man and papa was my color (light
mulatto). After freedom they lived as long as they lived at Houston and
Okolona, Mississippi. She said she left Maryland in 1839.

"Some blue dressed Yankees come to our shack and told mama to bake him
some bread. I held to her dress. She baked them some. They put it in
their nap sacks. That was my first experience seeing the Yankees.

"They come back and come back on and on. One time they come back hunting
the silverware. They didn't find it. It was in the old seep well. The
slaves wasn't going to tell them where it was. We washed out of the seep
well and used the cistern water to drink. It was good silver. They put
it in sacks, several of them, to make it strong. Uncle Giles drapped it
down in there. He was old colored man we all called Uncle Giles. He was
no kin to me. He was good as could be. I loved him. Me and his girl
played together all the time. Her name was Roxana. We built frog houses
in the sand and put cool sand on our stomachs. We would lie under big
trees and watch and listen to the birds.

"When Mr. Billy Gates died they give Henry, my youngest brother, to his
son, John Gates. Henry, a big strong fellow, could raise a bale of
cotton over his head.

"One time the Yankees come took the meat and twenty-five cows and the
best mules. They left some old plugs. They had two mares in fold. Uncle
Giles told them one mare had buck-eye poison and the other distemper.
They left them in their stalls. We had to tote all that stuff they give
out back when they was gone. All they didn't take off they handed out to
the slaves. There was some single men didn't carry their provisions back
to the smokehouse. Everybody else did. They kept on till they swept us
all out of victuals. The slaves had shacks up on the hill. There was six
or eight pretty houses all met. Mr. Gates' house was one of them.

"Freedom--Capt. Gehu come and sent for all the slaves to come to Mr.
John Gates. We all met there. He said it was free times now. We lived on
and raised peas, corn, pumpkins, potatoes. The Yankees come and took off
some of it. That was the year of the surrender. Mama moved off the hill
in a man's home what moved to town to look after the house for them. It
was across the road from Master John Gates' house. We worked for the
Gates a long, long time after that. We worked for the Baldwins and
around till the old heads all dead. I come to Clarendon, Arkansas,
eleven o'clock, eleventh of May 1890. I