“Ain’t they all free, there? I hearn so.”
“Yes.”
“Well, how do they get along when they’s free?”
“I never have seen a great many, to know their circumstances very well. Right about where I live they seem to me to live quite comfortably; more so than the niggers on these big plantations do, I should think.”
“Oh, they have a mighty hard time on the big plantations. I’d ruther be dead than to be a nigger on one of these big plantations.”
“Why, I thought they were pretty well taken care of on them.”
The man and his wife both looked at me as if surprised, and smiled.
“Why, they are well fed, are they not?”
“Oh, but they work em so hard. My God, sir, in pickin’ time on these plantations they start ’em to work ’fore light, and they don’t give ’em time to eat.”
“I supposed they generally gave them an hour or two at noon.”