is free now, and all the rest of the slaves is
free too. Nobody owns you now and nobody going to own you anymore!"
That was good news, I reckon, but nobody know what to do about it.

The crops was mostly in and the Master wants the folks to stay 'til
the crop is finished. They talk about it the rest of that day. They
wasn't no celebration 'round the place, but they wasn't no work after
the Master tells us we is free. Nobody leave the place though. Not
'til in the fall when the work is through. Then some of us go into the
town and gets work 'cause everybody knows the Allison slaves was the
right kind of folks to have around.

That was the first money I earn and then I have to learn how to spend
it. That was the hardest part 'cause the prices was high and the wages
was low.

Then I moves on and meets the gal that maybe I been looking for,
Louisa Baker, and right away she takes to me and we is married. Ain't
been no other woman but her and she's waiting for me wherever the dead
waits for the living.

I reckon she won't have so long to wait now, even if I is feeling
pretty spry and got good use of the feets and hands. Ninety-eight
years brings a heap of wear and some of these days the old body'll
need a long time rest and then I'll join her for all the time.

I is ready for the New Day a-coming!

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 16 1937]

MRS. ISABELLA JACKSON
Age 79 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.

"Boom ... Boom! Boom ... Boom!" That's the way the old weaver go all
day long when my sister, Margaret, is making cloth for the slaves down
on old Doc Joe Jackson's plantation in Louisiana.

That was near the little place of Bunker, and its my birthplace, and I
guess where all Mammy's children were born because she was never sold
but once and nobody but the old Doc ever did own her after she come to
his place.

He always say couldn't nobody get work out of Mammy but him. I guess
that's just his foolery 'cause if she ain't no good the Old Doc most
likely sell her to some of them white folks in Texas.

That's what they done to them mean, no account slaves--just send them
to Texas. Them folks sure knew how for to handle 'em!

But I was talking about my sister, Margaret. I can still see her
weaving the cloth--Boom!... Boom!--and she hear that all the day and
get mighty tired. Sometimes she drop her head and go to sleep. The
Mistress get her then sure. Rap her on the head with almost anything
handy,