“How wells I ’member when I wuz converted.  I’d thought ’bout ’ligion a lot but neber wunce wuz I muved to repent.  One day I went out to cut sum wood an’ begin thinkin’ agin and all wunce I feeled so relieved an’ good an’ run home to tell granny an’ de uthahs dat I’d cum out at last.”

“No, we didn’t wurk on Saturday aftahnoons.  Christmas wuz big time at Marse Hunts hous’.  Preparations wuz made fo’ it two weeks fo’ day cum.  Der wuz corn sings an’ big dances, ‘ceptin’ at ’ligious homes.  Der wuz no weddins’ at Marse Hunts, cause dey had no chilluns an’ de niece and nephew went back to own homes to git married.”

“We played sich games as marbles; yarn ball; hop, skip, an’ jump; mumble peg an’ pee wee.  Wunce I’s asked to speak down to white chilluns school an’ dis is what I speak: 

  ’The cherries are ripe,
  The cherries are ripe,
  Oh give the baby one,
  The baby is too little to chew,
  The robin I see up in the tree,
  Eating his fill and shaking his bill,
  And down his throat they run.’

Another one: 

  ’Tobacco is an Indian weed,
  And from the devil doth proceed
  It robs the pocket and burns the clothes
  And makes a chimney of the nose.’

“When de slaves gits sick, deir mammies luked af’er em but de Marse gived de rem’dies.  Yes, dere wuz dif’runt kinds, salts, pills, Castah orl, herb teas, garlic, ’fedia, sulphah, whiskey, dog wood bark, sahsaparilla an’ apple root.  Sometimes charms wuz used.

“I ‘member very well de day de Yankees cum.  De slaves all cum a runnin’ an’ yellin’:  “Yankees is cumin’, Yankee soljers is comin’, hurrah”.  Bout two or three clock, we herd bugles blowing’ an’ guns on Taylah Ridge.  Kids wuz playin’ an’ all ‘cited.  Sumone sed:  “Kathrun, sumthin’ awful gwine happen”, an’ sumone else sez; “De’ is de Yankees”.  De Yankee mens camp on ouah farm an’ buyed ouah buttah, milk an’ eggs.  Marse Hunt, whut you all call ‘bilionist [HW:  abolitionist] an’ he wuz skeered of suthern soljers an’ went out to de woods an’ laid behind a log fo’ seben weeks and seben days, den he ‘cided to go back home.  He sez he had a dream an’ prayed, “I had bettah agone, but I prayed.  No use let des debils take you, let God take you.”  We tote food an’ papahs to Marse while he wuz a hidin’.”

“One ob my prized possessions is Abraham Lincoln’s pictures an’ I’se gwine to gib it to a culured young man whose done bin so kind to me, when I’se gone.  Dat’s Bookah T. Washington’s picture ovah thar.”

“I’se married heah in Middeport by Preachah Bill, 1873.  My husban’ wuz Charles Stewart, son of Johnny Stewart.  Deir wuz hous’ full my own folks, mammy, pappy, sistahs, bruthas, an’ sum white folks who cumed in to hep dress me up fo’ de weddin’.  We kep de weddin’ a secrut an’ my aunt butted hur horns right off tryin’ to fin’ out when it wuz.  My husban’ had to leave right away to go to his job on de boat.  We had great big dinnah, two big cakes an’ ice cream fo’ desurt.  We had fo’teen chilluns with only two livin’.  I has five gran’ sons an’ two great gran’ daughters.”