say, "and I wants to be sho' you all
understand, 'cause you don't have to git up and go by de horn no more.
You is your own bosses now, and you don't have to have no passes to go
and come."

We never did have no passes, nohow, but we knowed lots of other
niggers on other plantations got 'em.

"I wants to bless you and hope you always is happy, and tell you got
all de right and lief [TR: sic] dat any white people got", de man say,
and den he git on his hoss and ride off.

We all jest watch him go on down de road, and den we go up to Mr.
Saunders and ask him what he want us to do. He jest grunt and say do
lak we dam please, he reckon, but git off dat place to do it, less'n
any of us wants to stay and make de crop for half of what we make.

None of us know whar to go, so we all stay, and he split up de fields
and show us which part we got to work in, and we go on lak we was, and
make de crop and git it in, but dey ain't no more horn after dat day.
Some de niggers lazy and don't git in de field early, and dey git it
took away from 'em, but dey plead around and git it back and work
better de rest of dat year.

But we all gits fooled on dat first go-out! When de crop all in we
don't git half! Old Mistress sick in town, and de overseer was still
on de place and he charge us half de crop for de quarters and de mules
and tools and grub!

Den he leave, and we gits another white man, and he sets up a book,
and give us half de next year, and take out for what we use up, but we
all got something left over after dat first go-out.

Old Mistress never git well after she lose all her niggers, and one
day de white boss tell us she jest drap over dead setting in her
chair, and we know her heart jest broke.

Next year de chillun sell off most de place and we scatter off, and I
and mammy go into Little Rock and do work in de town. Grandmammy done
dead.

I git married to John White in Little Rock, but he died and we didn't
have no chillun. Den in four, five years I marry Billy Rowe. He was a
Cherokee citizen and he had belonged to a Cherokee name Dave Rowe, and
lived east of Tahlequah before de War. We married in Little Rock, but
he had land in de Cherokee Nation, and we come to east of Tahlequah
and lived 'til he died, and den I come to Tulsa to live wid my
youngest daughter.

Billy Rowe and me had three chillun, Ellie, John, and Lula. Lula
married a Thomas, and it's her I lives with.

Lots of old people lak me say dat dey w