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My mammy was Harriet Butler and my pappy was John Butler and we all was raised in Washington-Wilkes.

Mammy was a Frank Collar niggah and her man was of the tribe of Ben Butler, some miles down de road.  Et was one of dem trial marriages—­they’se tried so hard to see each other but old Ben Butler says two passes a week war enuff to see my mammy on de Collar plantation.  When de war was completed pappy came home to us.  We wuz a family of ten—­four females called Sally, Liza, Ellen and Lottie and six strong bucks called Charlie, Elisha, Marshal, Jack, Heywood and little Johnnie, [TR:  ‘cuz he war’ marked out] de baby.

De Collar plantation wuz big and I don’t know de size of it.  Et must have been big for dere war [HW:  250] niggahs aching to go to work—­I guess they mus’ have been aching after de work wuz done.  Marse Frank bossed the place hisself—­dere war no overseers.  We raised cotton, corn, wheat and everything we un’s et.  Dere war no market to bring de goods to.  Marse Frank wuz like a foodal lord of back history as my good for nothing grandson would say—­he is the one with book-larning from Atlanta.  Waste of time filling up a nigger’s head with dat trash—­what that boy needs is muscle-ology—­jes’ look at my head and hands.

My mammy was maid in de Collar’s home and she had many fine dresses—­some of them were give to her by her missus.  Pappy war a field nigger for ole Ben Butler and I worked in the field when I wuz knee high to a grasshopper.  We uns et our breakfast while et war dark and we trooped to the fields at sun-up, carrying our lunch wid us.  Nothing fancy but jes’ good rib-sticking victuals.  We come in from the fields at sun-down and dere were a good meal awaiting us in de slave quarters.  My good Master give out rations every second Monday and all day Monday wuz taken to separate the wheat from the chaff—­that is—­I mean the victuals had to be organized to be marched off to de proper depository.

Before we uns et we took care of our mules.  I had a mule named George—­I know my mule—­he was a good mule.

“Yes, I hollow at the mule, and the mule would not gee, this mornin’.  Yes, I hollow at the mule, and the mule would not gee.  An’ I hit him across the head with the single-tree, so soon.”

Yes, Boss-man I remembers my mule.

Marse Frank gave mammy four acres of ground to till for herself and us childrens.  We raised cotton—­yes-sah! one bale of it and lots of garden truck.  Our boss-man give us Saturday as a holiday to work our four acres.

All the niggers worked hard—­de cotton pickers had to pick 200 pounds of cotton a day and if a nigger didn’t, Marse Frank would take de nigger to the barn and beat him with a switch.  He would tell de nigger to hollow loud as he could and de nigger would do so.  Then the old Mistress would come in and say!  “What are you doing Frank?” “Beating a nigger” would be his answer.  “You let him alone, he is my nigger” and both Marse Frank and de whipped nigger would come out of the barn.  We all loved Marse and the Mistress.  No, we wuz never whipped for stealing—­we never stole anything in dose days—­much.