them right. Didn't allow no pateroles to
bother them neither. That's a lot of help too. 'Cause them pateroles
would eat you up. It was awful. Niggers used to run away to keep from
bein' beat up.

"I knowed one gal that ran away in the winter time and she went up into
the hollow of a tree for protection. When she came in, she was in sich
a bad condition they had to cut off both her legs. They had froze out
there. They taken care of her. They wanted her to work. She was jus' as
nice a seamstress as you ever saw. And she could do lots of things. She
could get about some. She could go on her knees. She had some pads for
them and was just about as high as your waist when she was goin' along
on her hands and knees, swinging her body between her arms.

Ate in the Big House

"The cooks and my mother stayed in the white folks' yard. They weren't
in the quarters. My mother was seamstress and she was right in the house
all the day long sewing. The children like me and my sister, they used
us 'round the house and yard for whatever we could do. They didn't never
whip none of my father's children. If we done something they thought we
ought to been whipped for, they would tell father to whip us, and if he
wanted to, he would; and if he didn't want to, he wouldn't. They made a
big difference for some reason.

Marriage

"They married in that time by standing up and letting someone read the
ceremony to them. My master was a Christian. There wasn't no jumpin'
over a broomstick on my master's place. The white folks didn't have no
nigger preacher for their churches. But the colored folks had 'em. They
preached out of these little old Blue Back Spellers--leastways they was
little blue back books anyhow.

Freedom

"My folks was on the road refugeeing from Magnolia, Arkansas to
Pittsburg, Texas when the news came that the colored folks was free. And
my master came 'round and told the niggers they was free as he was. I
didn't hear him. I don't know where I was. I'm sure I was out playin
somewheres.

Slave Wages and Experiences after the War

"My father worked in a blacksmith shop right after the War. Before the
War, he went far and near to work for the white folks. They'd risk him
with their money and everything. They would give him part of it; I don't
know how much. He brought money to them, and they sure give him money.

"We didn't have to wear the things the other slave children had to wear.
He would order things for his