enter within a slave cabin in
Kentucky. The cabin was the home of his step-father, his invalid mother
and several children. The cabin was of the crudest construction, its
only windows being merely holes in the cabin wall with crude bark
shutters arranged to keep out snow and rain. The furnishings of this
home consisted of a wood bedstead upon which a rough straw bed and
patchwork quilts provided meager comforts for the invalid mother. A
straw bed that could be pushed under the bed-stead through the day was
pulled into the middle of the cabin at night and the wearied children
were put to bed by the impatient step-father.

The parents were slaves and served a master not wealthy enough to
provide adaquately for their comforts. The mother had become invalidate
through the task of bearing children each year and being deprived of
medical and surgical attention.

The master, Mr. Buckner, along with several of his relatives had
purchased a large tract of land in Green County, Kentucky and by a
custom or tradition as Dr. Buckner remembers; land owners that owned no
slaves were considered "Po' White Trash" and were scarcely recognized as
citizens within the state of Kentucky.

Another tradition prevailed, that slave children should be presented to
the master's young sons and daughters and become their special property
even in childhood. Adherring to that tradition the child, George
Washington Buckner became the slave of young "Mars" Dickie Buckner, and
although the two children were nearly the same age the little mulatto
boy was obedient to the wishes of the little master. Indeed, the slave
child cared for the Caucasian boy's clothing, polished his boots, put
away his toys and was his playmate and companion as well as his slave.

Sickness and suffering and even death visits alike the just and the
unjust, and the loving sympathetic slave boy witnessed the suffering and
death of his little white friend. Then grief took possession of the
little slave, he could not bear the sight of little Dick's toys nor
books not [TR: nor?] clothing. He recalls one harrowing experience after
the death of little Dick Buckner. George's grandmother was a housekeeper
and kitchen maid for the white family. She was in the kitchen one late
afternoon preparing the evening meal. The master had taken his family
for a visit in the neighborhood and the mulatto child sat on the veranda
and recalled pleasanter days. A sudden desire seized him to look into
th