ys for myself but
plenty for the old Master. He would send us out to work the neighbors
field and he got paid for it, but we never did see any money.

I remember the first money I ever did see. It was a little while after
we was free, and I found a greenback in the road at Fort Gibson and I
didn't know what it was. Mammy said it was money and grabbed for it,
but I was still a hell cat and I run with it. I went to the little
sutler store and laid it down and pointed to a pitcher I been wanting.
The man took the money and give me the pitcher, but I don't know to
this day how much money it was and how much was the pitcher, but I
still got that pitcher put away. It's all blue and white stripedy.

Most of the work I done off the plantation was sewing. I learned from
my Granny and I loved to sew. That was about the only thing I was
industrious in. When I was just a little bitsy girl I found a steel
needle in the yard that belong to old Mistress. My mammy took it and I
cried. She put it in her dress and started for the field. I cried so
old Mistress found out why and made Mammy give me the needle for my
own.

We had some neighbor Indians named Starr, and Mrs. Starr used me
sometimes to sew. She had nine boys and one girl, and she would sew up
all they clothes at once to do for a year. She would cut out the cloth
for about a week, and then send the word around to all the neighbors,
and old Mistress would send me because she couldn't see good to sew.
They would have stacks of drawers, shirts, pants and some dresses all
cut out to sew up.

I was the only Negro that would set there and sew in that bunch of
women, and they always talked to me nice and when they eat I get part
of it too, out in the kitchen.

One Negro girl, Eula Davis, had a mistress sent her too, one time, but
she wouldn't sew. She didn't like me because she said I was too white
and she played off to spite the white people. She got sent home, too.

When old Mistress die I done all the sewing for the family almost. I
could sew good enough to go out before I was eight years old, and when
I got to be about ten I was better than any other girl on the place
for sewing.

I can still quilt without my glasses, and I have sewed all night long
many a time while I was watching Young Master's baby after old
Mistress died.

They was over a hundred acres in the plantation, and I don't know how
many slaves, but before the War ended lots of the men had run away.
Uncle N