"If I ain't a hunnard," said Nancy, nodding her white-turbaned head, "I
sho' is close to it, 'cause I got a grandson 50 years old."

Nancy's silky white hair showed long and wavy under her headband. Her
gingham dress was clean, and her wrinkled skin was a reddish-yellow
color, showing a large proportion of Indian and white blood. Har eyes
ware a faded blue.

"I speck I is mos' white," acknowledged Nancy, "but I ain't never knowed
who my father was. My mother was a dark color."

The cottage faced the pine grove behind an old church. Pink ramblers
grew everywhere, and the sandy yard was neatly kept. Nancy's paralyzed
granddaughter-in-law hovered in the doorway, her long smooth braids
hanging over Indian-brown shoulders, a loose wrapper of dark blue denim
flowing around her tall unsteady figure. She was eager to taka part in
the conversation but hampered by a thick tongue induced, as Nancy put
it, "by a bad sore throat she ain't got over."

Nancy's recollections of plantation days were colored to a somber hue by
overwork, childbearing, poor food and long working hours.

"Master was a hard taskmaster," said Nancy. "My husband didn't live on
de same plantation where I was, de Jerrell places in Columbia County. He
never did have nuthin' to give me 'cause he never got nuthin'. He had to
come and ask my white folks for me. Dey had to carry passes everywhere
dey went, if dey didn't, dey'd git in trouble.