ng meats. Mother's batter cakes would just melt in your mouth
and she could bake and fry the most delicious fish. There was no certain
thing that I liked to eat more than anything else in those days. I was
young and had a keen appetite for all good things. Miss Fannie and Miss
Susan often made candy and it was so good I could have eaten all they
made, had they given it to me. My father hired his time out; he made and
sold gingercakes on the railroad.

"In the summertime we wore homespun dresses made with a full skirt
gathered onto a tight-fitting waist. In the wintertime the dresses were
made of checked woolen material called linsey cloth. For underwear, we
wore balmoral petticoats and osnaburg drawers. We went barefooted most
of the time. I remember one particular time when the ground was frozen
and I went about without any shoes, but it didn't bother me. Barefooted
children seldom had bad colds in winter. We wore just anything on
Sunday, but we had to look nice and clean.

"Marster John Crawford, son of the distinguished William H. Crawford,
was my owner. Indeed, he was good to us. I'll tell you after awhile
about the time he wouldn't let the town marshal whip my mother. They
told me his wife was a fine woman and that she was as good to her slaves
as she could be. She died very young in life and Marse John's sisters,
Miss Fannie and Miss Susan, kept house for him after that. Marse John's
three children were Miss Fannie, Miss Rosa, and Marse Allie. Miss Rosa
married Marse Tom Golden, and Miss Fannie married a Gerdine; I've
forgotten his first name.

"Marse John may have had an overseer on one of his plantations, but I
don't remember. I do know he didn't have a carriage driver for he didn't
have a carriage. I don't believe I can describe the peculiar shape of
his fine eight-room house. It was on Dougherty Street, right back of
Scudder's School. The Crawfords were considered very uppity people and
their slaves were uppish too. Marse John didn't have many slaves and
they had to get up and get going early every morning. Marse John was
postmaster of Athens and had to be in his office by eight o'clock every
morning so he ordered that his breakfast be served regularly at
seven-thirty.

"No Mam, our white folks didn't teach their slaves to read and write
because it was against the law. However, they did read the Bible to us,
and the slaves that were smart enough, were asked to repeat the verses
they had learned from hearin