A rap on the door brought quick response from a rumbling bass voice inside the house. "George, is you here already?" In another moment a short, stocky Negro man appeared in the doorway, a collar clutched in one hand, and a slightly embarrassed look on his face. "Good mornin'," he said. "Yes, mam, this is Jeff Henry. I thought you was George done come to take me to Atlanta. One of my good church members is to be buried thar today, and I'se got to preside over the funeral. I can talk to you a few minutes if you ain't got too much to ax me about."
Though Jeff used some dialect, it was not so noticeable as in the speech of most southern Negroes. A scant fringe of kinky gray hair framed his almost bald head, and he was dressed in his Sunday-best clothes; a gray suit, white shirt, and black shoes, worn but carefully polished.
"This old Negro has been here many a day," he began. "I 'members when all this side of town was in farms and woods with just a few houses scattered about." Just then George drove up and Jeff suggested that the interview be postponed.
At the appointed hour Jeff was waiting to resume his narrative. "I sho is done been wukin' this old brain of mine to bring back them old times 'fore freedom come," he announced. "Anyhow, I was born in Paulding County. Sam and Phyllis Henry was my pa and ma, and they was field hands. Me and James, William, John, Mittie, and Mary was all the chillun they had. Us just played 'round the yard mostly, 'cause thar warn't none of us big enough to do no field wuk wuth talkin' 'bout 'fore the end of the war.
"Slave quarters was off from the big house a piece, and they was built in rows lak streets. Most of the log cabins had one room; some had two, but all of them had plain old stack chimblies made of sticks and red mud. Our beds was just home-made makeshifts, but us didn't know no diffunce 'cause us never had seed no better ones. They sawed pine posts the right height and bored holes through them and through the slabs they had cut for the railin's, or side pieces. They jined the bed together with cords that they wove back and forth and twisted tight with a stout stick. Them cords served two purposes; they held the bed together and was our springs too, but if us warn't mighty keerful to keep 'em twisted tight our beds would fall down. Lak them old beds, the mattresses us had them days warn't much compared with what we sleeps on now. Them ticks was made of coarse home-wove cloth, called 'osnaburg,' and they was filled with straw. My! How that straw did squeak and cry out when us moved, but the Blessed Lord changed all that when he gave us freedom and let schools be sot up for us. With freedom Negroes soon got more knowledge of how a home ought to be.