"My clothes was made from yarn spun by my mammy, and she made my clothes, too. Marse had my mammy to spin and weave for all de slaves on de place. But marse and mistress was good to us. He had a nigger overseer who sometimes brought a nigger to marse when he misbehaved; den marse would have de nigger overseer to whip him. He had 8 to 10 slaves all de time.
"Some slaves dat lived on places close to us would run off sometimes and hide in de woods, and live dar in a den which dey dug. At night they would go out and hunt food, like hogs; den kill 'em at night and dress 'em. Most of de day dey would stay in de den.
"I 'member when freedom come, old marse said, 'You is all free, but you can work on and make dis crop of corn and cotton; den I will divide up wid you when Christmas comes.' Dey all worked, and when Christmas come, marse told us we could get on and shuffle for ourselves, and he didn't give us anything. We had to steal corn out of de crib. We prized de ears out between de cracks and took dem home and parched dem. We would have to eat on dese for several days.
"We had to work, all day, sun up to dark, and never had Saturday afternoons off anytime. My mammy had to wash clothes on Saturday nights for us to wear on Sundays.
"We chaps played marbles most all de time. Marse used to try to scare us by telling us dar was spooks. Some of de old folks did believe in spooks, but I don't know much about dem. We never used much medicine den but quinine. Folks had lots of chills den, but dey never had any kind of strokes or things like dat as dey do dese days.
"We had to get a pass from marse if we went out. If de patrollers caught us widout a pass dey would whip us.
"Right atter de war de Ku Klux started. I 'member dem when dey would march up and down de road. Dey marched most at night, and we could hear de horses for a long distance as deir feet struck de ground.
"I married Nellie Wilson, and had 12 children. I got now 6 children; my wife is dead. I got five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
"I think Abraham Lincoln and Jeff Davis was good men in deir way, as dey thought. Booker T. Washington is a great man, and he is done lots of good for de niggers. I think slavery was good in some ways and bad in others. I was better off den dan I am now.
"I jined de church when I was 20 years old, because it was de law—to trust in de Lawd, you got to belong to de church.