"I tells the young race iffen they come up like me they wouldn't act so smart. They needs somebody to take the smartness outten them. But my gal am good to me. I gits a pension and pays it to her to take care of me. I been here a hundred years and more and I won't stay much longer, and I don't want to be no 'spense to nobody."
[Emma Watson]
Emma Watson, born in 1852 or 1853, in Ellis Co., Texas, was one of the slaves of the Carl Forrester family. Emma worked in the fields most of her life, but is now too old to work, and is cared for by her daughter. They live at 318 Allen St., Dallas, Texas.
"I axed my old missus when I's borned and she rec'lect I'm eight or nine year old when de freedom war starts. She say she don't make recall de 'xact time, but I takes May for a birthin' time. They's a time when some sich was writ in de Bible, but it got burnt up 'fore I's ageable. I knows where I'm borned, though, and it am on Capt. Forrester's farm in Ellis County. His mother, Miss Susan, raises me like she am my mammy. I calls her Sis Sue. She was old miss and Miss Lee was young miss.
"My paw, I don't know nothin' 'bout. My sister Anna and me, us have de same paw, but my mammy's sold out of Miss'sippi 'way from my paw 'fore my birthin'. My maw kept de name of Lucindy Lane, but Martha and Jennie, my other sisters, had diff'rent paws.
"I's gone through so much of hard times all my life, but when I's de li'l gal I didn't have much to do 'cept tend my Aunt Matilda's babies and wash they clothes. The rest the time I jes' plays round. Miss Lee have a china doll with a wreath of roses round it head. We takes turns playin' with it. I had a rag doll, and it jes' a bundle of rags with strings tied round it to give it a shape. Us make playhouses. Capt. Forrester goes away and I heared he gone to some war, but, law me, I didn't know 'bout war den.
I's jus' glad to play and eat anythin' I can git. When I git a tin can of clabber and some bread, that's what I wanted. They didn't buy no dishes for nigger young'uns to break up. Us et bacon and beef and salt pork and cornbread with us fingers. Mussel shells is what we dipped 'stead of spoons. I did love de souse, too.
"When I had de chills, Sis Sue, dat Old Miss, come out to de quarters and give me sweet milk boiled with pepper. I got shut of dem chills 'cause I didn't like dat pepper tea, but I like it better'n quinine or sage tea. I didn't like to be sick noways, 'cause dey jus' two bedsteads, one for my mammy and my step-paw, and one for us gals.
"They allus promise me they'll larn me to read and write, but never did git to dat. Aunt Matilda did most de spinnin' and weavin' and sewin'. I used to wear a shimmy and a dress in de week and a clean one for Sunday. In winter sometimes us have a li'l sacque and homemake calfskin shoes but mostly us have to stay inside iffen de weather ain't mod'rate.
"De only frolics I 'member was candy pullin's on Christmas. Dat all us niggers knowed 'bout Christmas.