Mom Hagar
From:
South Carolina
Project #1655
Mrs. Genevieve W. Chandler
Murrells Inlet, S. C.
Georgetown County
MOM HAGAR
(Verbatim Conversation)
Mom Hagar Brown lives in her little weathered cabin on forty odd acres
left by her husband, Caleb Brown. Caleb died in Georgia where he had
been sent to the penitentiary for stealing a hog that another man stole.
Aunt Hagar has grands settled all around her and she and the grands
divide up the acreage which is planted in corn, sweet potatoes, cotton,
and some highland rice. She ministers to them all when sick, acts as
mid-wife when necessary, and divides her all with her kin and
friends--white and black. She wages a war on ground-moles, at which she
laughs and says she resembles. Ground-mole beans almost a foot long
protect and decorate her yard. She has apple and fig trees, and
scuppernong grape vines grow rank and try to climb all her trees.
(Monday morning she hobbles up on a stick--limping and looking sick.)
Comes in kitchen door.
Lillie: "Aunt Hagar, how you?"
Hagar: "Painful. Doctor tell me I got the tonsil. Want to represent me
one time and take them out. I say, 'No Doctor! Get in hospital, can't
get out! Let me stay here till my change come.' Yeddy? I ain't wuth!
Ain't wuth! Ain't got a piece o' sense. Yeddy? Ellen say she want God to
take she tomorrow? When you ready it's 'God take me now! All right
son!" (Greeting Zackie who enters kitchen.)
Zackie: "Aunt Hagar, how you feel?"
Hagar: "I ain't wuth son. How's all?"
Zackie: "Need a little more grits!"
Lillie: "Hear Zackie! Mom Hagar, that ain't hinder him ordering
another!" (The fact that food is scarce doesn't limit Zackie's family.)
Hagar: "You hear bout this Jeremiah broke in somewhere--get all kinds
likker and canned things and different thing?"
Zackie: "Must a broke in that place call 'Stumble Inn!' (Very
seriously.) That Revenue man been there."
Hagar: "I yeddy last night! Say he there in news-paper. Mary say, 'see
'em in paper!' Mrs. White gone to child funeral. That been in paper too.
Mary see that in paper. Easter say old lady gone dere. Doctor say better
go. Child sick. Child seven years old. Fore they get there tell 'em say,
'Child dead!'
"People gone in patch to pick watermillon. Ain't want child to go. You
know chillun! Child gone in. Ain't want 'em for go. You know. Child pick
watermillon. Ketch up one--I forgotten what pound they say. Roll. Roll
duh watermillon. Roll 'em on snake! They say, 'Snake bite 'em?' Child
say, 'No. Must a scratch.' See blood run on boy leg. Child get
unconscion that minute. Gone right out. Jess so. Ease out so. I cry. I
cry!"
Lillie: "You know 'em, Mom Hagar?"
Hagar: "No! No! Lill, fever got me! Cold get me till my rump dead. Got
hospital boy rouse one time say, 'Ma, less go home! Red stripe snake
bite me.'"
* * * * *
Hagar: "Klu Klux?" (Chin cupped in hand--elbow on knee--looking way
off--)
"Reckon that the way them old timey people call 'em. Have to run way,
you go church. Going to come in to ketch you or do any mischievous
thing--come carry you place they going beat you--in suit of white. Old
white man to Wilderness Plantation. Parish old man name. Treat his wife
bad. Come to house, ain't crack. Come right in suit of white. Drag him
out--right to Woodstock there where Mr. Dan get shoot. Put a beating on
that white man there till he mess up! Oman never gone back to him yet!"
"A man wuz name (I forgot what the man name wuz)--wuz a white man mess
round wid a colored woman and they didn't do a God thing but gone and
put a beating on you, darling! Come in. Grab you and go. Put a beating
on you till you can't see. Know they got a good grub to lick you wid.
They git done you can't sit down. Ain't going carry you just for play
with."
"Mom Hagar, you wanter vote?"
Hagar: "Oh my God!"
"Aunt Hagar are the colored people happier now than the old timey
slavery time people?"
Hagar: "Young people now got the world by force. Don't care. Got more
trick than law low. Tricky! Can't beat the old people. Can't equal to
'em. Some the young people you say 'AMEN' in church they make fun o'
you. Every tub stand on his own bottom. Can't truss 'em.
"Ma say some dem plan to run way. Say, 'Less run! Less run!' Master
ketch dem and fetch dem in. Lay 'em cross barrel. Beat dem till they
wash in blood. Fetch 'em back. Place 'em cross the barrel--hogsket
barrel--Christ! They ramp wash in blood! Beat Ma sister. He sister
sickly. Never could clear task--like he want. My Ma have to work he self
to death to help Henritta so sickly. Clear task to keep from beat. Some
obersheer mean. Oaks labor. (Meaning her Ma and ma's family were
laboring on Oaks Plantation--the plantation where Gov. Joseph Allston
and Theodosia his wife lived on Waccamaw.) Mother Sally Doctor. Ma got
four chillun. One was Emmeline, one Getty, one Katrine one Hagar! I
older than Gob (Katrine). Could a call doctor for Gob if I had any
sense." (Big nuff to gone for doctor when Gob born.)
"Stay in the field!
Stay in the field!
Stay in the field till the war been end!"
(This is Aunt Hagar's favorite song)
Mom Hagar Brown--age 77
Murrells Inlet, S. C.
July 4th, 1937.
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