hey talked they done more prayin' than
preachin'.

"Whenever they be sick they would send to the Douglasses to know what to
do. They would take them up to their house and doctor them or come down
to the quarters and wait on whoever be sick. They had some white doctors
about but not near enough. They trained black women to be midwives.

"I think my folks had enough to eat and clothes too I recken. They eat
meat to give them strength to work. My old stepdaddy always make us eat
piece of meat if we eat garden stuff. He say the meat have strength in
it. Cornbread, meat, peas and potatoes used to be the biggest part of
folks livin' in olden days. They had plenty milk.

"Children when I come on didn't have no use for money. We eat molasses.
Had a little candy once in a while. That be the best thing Santa Claus
would bring me. We get ginger cakes in our new stockings too. Santa
Claus been comin' ever since I been in the world. Seem like Christmas
never would come round agin. It don't seem near so long now.

"I was too young to know about freedom. We was livin' on Douglas farm
when George Flenol (white) come and brought us to Indian Bay. We worked
on Dick Mayo's place. I don't know what they expected from freedom but
I'm pretty sure they never got nothing.

"When the black folks come free then the Ku Klux took it up and made 'em
work and stay at home. I heard that some folks wanted to stay in the
road all the time. The Ku Klux nearly scared me to death to see pass by.
They never did bother us.

"I don't vote. Don't know nothing about it. I don't like the way that is
fixed for us to live now. We pay house rent and works as day laborers.
It makes the work too heavy at some times and no work to do nearly all
the time. It is making times hard. Cotton and corn choppin' time and
cotton pickin' time is all the times a woman like me can work. I raised
a shoat. I got no room for garden and chickens.

"I got one girl, she way from here, she sent me $2.00 for my Christmas.

"The young generation is weaker in body than us old folks has been. They
ain't been raised to hard work and they don't hold out.

"That is salve I'm making. What do it smell like? It smell like
chitlings. In that sack is the inside of the chitlings (hog manure). I
boil it down and strain it, then boll it down, put camphor gum and fresh
lard in it, boil it down low and pour it up. It is a green salve. It is
fine for piles, rub your back for lumbago, and swab ou