Tar Heel TalesBryant, H. E. C. (Henry Edward Cowan)
General
Tar Heel Tales
Bryant, H. E. C. (Henry Edward Cowan)
African Americans -- Fiction; North Carolina -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American
“Now an’ den, when Tite wuz off politicin’, I woul’ slip off an’ go see
Miss Jane, an’ hear whut de white peoples wuz doin’. Den I beg Tite
to let politicin’ ’lone an’ stay at home, but, no, sir, he knowed his
bizness. His haid wuz sot on dat forty acres an’ de mule, an’ I coul’n’t
do nuthin’ wid him.
“One day Miss Jane read fum de paper whut de Ku Kluxes wuz doin’ to
niggers down in Souf Careliny. You know where ’tis: des over de line down
here ’bout three mile? De piece say dat dey wuz comin’ dis way. She ’low
dat de doin’s uv mean niggers wuz gwine to fetch ’em here.
“An’ let me tell you, chilluns, it wuzn’t long ’fo’ dey come an’ putty
nigh skeered de niggers to deaf.
“But, ’fo’ dey come Tite done run plum mad on de subjec’ uv de ’lection.
I beg him to stop dat foolin’ an’ go back to wuck, but he des go on lak
he never heerd me. Why, honey, de fool nigger done ’gin to think he’s
gwine to be Gov’ner. De wust ain’t come yit, fur one day a white man come
’long an’ giv’ Tite what he say wuz a deed fur Marse John’s mill place.
Es he giv’ de paper to Tite he say: ‘Mr. Robinson (talkin’ to nobudy but
Tite), here’s de deed to de mill place an’ you kin have it surveyed as
soon as you laks, fur de ’lection is mos’ here an’ ’twon’t be long ’fo’
you kin git dem forty acres an’ de mule.’
“Tite, he take it an’ hide it under a rock. I seed him lookin’ at it, des
lak he coul’ read, when he know he don’t know B fum bull-foot. One day,
while Tite wuz in Charlotte, I slip de deed out fum under de log where he
hid it, an’ took it over to Miss Jane an’ she say it read lak dis: ‘Es
Samson lifted de serpent out uv de wilderness so I lifted dis po’ nigger
out uv $5.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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