Name: Van Hook, John F.

Address: Newton Bridge Road Athens, Georgia

Age: 76

Written by: Mrs. Sadie B. Hornsby (Area 6 - Athens)

Edited by: Mrs. Sarah H. Hall (Athens) and John N. Booth (District Supervisor Federal Writers' Project Residencies 6 & 7, Augusta, Ga.)

Citation: Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 4, Part 4, Telfair-Young (1936), Library of Congress, Manuscript/Mixed Material. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mesn.044

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Interview

John F. Van Hook was a short, stout man with a shining bald pate, a fringe of
kinky gray hair, kindly eyes, and a white mustache of the Lord Chamberlain variety. His
shabby work clothes were clean and carefully mended, and he leaned on a cane for
support.

John was looking for the "Farm Bureau Office," but he agreed to return for an
interview after he had transacted his business. When he reappeared a short time later and
settled down in a comfortable chair he gave the story of his early life with apparent
enjoyment.

In language remarkably fres of dialect, John began by telling his full name and
added that he was well known in Georgia and the whole country. "Until I retired." he
remarked, "I taught school in North Carolina, and in Hall, Jackson, and Rabun Counties,
in Georgia. I am farming now about five miles from Athens in the Sandy Creak district. I
was born in 1862 in Macon County, North Carolina, on the George Sellar's plantation,
which borders the Little Tennessee River.

"I don't know anything much, first hand, about the war period, as I was quite a
child when that ended, but I can tell you all about the days of reconstruction. What I
know about the things that took place during the war was told me by my mother and
other old people.

"My father was Bas Van Hook and he married Mary Angel, my mother. Mother
was born on Marse Dillard Love's plantation, and when his daughter, Miss Jenny,
married Marse Thomas Angel's son, Marse Dillard gave Mother to Miss Jenny and when
Little Miss Jenny Angel was born, Mother was her nurse. Marse Thomas and Miss Jenny
Angel died, and Mother stayed right there keeping house for Little Miss Jenny and
looking after her. Mother had more sense than all the rest of the slaves put together, and
she even did Little Miss Jenny's shopping.

"My father was the only darkey Old Man Isaac Van Hook owned, and he did
anything that came to hand: he was a good carpenter and mechanic and helped the Van
Hooks to build mills, and he made the shoes for that settlement. Thomas Aaron, George,
James, Claude, and Washington were my five brothers, and my sisters were Zelia,
Elizabeth, and Candace. Why, Miss, the only thing I can remember right off hand that we
children done was fight and frolic like youngsters will do when they get together. With
time to put my mind on it, I would probably recollect our games and songs, if we had
any.'

"Our quarters was on a large farm on Sugar Fork River. The houses were what
you would call log huts and they were scattered about promiscuously, no regular lay-out,
just built wherever they happened to find a good spring convenient. There was never but
one room to a hut, and they warn't particular about how many darkies they put in a room.

"White folks had fine four-poster beds with a freme built around the top of the
bed, and over the frame hung pretty, ruffled white curtains and a similar ruffled curtain
was around the bottom of the bed; the curtains made pretty ornaments. Slaves had beds of
this general kind, but they warn't quite as pretty and fine. Corded springs were the go
then. The beds used by most of the slaves in that day and time were called 'Georgia beds,'
and these were made by boring two holes in the cabin wall, and two in the floor, and side
pieces were run from the holes in the well to the posts and fastened; then planks were
nailed around the sides and foot, box-fashion, to hold in the straw that we used for
mattresses; over this pretty white sheets and plenty of quilts was spreaded. Yes, mam,
there was always plenty of good warm cover in those days. Of course, it was home-made,
all of it.

"My grandfather was a blacksmith and farm hand owned by Old Man Dillard
Love. According to my earliest recollection my grandmother Van Hook was dead and I
have no memories about her. My great, great grandmother, Sarah Angel, looked after
slave children while their mothers were at work. She was a free woman, but she had
belonged to Marse Tommy Angel and Miss Jenny Angel; they were brother and sister.
The way Granny Sarah happened to be free was; one of the women in the Angel family
died and left a little baby soon after one of Granny's babies was born, and so she was
loaned to that family as wet nurse for the little orphan baby. They gave her her freedom
and took her into their home, because they did not want her sleeping in slave quarters
while she was nursing the white child. In that settlement, it was considered a disgrace for
a white child to feed at the breast of a slave woman, but it was all right if the darkey was
a free woman. After she got too old to do regular work, Granny Sarah used to glean after
the reapers in the field to get wheat for her bread. She had been a favored slave and
allowed to do pretty much as she pleased, and after she was a free woman the white folks
continued to look after her every need, but she loved to do for herself as long as she was
able to be up and about.

"What did we have to eat then? Why, most everything; ash cakes was a mighty go
then. Cornbread dough was made into little pones and placed on the hot rocks close to the
fire to dry out a little, then hot ashes were raked out to the front of the fireplace and piled
over the ash cakes. When thoroughly done they were taken out and the ashes washed off;
they were just like cake to us children then. We ate lots of home-made lye hominy, beans,
peas, and all kinds of greens, cooked with fat meat. The biggest, and maybe the best thing
in the way of vegetables that we had then was the white-head cabbage; they grew large
up there in Carolina where I lived. There was just one big garden to feed all the folks on
that farm.

"Marse George had a good 'possum dog that he let his slaves use at night. They
would start off hunting about 10 o'clock. Darkies knew that the best place to hunt for
'possums was in a persimmon tree. If they couldn't shake him out, they would out the tree
down, but the most fun was when we found the 'possum in a hollow log. Some of the
hunters would get at one and of the log, and the others would guard the other end, and
they would build a fire to smoke the 'possum out. Sometimes when they had to pull him
out, they would find the 'possum in such a tight place that most of his hair would be
rubbed off before they could get him out. Darkies hunted rabbits, squirrels, coons, all
kinds of birds, and 'specially they was fond of going after wild turkeys. Another great
sport was hunting deer in the nearby mountains. I managed to get a shot at one once.
Marse George was right good about letting his darkies hunt and fish at night to get meat
for themselves. Oh! Sure, there were lots of fish and they caught plenty of 'em in the
Little Tennessee and Sugar Fork Rivers and in the numerous creeks that were close by.
Red horse, suckers, and salmon are the kinds of fish I remember best. They were cooked
in various ways in skillets, spiders, and ovens on the big open fireplace.

"Now, about the clothes we wore in the days of the war, I couldn't rightly say, but
my Mother said we had good comfortable garments. In the summer weather, boys and
men wore plain cotton shirts and jeans pants. The home-made linsey-wooley shirts that
we wore over our cotton shirts, and the wool pants that we wore in winter, were good and
warm; they had brogan shoes in winter too. Folks wore the same clothes on Sundays as
through the week, but they had to be sure that they were nice and clean on Sundays.
Dresses for the women folks were made out of cotton checks, and they had sunbonnets
too.

"Marse George Sellars, him that married Miss Ca'line Angel, was my real master.
They had four children, Bud, Mount, Elizabeth, and, and er; I just can't bring to recollect
the name of their other girl. They lived in a two-story frame house that was surrounded
by an oak grove on the road leading from Franklin, North Carolina, to Clayton, Georgia.
Hard Sellars was the carriage driver, and while I am sure Marse George must have had an
overseer, I don't remember ever hearing anybody say his name.

"Really, Miss, I couldn't say just how big that plantation was, but I am sure there
must have bean at least four or five hundred acres in it. One mighty peculiar thing about
his slaves was that Marse George never had more than 99 slaves at one time; every time
he bought one to try to make it an even hundred, a slave died. This happened so often, I
was told, that he stopped trying to keep a hundred or more, and held on to his 99 slaves,
and long as he did that, there warn't any more deaths than births among his slaves. His
slaves had to be in the fields when the sun rose, and there they had to work steady until
the sun went down. Oh! Yes, mam, Marse Tommy Angel was mighty mean to his slaves,
but Miss Jenny, his sister, was good as could be; that is the reason she gave my mother to
her sister, Miss Ca'line Sellars; because she thought Marse Tommy was too hard on her.

"I heard some talk as to how after the slaves had worked hard in the field all day
and come to the house at night, they were whipped for mighty small offenses. Marse
George would have them tied hand and foot over a barrel and would beat them with a
cowhide, or cat-o'-nine tails lash. They had a jail in Franklin as far back as I can recollect.
Old Big Andy Angel's white folks had him put in jail a heap of times, because he was a
rogue and stole everything he could get his hands on. Nearly everybody was afraid of
him; he was a great big double jointed man, and was black as the ace of spades. No,
mam, I never saw any slaves sold, but my father's mother and his sister were sold on the
block. The white folks that bought 'em took them away. After the war was over my father
tried to locate 'em, but never once did he get on the right track of 'em.

"Oh! Why, my white folks took a great deal of pains teaching their slaves how to
read and write. My father could read, but he never learned to write, and it was from our
white folks that I learned to read and write. Slaves read the Bible more than anything
else. There were no churches for slaves on Marse George's plantation, so we all went to
the white folks' church, about two miles away; it was called Clarke's Chapel. Sometimes
we went to church at Cross Roads; that was about the same distance across Sugar Fork
River. My mother was baptized in that Sugar Fork River by a white preacher, but that is
the reason I joined the Baptist church, because my mother was a Baptist, and I was so
crazy about her, and am 'til yet.

"There were no funeral parlors in those days. They just funeralized the dead in
their own homes, took them to the graveyard in a painted home-made coffin that was
lined with thin bleaching made in the loom on the plantation, and buried them in a grave
that didn't have any bricks or cement about it. That brings to my memory those songs
they sung at funerals. One of them started off something like this, I Don't Want You to
Grieve After Me. My mother used to tell me that when she was baptized they sung, You
Shall Wear a Lily-White Robe. Whenever I get to studying about her it seems to me I can
hear my mother singing that song again. She did love it so much.

"No, mam, there didn't none of the darkies on Marse George Sellar's place run
away to the North, but some on Marse Tommy Angel's place ran to the West. They told
me that when Little Charles Angel started out to run away a bird flew in front of him and
led him all the way to the West. Understand me, I am not saying that is strictly so, but
that is what I heard old folks say, when I was young. When darkies wanted to get news to
their girls or wives on other plantations and didn't want Marse George to know about it,
they would wait for a dark night and would tie rags on their feet to keep from making any
noise that the paterollers might hear, for if they were caught out without a pass, that was
something else. Paterollers would go out in squads at night and whip any darkies they
caught out that could not show passes. Adam Angel was a great big man, weighing about
200 pounds, and he slipped out one night without a pass. When the paterollers found him,
he was at his girl's place where they were out in the front yard stewing lard for the white
folks. They knew he didn't belong on that plantation, so they asked him to show his pass.
Adam didn't have one with him, and he told them so. They made a dive for him, and then,
quick as a flash, he turned over that pot of boiling lard, and while they were getting the
hot grease off of them he got away and came back to his cabin. If they had caught Adam,
he would have needed some of that spilt grease on him after the beating they would have
give him. Darkies used to stretch ropes and grapevines across the road where they knew
paterollers would be riding; then they would run down the road in front of them, and
when they got to the rope or vine they would jump over it and watch the horses stumble
and throw the paterollers to the ground. That was a favorite sport of slaves.

"After the darkies got in from the field at night, ate their supper, and finished up
the chores for the day, on nights when the moon shone bright the men would work in
their own cotton patches that Marse George allowed them; the women used their own
time to wash, iron, patch, and get ready for the next day, and if they had time they helped
the men in their cotton patches. They worked straight on through Saturdays, same as any
other day, but the young folks would get together on Saturday nights and have little
parties.

"How did they spend Sundays? Why, they went to church on Sunday and visited
around, holding prayer meetings at one another's cabins. Now, Christmas morning! Yes,
mam, that was a powerful time with the darkies, if they didn't have nothing but a little
sweet cake, which was nothing more than gingerbread. However, Marse George did have
plenty of good things to eat at that time, such as fresh pork and wild turkeys, and we were
allowed to have a biscuit on that day. How we did frolic and cut up at Christmas! Marse
George didn't make much special to do on New Year's Day as far as holiday was
concerned; work was the primary object, especially in connection with slaves.

"Oh-oo-h! Everybody had cornshuckings. The man designated to act as the
general would stick a peacock tail feather in his hat and call all the men together and give
his orders. He would stand in the center of the corn pile, start the singing, and keep things
lively for them. Now and then he would pass around the jug. They sang a great deal
during cornshuckings, but I have forgotten the words to those songs. Great excitement
was expressed whenever a man found a red ear of corn, for that counted 20 points, a
speckled ear was 10 points and a blue ear 5 points, toward a special extra big swig of
liquor whenever a person had as many as 100 points. After the work was finished they
had a big feast spread on long tables in the yard, and dram flowed plentiful, then they
played ball, tussled, ran races, and did anything they knew how to amuse themselves.

"Now, Ladies," John said, "please excuse me. I left my wife at home real sick, and
I just must hurry to the drug store and get some flaxseed so I can make a poultice for
her." As he made a hasty departure, he agreed to complete the story later at his home, and
gave careful directions for finding the place.

A month later, two visitors called on John at his small, unpainted house in the
center of a hillside cotton patch.

A tall, thin Negress appeared in the doorway. "Yes, mam, John Van Hook lives
here. He's down in the field with his hoe, digging 'taters." She leaned from the porch and
called, "Daddy, Daddy! Somebody wants to see you." Asked if John was her father, she
answered "No, mam, he is my husband. I started calling him Daddy when our child was
little, so I've been calling him that ever since. My name is Laney."

The walls of the room into which John invited his callers were crudely plastered
with newspapers and the small space was crowded with furniture of various kinds and
periods. The ladderback chairs he designated for his guests were beautiful. "They are
plantation-made." he explained, "and we've had 'em a mighty long time." On a reading
table a pencil and tablet with a half-written page lay beside a large glass lamp.
Newspapers and books covered several other tables. A freshly whitewashed hearth and
mantel were crowned by an old-fashioned clock, and at the end of the room a short flight
of steps led to the dining room, built on a higher floor level.

"Now, let's see! Where was I?," John began. "Oh, yes, we were talking about
cornshuckings, when I had to leave your office. Well, I haven't had much time to study
about those cornshucking songs to get all the words down right, but the name of one was
General Religh Hoe, and there was another one that was called, Have a Jolly Crowd, and
a Little Jolly Johnny.

"Now you needn't to expect me to know much about cotton pickings, for you
know I have already told you I was raised in North Carolina, and we were too far up in
the mountains for cotton growing, but I have lived in a cotton growing country for fortyodd
years.

"As to parties and frolics, I guess I could have kept those things in mind, but
when I realized that being on the go every night I could get off, week in and week out,
was turning my mind and heart away from useful living, I tried to put those things out of
my life and to train myself to be content with right living and the more serious things of
life, and that's why I can't remember more of the things about our frolics that took place
as I was growing up. About all I remember about the dances was when we danced the
cotillion at regular old country break-downs. Folks valued their dances very highly then,
and to be able to perform them well was a great accomplishment.Turkey in the Straw is
about the oldest dance tune I can remember. Next to that is Taint Gonne Rain No More,
but the tune as well as words to that were far different from the modern song by that
name. Rabbit Hair was another favorite song, and there were dozens of others that I just
never tried to remember until you asked me about them.

"My father lived in Caswell County and he used to tell us how hard it was for him
to get up in the morning after being out most of the night frolicking. He said their
overseer couldn't talk plain, and would call them long before crack of dawn, and it
sounded like he was saying, 'Ike and a bike, Ike and a bike.' What he meant was, 'Out and
about! Out and about!' "Marriage in those days was looked upon as something very
solemn, and it was mighty seldom that anybody ever heard of a married couple trying to
get separated. Now it's different. When a preacher married a couple, you didn't see any
hard liquor around, but just a little light wine to liven up the wedding feast. If they were
married by a justice of the peace, look out, there was plenty of wine and," here his voice
was almost awe-stricken, "even whiskey too."

Laney interrupted at this stage of the story with, "My mother said they used to
make up a new broom and when the couple jumped over it, they was married. Then they
gave the broom to the couple to use keeping house." John was evidently embarrassed.
"Laney," he said, "that was never confirmed. It was just hearsay, as far as you know, and
I wouldn't tell things like that.

"The first colored man I ever heard preach was old man Johnny McDowell. He
married Angeline Pennon and William Scruggs, uncle to Ollie Scruggs, who lives in
Athens now. After the wedding they were all dancing around the yard having a big time
and enjoying the wine and feast, and old man McDowell, sitting there watching them,
looked real thoughtful and sad; suddenly he said: 'They don't behave like they knew
what's been done here today. Two people have been joined together for life. No matter
what comes, or what happens, these two people must stand by each other, through
everything, as long as they both shall live.' Never before had I had such thoughts at a
wedding. They had always just been times for big cats, dancing, frolicking, and lots of
jokes, and some of them pretty rough jokes, perhaps. What he said got me to thinking,
and I have never been careless minded at a wedding since that day. Brother McDowell
preached at Clarke's Chapel, about five miles south of Franklin, North Ca'lina, on the
road leading from England to Georgia; that road ran right through the Van Hook place."
Again Laney interrupted her husband. "My mother said they even had infare
dinners the next day after the wedding. The infare dinners were just for the families of the
bride and groom, and the bride had a special dress for that occasion that she called her
infare dress. The friends of both parties were there at the big feast on the wedding day,
but not at the infare dinner."

"And there was no such a thing as child marriages heard of in those days," John
was speaking again. "At least none of the brides were under 15 or 16 years old. Now you
can read about child brides not more than 10 years old, 'most ever' time you pick up a
paper.

"I don't remember much about what I played until I got to be about 10 years old. I
was a terrible little fellow to imitate things. Old man Tommy Angel built mills, and I
built myself a little toy mill down on the branch that led to Sugar Fork River. There was
plenty of nice soapstone there that was so soft you could cut it with a pocket knife and
could dress it off with a plane for a nice smooth finish. I shaped two pieces of soapstone
to look like round millstones and set me up a little mill that worked just fine.
We run pretty white sand through it and called that our meal and flour. My white
folks would come down to the branch and watch me run the little toy mill. I used to make
toy rifles and pistols and all sorts of nice playthings out of that soapstone. I wish I had a
piece of that good old soapstone from around Franklin, so I could carve some toys like I
used to play with for my boy."

"We caught real salmon in the mountain streams," John remarked. "They weighed
from 3 to 25 pounds, and kind of favored a jack fish, only jack fishes have duck bills, and
these salmon had saw teeth. They were powerful jumpers and when you hooked one you
had a fight on your hands to get it to the bank no matter whether it weighed 3 or 25
pounds. The gamest of all the fish in those mountain streams were red horses. When I
was about 9 or 10 years old I took my brother's fish gig and went off down to the river. I
saw what looked like the shadow of a stick in the clear water and when I thrust the gig at
it I found mighty quick I had gigged a red horse. I did my best to land it but it was too
strong for me and pulled loose from my gig and darted out into deep water. I ran fast as I
could up the river bank to the horseshoe bend where a flet bottom boat belonging to our
family was tied. I got in that boat and chased that fish 'til I got him. It weighed 6 pounds
and was 2 feet and 6 inches long. There was plenty of excitement created around that
plantation when the news got around that a boy, as little as I was then, had landed such a
big old fighting fish."

"Suckers were plentiful and easy to catch but they did not give you the battle that
a salmon or a red horse could put up and that was what it took to make fishing fun. We
had canoes, but we used a plain old flat boat, a good deal like a small ferry boat, most of
the time. There was about the same difference in a canoe and a flat boat that there is in a
nice passenger automobile and a truck."

When asked if he remembered any of the tunes and words of the songs he sang as
a child, John was silent for a few moments and then began to sing:

"A frog went courtin'
And he did ride
Uh hunh
With a sword and pistol
By his side
Uh hunh
"Old uncle Rat laughed,
Shook his old fat side;
He thought his niece
Was going to be the bride.
Uh hunh, uh hunh
"Where shall the wedding be?
Uh hunh
Where shall the wedding be?
Uh hunh
"Way down yonder In a hollow gum tree.
Uh hunh, uh hunh, uh hunh.
"Who shall the waiters be?
Uh hunh
Granddaddy Louse and a
Black-eyed flea.
Uh hunh, uh hunh, uh hunh.

Laney reminded him of a song he used to sing when their child was a baby. "It is
hard for me to formulate its words in my mind. I just cannot seem to get them," he
answered, "but I thought of this one the other night and promised myself I would sing it
for you sometime. It's Old Granny Mistletoe.

"Old Granny Mistletoe,
Lyin' in the bed,
Out the window
She poked her head.
"She says, 'Old Man,
The gray goose's gone,
And I think I heard her holler,
King-cant-you-O, King-cant-you-O!'
"The old fox stepped around,
A mighty fast step.
He hung the old gray goose
Up by the neck.
"Her wings went flip-flop
Over her back,
And her legs hung down.
Ding-downy-O, ding-downy-O.
"The old fox marched
On to his den.
Out come his young ones,
Some nine or ten.
"Now we will have
Some-supper-O, some-summer-O.
Now we will have
Some-supper-O, some-supper-O."

"The only riddle I remember is the one about: 'What goes around the house, and
just makes one track?' I believe they said it was a wheelbarrow. Mighty few people in
that settlement believed in such things as charms. They were too intelligent for that sort
of thing.

"Old man Dillard Love didn't know half of his slaves. They were called 'Love's
free niggers.' Some of the white folks in that settlement would get after their niggers and
say 'who do you think you are, you must think you are one of Dillard Love's free niggers
the way you act.' Then the slave was led to the whipping post and brushed down, and his
marster would tell him, 'now you see who is boss.'

"Marse Dillard often met a darkey in the road, he would stop and inquire of him,
'Who's nigger is you?' The darkey would say 'Boss I'se your nigger.' If Marse Dillard was
feeling good he would give the darkey a present. Heaps of times he gave them as much as
five dollars, 'cording to how good he was feeling. He treated his darkies mighty good.

"My grandfather belonged to Marse Dillard Love, and when the war was declared
he was too old to go. Marse George Sellars went and was wounded. You know all about
the blanket rolls they carried over their shoulders. Well, that bullet that hit him had to go
all the way through that roll that had I don't know how many folds, and its force was just
about spent by the time it got to his shoulder; that was why it didn't kill him, otherwise it
would have gone through him. The bullet was extracted, but it left him with a lame
shoulder.

"Our Mr. Tommy Angel went to the war, and he got so much experience shooting
at the Yankees that he could shoot at a target all day long, and then cover all the bullet
holes he made with the palm of one hand. Mr. Tommy was at home when the Yankees
come though.

Folks around our settlement put their darkies on all their good mules and horses,
and loaded them down with food and valuables, then sent them to the nearby mountains
and caves to hide until the soldiers were gone. Mr. Angel himself told me later that lots of
the folks who came around pilfering after the war, warn't northerners at all, but men from
just anywhere, who had fought in the war and came back home to find all they had was
gone, and they had to live some way.

"One day my father and another servant were laughing fit to kill at a greedy little
calf that had caught his head in the feed basket. They thought it was just too funny. About
that time a Yankee, in his blue uniform coming down the road, took the notion the men
were laughing at him. 'What are you laughing at?' he said, and at that they lit out to run.
The man called my father and made him come back. 'cause he was the one laughing so
hard. Father thought the Yankee was going to shoot him before he could make him
understand they were just laughing at the calf.

"When the war was over, Mr. Love called his slaves together and told them they
had been set free. He explained everything to them very carefully, and told them he
would make farming arrangements for all that wanted to stay on there with him. Lots of
the darkies left after they heard about folks getting rich working on the railroads in
Tennessee and about the high wages that were being paid on those big plantations in
Mississippi. Some of those labor agents were powerful smart about stretching the truth,
but those folks that believed them and left home found out that it's pretty much the same
the world over, as far as folks and human nature is concerned. Those that had even
average common sense got along comfortable and all right in Tennessee and Mississippi,
and those that suffered out there were the sort that are so stupid they would starve in the
middle of a good apple pie. My brother that went with the others to Tennessee never
came back, and we never saw him again.

"My father did not want me to leave our home at Franklin, North Carolina, and
come to Georgia, for he had been told Georgia people were awful mean. There was a tale
told us about the Mr. Oglethorpe, who settled Georgia, bringing over folks from the jails
of England to settle in Georgia and it was said they became the ruling class of the State.
Anyway, I came on just the same, and pretty soon I married a Georgia girl, and have
found the people who live here are all right."

Leney eagerly took advantage of the pause that followed to tell of her mother's
owner. "Mother said that he was an old, old man and would set in his big armchair 'most
all day. When he heard good news from the soldiers he would drum his fingers on his
chair and pat his feet, whilst he tried to sing, 'Te Deum, Te Deum. Good news today! We
won today!' Whenever he heard the southern armies were losing, he would lie around
moaning and crying out loud. Nobody could comfort him then."

John was delighted to talk about religion. "Yes, man, after the war, darkies used
to meet at each others' houses for religious services until they got churches of their own.
Those meetings were little more than just prayer meetings. Our white folks were
powerful careful to teach their slaves how to do the right thing, and long after we were
free Mr. Tommy would give long talks at our meetings. We loved to listen to him and
have him interested in us, for we had never been treated mean like heaps of the slaves in
that neighborhood had.

"One white man in our county needed the help of the Lord. His name was Boney
Ridley and he just couldn't keep away from liquor. He was an uncle of that famous
preacher and poet, Mr. Caleb Ridley. One day when Mr. Boney had been drinking hard
and kind of out of his head, he was stretched out on the ground in a sort of stupor. He
opened his eyes and looked at the buzzards circling low over him and said, sort of sick
and fretful-like, 'Git on off, buzzards; I ain't dead yet.'"

"The Reverend Doctor George Truett was a fine boy and he has grown into a
splendid man. He is one of God's chosen ones. I well remember the first time I heard him
speak. I was a janitor at the State Normal School when he was a pupil there in 1887. I
still think he is about the greatest orator I ever listened to. In those days, back in 1887, I
always made it convenient to be doing something
those days, back in 1887, I always made it convenient to be doing
something around the school room when time came for him to recite
or to be on a debate. After he left that school he went on to the Seminary at Louisville
and he has become known throughout this country as a great Christian.

"I started teaching in old field schools with, no education but just what our white folks had taught me. They taught me to read and write, and I must say I really was a mighty apt person, and took advantage of every opportunity that came my way to learn. You know, teaching is a mighty good way to learn. After I had been teaching for some time I went back to school, but most of my knowledge was gotten by studying what books and papers I could get hold of and by watching folks who were really educated; by listening carefully to them, I found I could often learn a good deal that way."

Laney could be quiet no longer. "My husband," she said, "is a self-made man." His educated brother, Claude, that graduated from Maryville School in Tennessee, says that he cannot cope with my husband."

John smiled indulgently and continued: "We were in sad and woeful want after the war. Once I asked my father why he let us go so hungry and ragged, and he answered: 'How can we help it? Why, even the white folks don't have enough to eat and wear now. '

"Eleven years ago I rented a little farm from Mr. Jasper Thompson, in Jackson County. After the boll-weevil got bad I came to the other side of the river yonder, where I stayed 7 years. By this time most of the children by my first two wives had grown up and gone off up north. My first wife's children were Robert, Ella, the twins, Julius end Julia Anne, (who died soon after they were grown-up), and Charlie, and Dan. Robert is in Philadelphia, Ella in Cincinnati, and Dan is dead.

Fred, George, and Johnny, my second wife's children are all living, but are scattered in far-off places.

"Everybody was powerful sorry to hear about Lincoln's assassination. At that time Jefferson Davis was considered the greatest man that ever lived, but the effect of Lincoln's life and deeds will live on forever. His life grows greater in reputation with the years and his wisdom more apparent.

As long as we were their property our masters were mighty careful to have us doctored up right when there was the least sign of sickness. There was always some old woman too old for field work that nursed the sick on the big plantations, but the marsters sent for regular doctors mighty quick if the patient seemed much sick.

"After the war we were slower to call in doctors because we had no money, and that's how I lost my good right eye. If I had gone to the doctor when it first got hurt it would have been all right now. When we didn't have money we used to pay the doctor with corn, fodder, wheat, chickens, pork, or anything we had that he wanted.

"We learned to use lots of herbs and other home-made remedies during the war when medicine was scarce at the stores, and some old folks still use these simple teas and poultices. Comfrey was a herb used much for poultices on risings, boils, and the like, and tea made from it is said to be soothing to the nerves. Garlic tea was much used for worms, but it was also counted a good penumonia' remedy, and garlic poultices helped folks to breathe when they had grippe or pneumonia. Boneset tea was for colds. Goldenrod was used leaf, stem, blossom, and all in various ways, chiefly for fever and coughs. lack snake root was a good cure for childbed fever, and it saved the life of my second wife after her last child was born. Slippery ellum was used for poultices to heal burns, bruises, and any abrasions, and we gargled slippery ellum tea to heal sore throats, but red oak bark tea was our best.sore throat remedy.
For indigestion and shortness of the breath we chewed calamus root or drank tea made from it. In fact, we still think it is mighty useful for those purposes. It was a long time after the war before there were any darkies with enough medical education to practice as doctors. Dr. Doyle in Gainesville was the first colored physician that I ever saw.

"The world seems to be gradually drifting the wrong way, and it won't get any better 'til all people put their belief and I mean by that - simple faith, in the Bible. What they like of it they are in the habit of quoting, but they distort it and try to make it appear to mean whatever will suit their wicked convenience. They have got to take the whole Bible and live by it, and they must remember they cannot leave out those wise old laws of the Old Testament that God gave for men everywhere to live by.

Laney had quietly left the room, but as the visitors were taking their departure she returned with a small package. "This," she explained, "is some calamus root that I raised and dried myself, and I hope it comes in handy whenever you ladies need something for the indigestion."

"Next time you come, I hope to have more songs remembered and written down for you," promised John.

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