'd steal hanks of Ma's thread so she couldn't do more
work than she did. She'd also steal old Master's tobacco. He caught up
with her and whipped her.

I never saw any niggers on the block but I remember once they had a
sale in town and I seen them pass our house in gangs, the little ones
in wagons and others walking. I've seen slaves who run away from their
masters and they'd have to work in the field with a big ball and chain
on their leg. They'd hoe out to the end of the chain and then drag it
up a piece and hoe on to the end of the row.

Times was awful hard during the War. We actually suffered for some
salt. We'd go to the smoke house where meat had been salted down for
years, dig a hole in the ground and fill it with water. After it would
stand for a while we'd dip the water up carefully and strain it and
cook our food in it. We parched corn and meal for coffee. We used
syrup for sugar. Some folks parched okra for coffee. When the War was
over you'd see men, women and chillun walk out of their cabins with a
bundle under their arms. All going by in droves, just going nowhere in
particular. My mother and father didn't join them; we stayed on at the
plantation. I run off and got married when I was twenty. Ma never did
want me to get married. My husband died five years ago. I never had no
chillun.

I reckon I'm a mite superstitious. If a man comes to your house first
on New Years you will have good luck; if a woman is your first visitor
you'll have bad luck. When I was a young woman I knowed I'd be left
alone in my old age. I seen it in my sleep. I dreamed I spit every
tooth in my head right out in my hand and something tell me I would be
a widow. That's a bad thing to dream about, losing your teeth.

Once my sister was at my house. She had a little baby and we was
setting on the porch. They was a big pine tree in front of the house,
and we seen something that looked like a big bird light in the tree.
She begun to cry and say that's a sign my baby is going to die. Sho'
nuff it just lived two weeks. Another time a big owl lit in a tree
near a house and we heard it holler. The baby died that night. It was
already sick, we's setting up with it.

I don't know where they's hants or not but I'se sho heard things I
couldn't see.

We allus has made our own medicines. We used herbs and roots. If
you'll take poke root and cut it in small pieces and string it and put
it 'round a baby's neck it will cut teeth easy. A tea m