"It was a good while before my mother realized she was free. She noticed the other colored people going to and fro and she wondered about it. They didn't allow you to go round in slave times. She asked them about it and they told her, 'Don't you know you are free?' Some of the white people too told her that she was free. After that, from the way she talked, I guess she stayed around there until she could go some place and get wages for her work. She was a good cook.
Mean Mistress
"I have seen many a scar on my mother. She had mean white folks. She had one big scar on the side of her head. The hair never did grow back on that place. She used to comb her hair over it so that it wouldn't show. The way she got it was this:
"One day her mistress went to high mass and left a lot of work for my mother to do. She was only a girl and it was too much. There was more work than she could get done. She had too big a task for a child to get done. When her old mistress came back and her work was not all done, she beat my mother down to the ground, and then she took one of the skillets and bust her over the head with it—trying to kill her, I reckon. I have seen the scar with my own eyes. It was an awful thing.
"My mother was a house servant in Missouri and Mississippi. Never done no hard work till she came here (Arkansas). When they brought her here they tried to make a field hand out of her. She hadn't been used to chopping cotton. When she didn't chop it fast as the others did, they would beat her. She didn't know nothing about no farmwork. She had all kinds of trouble. They just didn't treat her good. She used to have good times in Missouri and Mississippi but not in Arkansas. They just didn't treat her good. In them days, they'd whip anybody. They'd tie you to the bed or have somebody hold you down on the floor and whip you till the blood ran.
"But, Lawd, my mother never had no use for Catholics because it was a Catholic that hit her over the head with that skillet—right after she come from mass.
Food
"My mother said that they used to pour the food into troughs and give it to the slaves. They'd give them an old, wooden spoon or something and they all eat out of the same dish or trough. They wouldn't let the slaves eat out of the things they et out of. Fed them just like they would hogs.
"When I was little, she used to come to feed me about twelve o'clock every day. She hurry in, give me a little bowl of something, and then hurry right on out because she had to go right back to her work. She didn't have time to stay and see how I et. If I had enough, it was all right. If I didn't have enough, it was all right. It might be pot liquor or it might be just anything.
"One day she left me alone and I was lying on the floor in front of the fireplace asleep. I didn't have no bed nor nothing then. The fire must have popped out and set me on fire. You see they done a whole lot of weaving in them days. And they put some sort of lint on the children.