"White man, I sho' likes for to see dat ol' plantation down in Louisiana and it would do dis ol' darky good. I sits here and thinks of de marster and de good times. And de fishin down dere! Is dere good fishin'? De folks here don' know what am fishin'.
"You has dis nigger thinkin' heaps 'bout de ol' plantation and de good times. If I don' stop talkin' 'bout dat, I gits to cryin'."
[William Stone]
William Stone was born in a covered wagon, on the way from Alabama to Texas, about 1863. Though he was too small to remember slave days, he does recall many things told him by his parents and other ex-slaves. William lives in Mart, Texas.
"My parents done told me where I's borned. It am in a covered wagon on de way from Alabama to Texas, two years 'fore freedom. Old Marse, Lem Stone, he left Alabama for Texas, where de war not so bad, and brung some he slaves with him. He done lost so much in Alabama, Yankees burnin' he house and cotton and killin' he stock, he want to git 'way from dere.
"First he come to Rusk County, den goes back to Shreveport and stays till freedom. Pappy and mammy was Louis and Car'line Stone. I lived in Louisiana till I's growed.
"Mammy and pappy done told me all 'bout de old plantation. It am hundreds of acres of land, part worked and part jus' timber and pasture. It was near Montgomery, and dey raised more cotton den anything else, but had some corn and peas and cane. Dey made sorghum and ribbon cane 'lasses and had boilin' vats for sugar, too.
"De soldiers come through. Dey named, Yankees. Dey make mammy cook somethin' to eat and den kilt all de hawgs and took de meat with dem, and burn de barn and house. Old Marse had pens to put cotton in, hid way out in de bresh. Dey picked it in gunny sacks and hides it, and slips it out to de gin by night and tries to sell it 'fore dem Yankees finds it and burns it.
"Mammy say dey all went to church and had to drive four horses when de roads muddy in winter and sand deep in summer. Dey allus carry dinner and stay all day. Den in de evenin', after de niggers had dey preachin', dey all go home. Sometimes a preacher come out to de plantation and hold church for de white folks in de mornin' and in de evenin' for de niggers, out under a big oak tree.
"De Lawd say iffen us trusts him and help to be good he gwine make our path straight. Dis was true in de days of den, 'cause our white folks tooken care of us, befo' dey was freedom and sech. Now, us gittin' old, and gits de old age pension when us too old to work.