[HW:  Song]

  ’Old Mister Yankee, think he is so grand,
  Wid his blue coat tail a draggin’ on de ground!’

“I stayed on wid Old Marster afte’ de surrender, wid de res’, ’til I met Joshua.  Joshua Young was his name an’ he b’longed to de Youngs whut lived out at Waverly.  I moved out dar wid him afte’ we mar’ied.  We didn’ have no big weddin’ ’cause dere wa’nt much money den.  We had a preacher tho’, an’ den went along jes’ lak we had allus been mar’ied.

“Josh, he’s been daid fer a long time now but we had a good life out at Waverly an’ many a night stood outside de parlor do’ an’ watch de white folks at dey big dances an’ parties.  De folks was pow’ful nice to us an’ we raised a passel er chullun out dar.  All of ’em ‘ceptin’ three be daid now.  George is de oldes’ of those lef’.  He’s a bricklayer, carpenter, preacher, an’ mos anything else he ’cides to call hisse’f.  He’s got 19 or 20 chullun, I dis’members which.  Edith ain’t got so many.  She live up North.  I lives wid my other darter an’ her gal.  I named her afte’ my sisters.  Her name is Anna Luvenia Hulda Larissa Jane Bell Young McMillan.  Dere may be more’n dat now, but anyways dere is five generations livin’.

“What I think ’bout slav’ry?  Well, leetle Miss, I tell you, I wish it was back.  Us was a lot better off in dem days dan we is now.  If dem Yankees had lef us ‘lone we’d been a lot happier.  We wouldn’ been on ‘lief an’ old age pension fer de las’ three years.  An’ Janie May, here, I b’lieve, sure as goodness, would’a been de Missus’ very smartes’ gal, an’ would’a stayed wid her in de Big House lak I did.”

Note:  This autobiography is exactly as related by the Negro to the field worker with exception of a few changes in spelling.  Phraseology is the same.

B.Y.