heard that the pateroles used to run the slaves if they didn't
have a pass from their mistress and master. The pateroles would run them
and catch them and whip them.
How Freedom Came
"All my mother knew was that it got out that the Negroes were free. The
day before the old woman told them that they were free, my grandfather,
Henry Goodman who was a teamster, old mis' called him and told him to
tell all the darkies to come up to the house the next day.
"Next morning, she said, 'Henry, you forgot what I told you. I want you
to call all the darkies up here this morning.' Henry had a voice like a
fog-horn. He started hollering. I wish I could holler the way he did,
but I got to consider the neighbors. He hollered. 'Tention, 'tention,
hey; Miss Lucy says she wants you all up to the big house this morning.
She's got somepin to tell you.'
"They all come up to the yard before the house. When they got there, she
says to him--not to them; she wouldn't talk to them that morning; maybe
she was too full--'Henry, you all just as free now as I am. You can stay
here with Miss Lucy or you can go to work with whomsoever you will. You
don't belong to Miss Lucy no more.'
"She had been sick for quite a bit, and she was just able to come to the
door and deliver that message. Three weeks after that time, they brought
her out of the house feet foremost and took her to the cemetery. The
news killed her dead. That's been seventy years ago, and they just now
picking up on it!
Slave Time Amusements
"The old people say they used to have breakdowns in slave
time--breakdown dances with fiddle and banjo music. Far after slavery,
they had them. The only other amusement worth speaking about was the
churches. Far as the churches was concerned, they had to steal out and
go to them. Old man Balm Whitlow can tell you all about the way they
held church. They would slip off in the woods and carry a gang of
darkies down, and the next morning old master would whip them for it.
Next Sunday they would do the same thing again and get another whipping.
And it went on like that every week. When old man Whitlow came out from
slavery, he continued to preach. But the darkies didn't have to steal
out then. He's dead now, him and the old lady both.
Houses
"The slaves lived in old log houses. Some of them would be hewed and put
up well. I have seen lots of them. Sometimes they would dob the cracks
with mud and would have box planks floors, one b
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