A few years after Edward and [Pauline?] had settled on their own place, a retired army major hired Edward as a caretaker for his estate. Pauline gave her consent because the caretaker's job did not use up all of Edward's time. He could still work in his own field. Edward was delighted, for soon the army man started to bring down friends to his Etiwan estate - doctors, lawyers and college professors. The major got Edward to take them fishing. The Negro lived for the week-ends. When Friday afternoon came he would meet the white men at the landing. They would be carrying rods and fancy fishing tackle boxes. Edward would have a rusty tin bucket full of shrimp and mullet bait.

"All right, suh. Here Big Ned ready for shove off. Tide just begin for ebb. Get in an' make yourself comfortable. I going to jerk this here boat to tabby drop 'fore you get them pole rig up," Edward would say, grinning broadly, extending his right hand to help some fat, red-faced lawyer aboard. The lawyer would wink and say that he had something in his box for snake bite, but since snakes never struck in water, he supposed that he had better throw the bottle away.

"Don't do that, for God sake," Edward would stutter, "if it good for snake bite it good for catfish sting. I go put that bottle under the bow seat now."

Edward hovered over the anglers like they were children. Hadn't the major put them in his charge? He was responsible for their safety. "White man who raise away from the salt water never know how for bait a line or take fish off hook, and they censer (always) get hook in their arm and leg," he remarked. "Get for keep your eye on them. They just like buckra baby."

He told Pauline that the job was much to his liking [O?] that it beat hoeing cotton all to pieces.

They would fish the tide out, and early the next morning be ready for another trip to the inlet. Edward was in fine form. He joked with the white man, and said that he was glad there were no preachers aboard because preachers would never stand for that bad language the lawyer used when a catfish got on his line. "And if preacher here, then I ain't able for handle my likker like I want to," he would say.

Excerpted from SOUTH CAROLINA WRITERS' PROJECT, LIFE HISTORY
TITLE: GOT TO GO CRIK.
Date of First Writing: February 8, 1939
Name of Person Interviewed: Edward Simmons
Fictitious Name: Edward Bowles
Address: Edisto Island, S. C.
Occupation: Fisherman
Name of Writer: Chalmers S. Murray

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940