The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-12-05
OLD SLAVERY TIMES.
lBill Arp, in Exchange.l

lBiil Arp, in Exchanged
 "Pspa, please tell us story. Tell us something about runaway niggers."
 had almost forgotten that there ever vas runaway nigger. Good gracious l what long time ago it was. Here is a whole generation of people under thirty years ef age who know nothing about slavery. It is seldom that we old folks talk about it to our children. We tell them frequently of our frolics with the little darkies, and how good old Aunt Peggy was to US, and how we used to
 hunt with Big Ben, and Virgil, and Uncle Sam, and we repeat some of the ghost stories they used to tell us, and all that, but the idea of slavery hardly ever comes in. These darkies all belonged to the family and just lived with us. That is all. We were all punched together. and it vas understood that when one of the boys got married and set up for himself he was to have little Dave and Buck and black Dan and Aunt Sally, for he had al- ways claimed these and they had always claimed him. And Miss Tavy had picked out her vassals in her early childhood, and nobody need lay any claim or ex- k, they were to be hers, and they knew il, and were proud of it, and took peculiar interest in the young men who come flying around Miss ravy." They even dared to venture their counsel and were loud in their praise ct their favonte. This was right, and it was natural, for while she was choosing her lord they were choosing master, and harmo- nious choice was a good thing all round
 Old Aunt Peggy was an oracle in her way. She was ittle, and old, and wrink- led, and smoked her pipe in the chimney corner and never talked uch. Bat she sat and swayed backward and toy yard and listened to the children-the black and the white. She called them all chil- dren if they were under fifty. But ever and anon she wou give grunt or shake her head and say, " Dat won't do, my cbile. Better mine how you talk, now |; better mine. hear de screech owl last night and he talk to me, he did," and she would mako up some n, s.e,ious words that the screech owl said. Aunt Peggy believed in frogs and lizards. and owls, and bats, and cats, and snakes, and jack. o'-ianserns, and charms and copjuring. There were secret mysteries about them all, and they had to be propitiated and kept amiable. or some great harm would come upon the household. Where the old negroes got all this superstitious lore nobody knows exactly, but it is not con- fined to them. Th,re have been just such superstitions in all ages and coun- tries. Mal6eM consulted the witches, and they made their charms by seething that horrible gruel made Of frogs, and liz. ards, and owls, and bats, and adders' tongues, and goats gall and a Turks table things, and then cooled down and settled it with baboon's blood. Those old.time negroes would have made splen- did witches if there had been any witch school to go to. It suited their nature and suits it yet. AS a race they delight in the marvellous when it is mixed up with the horrible. Old Uncle Sam was good old daikey and the children loved hum. He was familiar with spirits and graveyards, and had shook hands with rawhead and bloody bones, and when freedom came, he gave iull play to his fancies and got him little long cared donkey and pair of spectacles, and rode from cabin to cabin by day and by night, calling himself Doctor Sam," and pro- fessing to cure all diseases of his race by the mysterious art of copjuring. He car rie1 his professional outfit in an old greasy sack before him, and he was the most ludicrous buriesque upon the medi- cal profession ever seen, 1 reckon. l would give five dollars for photograph of the whole concern as 1t used to slowly peram ulate the Chattahoochee region of old Gsinnett some twenty years ago ] prevailed on the old gentleman once to let me see the inside of that bag and take m inventory. Besides seayly everything that Shakespeare named, he had every curious bug he could find. Betty bugs, and June bugs and tumble bsgs and the devii riding horse and the devil darn- ing needle and . green snake and :aou- sandleg and lot of herbs. such as hem lock and j,mpson weed and snake root He assured me-that he had to use all these things in the very bad cases he came across in his extensive practice.
 Bat the children wanted story about runaway niggers. Well, l never sas runaway nigger. That is, while he wasa . runaway. l have seen them after they vere caught or come in Of sheir own ac- cod. We boys and girls used so be aw- fnliy afraid of them They were very scarce h shat region. ] do not remem- bsr but one, and he was suddenly cured