He roared with laughter--"When de patrol come, I had my badge; I show
him my paper and my badge! I got it still. I love dem days--I love dem
people.
"My mother was a good woman--she used to get down on her knees, like
this, and get up like this," (he knelt with agility, and rose
unassisted, quickly, and without the least difficulty). "My aunt lived
to be 141; she saw George Washington--she told me so.
"Cherokee--Kickapoo--I don't remember--my great grandfather was an
Indian Chief--my nose is straight, see here." He went into the pocket of
his overall, brought out a pair of eyeglasses, put them on the end of
his nose, and looked over them.
"I loved dem days, I loved dem people. We lived better--we had no
money--we had nothing to worry about--just do your task. Spin wheel and
reel and reel for the yarn. I filled my arms full of quilt--hand made.
Had task; I done all my task, and I help others with their task so they
wouldn't get whipped; if people lazy and wont do, they got to be made to
do; if children bad they get whipped--if nigger bad, they get a
whipping.
"Old Satan wear a big shoe--he got one club foot. He can disguise
himself--he make you think he got power, but he ain't got any power. He
get you in trouble and leave you there. I always pray for wisdom and
understanding like Solomon. I pray all the time to our good Father.
People say--'Why you call him Good Father?'" (Quoted from the Bible) "I
love everybody--'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'
"Yes Ma'am! Oh Heaven!--we got to be clean--we change out of the flesh
to the spirit; a crown prepared for us; all we save and help are stars
in our crown; you go from Mansion to Mansion--higher--higher." (He
raised his arms with a rapt look)
Then he was told about "Green Pastures" and asked what he thought of it.
"Why my Lord have Mercy! The Lord is a Spirit--we are changed.
"I roll the carpet for Missis to get in the carriage; a two-foot carpet
from the house roll to the stoop for the carriage.
"My mother--yes Ma'am--108 years old--a smart woman in the house. Oh my
Lord, Missis--cook! She wouldn't kill a chicken out of the yard; she had
a coop to put them in, and it was cleaned out every day. My mother would
fix the flowers; she would take this little flower, and that little
flower, and put them together, and make up a beautiful bouquet, and hand
them out to everybody. My father knew all about planting; the people
would come to ask 'Daddy Tony' how to plant this and when to plant that.
"I heard all the War talk, I saw a comet." (Indicating its position in
the heavens, he seemed inspired, forgot his surroundings, looking back).
"I saw the curtain-cloud--and snow clouds--rolls and rolls. In the War I
was with my master, Capt. Cherry, and Dr. Knox, Captain in the Civil
War, and Capt. Dick McMichael--all those fine gentlemen. They had
hog-skin saddles that creaked--Crench--crench--as they rode;" (He was
enthusiastic) "the way they could ride! Those hosses were as sensible as
people; they could jump from side to side; they knew everything.
"Capt. Cherry said to me--'Why weren't you white! Why weren't you white!
Why weren't you white!' I lost my old Captain--then I was with Gen.
Frank Bamberg, and with his brother, Capt. Isaac Bamberg--I was Orderly.
Sometimes in the War we had one hardtack a day, and had to drink water
on 'um, to make 'um swell. We had to get out salt out of water, most
anywhere."
"I saw Gen. Lee many times; I knew him; he had his close beard around
his face; he looked fine and sat his horse so splendid." Mack was asked
the color of the horse, and described the gray. Here he remembered the
battlefield--"I did this"--he enacted silently--dexterously--the placing
of the dead and wounded on the stretchers and bearing them away--worked
so rapidly that his breath was labored. "I made the balloon flight--my
eyes were good--they carried me because any object that I saw, I knew
what it was; a rope ladder led up to the basket--the beautiful thing--we
went up on the other side of Beaufain street; there were no houses there
then, and we came down on the Citadel Green."
Mack had spoken several times with enthusiasm of the officer's cavalry
'pump sole boots'. After he had polished them, "Capt. Edwards (of
Elloree) gave me a $500.00 bill for cleaning his 'pump sole boots'."
Mack proudly enacted the Captain's jolly but pompous manner, as he gave
the bill, and added, "I had thousands of dollars in Confederate money
when the War broke up. If we had won I would be rich."
After War period: "The time Capt. Wade Hampton was stumping I followed
him all over the State; I led 500 head; was with him to Camden,
Orangeburg and all the way to Hampton County; led 500 Negroes through
the County; I was Captain of them; I rode 'Nellie Ponsa' and wore my red
jacket and cap and boots; I had a sword too; my 'red shirt' died year
before last."
Asked if he knew 'Riley', Mack answered promptly--"'Democrat Riley', yes
Ma'am, used to drive that fine carriage, and old Col. Cunningham's
family." Riley was an ex-slave, a tall black man, devoted to the South,
as he was, a Democrat of high principle, and respected by all--hated by
many--a power in himself.
"I lose all my ancestors. I got a niece, Queenie Brown, in Orangeburg; I
got a daughter in New Jersey; one in New York, married to a Clyde Line
man; lost sight of both; both old.
"Bless the Lord! I got friends! Mr. Pooser came to see me yesterday;
been in South America four years; just got back and hunt me up right
off! Married Miss Dantzler of Orangeburg--I raised them all"--with a
benign look of love end ownership.