"When the white chillun come of age they drawed for the colored folks. Marse Nichols Lee had a girl named Ann and she drawed me. She didn't keep me no time though, and the man what bought me was named Leo Andrew Whitley. He went to war and died before the war ceasted. Then I fell to his brother Jim Whitley. He was my last marster. I was with him when peace was declared. Yes mam, he was good to me. All my white folks mighty good to me. Co'se Jim Whitley's wife slap my jaws sometimes, but she never did take a stick to me.
"Lord honey, its been so long I just can't remember much now. I'se gittin' old and forgitful. Heap a things I remember and heap a things slips from me and is gone.
"Well honey, in slavery times, a heap of 'em didn't have good owners. When they wanted to have church services and keep old marster from hearin', they'd go out in the woods and turn the wash-pot upside down. You know that would take up all the sound.
"I remember Adam Heath—he was called the meanest white man. I remember he bought a boy and you know his first marster was good and he wasn't used to bein' treated bad.
One day he asked old Adam Heath for a chew of tobacco, so old Adam whipped him, and the boy ran away. But they caught him and put a bell on him. Yes mam, that was in slavery times. Honey, I had good owners. They didn't believe in beatin' their niggers.
"You know my home was in North Carolina. I was bred and born in Johnson County.
"I remember seein' the soldiers goin' to war, but I never seed no Yankee soldiers till after freedom.
"When folks heard the Yankees was comin' they run and hide their stuff. One time they hide the meat in the attic, but the Yankees found it and loaded it in Everett Whitley's wife's surrey and took it away. She died just 'fore surrender.
"And I remember 'nother time they went to the smokehouse and got something to eat and strewed the rest over the yard. Then they went in the house and jest ramshacked it.
"My second marster never had no wife. He was courtin' a girl, but when the war come, he volunteered. Then he took sick and died at Manassas Gap. Yes'm, that's what they told me.