"I nev'r hear tell of many colored weddin's. We jes' jumps over de broom an' de bride she has to jump over it backwards and iffen she couldn' jump it backwards she couldn't git married. Dat was sho' funny, seein' dem colored gi'ls a tryin' to jump dat broom.
"Our boss, he tells us 'bout bein' free and he say he hire us by de month and we stays dere a year and he dies, den ole miss she go back to Mississippi and we jes' scatter 'round, some a workin' here and some a workin' yonder, mos' times for our victuals and clothes. I couldn' tell much difference myself 'cause I had good people to live wid and when it was dat way de whites and de colored was better off de way I sees it den dey is now, some of dem.
"I seem jes' punyin' away, de doctors don' know jes' what's wrong wid me but I never was use to doctors anyway, jes' some red root tea or sage weed and sheep waste tea for de measles am all de doctoring we gits when we was slaves and dat done jes' as well.
"My wife she been dead all dese years an' I jes' lives here alone.
"Chillun? No mam, I never had no chillun 'fore I was married an' I only had twelve after I was married; yes mam, jes' nine boys and three girls, but I prefers to live here by myself, 'cause I gits along alright."
LORENZA EZELL, Beaumont, Texas, Negro, was born in 1850 on the plantation of Ned Lipscomb, in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Lorenza is above the average in intelligence and remembers many incidents of slavery and Reconstruction days. He came to Brenham, Texas, in 1882, and several years later moved to Beaumont, where he lives in a little shack almost hidden by vines and trees.
"Us plantation was jes' east from Pacolet Station on Thicketty Creek, in Spartanburg County, in South Carolina. Dat near Little and Big Pacolet Rivers on de route to Limestone Springs, and it jes' a ordinary plantation with de main crops cotton and wheat.