“Mr. Jefferson Davis was pretty good’ bout some things.  But if he hadn’ a-been mulish he could-a ’cepted de proposition Mr. Abe Lincum made ’im.  Den slav’ry would-a lasted always.  But he flew into a huff an’ swore dat he’d whip de Yankees wid corn stalks.  Dat made Mr. Lincum mad, so he sot about to free de slaves.

“Mr. Lincum was a good man, but dey tells me he was poor an’ never cut much figger in his clothes.  Dat’s why he never did un’erstan’ how us felt’ bout us white folks.  It takes de quality to un’erstan’ such things.

“Right now, I loves my marster an’ his wife in de grave.  Dey raised me an’ showed me kindness all dey lives.  I was proud of ’em.  At de present time I’s under treatment o’ young Dr. Stowers, my marster’s gran’chil’.  I trusts him an’ he is sho’ good to me.

“I rents a place on Providence Plantation ‘bout three miles south o’ Natchez.  De trip to Natchez in a rickety old wagon is mos’ too much in de hot weather.  My heart’s mos’ wore out.  I can’t las’ long, ’cause I’s had a heap sposure[FN:  exposure].

“I’s jus’ a bag o’ bones now, but onct I stood nearly six feet in my stockings an’ weighed ‘bout one hundred an’ eighty pounds.  I was well muscled, too.  Now I’s gittin’ kinda gray an’ gittin’ bald at de same time.  Black folks lak me don’t hardly ever git bald.

“I’s gittin’ real feeble.  De doctor say I got a bad heart.  Sometimes I jus’ has to set on de curb an’ res’ myse’f a spell.  I gits kinda windless when I thinks ’bout all I been through.

“My wife is been dead ‘bout seventeen years an’ my chillun is so scattered dat I don’t know where dey is.  De folks I stays wid is powerful good to me an’ sees after me same as dey was my own.  I reckon I don’t need nothin else.

“Dis generation aint got much sense.  Dey’s tryin’ to git somewheres too fas’.  None of ’em is sat’fied wid plain livin’.  Dey wants too much.

“Nobody needs more dan dey can use, nohow.”

JANE SUTTON Gulfport, Mississippi

Jane Sutton, ex-slave, is 84 years old.  She is 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds.  She is what the Negroes themselves call a “brown-skin.”

“I was born in Simpson County, near old Westville, on a big farm what b’long to Marse Jack Berry.  I was 12 years old when de surrender come, so my ole Mis’ say.  Her name was ‘Mis Ailsey an’ all us cullud folks call her ‘Ole Mi’s.  She an’ Old Marster had twelve chillun:  Marthy, ’Lizabeth, Flavilia, Mary, Jack, Bill, Denson, Pink, Tally, Thomas, Albert, and Frank.

“My pappy’s name was Steve Hutchins.  He b’long to de Hutchins what live down near Silver Creek.  He jus’ come on Satu’d’y night an’ us don’ see much of ’im.  Us call him ‘dat man.’  Mammy tol’ us to be more ’spectful to ’im ‘cause he was us daddy, but us aint care nothin’ ’bout ’im.  He aint never brung us no candy or nothin’.

“My mammy was name Lucy Berry.  She always go by de white folks name what she live wid.  She aint never marry.  She had fo’ boys an’ three girls.  Dey was name Delia, Sarah, Ella, Nathan, Isom, Anderson, an’ Pleas.  She work in de fiel’ an Old Marster say she’s de only woman on de place what could plow lak a man.