“I’ll tell you what dat overseer done one night.  Some enemy of Marster’s sot fire to de big frame house whar him and Mist’ess and de chillun lived.  De overseer seed it burnin’, and run and clam up de tree what wuz close to de house, went in de window and got Marster’s two little gals out dat burnin’ house ’fore you could say scat.  Dat sho fixed de overseer wid old Marster.  Atter dat Marster give him a nice house to live in but Marster’s fine old house sho wuz burnt to de ground.

“De cyarriage driver wuz uncle Sam.  He drove de chillun to school, tuk Marster and Mist’ess to church, and done de wuk ’round de house; such as, totin’ in wood, keepin’ de yards and waitin’ on de cook.  No’m us slaves didn’t go to church; de Niggers wuz so wore out on Sundays, dey wuz glad to stay home and rest up, ’cause de overseer had ’em up way ’fore day and wuked ’em ’til long atter dark.  On Saddays dey had to wash deir clothes and git ready for de next week.  Some slaves might a had special things give to ’em on Christmas and New Years Day, but not on Marster’s plantation; dey rested up a day and dat wuz all.  I heared tell dey had Christmas fixin’s and doin’s on other plantations, but not on Marse Frank’s place.  All corn shuckin’s, cotton pickin’s, log rollin’s, and de lak was when de boss made ’em do it, an’ den dere sho warn’t no extra sompin t’eat.

“De onliest game I ever played wuz to take my doll made out of a stick wid a rag on it and play under a tree.  When I wuz big ’nough to wuk, all I done wuz to help de cook in de kitchen and play wid old Mist’ess’ baby.

“Some of de Niggers runned away.  Webster, Hagar, Atney, an’ Jane runned away a little while ’fore freedom.  Old Marster didn’t try to git ’em back, ’cause ’bout dat time de war wuz over.  Marster and Mist’ess sho looked atter de Niggers when dey got sick for dey knowed dat if a Nigger died dat much property wuz lost.  Yessum, dey had a doctor sometime, but de most dey done wuz give ’em hoarhound, yellow root and tansy.  When a baby wuz cuttin’ teeth, dey biled ground ivy and give ’em.

“Louisa, de cook wuz married in de front yard.  All I ’members ’bout it wuz dat all de Niggers gathered in de yard, Louisa had on a white dress; de white folkses sho fixed Louisa up, ’cause she wuz deir cook.

“Jus’ lemme tell you ‘bout my weddin’ I buyed myself a dress and had it laid out on de bed, den some triflin’, no ’count Nigger wench tuk and stole it ’fore I had a chance to git married in it.  I had done buyed dat dress for two pupposes; fust to git married in it, and second to be buried in.  I stayed on wid Old Miss ’til I got ’bout grown and den I drifted to Athens.  When I married my fust husband, Charlie Montgomery, I wuz wukkin’ for Mrs. W.R.  Booth, and us married in her dinin’ room.  Charlie died out and I married James Hoshier.  Us had one baby.  Hit wuz a boy.  James an’ our boy is both daid now and I’se all by myself.