“I had such a hard time in slavery.  Them white folks was slashing me and whipping me and putting me in the buck, till I don’t want to hear nothin’ about it.

“An old man named Dr. Polk got a dime from me and said it was for the Old Age Pension.  He lived in Magnolia, Arkansas.  They ran him out of Magnolia for ruining a colored girl and I don’t know where he is now.  I know he got ten cents from me.

“The first work I ever did was nursing the white children.  My old mis’ called me in the house and told me that she wanted me to take care of her children and from then till freedom came, I stayed in the house nursing.  I had to get up every morning at five when the cook got up and make the coffee and then I had to go in the dining-room and set the table.  Then I served breakfast.  Then I went into the house and cleaned it up.  Then I ’tended to the white children and served the other meals during the day.  I never did work in the fields much.  My old mars said I was too damned slow.

“They carried me out to the field one evening.  He never did show me nor tell me how to handle it and when I found myself, he had knocked me down.  When I got up, he didn’t tell me what to do, but when I picked up my things and started droppin’ the seeds ag’in, he picked up a pine root and killed me off with it.  When I come to, he took me up to the house and told his wife he didn’t want me into the fields because I was too damned slow.

“My mars used to throw me in a buck and whip me.  He would put my hands together and tie them.  Then he would strip me naked.  Then he would make me squat down.  Then he would run a stick through behind my knees and in front of my elbows.  My knees was up against my chest.  My hands was tied together just in front of my shins.  The stick between my arms and my knees held me in a squat.  That’s what they called a buck.  You could [TR:  sic:  couldn’t] stand up an’ you couldn’t git your feet out.  You couldn’t do nothin’ but just squat there and take what he put on you.  You couldn’t move no way at all.  Just try to.  You jus’ fall over on one side and have to stay there till you turned over by him.

“He would whip me on one side till that was sore and full of blood and then he would whip me on the other side till that was all tore up.  I got a scar big as the place my old mis’ hit me.  She took a bull whip once—­the bull whip had a piece of iron in the handle of it—­and she got mad.  She was so mad she took the whip and hit me over the head with the butt end of it, and the blood flew.  It ran all down my back and dripped off my heels.  But I wasn’t dassent to stop to do nothin’ about it.  Old ugly thing!  The devil’s got her right now!!  They never rubbed no salt nor nothin’ in your back.  They didn’t need to.

“When the war come, they made him serve.  He would go there and run away and come back home.  One day after he had been took away and had come back, he was settin’ down talkin’ to old mis’, and I was huddled up in the corner listenin’, and I heered him tell her, ’Tain’t no use to do all them things.  The niggers’ll soon be free.’  And she said, ’I’ll be dead before that happens, I hope.’  And she died just one year before the slaves was freed.  They was a mean couple.