"Miss Gusta am proud of me and I slep' right on the foot of her bed. We lived at 144 Third Exchange Street in Memphis. She didn't have but two slaves, me and Lucy, the cook. Law, I didn't know I was no slave. I thunk I's white and plumb indiff'ent from the niggers. I's right s'prised when I finds out I's nigger, jus' like the other black faces!
"I had good times and jes' played round and got in devilment. Sometimes Mr. Scruggs say, 'I's gwine whip dat brat,' but Miss Gusta allus say, 'No you ain't gwine lay you hands on her and iffen you does I'm gwine quit you.' Miss Gusta was indiff'ent to Mr. Scruggs in quality. He fooled her to marry him, lettin' on he got a lot of things he ain't.
"I seen sojers all toggered up in uniforms and marchin' and wavin'. Plenty times they waves at me, but I didn't know what it's all 'bout.
"Miss Gusta allus took me to church and most times I went to sleep by her feet. But when I's 'bout eight the Lawd gits to workin' right inside me and I perks up and listens. Purty soon the glory of Gawd 'scended right down on me and I didn't know nothin' else. I run away up into the ridges and crosses a creek on a foot log. I stays up 'round them caves in tall cane and grass where panthers and bears is for three days 'fore they finds me. They done hear me praisin' Gawd and shoutin', 'I got Jesus.' When they finds me I done slap the sides out my dress, jes' slappin' my hands down and praisin' the Lawd. That was a good dress, too. I heared tell of some niggers wearin' cotton but not me--I weared percale.
"They done take me home and Miss Gusta say, 'You ain't in no fittin' condition to jine a church right now. You got to calm down 'siderable first.' But when I's nine year old she takes me to the Trevesant St. Baptist church and lets me jine and I's baptised in the Mississippi river right there at Memphis.
"Bout that time the Fed'rals come into Memphis and scared the daylights out of folks. Miss Gusta calls me and wrops my hair in front and puts her jewelry in under the plaits and pulls them back and pins them down so you couldn't see nothin'. She got silverware and give it to me and I run in the garden and buries it. I hid it plenty good, 'cause we like to never found it after the Fed'rals was gone. They come right up to our house and Mr. Scruggs run out the back door and tried to leap the rail fence in the backyard. He cotched the seat of his pants on the top rail and jes' hung there a-danglin' till the Fed'rals pulls him down. He hurt his leg and it was a bad place for a long time. When I seed him hangin' there I cut a dido and kep' screamin', 'Miss Gusta, he's a-dyin',' and them Fed'rals got plumb tickled at me.
"They went in the smokehouse and got all the sugar and rice and strowed it up and down the streets and not carin' at all that victuals was scarcer than hen's teeth in them parts!
"Then Miss Gusta done tell me I wasn't no slave no more, but, shucks, that don't mean nothin' to me, 'cause I ain't never knowed I was one.
"In them times the Ku Klux got to skullduggerin' round and done take Mr. Scruggs and give him a whippin' but I never heared what it had to do about. He don't like them none, noways, and shets hisself up in the house. He a curious kind of man, it 'pear to me, iffen I's to tell the plain out truth. I don't think he was much but kind of trashy.
"When I's seventeen Miss Gusta sickened and suffered in her bed in terrible fashion. She begs the doctors to tell her if she's a-dyin' so she could clear up business 'fore she passed away. She took three days and fixed things up and told me she didn't want to leave me friendless and lone. She wanted me to git married. I had a man I thunk I'd think well of marryin' and Miss Gusta give me away on her bed at the weddin' in her room. She told my husband not to cuff me none, 'cause I never been 'bused in my life, and to this day I ain't never been hit a lick in my life.