“When I go back to Mississippi, I’m going back to that house again.  I don’t remember seeing the house I was born in.  But I was told it was an ordinary log house just like those all the other slaves had,—­just a one-room log house.

Freedom

“My father went to the War.  He was on the Confederate side.  They carried him there as a worker.  They cut down all the timber ’round the place where they were to keep the Yankee gunboats from shelling them and knocking the logs down on them.  But them Yankees were sharp.  They stayed away till everything got dry as a chip.  Then they come down and set all that wood afire with their shells, and the wind seemed to be in their favor.  The Rebels had to get away from there.

“He got sick before the War closed and he had to come home.  His young master and the other folks stayed there four or five months longer.  His young master was named Tom.  When Tom came home, he waited about five or six months before he would tell them they was free.  Then he said, ’You all free as I am.  You can stay here if you want or you can go.  You are free.’  They all got together and told him that if he would treat them right he wouldn’t have to do no work.  They would stay and do his work and theirs too.  They would work the land and he would give them their part.  I don’t know just what the agreement was.  I think it was about a third.  Anyway, they worked on shares.  When the landlord furnished a team usually it was halves.  But when the worker furnished his own team, it was usually two-thirds or three-fourths that the worker got.  But none of them owned teams at that time.  They were just turned loose.  We stayed there with them people a good while.  I don’t know just how long, but it was several years.

Catching a Hog

“One time a slave went to steal a hog.  I don’t know the name of the man; I just hear my father tell what happened, and I’m repeating it.  It was a great big hog and kind of wild.  His plan to catch the hog was to climb a tree and carry a yeer of corn up the tree and at the same time he’d carry a long rope.  He had put a running noose in the end of the rope and laid it on the ground and shelled the corn into the ring.  He had the other end of the rope tied around himself; he was up the tree.  About the time he got the noose pulled up around the hog so that he could tighten up on it, he dropped his hat and scared the hog.  The hog didn’t know he was around until the hat fell, and the falling of the hat scared it so that it made a big jump and ran a little ways off.  That jerked the man out of the tree.  Him falling scared the hog a second time and got him to running right.  He was a big stout hog, and the man’s weight didn’t hold him back much.  The man didn’t know what to do to stop the hog.  The hog was running draggin’ him along, snatching him over logs.  There was nothin’ else he could do, so he tried prayer.  But the hog didn’t stop.  Seemed like even the Lord couldn’t stop him.  Then he questioned the Lord; he said, ’Lawd, what sawt [HW:  sort] of a Lawd is you?  You can stop the wind; you can stop the rain; you can stop the ocean; but you can’t stop this hog.’