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

O4N
time darkey, Of his natural inclination
to believe in hooioo, mysteries, witch
craft, conjuring, as he called ghost
stories and some Of them had good
smack Of mythology. I remember one
old darkey of my fathers Old Andy,
who was called Old Knower, mean
ing wise man. [ remember on rainy
days in the winter time, he used to get
a crowd Of the younger negroes and
white children and he would sit for
hours and tell US Uncle Remus's sto-
ries about Ber Bar, Brer Fox, Brer
Rabbit and Tar Baby, invariably put
ting in some blood curdling ghost sto-
ries. He used to tell US of Old Geana
a great mysterious hairy man, that by
his pitiab1e plaintive noise, lead peo-
pie away from their homes into the
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 a leg
endary story Of the origin Of the ne
gro. He said the negro, the Indian
and the white man were all together
in the Garden Of Eden, and when
Adam and Eve displeased 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 some wea-
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 learn 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 be 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 abounded in the forest.
Ny father was a 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-
kies warning when the patrolers were
about and we never felt uneasy
when old Kate was about and all Of
them were good for 'possum and coon.
One day two boys come home with
us from school and we made up
crowd to 60 'possum hunting. There
were five white boys, one white man
and one negro man in the crowd. Ny
father was to go, but he backed out I
after supper, so we went on without
him. We didn't 60 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 that? Almost right
at us one Of the most unearthly
squalls I ever heard, and before you
had time to think, two or three moro
squalls; then silence for a while. We
all huddled 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 a 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 such s