CARRIE NANCY FRYER
415 Mill Street
Augusta, Georgia
Written by:
Miss Maude Barragan
Federal Writers' Project
Residency #13
Augusta, Georgia
An angular, red-skinned old Negro women was treading heavily down the
dusty sidewalk, leaning on a gnarled stick and talking to a little black
girl. A "sundown" hat shaded a bony face of typical Indian cast and her
red skin was stretched so tight over high cheek bones that few wrinkles
showed.
"Auntie," she was asked, "have you time to tell me something about
slavery times?" "No'm, I sorry," she answered, "but I gwine to see a
sick lady now, and I gots to 'tend to somepin'." "May I come back to see
you at your house?" "Yas'm, any time you wants. I live in de lil' house
on de canal, it has a ellum tree in front. I riz it from sapling. I name
dat lil' tree 'Nancy' so when I gone, folks kin come by and bow and say
'Howdy, Nancy.'"
She seated herself on a stone step and spread her many skirts of gray
chambray, hand-sewed with big white stitches. An old woman came by, her
shining black face puckered with anxiety, dressed in a starched white
uniform and a battered black hat, well brushed.
"Morning, Nancy," she said. "You look mighty peak-ked dis morning."
"Hunh!" grunted Nancy, "I oughter. I bin to see de mayor. I say 'Mr.
Mayor, here I is. I ain' got nuttin' to eat--it ain' right for a woman
my age to beg food. Now what yer gwine do 'bout it?' De mayor say:
'Auntie, you go right down to de welfare office at de Court House and
tell de lady I sont you to git somepin' to eat.' I done dat--dey promise
to send a lady, but I ain' see no lady yit." A heavy sigh rolled out. "I
didn' lef' skin of meat in my house or a piece of cornpone. But I didn'
take nuttin' to heart 'cause de Lord is my helper."
The old woman sighed too. "Yeah, Nancy, das de way dey does. I ain'
gwine keep nasty house for nobody. But white people's funny. Dey think
if you got clean house and bleachin' sheets you mus' have somepin' to
eat inside." She clenched her fist, and her voice rose. "I tells you
right now--I gwine keep my house neat jus' like I bin taught, ef I never
gits no somepin' t'eat and ain' got cornpone in de oven."
"A poor creeter come to my house today to beg for somepin' to eat," said
Nancy, "I ain' got nuttin' and I tell her so. She say she gwine to de
court-house too."
"T'won't do no good," answered the other woman. "Come over here, Nancy.
I wants to talk to you."
With a dignified excuse, Nancy creaked to her long length and moved
deliberately to the edge of the sidewalk. Whisperings followed, the
voices of the two old women rising in their excitement.
"I ain' gwine into somepin' I don't know nuttin' about."
"Nobody gwine 'swade me either."
"My husband didn' put no composin' on me. If I don't git but one meal a
day, I ain' gwine dirty. I didn' have mouthful t'eat in my house."
The interested eavesdropper decided that the welfare office had talked
social security to the women instead of direct relief, and they were
worried and suspicious about the matter. The old black woman was getting
angrier and angrier.
"If any of 'em lookin' for me to have nasty old tore-up house, I ain'
gwine did it. You dunno when sickness come. When my boy got his leg
broke up, soon as dey could, dey put him off on me. Miz' Powell say:
'Steve, if you don't be good to your ma, de Lord gwine take your
blessing from you.' Dey paid Steve $137.00, Nancy, and he ain't gimmie a
nickle! He spent it on a woman in Edgefield. But my gal is diffunt. If
she ain' got but one mouthful she gwine give me half."