The folks was after some people and I run off and kept goin till I took up with some people.  The white folks brought them to Tennessee—­Covington—­I come too.  They come in wagons.  My father, he got shot and I never seed him no mo.  He lived on another farm fo de war.  I lived wid them white folks till bout nine years and I married.  My old man wanted to come to dis new country.  Heard so much talk how fine it was.  Then I had run across my brother.  He followed me.  One brother was killed in the war somehow.  My brother liked Memphis an he stayed there.  We come on the train.  I never did like no city.

We farmed bout, cleared land.  Never got much fo the hard work we done.  The white man done learned how to figure the black folks out of what was made cept a bare living.

I could read a little and write.  He could too.  We went to school a little in Tennessee.

When we got so we not able to work hard he come to town and carpentered, right here, and I cooked fo Mr. Hopkins seven years and fo Mr. Gus Thweatt and fo Mr. Nick Thweatt.  We got a little ahead then by the hardest.  I carried my money right here [bag on a string tied around her waist].  We bought a house and five acres of land.  No mum I don’t own it now.  We got in hard luck and give a mortgage.  They closed us out.  Mr. Sanders.  They say I can live there long as I lives.  But they owns it.  My garden fence is down and won’t nobody fix it up fo me.  They promises to come put the posts in but they won’t do it and I ain’t able no mo.  I had a garden this year.  Spoke fo a pig but the man said they all died wid the kolerg [cholera].  So I ain’t got no meat to eat dis year.

I ain’t never had a chile.  I ain’t got nobody kin to me livin dat I knows bout.  When I gets sick a neighbor woman comes over and looks after me.

I thinks if de present generation don’t get killed they die cause they too lazy to work.  No mum dey don’t know nuthin bout work.  They ain’t got no religion.  They so smart they don’t pay no tention to what you advise em.  I never tries to find out what folks doin and the young generation is killin time.  I sho never did vote.  I don’t believe in it.  The women runnin the world now.  The old folks ain’t got no money an the young ones wastes theirs.  Theys able to make it.  They don’t give the old folks nuthin.  The times changes so much I don’t know what goiner come next.  I jes stop and looks and listens to see if my eyes is foolin me.  I can’t see, fo de cataracts gettin bad, nohow.  Things is heap better now fo de young folks now if they would help derselves.  I’m too wo out.  I can’t do much like I could when I was young.  The white folks don’t cheat the niggers outen what they make now bad as they did when I farmed.