s raked out hot ashes den and cooked good
old ashcakes what was a heap better for us dan dis bread us buys from de
stores now. Marster fed us plenty ashcake, fresh meat, and ash roasted
'taters, and dere warn't nobody what could out wuk us.

"A death was somepin what didn't happen often on our plantation, but
when somebody did die folkses would go from miles and miles around to
set up and pray all night to comfort de fambly of de daid. Dey never
made up de coffins 'til atter somebody died. Den dey measured de corpse
and made de coffin to fit de body. Dem coffins was lined wid black
calico and painted wid lampblack on de outside. Sometimes dey kivvered
de outside wid black calico lak de linin'. Coffins for white folkses was
jus' lak what dey had made up for deir slaves, and dey was all buried in
de same graveyard on deir own plantations.

"When de war was over dey closed de little one-room school what our good
Marster had kept in his back yard for his slaves, but out young Miss
Ellen larnt my sister right on 'til she got whar she could teach school.
Daddy fixed up a room onto our house for her school and she soon had it
full of chillun. Dey made me study too, and I sho did hate to have to go
to school to my own aister for she evermore did take evvy chance to lay
dat stick on me, but I s'pects she had a right tough time wid me. When
time come 'round to celebrate school commencement, I was one proud
little Nigger 'cause I never had been so dressed up in my life before.
I had on a red waist, white pants, and a good pair of shoes; but de
grandest thing of all 'bout dat outfit was dat Daddy let me wear his
watch. Evvybody come for dat celebration. Dere was over 300 folks at dat
big dinner, and us had lots of barbecue and all sorts of good things
t'eat. Old Marster was dar, and when I stood up 'fore all dem folks and
said my little speech widout missin' a word, Marster sho did laugh and
clap his hands. He called me over to whar he was settin' and said: 'I
knowed you could larn if you wanted to.' _Best of all, he give me a
whole dollar._ [TR: 'for reciting a speech' written in margin.] I was
rich den, plumb rich. One of my sisters couldn't larn nothin'. De only
letters she could ever say was 'G-O-D.' No matter what you axed her to
spell she allus said 'G-O-D.' She was a good field hand though and a
good 'oman and she lived to be more dan 90 years old.

"Now, talkin' 'bout frolickin', us really used to dance. What I means,
is