"When the war over massa call me and tells me I's free as he was, 'cause them Yankees win the war. He give me $5.00 and say he'll give me that much a month iffen I stays with him, but I starts to Texas. I heared I wouldn't have to work in Texas, 'cause everything growed on trees and the Texans wore animal hides for clothes. I didn't git no land or mule or cow. They warn't no plantations divided what I knowed 'bout. Mos' niggers jus' got turn loose with a cuss, and not 'nough clothes to cover they bodies.
"It 'bout a year 'fore I gits to Texas. I walks nearly all the way. Sometimes I git a li'l ride with farmer. Sometimes I work for folks 'long the way and git fifty cents and start 'gain.
"I got to Texas and try to work for white folks and try to farm. I couldn't make anything at any work. I made $5.00 a month for I don't know how many year after the war. Iffen the woods wasn't full of wild game us niggers all starve to death them days.
"I been marry three time. First wife Eve Shelton. She run off with 'nother man. Then I marries Fay Elly. Us sep'rate in a year. Then I marry Parlee Breyle. No, I done forgot. 'Fore that I marries Sue Wilford, and us have seven gals and six boys. They all in New York but one. He stays here. Then I marries Parlee and us have two gals. Parlee die three year ago.
"The gov'ment give me a pension and I gits li'l odd jobs round, to get by. But times been hard and I ain't had much to eat the las' few years. Not near so good as what old massa done give me. But I gits by somehow.
"I done the bes' I could, 'sidering I's turned out with nothin' when I's growed and didn't know much, neither. The young folks, they knows more, 'cause they got the chance for schoolin'.
JOHN DAY, 81, was born near Dayton, Tennessee, a slave of Major John Day. John lives in McLennan Co., Texas.
"I was born near three mile from Dayton. That's over in Tennessee, and it was the sixteenth of February, in 1856. Master's name was Major John Day and my father's name was Alfred Day, and he was a first-class blacksmith. Blacksmithin' was a real trade them days, and my father made axes and hoes and plow shares and knives and even Jew's harps.