Arrie said she was “15 or 16 years old when the war broke (1865), I wuz big enough to be lookin’ at boys an’ dey lookin’ at me.”  She remembers the days of war, how when the battle of Atlanta was raging they heard the distant rumble of cannon, and how “upsot” they all were.  Her master died of “the consumption” during the war.  She recalls how hard it was after his death.  The Syberts had no children and there was no one to turn to after his death.  Arrie tells of her Master’s illness, how she was the housemaid and was called upon to fan him and how she would get so tired and sleepy she would nod a little, the fan dropping from hands into his face.  He would take it up and “crack my haid with the handle to wake me up.  I wuz allus so sorry when I done that, but I jest had ter nod.”

She told about how bad the overseers were and the trouble they gave until finally “old Miss turned off ther one she had an’ put my Pa in his place to manage things and look after the work.”  Arrie was never punished, (not any more than having her head cracked by her Master when she nodded while fanning him.) “No mam, not none of our niggers wuz whipped.  Why I recollect once, my brother wuz out without a pass an’ de patter rollers kotch him and brung him to old Miss and said he’d have ter be whipped, old Miss got so mad she didn’t know what ter do, she said nobody wuz a goin’ ter whip her niggers, but the patter roller men ’sisted so she said after er while, ‘Well, but I’m goin’ ter stan’ right here an’ when I say stop, yer got ter stop’, an’ they ‘greed to dat, an’ the third time dey hit him she raised her han’ an’ said ‘stop’ an’ dey had ter let my brother go.  My Miss wuz a big ’oman, she’d weigh nigh on ter three hundred pound, I ’spect.”

After her master’s death Arrie had to go into the field to work.  She recalled with a little chuckle, the old cream horse, “Toby” she use to plow.  She loved Toby, she said, and they did good work.  When not plowing she said she “picked er round in the fields” doing whatever she could.  She and the other slaves were not required to do very hard work.  Her mother was a field hand, but in the evenings she spun and wove down in their cabin.  Aunt Arrie added “an’ I did love to hear that old spinnin’ wheel.  It made a low kind of a whirring sound that made me sleepy.”  She said her mother, with all the other negro women on the place, had “a task of spinnin’ a spool at night”, and they spun and wove on rainy days too.  “Ma made our clothes an’ we had pretty dresses too.  She dyed some blue and brown striped.  We growed the indigo she used fer the blue, right dar on the plantation, and she used bark and leaves to make the tan and brown colors.”

Aunt Arrie said the Doctor was always called in when they were sick, “but we never sont fer him lesse’n somebody wuz real sick.  De old folks doctored us jest fer little ailments.  Dey give us lye tea fer colds.  (This was made by taking a few clean ashes from the fire place, putting them in a little thin bag and pouring boiling water over them and let set for a few minutes.  This had to be given very weak or else it would be harmful, Aunt Arrie explained.) Garlic and whiskey, and den, dar ain’t nothin’ better fer the pneumony dan splinter tea.  I’ve cured bad cases with it.” (That is made by pouring boiling water over lightwood splinters.)