'Run nigger run, patter roller kotch you,
Run nigger run, 'cause it almos' day,
Dat nigger run, dat nigger flew,
Dat nigger los' his Sunday shoe.'
"I stays with de massa after freedom 'til I's 21 year old and den I leaves and works for diff'runt folks. I marries in Tennessee when I's 22 and we has one chile, but my wife takes him when he's five and leaves, and I never seen or heard of 'em since. I comes to Texas 'bout 52 year ago.
"I has 'joyed talkin' 'bout dem old days, 'cause talk am all I kin do since my legs have de misery so bad."
[Adeline White]
Adeline White, 90 odd years old, was born at Opelousas, Louisiana, a slave of Dr. Bridget. She lives with her daughter, Lorena, in Beaumont, Texas.
"I's born at Opelousas and my massa and missis was Dr. Bridget and his wife. They was mean and they beat us and put the hounds after us. They beat the little ones and the big ones and when massa ain't beatin' his wife is. It am continual. My pappy call Thomas Naville and my mammy 'Melia Naville. They was born in Virginia. I had four brothers and two sisters, all dead now.
"Like I says, old massa sho' whip us and when he whip he put us 'cross a barrel or chain us and stake us out with a rope. We didn't have much to eat and not much clothes. They weave us clothes on the loom and make the dress like a sack slip over the head.
"Our cabin wasn't so bad, made of logs with dirt 'tween the logs. The chimney make out of sticks and dirt and some windows with a wooden shutter and no glass in 'em. Massa give 'em lumber and paint to make things for the house and they have homemake bed and table and benches to sit on.
"Massa have the hoss power cotton gin and a hoss power sugar cane mill, too. Us work hard all day in the gin and the sugar cane mill and doesn't have no parties nor fun. Sometimes in the evenin' us git together and talk or sing low, so the white folks won't hear.
