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Pine Street Thomson, Ga. (by Leila Harris)
Emmaline was sitting in the Court House waiting to be interviewed by the county welfare worker. Though apparently destitute, her recollections of the days under an "oberseer" were still vivid enough to make her scoff at the idea that those days were preferable to these, even though her life at the present time means a struggle for mere existence.
Her skin was black, making the closely fitting black felt hat she wore seem a continuation of her face, only a few wisps of white hair marking the division. A blue print dress "hand-made" and fastened together with unmatching large buttons, usually used on underwear, and a small white apron completed the spotless appearance of this relic of the old days. As she expressed it: "my hair is as white as your underskirt."
"I was born on Mr. John Wilson's plantation ober in Columbia County, I had thirteen children, all daid 'ceptin' three. My mother's name was Annie Wilson, and my Pa's was Hamp Wilson. He had to split de co'd wood for the big house, and my mother milked de cows, washed, and wuked in de fiel'."
When asked what she did, she replied thoughtfully: "I was too little to wuk in de fiel' but I had regular wuk to do, I had to hunt up all de pigs, wash baby napkins, and sweep de yar'd."
She made a short whistling noise when asked about the patter-rollers as though even the memory frightened her: "Dem wuz de days when dey did ride. Sca'ed of 'em? Us cuddent eben go to chu'ch widout a pass!"
"Did you have a good master Emmaline?"
"Yassum, 'till he got mean. No'm, I don't know why he got mean, nobody know'd why. He neber whupped me but once, and I 'served it. One atternoon us chillen was put to stackin' wood, I was de oldes' in de crowd, and us all slip off to de woods an' play 'til sundown, dey was waitin' for us and massa had whupped me an' de oberseer whupped my little sistah and I just cry.
"No'm us diden' have no gameron stick on our place, but our cowhide was worse. Us all had to go to de smokehouse ebry Sunday for de week rations, us lived on shorts, hogheads, potliquor, and milk. I did de churnin'. My Aunt Harriet did all de weavin' ob de woolens for ebrybody.
"I lived in de country up 'till a few years ago but when my husban' died, I had to come into Thomson and live wid my daughter, but I don' like it, I wishes I was back dere, where you cud pick up a chip and have a fire - nuttin like that here."
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