After we et our supper, we had to spin a broach of thread every night 'fore we went to bed. I larned all 'bout spinnin' and weavin' when I was little and by time I's 10 I'd make pretty striped cloth.
"How we played and played! On Sundays we'd strike out for the big woods and we'd gather our dresses full of hickory nuts, walnuts and berries and a sour apple called 'maypop.' We'd kill snakes and dance and sing that ol' song 'bout, 'Hurrah! Mister Bluecoat, Toodle-O.' 'O, Dat Lady's Beatin' You.' It meant his pardner was beatin' him dancin.'
"I was jes' lyin' here dreamin' 'bout how we use to go to the woods every spring and dig the maypop roots, then bring 'em home and wash 'em good and dry 'em—but, mind you, not in the sun—then all us chillen would sit 'round and poun' dem roots, tied up in little bags of coarse cloth, till it was powder. Then we'd take a little flour and jes' enough water to make it stick, and we'd make pills to take when we got sick. And work you? Lawd a'mighty! When we took dat stuff we had to keep tendin' to de dress tail!
"We went over to Flat Rock to church and de singin' was gran.' All day long we'd be at preachin' and singin'. Singin' dat good ol' spiritual song 'bout, 'You shan't be Slaves no More, since Christ have made you free.' I lay here yes'day and heared all them foolish songs and jubilee songs that comes over the radio, and den some of them ol' time spirituals come and it jes' made me feel like I was in ol' times.
"I went back every year to see my ol' marster, as long as he lived. Now it won' be long till I sees him agin, some day."
[Litt Young]
Litt Young was born in 1850, in Vicksburg, Miss., a slave of Martha Gibbs, on whose property the old battleground at Vicksburg was located. Litt was freed in 1865, in Vicksburg, and was refugeed by his owner to Harrison Co., Texas. He was freed again on June 19, 1866, and found work as a sawmill hand, a tie cutter and a woodcutter during the construction of the Texas & Pacific Railroad from Marshall to Texarkana. The remainder of his life, with the exception of five years on a farm, has been spent as a section hand. Litt lives alone on the Powder Mill Road, two and a half miles north of Marshall, and is supported by a $12.00 monthly pension from the government.
"I's born in 1850 in Vicksburg, and belonged to Missy Martha Gibbs. Her place was on Warner Bayou and the old battlefield was right there in her field. She had two husbands, one named Hockley and he died of yellow fever. Then she marries a Dr. Gibbs, what was a Yankee, but she didn't know it till after the war.
"Massa Hockley bought my daddy from a nigger trader up north somewheres, but my mammy allus belonged to the Gibbs family. I had a sister and two brothers, but the Gibbs sold them to the Simmons and I never seed 'em any more.
"Old Missy Gibbs had so many niggers she had to have lots of quarters. They was good houses, weatherboarded with cypress and had brick chimneys. We'd pull green grass and bury it awhile, then bile it to make mattresses. That made it black like in auto seats. Missy was a big, rich Irishwoman and not scared of no man. She lived in a big, fine house, and buckled on two guns and come out to the place most every morning. She out-cussed a man when things didn't go right. A yellow man driv her down in a two-horse avalanche. She had a white man for overseer what live in a good house close to the quarters. It was whitewashed and had glass windows. She built a nice church with glass windows and a brass cupola for the blacks and a yellow man preached to us. She had him preach how we was to obey our master and missy if we want to go to Heaven, but when she wasn't there, he come out with straight preachin' from the Bible.