"I ain't never seed nor heared tell o' my Ma an' Paw, an' bruthers, an' susters from dat day to dis.
"My new owners tuck me to Baltymore, whar dey had herded tergether two two-hoss wagon loads o' Niggers. All o' us Niggers wuz den shipped on a boat to Savannah, an' frum dar us wuz put on de cyars an' sont to Macon.
"In Macon, us wuz sold out, and Doctor (W.R.) Little, of Talbotton, bought me at oxion (auction) an' tuck me home wid 'im. Den I wuz known as Mary Little, instid of Mary Shorter."
In the continuation of her narrative, "Aunt" Mary said that the Littles trained her to be a nurse. Before the war ended, she was inherited by Mr. Gus (the late Hon. W.A.) Little.
She remembers that all the "quality", young white men who went to the war from Talbotton took Negro men-servants (slaves) along with them. These were usually called body-servants, and it was a body-servant's duty to cook, wash, and do general valet service for his master. In a pinch, he was also supposed to raid a hen roost, or otherwise rustle food for his "white fokes".
According to "Aunt" Mary, the Little Negroes were very religious and given to much loud praying and singing, which often so disturbed Dr. Little that he gave orders for them to stop it, and also ordered that all lights in the slave quarters be out at 9 o'clock each night.
"So us tuck to slippin' off to a big gully in de pastur to sing and pray whar de white fokes couldn' hear us.
"My fust baby wuz bawned in 1862, during de secon' year o' de war. I has had several husbants, my las' un, he died 'bout seventeen years ago.
"I ain't never seed but one hant in my life, an' I didn' know it wuz a hant 'til Aunt Peggy (an old slave woman) tole me so. Dis hant was in de shape o' a duck, an' it followed me one day frum de big house kitchen ter de hawg pen whar I wuz gwine ter slop de hawgs. When I got back, I said, 'Aunt Peggy, dar's a strange duck done tuck up wid us!' And she say, 'hush, chile, dat's a hant!' I been seein' 'im fur severrel years! An' dat sholy skeert me!"
When asked if she had ever been whipped when a slave, "Aunt" Mary replied, "Yes, and thank God fur it, fur ole Miss taught me to be hones' an' not to steal." She admitted that being whipped for stealing made her an honest woman.