As the visitor carefully ascended the shaky steps to his house a mulatto
man, who was sitting on the veranda, quickly arose. "Good morning," he
said, "Yes mam, this is Green Willbanks. Have a seat in the swing." The
porch furniture was comprised of a chair, a swing, and a long bench.
Green is tall, slender, and stooped; a man with white hair and grizzled
face. A white broadcloth shirt, white cotton trousers, blue socks, and
low-cut black shoes made up his far from immaculate costume.

The old man's eyes brightened when he was asked to give the story of his
life. His speech showed but little dialect, except when he was carried
away by interest and emotion, and his enunciation was remarkably free
from Negroid accent.

"I don't mind telling you what I know," he began, "but I was such a
little chap when the war ended that there's mighty little I can
recollect about slavery time, and it seems that your chief interest is
in that period. I was born on a plantation the other side of Commerce,
Georgia, in Jackson County. My Ma and Pa were Mary and Isom Willbanks;
they were raised on the same plantation where I was born. Ma was a field
hand, and this time of the year when work was short in the
field--laying-by time, we called it--and on rainy days she spun thread
and wove cloth. As the thread left the spinning wheel it went on a reel
where it was wound into hanks, and then it was carried to the loom to be
woven into cloth. Pa had a little trade; he made shoes and baskets, and
Old Boss let him sell them. Pa didn't make shoes for the slaves on our
plantation; Old Boss bought them ready-made and had them shipped here
from the West.

"Me and Jane, Sarah, Mitchell, and Willie were the five children in our
family. Oh! Miss, I was not big enough to do much work. About the most I