“He had a good big plantation—had two plantations. One in North Carolina and one in Mississippi.
“Sold? Yes’m, I was put up on the block, but they couldn’t quite make it. Had six of us—boys and girls—and he sold one or two I ’member. But that’s been a long time.
“Yes’m, I can ’member when I was a boy in slavery. Run off too. Old master ketch me and switch me. Look like the switch would sting so. ’Member the last switchin’ I got. Dr. Henderson—I think he was old master’s son-in-law. Me? Well, he whipped me ’cause I’d steal his eggs. I don’t reckon I would a been so bad but I was raised up a motherless child. My mother died and my stepmother died.
“I can ’member pretty well way back there.
“He’d send me off on a mule to carry the mail to his people around. And I used to tote water. He had a heap a darkies.
“I could do very well now if I could see and if I wasn’t so crippled up. I was a hard worker.
“We had a plenty to eat and plenty to wear in slavery times.
“Old master would whip me if I went any further than the orchard. If I did happen to go outside the field, I come in ’fore night. But I hardly ever went outside. Sometimes I run off and when I come back to the house, he’d give me a breshin’.
“I seen the Yankees durin’ of the War. I run from ’em and hid. I thought they was tryin’ to carry me off. White folks never did tell me nothin’. They’d come in and throw things outdoors and destroy ’em—old master’s provisions. And they’d take things to eat too.
“My father belonged to Marcus Higgins when I first could remember.