all us wanted three times ev'ry day. In one
corner of the kitchen set a loom my Mother use to weave on. She would
weave way into the night lots of times.

"The fust thing I 'members is follerin' my Mother er 'round. She wuz the
housegirl an' seamstress an' everywhere she went I wuz at her heels. My
father wuz the overseer on the Hunt place. We never had no hard work to
do. My fust work wuz 'tendin' the calves an' shinin' my Master's shoes.
How I did love to put a Sunday shine on his boots an' shoes! He called
me his nigger an' wuz goin' ter make a barber out o' me if slavery had
er helt on. As it wuz, I shaved him long as he lived. We lived in the
Quarters over on a high hill 'cross the spring-branch from the white
peoples' house. We had comfortable log cabins an' lived over there an'
wuz happy. Ole Uncle Alex Hunt wuz the bugler an' ev'ry mornin' at 4:00
o'clock he blowed the bugle fer us ter git up, 'cept Sunday mornin's, us
all slept later on Sundays.

"When I wuz a little boy us played marbles, mumble peg, an' all sich
games. The little white an' black boys played together, an' ev'ry time
'Ole Miss' whipped her boys she whipped me too, but nobody 'cept my
Mistess ever teched me to punish me.

"I recollects one Sadday night ole Uncle Aaron Hunt come in an' he must
er been drinkin' or sumpin' fer he got ter singin' down in the Quarters
loud as he could 'Go Tell Marse Jesus I Done Done All I Kin Do', an'
nobody could make him hush singin'. He got into sich er row 'til they
had ter go git some o' the white folks ter come down an' quiet him down.
Dat wuz the only 'sturbance 'mongst the niggers I ever 'members.

"I wuz so little when the War come on I don't member but one thing 'bout
it an' that wuz when it wuz over with an' our white mens come home all
de neighbors, the Simpsons, the Neals, the Allens all living on
plantations 'round us had a big dinner over at my white peoples', the
Hunts, an' it sho wuz a big affair. Ev'rybody from them families wuz
there an' sich rejoicin' I never saw. I won't forgit that time.

"I allus been to Church. As a little boy my folks took me to ole Mt
Zion. We went to the white peoples' Church 'til the colored folks had
one of they own. The white folks had services in Mt Zion in the mornings
an' the niggers in the evenin's."

When a colored person died back in the days when Uncle Henry was coming
on, he said they sat up with the dead and had prayers for the living.
There was a Mr. Be