“‘Oh, my sakes!’ my uncle, he say, ’NO, no I aint ready yet.  I aint ready to meet you.  I don’t want to die.’

“My Missus whipped me once, but not so very hard.  I was under Her daughter, Miss Mollie.  She liked me and always called me “Tinker”.  When she heard me crying and goin’ on, she called: 

“‘Tinker, come here.  What’s the matter?  Did you Missus whip you?’

“Then my Missus said, ’Tinker was a bad girl, I told her to sweep the yard and she went off and hid all day.’

“Mollie, she took me up in her arms and said, ’They mustn’t whip Tinker; she’s my little girl.’

“If it hadn’t been for Miss Mollie, I don’t know where I’d be now.  I married right after freedom.  My husband, Alexander Boynton and I stayed right on the plantation and farmed on the shares.

“We had planty of children,—­18 in all.—­three sets of twins.  They all grew up, except the twins, they didn’t any of them get old enough to get married, but all the rest lived and raised children.

“They are all scattered around, but my youngest son is only 38 years old.  I have grand-children, 40 years old.

“I don’t know just how many, but I have 20 grand-children and I have three generations of grand-children.  Yes, my grand-children, some of them, have grand-children.  That makes five generations.

“I tell them that I am a “gitzy, gitzy” grand-mother.”

“I live right here with my daughter.  She’s my baby girl.  I’m not very strong anymore, but I have a big time telling stories to my great-grand-children and great-great-grand children”.

SALENA TASWELL: 

Salena Taswell, 364 NW 8th St. Miami, Florida, is one of the oldest ex-slave women in Miami.  Like most ex-slaves she is very courteous; she will talk about the “old times”, if she has once gained confidence in you, but her answers will be so laconic that two or three visits are necessary in order for an interviewer to gain tangible information without appearing too proddish.

With short, measured step, bent form, unsteady head, wearing a beaming smile, Salena takes the floor.

“Ole Dr. Jameson, he wuz my Massy.  He had a plantation three mile from Perry, Georgia.  I can ‘member whole lots about working for them.  Y’ see I was growned up when peace came.

“My mother used to be a seamstress and sewed with her fingers all the time.  She made the finest kind of stitches while I worked around de table or did any other kind of house work.

“I knowed de time when Ab’ram Linkum come to de plantation.  He come through there on the train and stopped over night oncet.  He was known by Dr. Jameson and he came to Perry to see about the food for the soldiers.