“I seen enough what the old folks went through.  My sister and I went through enough after slavery was over.  For twenty-one long years we were enslaved, even after we were supposed to be free.  We didn’t even know we were free.  We had to wash the white people’s feet when they took their shoes off at night—­the men and women.

“Sundays the slaves would wash out their clothes.  It was the only time they had to themselves.  Some of the old men worked in their tobacco patches.  We never observed Christmas.  We never had no holidays, son, no, sir!  We didn’t know what the word was.

“I never saw any slave funerals.  Some slaves died, but I never saw any of them buried.  I didn’t see any funerals at all.

“The white folks would come down to the cabins to marry the slaves.  The master or mistress would read a little out of a book.  That’s all there was to it.

“We used to play a game called ‘Hulgul’.  We’d play it in the cabins and sometimes with the white children.  We’d hold hazelnuts in our hands.  I’d say ‘Hulgul’ How many?  You’d guess.  If you hit it right, you’d get them all and it would be your turn to say ‘Hulgul’.  If you’d say ‘Three!’ and I only had two, you’d have to give me another to make three.

“The kids nowadays can go right to the store and buy a ball to play with.  We’d have to make a ball out of yarn and put a sock around it for a cover.  Six of us would stay on one side of a house and six on the other side.  Then we’d throw the ball over the roof and say ‘Catch!’ If you’d catch it you’d run around to the; other side and hit somebody, then start over.  We worked so hard we couldn’t play long on Sunday evenings.

“School?  We never seen the inside of a schoolhouse.  Mistress used to read the Bible to us every Sunday morning.

“We say two songs I still remember.

  “I think when I read that sweet story of old,
  When Jesus was here among men,
  How he called little children like lambs to his fold,
  I should like to have been with them then.

  “I wish that his hands had been placed on my head,
  That his arms had been thrown around me,
  That I might have seen his kind face when he said
  ‘Let the little ones come unto me.’

  “Yet still to his footstool in prayer I nay go
  And ask for a share of his love,
  And that I might earnestly seek Him below
  And see Him and hear Him above.

“Then there was another: 

  “I want to be an angel
  And with the angels stand
  With a crown upon my Forehead
  And a harp within my hand.

  “And there before my Saviour,
  So glorious and so bright,
  I’d make the sweetest music
  And praise him day and night.

“And as soon as we got through singing those songs, we had to get right out to work.  I was always glad when they called us in the house to Sunday school.  It was the only chance we’d get to rest.