"Back at dat time de country was not settled much and dere was lots of Indians. My grandpappy was a full-blooded Indian but I don't know what kind. De Indians was good people but if dey thought you had done 'em wrong dey'd kill you right now. I saw some of dem when dey left dat country. Dey women carried de babies in some sort of sacks, hung down in front of 'em, and de men carried some of de bigger chillun on dey shoulders. Dey didn't have no property—jest lived wild in de woods.
Abraham Jones' Back Yard, Village Springs, Alabama
"A few years after de stars fell, a passel of people from de other side of Columbus, Georgia, moved over and started de town of Auburn so dey could have a place for a school.
"Before de war my people took me up to Blount County, and when de war come dey left me to run de grist-mill. I was de fust man in Alabama to try to grind a bushel of oats. I ground 'em too. A lady brung de oats and ast me could I grind 'em, and I told her I would try. She say dey didn't had nothin' for de chillun to eat. I ground de oats, and told her, 'Ole Mistis, I knows jest how 'tis and I'll be glad to give you a peck of meal if you will use it.' She say, 'of course I will; jest put it in with the oat meal, and I sure will appreciate it.' Her husband was off to de war and she didn't had no way to feed de chillun.
"I was workin' on de road a long time after de war and was tellin' de men about dat when her son hear me. She had told him about it and so he went home and told her he had found me. She sent word back for me to go to her house and let her see if I shore 'nuff was de same man. So I went and when she seen me she say, 'Yes, he is the same man,' and she called her husband and de other chillun and told 'em about it. Her husband say, 'Well, dey is jest one thing we kin do. If he ever need a place to stay or vittles to eat, we must see dat he gits dem.'
"In slavery time I belong to Massa Frank Jones, and Timothy Jones was de overseer on de place. Frank Jones had two plantations, de one whar I was born and another one close to Columbus. People ax me sometimes what kind of house I was born in and I tell 'em I wa'n't born in no house; and I warn't, I was born in de middle of de big road.
Abraham Jones' House, Village Springs, Alabama
"It's gittin' to where it's mighty hard for me to go now and do de work to make sompen for us to eat. I can't git about so fast and my head bother me a lot. I been workin' a long time now, and you does git tired after a hundred years of workin'!"