ther around it the same as
we see pigs, horses and cattle gather around troughs today.

We were never given any money, but were able to get a little money
this way: our Master would let us have two or three acres of land each
year to plant for ourselves, and we could have what we raised on it.
We could not allow our work on these two or three acres to interfere
with Master's work, but we had to work our little crops on Sundays.
Now remind you, all the Negroes didn't get these two or three acres,
only good masters allowed their slaves to have a little crop of their
own. We would take the money from our little crops and buy a few
clothes and something for Christmas. The men would save enough money
out of the crops to buy their Christmas whiskey. It was all right for
the slaves to get drunk on Christmas and New Years Day; no one was
whipped for getting drunk on those days. We were allowed to have a
garden and from this we gathered vegetables to eat; on Sundays we
could have duck, fish, and pork.

We didn't know anything about any clothes other than cotton;
everything we wore was made of cotton, except our shoes, they were
made from pieces of leather cut out of a raw cowhide.

Our Master and Mistress was good, they let us go to church with them,
have our little two- or three-acre crops and any other thing that the
good masters would let their slaves do. They lived in a big fine house
and had a fine barn. Their barn was much better than the house we
lived in. Master Depriest (our master) was a Frenchman, and had eight
or nine children, and they were sure mean. They would fight us, but we
were not allowed to fight our little Master or Mistress as we had to
call them.

The overseer on Master's plantation was a mean old fellow, he carried
his gun all the time and would ride a big fine horse and go from one
bunch of slaves to the other. Some poor white folks lived close to us.
They could not own slaves and they had to work for the rich plantation
owners. I believe that those poor white folk are to blame for the
Negroes stealing because they would get the Negroes to steal their
master's corn, hogs, chickens and many other things and sell it to
them for practically nothing.

We had to work plenty hard, because our Master had a large plantation.
Don't know just how many acres it was, but we had to be up at 5
o'clock in the morning and would work until dark than we would have to
go home and do our night work, that is cook, mil