"I thinks if them Yankees didn't 'tend to fix some way for us pore niggers, dey oughtn't turn us a-loose. Iffen de white folks in de South hadn't been jes' what they is, us niggers been lots worser off than we was. In slavery time when the nigger am sick, his master pay de bills, but when nigger sick now, that's his own lookout.
"I never done nothin' but farm and odd jobs. I been married five times, but only my las' wife am livin' now. My four boys and two gals is all farmin' right here in the county and they helps us out. We gits by somehow.
LOUIS CAIN, 88, was born in North Carolina, a slave of Samuel Cain. After Louis was freed, he came to Texas, and has farmed near Madisonville over sixty years.
"I knows I's birthed in 1849, 'cause I had a bill of sale. It say that. My master traded me to Massa Joe Cutt for a hundred acres of land. That's in 1861, and I 'members it well. My daddy was Sam Cain, name after old Massa Cain, and mammy was Josie Jones, 'cause she owned by 'nother master. Mammy was birthed in North Carolina, but daddy allus say he come from Africy. He say they didn't work hard over there, 'cause all they et come out the jungle, and they had all the wives they wanted. That was the 'ligion over there.
"Our quarters was made of logs, in a long shed six rooms long, like cowsheds or chicken houses, and one door to each room. The bed was a hole dug in a corner and poles around and shucks and straw. We'd sleep warm all night long, but it wouldn't do in this country in summertime.
"Massa give us plenty to eat. Our cornbread was what you calls water pone bread and cooked in the ashes. We didn't have no stove. Massa was a great hunter and allus had venison and game. They was plenty fish, too.
"Massa Cain was purty good to his slaves and mean to them if they didn't behave. Missy was a good woman. They lived in a two-story rock house with plenty trees all 'round.
"We worked long as we could see, from four o'clock in the mornin', and them milked twenty cows and fed the work stock. They was fifty acres and not 'nough niggers to work it easy.