is wife was one of 'em. She was a terrible
piece of humanity. Father was a farm hand. They had a gin, a shoe shop,
and a blacksmith shop all on Floyd Malone's place. I picked a little
cotton before 'mancipation. Floyd Malone had to buy my mother to git her
where my father was.

"Some of the boys wore dresses till they was twelve or fifteen years
old. One fellar rode a mule or cow one the other to preaching. While
he sit talking to his gal at the window a steer cone up and et off his
dress tail. Boys got to courting before they got to take off their long
shirts.

"They wasn't so good to mother. She run off several times. She went
'bout one and one-half miles to her mother on the Compton place. They
didn't whoop her. They promised her a whooping. They whooped her and me
too but I never knowed 'em to whoop my father. When they whoop my mother
I'd run off to place we lived and crawl under the house.

"We chillun had nothing to do wid coffee. We drunk milk out little
bowls. We'd turn it up or lap it out which one could do the best. They
fed us. We'd ask for more till we got filled up.

"I recollect the soldiers come by in July 1863 or 1864 and back in
December. I heard talk so long 'fore they got there I knowed who they
was. They took my oldest brother. He didn't want to go. We never heard
from him. He never come back. My white master hid out. He didn't go
to war. One son went and come back. It was the Yankees made my oldest
brother go. The first crowd in July swapped their wore-out scrub stock
for our good stock. That second crowd cleaned them out, took our hogs.
Miss Betty had died 'fore they come in July. That second crowd come in
December. They cleaned out everything to eat and wear. They set the
house 'fire several times with paper and coal oil (kerosene). It went
out every time. One told the captain. He come up behind. It went out
every time. He said, 'Let's move on.' They left it clean and bare. We
didn't like them. We had meat hid in the cellar. We got hungry that
spring sure as you born.

"The old man married pretty soon after freedom. He married young to what
he was.

"I didn't find much fault to slavery 'cepting the abuse. We et three
times a day and now if I get one piece I do well. Mother cooked, washed,
ironed and spun four cuts a day. We all et at the master's kitchen three
times a day. We had thirty-two families. I've heard that ag'in time and
ag'in so as I recollect it till now. We didn't have to work