"Three days after de celebration, de marster calls all de slaves in de house and says, 'Yous is all free, free as I am.' He tol' us we'uns could go if we'uns wanted to. None of us knows what to do, dere warn't no place to go and why would we'uns wan' to go and leave good folks like de marster? His place was our home. So we'uns asked him if we could stay and he says, 'Yous kin stay as long as yous want to and I can keep yous.' We'uns all stayed till he died, 'bout a year after dat.
"When he was a-dyin', marster calls me to his bed and says, 'My dyin' reques' is dat yous be taken to your mama.' He calls his son, Zeke, in and tells him dat I should be fotched to my mamma. And 'bout in a year, Marster Zeke fotches me to my mamma, in Johnson Station, south of Arlington. She's wo'kin' for Jack Ditto and I's pleased to see her.
I's pleased to see my mammy, but after a few days I wants to go back to Marshall with Marster Zeke. Dat was my home, so I kep' pesterin' marster to fetch me back, but he slips off and leaves me. I has to stay and I's been here ever since.
"I gits my fust job with Carter Cannon, on a farm, and stays seven years. Den I goes to Fort Worth and takes a job cookin' in de Gran' Hotel for three years. Den I goes to Dallas and cooks for private families, and wo'ks for Marster James Ellison for 30 years. I stops four years ago and comes out here to wait till de good Lawd calls me home.
"Bout gittin' married, after I quits de Gran' Hotel I marries and we'uns has two chillen. My wife died three years later.
"You knows, I believes I's mo' contented as a slave. I's treated kind all de time and had no frettin' 'bout how I gwine git on. Since I's been free, I sometimes have heaps of frettin'. Course, I don' want to go back into slavery, but I's paid for my freedom.
"I's never been sick abed, but I's had mo' misery dis las' year dan all my life. It's my heart. If I live till December, I'll be 102 years old, and dis ole heart have been pumpin' and pumpin' all dem years and have missed nary a beat till dis las' year. I knows 'twon't be long till de good Lawd calls dis ole nigger to cross de Ribber Jordan and I's ready for de Lawd when he calls.
