mammy died 'fore I
can remember and my stepma didn't take no time to tell me nothin'. Her
name was Mary Barrow and papa's name was Allison Barrow, and I had
sisters, Rachel and Lou and Charity, and a brother, Allison.

"My master sold Rachel when she was jus' a girl. I sho' did cry. They
put her on a block and sold her off. I heared they got a thousand
dollars for her, but I never seed her no more till after freedom. A man
named Dick Burdon, from Kaufman County, bought her. After freedom I
heared she's sick and brung her home, but she was too far gone.

"We lived in a log house with dirt floors, warm in winter but sho' hot
in summer, no screens or nothin', jus' homemade doors. We had homemade
beds out of planks they picked up around. Mattresses nothin', we had
shuck beds. But, anyway, you takes it, we was better off den dan now.

"I worked in the fields till Rachel was sold, den tooken her place,
doin' kitchen work and fannin' flies off de table with a great, long
limb. I liked dat. I got plenty to eat and not so hot. We had jus' food
to make you stand up and work. It wasn't none the good foolish things we
has now. We had cornbread and blackeyed peas and beans and sorghum
'lasses. Old master give us our rations and iffen dat didn't fill us up,
we jus' went lank. Sometimes we had possum and rabbits and fish, iffen
we cotched dem on Sunday. I seed Old Missy parch coffee in a skittle,
and it good coffee, too. We couldn't go to the store and buy things,
'cause they warn't no stores hardly.

"When dey's hoein' cotton or corn, everybody has to keep up with de
driver, not hurry so fast, but workin' steady. Some de women what had
suckin' babies left dem in de shade while dey worked, and one time a
big, bald eagle flew down by one dem babies and picked it up and flew
away with it. De mama couldn't git it and we never heared of dat baby
'gain.

"I 'member when we come from Mobile to Texas. By time we heared de
Yankees was comin' dey got all dere gold together and Miss Jane called
me and give me a whole sack of pure gold and silver, and say bury it in
de orchard. I sho' was scart, but I done what she said. Dey was more
gold in a big desk, and de Yanks pulled de top of dat desk and got de
gold. Miss Jane had a purty gold ring on her finger and de captain
yanked it off. I said, 'Miss Jane, is dey gwine give you ring back?' All
she said was, 'Shet you mouth,' and dat's what I did.

"Dat night dey digs up de buried gold and we l