10

9.

on. We were searched when we went out and again when we came back
in. The rules were extremely strict, and we knew better than to
tell anything about those warehouses and our work to outsiders.

"There's where I was when the Armistice was signed. That
was one terrible time with all the noise of the bells ringing, people
hollering like mad, whistles blowing, folks running like they were
crazy - all laughing and crying at the same time. It was hours be-
fore it got around to everybody just what all the commotion was
about. When we learned for sure v/hat it was, we were all the gladder
and happier. While I was working on the ammunition warehouses they
paid me $80 a week, and every week I sent $40 home to my family. One
thing sure, no matter what came or went, whenever I was working out
of town I always kept enough money vdth me to pay my fare back home
to Athens. If a man told me I couldn't go home, I always told him I
certainly could, whenever I wanted to.

"The reason I left Charleston was that my family had the
flu's. Some of those buildings never were completed. While we were
in Charleston I saw all sorts of people die by the hundreds. Nassau
laborers died there in droves. At the express office I saw their
coffin boxes piled to the celling, waiting to be shipped back home
for burial. I was told the flu's like to have wiped out those
Nassau laborers, but they might have died of some other cause; I
don't know. One thing I do know; I wouldn't give one American
laborer for a hundred of 'em. They didn't have a bit of sense. Why,
some of 'em even claimed they'd never seen a frost till they landed
in Charleston.

1867