"Master Brown owned two farms. He had plenty hands on his farms. I did never go down to the farms much but I knowed the hands. On Saturday little later than other days they brought the stock to the house and fed. Then they went to the smokehouse for their rations. He had a great big garden, strawberries, and grape arbors.
"One thing I had to do was worm the plants. I put the worms in a bottle and leave it in the row where the sun would dry the worms up. When a light frost come I would water the plants that would wilt before the sun riz and ag'in at night. Then the plants never felt the frost. Certainly it didn't kill 'em. It didn't hurt 'em.
"Julane was the regular milk woman. She milked and strained the milk. I churned and 'tended to the chickens. Miss Agnes sot the hens her own self. She marked the eggs with a piece of charcoal to see if other hens laid by the setting hen. If they did she'd take the new egg out of the nest.
"We had flower gardens. We had mint, rosemary, tansy, sage, mullen, catnip, horseradish, artichokes, hoarhound—all good home remedies.
"I never knowed when we moved to that farm. I was so small. I heard Miss Agnes Brown say I was a baby when they moved to Boldan depot, not fur from Clinton, Mississippi.
"When I left Miss Agnes I went to some folks my own color on another farm 'joining to their farm. Of course I took my baby. I took Anna and I been living with Anna ever since. What I'd do now without her. (Anna is an Indian and very proud of being half Indian.) My husband done dead.
"I get eight dollars welfare help. And I do get some commodities. Anna does all right but she got hit on the shoulder and about lost use of her arm. One of the railroad hands up here got mad and hit her. I had doctors. They done it a little good. It's been hurt three years or more now.
"I wisht I knowd where to find a bed of mullen. Boil it down to a syrup and add some molasses, boil that down. It makes a good syrup for coughs and colds.
"I never went to white folks' church none hardly. Miss Agnes sent me along with her cook to my own color's church.
"My husband sure was good to me. We never had but one fight. Neither one whooped.