Schooling

“Colored folks didn’t get no learning then.  I never learned to read or write.  Before I married, I learned to spell my name, but I had so much to do I have forgot how to do that.

How Freedom Came

“The Yankees were coming through the place.  A great crowd of soldiers.  The day the corps of Yankees were to go out, they all went up to the pike and it looked like a dark cloud.  There were great big wagons loaded down with everything to eat.  They took all the meat, all the whiskey, all the flour.  That they didn’t take, they give to the slaves or poured on the ground.  They took the corn out of the crib.

“The next day, old master called us up to the stand around him.  He told us we were all free and that if we would stay with him, he would pay us.

Whipping

“My old master never whipped me but once and never hit me much then.  I said, ’Master, if you don’t hit me no more, I’ll tell you who’s been stealing all your eggs.’  He said, ’Will, you tell me, sure ‘nough.’  I said, ‘Yes.’  But I never done it.

Patrollers

“I heard about the pateroles catching the colored folks.  They would catch them on the road as they were going places and whip them.  The pateroles was white folks that was supposed to catch colored folks when they were out without a pass.  Sometimes the colored folks would stretch ropes across the road and trip them up.  You would hear them laughing about it when they got amongst themselves the next day.

House, Etc.

“I was born in a old log house—­two rooms.  One for the kitchen and one to sleep in.  We had homemade furniture.  Mighty few of them had bought furniture.  Most of then made it themselves.  If you had bought furniture, that was called fine.  There was no rollers to any bed.  Food was kept in the house.  Wheat was kept under the bed because they had nowhere else to keep it.  Planks were put around it.  We children used to jump up and down in it.

Rations

“When the white folks got ready to give us milk, they poured it out in a tub and said, ‘Come and git it.’

“They would kill hogs and the colored folks’ meat would be put back of the white folks’ meat in the smokehouse.  They put the white folks’ meat in the front and the colored folks’ meat in the back.  When you wanted something, you would go up to old master and say, ‘My meat is out,’ and they would give you some more out of the smokehouse.

“Brandy was kept in the storehouse too; but they didn’t give that to the colored [TR:  corrected from ‘cullud’] folks—­they didn’t give any of it to them.  My daddy used to make it and buy it from the white folks and slip and sell it to the colored folks.  He didn’t tell the white folks who he was gettin’ it for.