James, shrivelled and wrinkled, with his bright eyes taking in everything on one of his rare visits to town, seemed glad of the chance to talk about slavery days.  He spoke of his owner as “my employer” and hastily corrected himself by saying, “I means, my marster.”

“My employer, I means my marster, and my mistess, they was sho’ all right white folkses,” he continued.  “They lived in the big ’ouse.  Hit was all painted brown.  I heard tell they was more’n 900 acres in our plantation and lots of folkses lived on it.  The biggest portion was woods.  My paw, he was name Whitfield Bolton and Liza Bolton was my maw.  Charlie, Edmund, Thomas and John Bolton was my brothers and I had one sister, she was Rosa.  We belonged to Marse Whitfield Bolton and we lived on his plantation in Oglethorpe County near Lexington, not far from the Wilkes County line.

“We stayed in a one room log cabin with a dirt floor.  A frame made outen pine poles was fastened to the wall to hold up the mattresses.  Our mattresses was made outen cotton bagging stuffed with wheat straw.  Our kivers was quilts made outen old clothes.  Slave ’omens too old to work in the fields made the quilts.

“Maw, she went up to the big house onc’t a week to git the ’lowance or vittles.  They ’lowanced us a week’s rations at a time.  Hit were generally hog meat, corn meal and sometimes a little flour.  Maw, she done our cookin’ on the coals in the fireplace at our cabin.  We had plenty of ’possums and rabbits and fishes and sometimes we had wild tukkeys and partidges.  Slaves warn’t spozen to go huntin’ at night and everybody know you can’t ketch no ’possums ‘ceppin’ at night!  Jus’ the same, we had plenty ’possums and nobody ax how we cotch ’em!” James laughed and nodded.  “Now, ’bout them rabbits!  Slaves warn’t ’lowed to have no guns and no dogs of they own.  All the dogs on our plantation belonged to my employer—­I means, to my marster, and he ’lowed us to use his dogs to run down the rabbits.  Nigger mens and boys ’ud go in crowds, sometimes as many as twelve at one time, and a rabbit ain’t got no chance ’ginst a lot of niggers and dogs when they light out for to run ’im down!

“What wild critters we wanted to eat and couldn’t run down, we was right smart ‘bout ketchin’ in traps.  We cotch lots of wild tukkeys and partidges in traps and nets.  Long Crick runned through our plantation and the river warn’t no fur piece off.  We sho’ did ketch the fishes, mostly cats, and perch and heaps and heaps of suckers.  We cotch our fishes mos’n generally with hook and line, but the carpenters on our plantation knowed how to make basket traps that sho’ nuff did lay in the fishes!  God only knows how long it’s been since this old nigger pulled a big shad out of the river.  Ain’t no shads been cotch in the river round here in so long I disremembers when!