"De Yankees allus come through at night and done what dey gwine to do, and den wait for more night 'fore dey go 'bout dere business. Only one time dey come in daylight, and some de slaves jine dem and go to war.
"All de talk 'bout freedom git so bad on de plantation de massa make me put de men in a big wagon and drive 'em to Winfield. He say in Texas dere never be no freedom. I driv 'em fast till night and it take 'bout two days. But dey come back home, but massa say if he cotch any of 'em he gwine shoot 'em. Dey hang round de woods and dodge round and round till de freedom man come by.
"We went right on workin' after freedom. Old Buck Adams wouldn't let us go. It was way after freedom dat de freedom man come and read de paper, and tell us not to work no more 'less us git pay for it. When he gone, old Mary Adams, she come out. I 'lect what she say as if I jes' hear her say it. She say, 'Ten years from today I'll have you all back 'gain.' Dat ten years been over a mighty long time and she ain't git us back yit and she dead and gone.
"Dey makes us git right off de place, jes' like you take a old hoss and turn it loose. Dat how us was. No money, no nothin'. I git a job workin' for a white man on he farm, but he couldn't pay much. He didn't have nothin'. He give me jes' 'nough to git a peck or two of meal and a li'l syrup.
"I allus works in de fields and makes baskets, big old cotton baskets and bow baskets make out of white oak. I work down de oak to make de splits and make de bow basket to tote de lunch. Den I make trays and mix bowls. I go out and cut down de big poplar and bust off de big block and sit down 'straddle, and holler it out big as I wants it, and make de bread tray. I make collars for hosses and ox whops and quirts out of beef hide. But I looses my eyesight a couple years back and I can't do nothin' no more. My gal takes care of me.
"I come here in 1931. Dat de first time I'm out of Franklin Parish. I allus git along some way till I'm blind. My gal am good to me, but de days am passin' and soon I'll be gone, too."
[Hiram Mayes]
Hiram Mayes thinks he was born in 1862, a slave of Tom Edgar, who owned a plantation in Double Bayou, Texas. Hiram lives with two daughters in a rambling farmhouse near Beaumont, less than three miles from his birthplace on the old Edgar homestead near the Iron Bridge. For thirty years Hiram has served as Worshipful Master of the Masonic Lodge (Negro) in the vicinity. Native intelligence gleams in his deep-set eyes, but his speech shows that he received little schooling.
"De fust thing I 'members back in slavery time was gittin' in de master's strawberry patch. He's right proud of dat patch and git after us plenty. Dey was li'l Tim Edgar, dat de white boy, and me. Tim, he still livin' down in Wallisville. Old master he cut us both a couple times for thiefin' he strawberries, jes' give us a bresh or two to skeer us. Dat de onlies' time he ever did whip me and you couldn' hardly call that a whippin'.
"Old man Tom Edgar was my master and de old Edgar place was down below where Jackson's store is and 'bout two mile from where I lives now. Some de brick from dat house still standin' dere in de woods.