id, 'Wait till I go eat my dinner.'
When he come back, Abe Lincoln was up there looking over his books. He'd
done changed his clothes and everything. He had guards with him but they
didn't see 'em. That is the story I heard them tell.

What the Slaves Got

"When the slaves got freed, they wasn't expecting to get nothing that
I knows of 'cept what they worked for. They weren't spectin' no forty
acres and a mule. Who was goin' to give it to 'em? The Rebs? They didn't
give 'em nothin' but what they could put on their backs--I mean lashes.

"Blount had stocks that he used to put them in. The stocks had hinges on
one side and latches on the other. The nigger would put his head in one
hole and his arms through the others, and the old man would eat on the
other end. Your feet would be stretched out and you would be layin' on
your belly.

"Blount whipped me once because I wouldn't go to the cow barns to get
the milk to put in the coffee that morning. I didn't have time. They had
given me to Lela, and I had to take her to school. I was 'sponsible if
she was late. He had give me to Lela. Next morning with her, and we
didn't come back till Friday evening. She went down to her Aunt Leona
Harrison's and carried me with her. She was mad because they whipped me
when I belonged to her.

"After slavery, we worked by the month on people's plantations. I did
that kind of work till after a while the white people got so they rented
the colored people land and selled them mules for their work. Then some
worked on shares and some rented and worked for theirselves. Right after
the war most of the farms were worked on shares. We were lucky to be
able to get to work by the month.

Schooling

"I went to school in Natchaz, Mississippi. My teacher came from the
North, I suppose. But those I had in Rodney, I know they come from the
North. Miss Mary--that's all the name I knowed--and Miss Emma were my
teachers in Rodney. They come from Chicago; I never went to school here.
I didn't get no farther than the second grade. I stopped school to go
work when the teacher went back to Chicago. After that I went to work in
the field and made me a living. I hadn't done but a little work in the
field helping pa now and then before that.

Marriages

"I married a long time ago in Rodney. Lord, it's been so long ago I
couldn't tell you when. I been married four times. They all quit me for
other men. I didn't quit none of them.

Present Conditio