SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

one waa standing in the dark by my door waiting for me* I had this stick in
my hand and I ordered him down* Ee saw I meant business; so he went on down*
Some of them are determined*
•There f s no hope for tomorrow so far as these young folks are con-
cerned* And the majority of the old people are almost worse than the young
ones* Used to be that all the old people were mothers and fathers bat now
they are all going together* Everything is in a critical condition* There
is not much truth in the land* All human affection is gone* There is
mighty little respect* The way seme people carry on is pitiful**
Interviewer 9 s Comment
The men who bother Qmelia Thomas probably take her for a young woman*
She hasn v t a gray hair in her head, and her akin is smooth and must be well
kept* Sho looks at least twenty-five years younger than she is, and but for
the accident of her presence at another interview, I would never have dreamed
that she had a story to tell*
I went to see her in the quarters where she lives—over the garage in
the back yard of the white people she works for* When I got halfway up the
stairs, she shouted, "You can f t come up here.* I paused in perplexity for a
moment, and she stuck her head out the door and looked*} Then she said, *0h,
I beg pardon; I thought you were one of those men that visit downstairs* 0 I
had noticed the young lady below as I entered* She is evidently a hot
number, and as troublesome as a sore thumb to the good old lady above her*
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