“After freedom, we worked on shares a while.  Then we rented.  When we worked on shares, we couldn’t make nothing—­Just overalls and something to eat.  Half went to the other man and you would destroy your half if you weren’t careful.  A man that didn’t know how to count would always lose.  He might lose anyhow.  They didn’t give no itemized statement.  No, you just had to take their word.  They never give you no details.  They just say you owe so much.  No matter how good account you kept, you had to go by their account and now, Brother, I’m tellin’ you the truth about this.  It’s been that way for a long time.  You had to take the white man’s work on notes and everything.  Anything you wanted, you could git if you were a good hand.  You could git anything you wanted as long as you worked.  If you didn’t make no money, that’s all right; they would advance you more.  But you better not leave him—­you better not try to leave and get caught.  They’d keep you in debt.  They were sharp.  Christmas come, you could take up twenty dollars in somethin’ to eat and much as you wanted in whiskey.  You could buy a gallon of whiskey.  Anything that kept you a slave because he was always right and you were always wrong if there was difference.  If there was an argument, he would get mad and there would be a shooting take place.

“And you know how some Negroes is.  Long as they could git somethin’, they didn’t care.  You see, if the white man came out behind, he would feed you, let you have what you wanted.  He’d just keep you on, help you get on your feet—­that is, if you were a good hand.  But if you weren’t a good hand, he’d just let you have enough to keep you alive.  A good hand could take care of forty or fifty acres of land and would have a large family.  A good hand could git clothes, food, whiskey, whenever he wanted it.  My father had nine children and took care of them.  Not all of them by one wife.  He was married twice.  He was married to one in slavery time and to another after the War.  I was a child of the first one.  I got a sister still living down here in Galloway station that is mighty nigh ninety years old.  No, she must be a hundred.  Her name is Frances Dobbins.  When you git ready to go down there, I’ll tell you how to find that place jus’ like I told you how to fin’ this one.  Galloway is only ’bout four miles from Rose City.

“I been married twice in my life.  My first woman, she died.  The second lady, she is still living.  We dissolved friendship in 1913.  Least-wise, I walked out and give her my home.  I used to own a home at twenty-first and Pulaski.

“I belong to the Baptist Church at Wrightsville.  I used to belong to Arch Street.  Was a deacon there for about twelve years.  But they had too much splittin’ and goin’ on and I got out.  I’ll tell you more sometime.”

Interviewer’s Comment

Henry Blake’s age appears in excess of eighty.  His idea of seventy-five is based on what someone told him.  He is certain that he drove a “Horsepower Gin Wagon” during “slavery times”, and that he was seven or eight when he drove it.  Even if that were in ’65, he would be at least eighty years old—­seventy-three years since the War plus seven years of his life.  His manner of narration would indicate that he drove earlier.