"We set traps for 'possum, coons and squirrels. We used to have big sport ridin' goats. One near busted me wide open. Miss Mary's brother put me on it, and they punished him good for it. He didn't get to play for a long time. And we had an old buck sheep. He'd keep Oscar and I up on the oak patch fence all the time.
"We'd watch the doodle bugs build their houses. We'd sing, 'Doodle, Doodle, your house burned down.' Those things would come up out of their holes just a-shakin'.
"One game I remember was, 'Skip frog, Skip frog, Answer your Mother, she's callin' you, you, you.' We'd stand in a circle and one would be skip frog. We'd slap our hands and skip frog would be hoppin' just like frogs do. Oh, I wish I could call them times back again. I'd go back tomorrow. But I'm tryin' to live so I can meet 'em once again."
[Henry Lewis]
Henry Lewis was born in 1835, at Pine Island, in Jefferson Co., Texas. He was owned by Bob Cade. Henry's voice is low and somewhat indistinct and it was evidently a strain on his vocal chords and also on his memory, to tell the story of his life. He lives with one of his daughters, in Beaumont, who supports him, with the aid of his pension.
"Old Bob Cade, he my massa, and Annie Cade, she my missus. Dey had a big plantation over in Louisiana and 'nother in Jefferson County, out at Pine Island. I's born a hunnerd and one year ago, on Christmas Day, out at Pine Island. If I lives to see next Christmas day 'gain, I'll be a hunerd two year old.
"My mammy she come from Mis'sippi and she name' Judy Lewis. Washington Lewis, one de slaves on Massa Bob's Louisiana plantation, he my daddy. I can't 'member nobody else 'cept my greatgramma, Patsy. She's 130 when she die. She look awful, but den she my folks. My own dear mammy was 112 year old when she die. She have ten chillen and de bigges' portion dem born in slavery time. Dey two sister older'n me, Mandy and Louise. I name' after my daddy brudder, Henry Lewis.
"My white folks have a plantation in Louisiana, at Caginly, and stay over dere mos' de time. I 'member when old Massa Bob used to come to Pine Island to stay a month or two, all us li'l chillen gather round him and he used to throw out two bitses and big one cent pieces 'mongst us, jis' to see us scrammel for dem. When Christmas time come round dey give us Christmas gift and a whole week for holiday.
"I never been no nearer east dan Lake Charles and dat been lately, so I ain't never see de old plantation. At Pine Island us have de big woods place with a hunerd workin' hands, without de underlin's (children). All he niggers say Cade de good man. He hire he overseers and say, 'You can correct dem for dey own good and make dem work right, but you ain't better cut dey hide or draw no blood.' He git a-holt some mean overseers but dey don't tarry long. He find out dey beatin' he niggers and den he beat dem and say, 'How dat suit you?'
"Old massa he a big, stocky Irishman with sandy hair and he ain't had no beard or mustache. When he grow old he have de gout and he put de long mattress out on de gallery and lay down on it. He say, 'Come here, my li'l niggers,' and den he make us rub he foots so he kin git to sleep.