"'Nother time, I seed de panther a-draggin' a white man off and I slips up jes' as de cat seizes him and shoots dat cat. Us have to run dat man down and cotch him, 'cause he scared stiff when dat dead cat fall on him.
"Some time after dat I works for a man what freights supplies 'round Austin and I's one de drivers. Us start in September with sev'ral six-wheel wagons, 'nough to las' a town de year, and not git back to Austin till January. Sometimes de mud so bad it take six oxen to pull de wagon out.
"One time us movin' and stampedin' de bunch cattle and me and my brother gits los' from de rest and was los' three days and nights. All us eat am parched corn. De grass nearly waist high to a man and us scoop out de hole in de ground and cut off tops de grass and weeds and make de fire. Den us drap de corn on de fire and parch it. De woods full wild animals and panthers and wolves. De wolves de worst. Dey slip up on us to git de chicken us has with us. At last us come to a house and finds us folks."
[Mariah Snyder]
Mariah Snyder, 89, was born in Mississippi, a slave of Sam Miller, who brought her to Texas when she was five. Since Mariah's second husband died, twenty-two years ago, she has earned her living by washing and cooking. Now too old to do much, she is cared for by her only living daughter, with the aid of a $10.00 monthly pension.
"I's borned in Mississippi. Yes, sar. I 'longed to Massa Miller and he name am Sam, and my name am Mariah. My pappy was Weldon and my mammy, Ann. Massa Sam fotches all us to Texas when I's jes' five year old and we come in wagons and hossback. He done buy my mammy and pappy in the slave market, so I don't know nothin' 'bout none my other 'lations.
"Massa Sam live in a great big, ceiled house, and had plenty land and niggers. The quarters was logs and any kind beds we could git. We wore lowell clothes and I never seed no other kind of dress till after surrender. We et meat and collards and cornbread and rough grub, and they biled all the victuals in a big, black pot what hung on a rack in the kitchen fireplace. We had red russet, flat shoes and no stockin's, but in winter we made wool panties to wear on our legs.
"Missy was name Patsy and she was purty good, and Massa Sam was purty good, too. He'd whip us if we needed it. He'd pull off our clothes and whip in the field. But he wouldn't 'low the driver to whip us if we didn't need it. No, sar. And he wouldn't have no patterrollers on the place.
"The driver come round and woke everybody up and had 'em in the field by daybreak. I's seed a whole field of niggers abreast, hoein'. The rows of cotton was so long you couldn't make but one 'fore dinnertime. I driv the gin, what was run by two mules. The cotton was wropped in baggin' and tied with ropes. It was a long time after 'fore I seed cotton tied with steel like they bales it now.
"I seed plenty niggers whipped while I driv that gin. They tied the feets and hands and rawhided 'em good. They tied a bell on one woman what run away all the time. They locks it round her head.