Us slaves didn't wear nothing but white lowell cloth. They give us pants for Sunday what had a black stripe down the leg. The chillen wore wool clothes in winter, but the big folks wore the same outfit the year round. They didn't care if you froze.
"I can show you right where I was when the stars fell. Some say they covered the ground like snow, but nary one ever hit the ground. They fell in 'bout twelve feet of the ground. The chillen jumped up and tried to cotch them. I don't 'member how long they fell, but they was shootin' through the air like sky-rockets fer quite a spell.
"Missy Callie had one gal and two boys and Massa Bob had three overseers. He didn't have nigger drivers, but had his pets. We called them pimps, 'cause they was allus tattlin' when we done anything. His place was jes' as far as you could let your eyes see, 'bout 1,800 or 1,900 acres, and he owned more'n 500 niggers.
"I still got the bugle he woke us with at four in the mornin'. When the bugle blowed you'd better go to hollerin', so the overseer could hear you. If he had to call you, it was too bad. The first thing in the mornin' we'd go to the lot and feed, then to the woodpile till breakfast. They put our grub in the trough and give us so long to eat. Massa hollered if we was slow eatin'. 'Swallow that grub now and chaw it tonight. Better be in that field by daybreak.' We worked from see to can't.
"I's seed many a nigger whipped on a 'buck and gag' bench. They buckled 'em down hard and fast on a long bench, gagged they mouth with cotton and when massa got through layin' on that cowhide, the blood was runnin' off on the ground. Next mornin' after he whip you, he'd come to the quarters when you git up and say, 'Boy, how is you feelin'? No matter how sore you is, you'd better jump and kick you heels and show how lively you is.' Massa hated me to he dying day, 'cause I told missy 'bout him whippin' a gal scandously in the field, 'cause she want to go to the house to her sick baby. Missy Callie didn't whip us, but she'd twist our nose and ears nearly off. Them fingers felt like a pair of pinchers. She stropped on her guns and rode a big bay horse to the field.
"Massa had a gin and I hauled cotton to Port Caddo, on Caddo Lake. I druv eight mules and hauled eight bales of cotton. Massa followed me with two mules and two bales of cotton. I usually had a good start of him. The patterrollers has cotched me and unhitched my mules and druv 'em off, leavin' me in the middle of the road. They'd start back home, but when they overtook massa they stopped, 'cause he druv the lead mules. He fetched 'em back and say, 'Willis, what happen?' He sho' cussed them patterrollers and said he'll git even yet.
"They was sellin' slaves all the time, puttin' 'em on the block and sellin' 'em, 'cordin' to how much work they could do in a day and how strong they was. I's seed lots of 'em in chains like cows and mules. If a owner have more'n he needed, he hit the road with 'em and sold 'em off to 'joinin' farms. None of 'em ever run off. They couldn't git away. I's seed too many try it. If the patterrollers didn't cotch you, some white folks would put you up and call your massa. They had a 'greement to be on the watch fer runaway niggers. When the massa git you back home and git through with you, you'd sho' stay home.
"In slavery time the niggers wasn't 'lowed to look at a book. I larned to read and write after surrender in the jail at Hot Springs, in Arkansas.
"They give us cake at Christmas and eggnog and 'silly-bug'. Eggnog is made from whites of eggs and 'silly-bug' from yallers. You have to churn the whiskey and yallers to make 'silly-bug'.
"Corn shuckin's was the things them days. I liked to see 'em come. They cooked up guineas and ducks and chickens and sometimes roast a pig. Massa kept twenty, thirty barrels whiskey round over the place all the time, with tin cups hangin' on the barrels. You could drink when you want to, but sho' better not git drunk. Massa have to watch he corners when cornshuckin' am over, or us niggers grab him and walk him round in the air on their hands.