“I knowed one gal that ran away in the winter time and she went up into the hollow of a tree for protection.  When she came in, she was in sich a bad condition they had to cut off both her legs.  They had froze out there.  They taken care of her.  They wanted her to work.  She was jus’ as nice a seamstress as you ever saw.  And she could do lots of things.  She could get about some.  She could go on her knees.  She had some pads for them and was just about as high as your waist when she was goin’ along on her hands and knees, swinging her body between her arms.

Ate in the Big House

“The cooks and my mother stayed in the white folks’ yard.  They weren’t in the quarters.  My mother was seamstress and she was right in the house all the day long sewing.  The children like me and my sister, they used us ’round the house and yard for whatever we could do.  They didn’t never whip none of my father’s children.  If we done something they thought we ought to been whipped for, they would tell father to whip us, and if he wanted to, he would; and if he didn’t want to, he wouldn’t.  They made a big difference for some reason.

Marriage

“They married in that time by standing up and letting someone read the ceremony to them.  My master was a Christian.  There wasn’t no jumpin’ over a broomstick on my master’s place.  The white folks didn’t have no nigger preacher for their churches.  But the colored folks had ’em.  They preached out of these little old Blue Back Spellers—­leastways they was little blue back books anyhow.

Freedom

“My folks was on the road refugeeing from Magnolia, Arkansas to Pittsburg, Texas when the news came that the colored folks was free.  And my master came ’round and told the niggers they was free as he was.  I didn’t hear him.  I don’t know where I was.  I’m sure I was out playin somewheres.

Slave Wages and Experiences after the War

“My father worked in a blacksmith shop right after the War.  Before the War, he went far and near to work for the white folks.  They’d risk him with their money and everything.  They would give him part of it; I don’t know how much.  He brought money to them, and they sure give him money.

“We didn’t have to wear the things the other slave children had to wear.  He would order things for his family and my father would do the same for us.  When old master made his order, my father would put his in with it.

Family

“I am the mother of fifteen children—­ten girls and five boys.  That was enough for me.  I am willing to quit off.  My husband is dead.  He’s been dead for thirty-five years.

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