hey jus' took what
they wanted of corn or livestock. They done the same after Marse Bob
come home. He jus' said, 'Let them go they way, 'cause that's what
they're going to do, anyway.' We was scareder of them than we was of the
debbil. But they spoke right kindly to us cullud folks. They said, 'If
you got a good master and want to stay, well, you can do that, but now
you can go where you want to, 'cause ain't nobody going to stop you.'

"The niggers can't hardly git used to the idea. When they wants to leave
the place, they still go up to the big house for a pass. They jus' can't
understand 'bout the freedom. Old Marse or Missus say, 'You don't need
no pass. All you got to do is jus' take you foot in you hand and go.'

"It seem like the war jus' plumb broke Old Marse up. It wasn't long till
he moved into Tyler and left my paw runnin' the farm on a halfance with
him and the niggers workers. He didn't live long, but I forgits jus' how
long. But when Mr. Bob heired the old place, he 'lowed we'd jus' go
'long the way his paw has made the trade with my paw.

"Young Mr. Bob 'parently done the first rascality I ever heard of a
Goodman doin'. The first year we worked for him we raised lots of grain
and other things and fifty-seven bales of cotton. Cotton was fifty-two
cents a pound and he shipped it all away, but all he ever gave us was a
box of candy and a sack of store tobacco and a sack of sugar. He said
the 'signment done got lost. Paw said to let it go, 'cause we had allus
lived by what the Goodman had said.

"I got married and lived on the old place till I was in my late fifties.
I had seven chillun, but if I got any livin' now, I don't know where
they is now. My paw and maw got to own a little piece of land not far
from the old place, and paw lived to be 102 and maw 106. I'm the last
one of any of my folks.

"For twenty years my health ain't been so good, and I can't work even
now, though my health is better'n in the past. I had hemorraghes. All my
folks died on me, and it's purty rough on a old man like me. My white
folks is all dead or I wouldn't be 'lowed to go hongry and cold like I
do, or have to pay rent.

420060

[Illustration: Austin Grant (A)]

[Illustration: Austin Grant (B)]

AUSTIN GRANT came to Texas from Mississippi with his grandfather,
father, mother and brother. George Harper owned the family. He
raised cotton on Peach Creek, near Gonzales. Austin was hired out
by