"Sam Jones preached to us and read the Bible. He told us how to do and preached Hell-fire and jedgment like the white preachers. Us had service at our church when one of us died and was buried in our own graveyard.
"The niggers sung songs in the field when they was feeling good and wasn't scart of old massa. Sometime they'd slack up on that hoe and old massa holler, 'I's watchin' yous.' The hands say, 'Yas, suh, us sees you, too.' Then they brightened up on that hoe.
"Corn shuckings was a big occasion them days and massa give all the hands a quart whiskey apiece. They'd drink whiskey, get happy and make more noise than a little, but better not git drunk. We'd dance all night when the corn shuckin' was over.
"I heared the cannons rumbling at Mansfield all through the night during the war. It was dark and smoky all round our place from the war. I stood there on Massa Perry's place and seed soldiers carry 'way fodder, and meat and barrels of flour to take to war.
Martin Ruffin
"Massa didn't tell us we was free for three or four days after freedom. Then he said, 'You is free; don't leave, I'll pay you.' The niggers didn't know what he meant at first, then someone say, 'We is free--no more whippings and beatings.' You ought to see 'em jump and clap their hands and pop them heels.
"My daddy and mammy left and went to a farm to work for theyselves, but I stayed till I was near 'bout growed. Then I stayed with daddy and mammy and then came to Marshall. Weeds was mostly here then. I cooked all round town for 'bout fifty years. I didn't marry till I's forty-two. I was working at the Capitol Hotel for $15.00 a week. Rube Witt, a cullud Baptist preacher, married me and Lula Downs and us raises five chillen.
"My wife is dead and I ain't been able to work for five years. The relief and the Red Cross carried me till I got my pension and I's sho' thankful to git that $12.00 a month."