"Now Uncle Dave tell me your early impressions of your mother and father."
"Miss, my mother was one of the best women God ever made. Back in slavery time I recall the trundle bed that we children slept on. In the day it was pushed under the big bed, and at night it was pulled out for us to sleep on. All through cold, bitter winter nights, I remember my mother getting up often to see about us and to keep the cover tucked in. She thought us sound asleep, and I pretended I was asleep while listening to her prayers. She would bend down over the bed and stretching her arms so as to take us all in, she prayed with all her soul to God to help her bring up her children right. Don't think now that she let God do it all; she helped God, bless your life, by keeping a switch right at hand."
"Uncle Dave you didn't have to be chastised, did you?"
"I got two or three whippings every day. You see my mother didn't let God do it all. You know if you spare the rod you spoil the child, and that switch stimulated, regulated, persuaded and strengthened my memory, and went a long way toward making me do the things my mother told me to do. Hurrah for my mother! God bless her memory!"
"What about your father, Uncle Dave?"
"My father was a good man; he backed my mother in her efforts to bring us up right. He told me many a time, 'Boy, you need two or three killings every day!'"
"Uncle Dave why were you so obstreperous?"
"Miss, you see I was the baby in the family a long time, as three brothers born after me died in infancy. I was petted and spoiled, and later on they had to whip it out of me.
"Of course the slavery question was fast drawing to its climax when I was born. Already war clouds seemed to cast a shadow. While freedom was not had in Georgia until 1865, I was hardly old enough to remember very much about the early customs of slavery in pre-war days. We had comfortable quarters in which to live. Our houses were built in long rows, house after house. My father was carriage driver and foreman of the other niggers. His title was B.N."
"Uncle Dave what does B.N. stand for?"