“We got up at 4 AM, work all day until 9 or 10 at night. On Sunday we worked if it was necessary.
“I was tough and strong. I could outrun a wild animal, barefooted and bare headed.
“We would have a country dance once in awhile. Someone would play the banjo.
“Miss Mary, white mistis called us all in one day and opened a large trunk. She showed us money, gold and silver, saying that we had all helped to make it for them. Thats the first money I ever saw.
“Before Christmas we killed hogs.
“Our white folks didn’t like any one wearing blue clothes. Thought they were Yankees, and that meant freedom for us niggers. Men in blue clothes came and put a rope around my marsters neck, took him all around the nigger cabins and asked where he hid them. He told them, Texas. They said, get them and free them or they would hang him.
“He sent after them and everything was alright.
“I though my white marster was God. He took sick and died.
“I heard the other slaves saying he committed suicide because he had lost all his money.
“In those times my father saw my mother, decided he wanted her for his woman. He tol his white folks and they fixed up a cabin for them to live in together. Was no ceremony. Had nigger midwives for babies.