say terrible cuss words. When de mistress heard
them bad words, she would bow her pretty head and walk 'way kinda sad
lak. It hurt us slaves to see de mistress sad, 'cause us wanted to see
her smilin' and happy all de time.

"My mammy worked hard in de field every day and as I was just a small
boy, I toted water to de hands in de field and fetched wood into de
kitchen to cook wid. Mammy was de mother of twelve chillun; three of
them die when they was babies. I's de oldest of de twelve and has done
more hard work than de rest. I had five brothers and all of them is
dead, 'cept one dat lives in Savannah, Georgia. I has four sisters, one
living in Charleston, one in New York City, one in Ithaca, N. Y., and
one in Fairfield County, dis State.

"Does my folks help me along any? No sir, they sho' don't. I gits
nothin' from them, and I don't expect nothin' neither. Boss, a nigger's
kinfolks is worse than a stranger to them; they thinks and acts for
theirselves and no one else. I knows I's a nigger and I tries to know my
place. If white folks had drapped us long time ago, us would now be next
to de rovin' beasts of de woods. Slavery was hard I knows but it had to
be, it seem lak. They tells me they eats each other in Africa. Us don't
do dat and you knows dat is a heap to us.

"Us had plenty to eat in slavery time. It wasn't de best but it filled
us up and give us strength 'nough to work. Marster would buy a years
rations on de first of every year and when he git it, he would have some
cooked and would set down and eat a meal of it. He would tell us it
didn't hurt him, so it won't hurt us. Dats de kind of food us slaves had
to eat all de year. Of course, us got a heap of vegetables and fruits in
de summer season, but sich as dat didn't do to work on, in de long
summer days.

"Marster was good, in a way, to his slaves but dat overseer of his name
John Parker, was mean to us sometimes. He was good to some and bad to
others. He strung us up when he done de whippin'. My mammy got many
whippin's on 'count of her short temper. When she got mad, she would
talk back to de overseer, and dat would make him madder than anything
else she could do.

"Marster had over twenty grown slaves all de time. He bought and sold
them whenever he wanted to. It was sad times to see mother and chillun
separated. I's seen de slave speculator cut de little nigger chillun
with keen leather whips, 'cause they'd cry and run after de wagon dat
was takin'