and was mighty rich. I think he was
born in England. Anyway his pappy was from England, and I think he
went back before I was born.

Master Sack had a big plantation ten miles north of Arcadia,
Louisiana, and his land run ten miles along both sides. He would leave
in a buggy and be gone all day and still not get all over it.

There was all kinds of land on it, and he raised cane and oats and
wheat and lots of corn and cotton. His cotton fields was the biggest
anywheres in that part, and when chopping and picking times come he
would get negroes from other people to help out. I never was no good
at picking, but I was a terror with a hoe!

I was the only child my Mammy had. She was just a young girl, and my
Master did not own her very long. He got her from Mr. Addison
Hilliard, where my pappy belonged. I think she was going to have me
when he got her; anyways I come along pretty soon, and my mammy never
was very well afterwards. Maybe Master Sack sent her back over to my
pappy. I don't know.

Mammy was the house girl at Mr. Sack's because she wasn't very strong,
and when I was four or five years old she died. I was big enough to do
little things for Mr. Sack and his daughter, so they kept me at the
mansion, and I helped the house boys. Time I was nine or ten Mr.
Sack's daughter was getting to be a young woman--fifteen or sixteen
years old--and that was old enough to get married off in them days.
They had a lot of company just before the War, and they had whole
bunch of house negroes around all the time.

Old Mistress died when I was a baby, so I don't remember anything
about her, but Young Mistress was a winder! She would ride horseback
nearly all the time, and I had to go along with her when I got big
enough. She never did go around the quarters, so I don't know nothing
much about the negroes Mr. Sack had for the fields. They all looked
pretty clean and healthy, though, when they would come up to the Big
House. He fed them all good and they all liked him.

He had so much different kinds of land that they could raise anything
they wanted, and he had more mules and horses and cattle than anybody
around there. Some of the boys worked with his fillies all the time,
and he went off to New Orleans ever once in a while with his race
horses. He took his daughter but they never took me.

Some of his land was in pasture but most of it was all open fields,
with just miles and miles of cotton rows. There was a pretty good
st