son. I kept house and washed for his
son as long as he was single. When he married his wife changed me from
the house and put me in the field and she put one of the slaves her
mother give her when she married, in the kitchen. My marster's wife was
very mean to all of us. She didn't like me at all. She sold my oldest
child to somebody where I couldn't ever see him any more and kept me.
She just did that to hurt me. She took my baby child and put her in the
house with her to nurse her baby and make fire. And all while she was in
the house with her she had to sleep on the floor.

"Whenever she got mad with us she would take the cow hide, that's what
she whipped us with, and whip us 'til the blood ran down. Her house
was high off the ground and one night the calf went under the house
and made water. The next morning she saw it, so she took two of my
sister-in-law's chillun and carried 'em in the kitchen and tied 'em. She
did this while her husband was gone. You see if he had been there he
wouldn't have let her done that. She took herself a chair and sit down
and made one of the slaves she brought there with her whip those chillun
so 'til all of the slaves on the place was cryin'. One of the slaves run
all the way where our marster was and got him. He come back as quick as
he could and tried to make her open the door, but she wouldn't do it so
he had to break the door in to make her stop whippin' them chillun. The
chillun couldn't even cry when he got there. And when he asked her what
she was whippin' them for she told him that they had went under the
house and made that water. My master had two of the men to take 'em over
to our house, but they was small and neither one ever got over that
whippin'. One died two days later and the other one died about a month
afterwards. Everybody hated her after that.

"Just before freedom declared, my husband took very sick and she took
her husband and come to my house to make him get up. I told her that he
was not able to work, but my husband was so scared they would beat me to
death 'til he begged me to hush. I expect marster would have if he
hadn't been scared of his father. You see his father give me to him. He
told me if the legislature set in his behalf he would make me know a
nigger's place. You know it was near freedom. I told him if he made my
husband get out of bed as sick as he was and go to work, I would tell
his father if he killed me afterwards. And that's one time I was goin