ere the same age you see (14 years old) and he would send
me to school to protect his kids, and I would have to sit up there
until school was out. So while sitting there I listened to what the
white teacher was telling the kids, and caught on how to read, write
and figger--but I never let on, 'cause if I was caught trying to read
or figger dey would whip me something terrible. After I caught on how
to figger the white kids would ask me to teach them. Master Brown
would often say: "My God O'mighty, never do for that nigger to learn
to figger."

We weren't allowed to count change. If we borrowed a fifty-cent piece,
we would have to pay back a fifty-cent piece--not five dimes or fifty
pennies or ten nickels.

We went barefooted the year round and wore long shirts split on each
side. All of us niggers called all the whites "poor white trash." The
overseer was nothing but poor white trash and the meanest man that
ever walked on earth. He never did whip me much 'cause I was kind of a
pet. I worked up to the Big House, but he sho' did whip them others.
Why, one day he was beating my mother, and I was too small to say
anything, so my big brother heard her crying and came running, picked
up a chunk and that overseer stopped a'beating her. The white boy was
holding her on the ground and he was whipping her with a long leather
whip. They said they couldn't teach her no sense and she said "I don't
wanna learn no sense." The overseer's name was Charlie Clark. One day
he whipped a man until he was bloody as a pig 'cause he went to the
mill and stayed too long.

The patroller rode all night and iffen we were caught out later than
10:00 o'clock they would beat us, but we would git each other word by
sending a man round way late at night. Always take news by night. Of
course the Ku Klux Klan didn't come 'til after the war. They was
something like the patrollers. Never heard of no trouble between the
black and whites 'cause them niggers were afraid to resist them.

My biggest job was keeping flies off'n the table up at the Big House.
When time come to go in for the day we would cut up and dance. I can't
remember any of the songs jest now, but we had some that we sung. We
danced a whole lots and jest sung "made up" songs.

Old Master would stay up to hear us come in. Of course Saturday
afternoon was a holiday. We didn't work no holidays. Master gave us
one week off for Christmas, and never worked us on Sunday, unless the
"ox was in