"'Shoo the devil out the corner,
Shoo, members, shoo,
Shoo the devil out the corner,
Shoo, members, shoo.'
"Us li'l gals allus wore cottanade dresses ev'ry day. Them what us call nine-stitch dresses. Mammy make fasten-back dresses and fasten-back drawers and knit sweaters and socks for the mens. She git sheep wool what near ruint by cockle burrs and make us chillen set by the hour and pick out them burrs.
"Us houses like chicken coops but us sho' happy in that li'l cabin house. Nothin' to worry 'bout. Mammy cook them grits, that yaller hominy. She make 'ash cat', cornbread wrop in cabbage leaf and put ashes 'round it.
"The old plantation 'bout on the line 'tween Virginny and Mis'sippi and us live near the Madstone. That a big stone, all smooth and when a dog bite you you go run 'round the Madstone and wash yourself in the hot springs and the bites don't hurt you.
"I seed lots of sojers and my daddy fit with the Yankees and they have a big fight close there and have a while lots of dead bodies layin' 'round like so many logs and they jus' stack 'em up and sot fire to 'em. You seed 'em burnin' night and day. They lay down and shoot and then jump up and stick 'em and sometimes they drunk the blood outten where they stick 'em, 'cause they can't git no water.
"After freedom us go in ox team to New Orleans and daddy he raise cotton and sell it and mommer sell eggs. My daddy a workin' man and he help build the big custom house in New Orleans and help pull the rope to pull the boats up the canal from the river. That Canal Street now. He put he name on top that custom house and it there to this day. You can go there and see it. He help build the hosp'tal, too.
"One time us live close to the bay and that gran' and us take a stove and cotch catfish and perch and cook 'em on the bank and us go meet oyster boats and daddy git 'em by the tub.
"I git marry in Baton Rouge when I sixteen and my husban' he name Arras Shaw and he lots older'n me and I couldn't keep him. He in Port Arthur now. My husban' and I sawmill 20 year in Grayburg, here in Texas, and then us sep'rate. I been in Beaumont 16 year and I's rice farm cook in the camp on the Fannett Road. They tells me I got uncles in Africy. I goes to Sanctified church and that all I can do now.