name before she married--hold a minute, lemme
see--seems like it was Mary--Mary--Street.

"My father and my mother couldn't have lived on the same plantation
because she was a May and he was a Street. I don't know how they met.

"My father's master's name was Jick Street. He owned, to my knowing, my
father, Bill Street; Henry Street, and Ed Street. He might have owned
more but I heard my father say he owned those.

"My father said his white people weren't very wealthy. He and his
brother had to go and cut cordwood, both summer and winter. And they was
allowed so much work for a task. Their task was nine cords a week for
each man. That was equal to a cord and a half a day for each man each
day. My father would cut his wood like a man ought to cut it. But he
said my uncle wouldn't git at his task. He would drink whiskey all the
week. They'd get after him about bein' behind with his work, but he
would say, 'Never mind that; I won't be behind Monday morning.' On
Sunday morning at nine o'clock, he would get up and begin to cut on that
wood. And on Monday morning at nine o'clock, he would have nine cords
cut for his white folks and four or five for himself. It would all be
done before nine o'clock Monday morning.

Living Brother

"I recently seen my brother Jeff Davis Street. I haven't seen him
before for sixty-one years. He blew in here from Texas with a man named
Professor Smuggers. He lives in Malakoff, Texas. It's been sixty-one
years since he was where I could see him, but he says he saw me
fifty-nine years ago. He came back home and I was 'sleep, he says, and
he didn't wake me up. He rambled around a little and stood and looked at
me awhile, he says. He was seventeen years old and I was twelve.

"My brother had a lot of children. He had four girls with him. He had a
boy somewheres. He is older than I am.

"I heard my father say that in time of war, they were taking up folks
that wouldn't join them and putting them in prison. They picked a white
fellow up and had him tied with a rope and carried him down to a creek
and were tying him up by his thumbs. He saw my father coming and said:
'There's a colored man I know.' My father said he knew him. They let
him go when my father said he knew him and that he didn't harbor
bushwhackers. Every time he saw my father after that he would say,
'Bill, you sure did save my life.'

"My father and mother lived in a log cabin. They had homemade furniture.
They had a bunk up s