled wid bullets; so we took him and put
his bones and a little rotten flesh dat dem buzzards had left, in de box
we made, and fetched it to de site and buried him. Nobody ever seed Alex
but me, Joe, and dat gal dat went atter dem calves. Us took shovels and
throw'd his bones in de box. When we got de top nailed on, we was both
sick. Now, things like dat don't come to pass. I still thinks of de
awful days and creeps runs all over me yet.
"All my brothers, sisters, mother and father is done gone. And I is
looking to leave befo' a great while. I is trying every day to git
ready, Lawd. I been making ready for years. Smart mens tries to make you
live on, but dey can't git above death. Tain't no use."
Source: Jesse Rice (80), Littlejohn St., Gaffney, S.C.
Interviewer: Caldwell Sims, Union, S.C. 1/8/38
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Phillip Rice
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Anne Rice
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