slaves on it.

"When I was eight years old he bought the Boylan place about two miles
from his first home and he moved there. There was about one thousand
acres of land of it all with about three hundred acres cleared for
farming. On the Thomas place his house had six rooms, on the Boylan
place the house had eight rooms. He brought in more slaves and took
over all the slaves after John Boylan died.

"John Boylan never married. He was a mighty hard man to git along with,
an' Marster Baxter Thomas was about the only one who could do anything
with him when he had one of his mad spells. They were no blood
relation but marster got possession of his property when he died. It
was fixed that way.

"We called the slave houses 'quarters'. They were arranged like streets
about two hundred yards on the northside of the great house.

"Our food was purty good. Our white folks used slaves, especially the
children, as they did themselves about eatin'. We all had the same kind
of food. All had plenty of clothes but only one pair of shoes a year.
People went barefooted a lot then more than they do now. We had good
places to sleep, straw mattresses and chickenfeather beds and feather
bolsters. A bolster reached clear across the head of the bed.

"We worked from sun to sun with one hour and a half to rest at noon or
dinner time. I was so small I did not do much heavy work. I chopped
corn and cotton mostly. The old slaves had patches they tended, and
sold what they made and had the money it brought. Everybody eat out of
the big garden, both white and black alike. Ole missus wouldn't allow
us to eat rabbits but she let us catch and eat possums. Missus didn't
have any use for a rabbit.

"Sometimes we caught fish with hooks in Haw River, Deep River, and the
Cape Fear, and when it was a dry time and the water got low we caught
fish in seines.

"My marster only had two children, both boys, Fred, and John. John was
about my age and Fred was about two years older. They are both dead.
My marster never had any overseers, he made boss men out of his oldest
slaves.

"We thought well of the poor white neighbors. We colored children took
them as regular playmates. Marster's boys played with 'em too and
marster gave them all the work he could. He hired both men an women of
the poor white class to work on the plantation. We all worked together.
We had a good time. We worked and sang together and everybody seemed
happy. In harvest time a lot of