'til sundown. Dey was
fed in de white folks' kitchen, and Cook cooked fer us jes lak she done
fer de whites. De kitchen was built off a piece frum de hous', y'know.

"Marse never did whup any of us li'l chullun. Miss Annie, she tried once
to whup me 'cause I chunked rocks at her li'l chickens, but mighty
little whuppin' she done. Dere wa'nt no overseer.

"Chris'mas time, we had two or three days to play, an' had extry food.

"I seen 'pattyrollers' ridin' 'bout to keep de darkies from runnin'
'roun' widout passes. I never seen 'em whup none but dey tol' us we'd
git twen'y-nine licks iffen we got caught by 'em. I seen darkies git
whuppin's on other plantations--whup 'em half a day sometimes, gen'ly
when dey tried to run away.

"We didn' have no dancin' dat I 'member, but had plen'y log rollin's.
Had fiddlin', an' all would jine in singin' songs, lak, "Run nigger run,
pattyrollers ketch you, run nigger run, it's breakin' days." I still
fiddle dat chune[FN: tune]. Well, you see, dey jes rolled up all de old
dead logs an' trees in a big pile, and burned it at night.

"I seen de Yankee sojers when dey passed our house but dey didn' bother
us none. None didn' even stop in. Dey was wearin' blue jackets an' had
gold buttons on caps an' jackets. But when de Confed'rate sojers come
along, dey stopped an' killed a fat cow er two, an' taken de fat hoss
an' lef' a lean one, an' taken ever'thing else dey seen dey wanted.

"No'm, didn' none of de slaves run off wid dem dat I knows of, an' de
Yankees didn' try to bother us none. Well, afte' de War, Marse Elbert
tol' us dat we was free now, an' pappy come an' got us an' taken us to
live wid de cook on Mr. Elisha Bishop's place, an' he paid Mr. Barren
Bishop to teach us. He taught us out of Webster's Blue Back Spellin'
Book.

"My pappy, he had a stolen ejucation--'at was cause his mistress back in
South Ca'Line hoped him to learn to read an' write 'fo he lef' there.
You see, in dem days, it was ag'inst de law fer slaves to read.

"I was glad to be free 'cause I don't b'lieve sellin' an' whuppin'
peoples is right. I certainly does think religion is a good thing,
'cause I'se a Baptist preacher right now, and I live 'bout six miles
from Crystal Springs. I farm too."

Berry Smith, Ex-slave, Scott County
FEC
W.B. Allison
Rewrite, Pauline Loveless
Edited, Clara E. Stokes

BERRY SMITH
Forest, Mississippi

"Uncle Berry" Smith is five feet two or three inches tall. He is