banks of Caney Creek. Off to the north we could see the big old ridge
of Sugar Mountain when the sun shine on him first thing in the morning
when we all getting up.

I didn't know nothing else but some kind of war until I was a grown
woman, because when I first can remember my old Master, Charley
Rogers, was always on the lookout for somebody or other he was lined
up against in the big feud.

My master and all the rest of the folks was Cherokees, and they'd been
killing each other off in the feud ever since long before I was
borned, and jest because old Master have a big farm and three-four
families of Negroes them other Cherokees keep on pestering his stuff
all the time. Us children was always afeared to go any place less'n
some of the grown folks was along.

We didn't know what we was a-feared of, but we heard the Master and
Mistress keep talking 'bout "another Party killing" and we stuck close
to the place.

Old Mistress' name was Nancy Rogers, but I was a orphan after I was a
big girl and I called her "Aunt" and "Mamma" like I did when I was
little. You see my own mammy was the house woman and I was raised in
the house, and I heard the little children call old mistress "mamma"
and so I did too. She never did make me stop.

My pappy and mammy and us children lived in a one-room log cabin close
to the creek bank and jest a little piece from old Master's house.

My pappy's name was Joe Tucker and my mammy's name was Ruth Tucker.
They belonged to a man named Tucker before I was born and he sold them
to Master Charley Rogers and he just let them go on by the same name
if they wanted to, because last name didn't mean nothing to a slave
anyways. The folks jest called my pappy "Charley Rogers' boy Joe."

I already had two sisters, Mary and Mandy, when I was born, and purty
soon I had a baby brother, Louis. Mammy worked at the Big House and
took me along every day. When I was a little bigger I would help hold
the hank when she done the spinning and old Mistress done a lot of the
weaving and some knitting. She jest set by the window and knit most
all of the time.

When we weave the cloth we had a big loom out on the gallery, and Miss
Nancy tell us how to do it.

Mammy eat at our own cabin, and we had lots of game meat and fish the
boys get in the Caney Creek. Mammy bring down deer meat and wild
turkey sometimes, that the Indian boys git on Sugar Mountain.

Then we had corn bread, dried bean bread and green stuff o