em, 'This is Yankee
camps.' They give them something to eat. They worked there a while. One
day they took a notion to look about and they hadn't gone far 'fore
Grandpa Harris grabbed grandma, then mama. They got to stay a while but
the Yankees took them to town and Master Harris come got them and took
them back. Their new master come too but he said his wife said bring the
girl back but let that old woman go. Master Harris took them both back
till freedom.

"When freedom come folks shout and knock down things so glad they was
free. Grandpa come back. Master Harris said, 'You can have land if you
can get anything to work.' Grandpa took his bounty he got when he left
the army and bought a pair of mules. He had to pay rent the third year
but till then he got what they called giving all that stayed a start.

"Grandma was Mariah and grandpa was Ned Harris. The two boys come back
said the baby boy died at Selma, Alabama.

"Grandpa talked about the War when I was a child. He said he was in the
Battle of Corinth, Mississippi. He said blood run shoe mouth deep in
places. He didn't see how he ever got out alive. Grandma and mama said
they was glad to get away from the camps. They looked to be shot several
times. Colored folks is peace loving by nature. They don't love war.
Grandpa said war was awful. My mother was named Lottie.

"One reason mother said she wanted to get away from their new master, he
have a hole dug out with a hoe and put pregnant women on their stomach.
The overseers beat their back with cowhide and them strapped down. She
said 'cause they didn't keep up work in the field or they didn't want to
work. She didn't know why. They didn't stay there very long. She didn't
want to go back there.

"My life has never been a hard one. I have always worked. Me and my
husband run a cafe till he got drowned. Since then I have to work
harder. I wash and iron, cook wherever some one comes for me. When I was
a girl I was so much like mother--a fast, strong hand in the field, I
always had work.

"Mother said, 'Eat the beans and greens, pot-liquor and sweet milk, make
you fat and lazy.' That was what they put in the children's wooden trays
in slavery. They give the men and women meat and the children the broth
and dumplings, plenty molasses. Sunday mother could cook at home in
slavery if she'd 'tend to the baby too. All the hands on Harrises place
et dinner with their family on Sunday. He was fair with his slaves.

"For th