The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1906-04-10

stories and some of them had good
smack Of mythology. remember one
old darkcy Of my fathers Old Andy,
who was called Old Knower, mean
ing wise man. I remember OH rainy
days in the winter time, he used to got
crowd Of the younger negroes and
white children and ho would sit for
hours and tell us Uncle Rcmus's sto-
rics about Der Bar, Brer Fox, Bror
Rabbit and Tar Baby invariably put
ting in some blood curdling ghost sto-
rics. lie used to tell us Of Old Gcana
great mysterious hairy man, that by
his pitiable plaintive noise, lead peo-
pie away from their homes into tho
forest, then catch them and carry
them away to his den and he kept our
mind so full of these stories that it
was no wonder that We believed in
seeing ghosts. He used to tell leg-
cndary story of tho origin of the ne
gro. lie said the negro, the Indian
in the Garden Of Eden, and when
Adam and Eve displeascd God and
he was going to turn them out Of the
garden, he called up the negro and
the Indian and told them he was 60
ing to turn them out into the world
in the morning and he would give each
one something by which he could
make his living. He had somc wca-
pons, tools and books that he would
divide among them and with these
they should make their living.
The white man had already stolen
the apples, he being smart rascal,
he got up before day and stole the
books and left the Indian, and he got
up and found the white man and the
books gone, SO he took the weapons
and left. And when The poor old ne
gro walked up there was nothing left
for him but the work tool. So the
white man was making his living out
of the books and he was educated;
the Indian made his living by hunt
ing with his weapons and defending
himself against the white man; and
the poor old negro had nothing to de-
fend himself, and he had to lehrn how
to make his living with his tools by
working. And the white man had
taken him from his home and brought
him over here and was making him
work for him while he rode about and
read his books and overseed the ne
gro and made him work.
In those days nearly every land
lord kept some dogs for hunting the
game that aboundcd in the forest.
My father was great hunter and
had at this time three hounds, Kate,
Ring and Gano. Kate was very fierce
and many times has she given the dar-
kics warning when the patrolcrs were
about and we never felt uneasy
when old Kate was about and all of
them were good for 'posSm and coon.
One day two boys come home with
us from school and we made up a
crowd to go 'possum hunting. There
were five white boys, one white man
and one negro man in the crowd. My
father was to 20. but he backed out
after supper, So we went on without
him. We didn't go far before we
caught two and the dogs struck a
third trail. After while, they treed
in a little cluster of small trees, and
when we got to them, we didn't try
to shine his eyes, for the trees were
small and no trouble to cut. We had
cut two and started to cut another
Hush! What was that7 Almost right
at us one of the most unearthly
squalls l ever heard, and before yon
squalls; then silence for a while. We
all huddlcd together and began to
talk in low voice about what it was.
Some thought it was panther, some
thought it was old Geana, the hairy
man, the negro man said we were
close to graveyard and it was spir-
it. Well, sir, I will speak for myself.
I was trembling from head to foot,
but the thing stopped squalling and
we started to cut down another tree
when one of the trees we had already
cut down began to shake and sucl,
n blood curdling scream. My hair
fairly stood on end and my older
brother tried to set tho dogs on the
ghost, but old Kate tucked her tail
and the dogs crouched right down un.
der our feet. That thing seemed tc
- IA 81