e would sometimes
let the little niggers come up to the house and I would get these big
peanuts and break them up and throw them out to them so he could have
fun seeing them scramble for them.

"After the children had been fed, the mother would cook the next day's
breakfast and she would cook the next day's dinner and put it in the
pail so that everything would be ready when the riding boss would come
around. Cause when he came, it meant move.

The Old Lady at the Big House

"The old lady at the big house took care of the gourds and bowls. The
parents didn't have nothing to do with them. She fed the children that
was weaned. Mother and daddy didn't have nothing to do with that at
noontime because they was in the field. White folks fed them corn bread
and milk. Up to the big house besides that, she didn't have anything to
do except take care of things around the house, keep the white man's
things clean and do his cooking.

"She never carried the gourds and bowls herself. She just fixed them.
The yard man brought them down to the quarters and we would take them
back. She wash them and scrape them till they was white and thin as
paper. They was always clean.

"She wasn't related to me. I couldn't call her name to save my life.

Relatives

"We come from Barbour, Alabama with a trainful of people that were
immigrating. We just chartered a train and came, we had so many. Of all
the old people that came here in that time, my aunt is the oldest. You
will find her out on Twenty-fourth Street and Pulaski. She has been my
aunt ever since I can remember. She must be nearly a hundred or more.

Patrollers

"When we had the patrollers it was just like the white man would have
another white man working for him. It was to see that the Negroes went
to bed on time and didn't steal nothing. But my master and missis never
allowed anybody to whip their slaves.

What the Slaves Expected and Got

"I don't know what the slaves was expecting to get, but my parents when
they left Ben See's place had nothing but the few clothes in the house.
They didn't give em nothing. They had some clothes all right, enough to
cover themselves. I don't know what kind or how much because I wasn't
old enough to know all into such details.

"When we left Ben See's plantation and went down into Alabama, we left
there on a wagon. Daddy was driving four big steers hitched to it. There
was just three of us children. The little boy my mother was s