"The men just wore jeans. The slaves all made their own clothes. They just wove all the time; the old women wove all the time. I wasn't old enough to go in the field like the oldest children. The oldest children—they worked. After slavery ended, my sister Mary and me worked as ex-slaves, and we worked. Most of the slaves had shoes, but us kids used to run around barefoot most of the time.
"My folks, my master and mistress, lived in a great, white, frame house, just the same as a hotel. I grew up with the youngest child, Mayo. The other white children grew up and worked as overseers. Mayo always wanted me to call him 'Master Mayo'. I fought him all the time. I never would call him 'Master Mayo'. My mistress wouldn't let anyone harm me and she made Mayo behave.
"My master wouldn't let the poor white neighbors—no one—tell us we was free. The plantation was many, many acres, hundreds and hundreds of acres, honey. There were about twenty-five or thirty families of slaves. They got up and stood until daylight, waiting to plow. Yes, child, they was up early. Our folks don't know how we had to work. I don't like to tell you how we were treated—how we had to work. It's best to brush those things out of our memory.
"If you wanted to go to another plantation, you had to have a pass. If my folks was going to somebody's house, they'd have to have a pass. Otherwise they'd be whipped. They'd take a big man and tie his hands behind a tree, just like that big tree outside, and whip him with a rawhide and draw blood every whip. I know I was scared every time I'd hear the slave say, 'Pray, Master.'
"Once, when I was milking a cow, I asked Master Ousley, 'Master Ousley, will you do me a favor?'
"He said in his drawl, 'Of course I will.'
"'Take me to McCracken County,' I said. I didn't even know where McCracken County was, but my sister was there. I wanted to find my sister. When I reached the house where my sister stayed, I went through the gate. I asked if this was the house where Mary Meriwether lived. Her mistress said, 'Yes, she's in the back. Are you the girl Mr. Meriwether's looking for?" My heart was in my mouth. It just seemed I couldn't go through the gate. I never even saw my sister that time. I hid for a while and then went back.
"We didn't have any churches. My master would come down Sunday morning with just enough flour to make bread. Coffee, too. Their coffee was parts of meal, corn and so on. Work all week and that's what they had for coffee.
"We used to sing, 'Swing low, sweet chariot'. When our folks sang that, we could really see the chariot.
"Once, Jim Ferguson, a colored man, came to teach school. The white folks beat and whipped him and drove him away in his underwear.